Then I found out my good friend Bob Goyetche was a host on CNOT (a Montreal-based pirate radio station) in the early 90s. And then I met Marian van der Zon at the Radio Without Boundaries conference in Toronto last year. At the time, she was editing a book about the Canadian pirate radio scene. That book, Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada, is now available.

• Show ID and intro
• Audio clip from Radio Barrie Lake
• Interview with Marian van der Zon

John Meadows interviewed Bob Goyetche about his experiences in pirate radio and has published the discussion on his On the Log Podcast. Click here to listen to Rebel Radio.

Also, check out this story about an Ottawa boy who set up his own pirate radio station this past winter. And I thought the younger generation didn’t care about radio anymore!

Six months, three surgeries and six rounds of chemotherapy later, I understand.

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Andrea Ross

You can follow Andrea’s incredibly inspiring online breast cancer journal at WeCanRebuildHer.com. The site features regular blog posts from everyone in our family as well as audio podcasts that document various stages of our journey, and videos that celebrate life and fun during a stressful time.

Andrea and I also collaborated on the children’s book podcast JustOneMoreBook.com, now on hiatus.

Hey! Electric Sky is five years old!!!

I had the privilege to meet and speak with Dewitt at a small private event designed to create a space for conversation.  The conversations hinged on creativity, curiosity and the extraordinary.

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Dewitt Jones

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Hugh Brewster
• Dieppe on Wikipedia
• Vimy Ridge on Wikipedia
• Gallipoli on Wikipedia

• Dieppe: Canada’s Darkest Day of World War II
• At Vimy Ridge: Canada’s Greatest World War I Victory
• On Juno Beach: Canada’s D-Day Heroes

Listen to more with Hugh Brewster on JustOneMoreBook.com.

This concept has been embraced by Bill Hybels who founded The Leadership Summit fifteen years ago.  While the event has faith-based overtones, the concepts that are discussed are relevant to leaders of any community.  In fact, this year’s program included Chip and Dan Heath, David Gergen, Bono and Tony Blair.

• Show ID and Intro
• Taber Bucknell
• James Drew
• Gina
• Pastor Dave Kornelsen
• Julie Osborne
• …and several anonymous contributors

Relevant links:

• My blog post about The Leadership Summit
• The Leadership Summit 2009
• Growing Leadership
• Willow Creek Community Church
• Cedarview Alliance Church

Special thanks to Lois Warren for all of her logistical help.

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Stephen Grit
• National Gallery of Canada
• Piet Mondrian (on Wikipedia)
• Paolo Veronese (on Wikipedia)
• Dead Christ with Angels: Fragment of the Lendinara Altarpiece (1565)

Outtakes from this interview can be found at MarkBlevis.com.

That’s how I met Jim and Jennifer. I had one of their espressos and a piece of the most incredible cake I have ever had to kick off my garage sale spree. It might have been 9:30am.

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Jennifer Barnaby (Cakes for a Cause)
• Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation

When I conducted this interview in 2005, Dr. Blanton was preparing to pursue a political career as an independent, green candidate on a platform of honesty.

I still have designs on producing a documentary on honesty. At the same time, I can’t keep this interview to myself any longer.

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Brad Blanton
• Anonymous ’streeters’
• Audio clips from Sage Tyrtle and Charles Cadenhead

I met with Carrie-Anne Bauer and her mother, Pamela, in a park in Ottawa last August (2007) and conducted this interview. I’ve been beating myself up for not having released this interview sooner. That was before I received an update from Pamela this past Friday (April 4, 2008) . Her update inspired me to publish the interview now. I think it has more impact this way.

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Carrie-Anne and Pamela Bauer (August 2007)
• Update on Bracelets of Hope fundraising (April 2008)

Relevant links:

• Bracelets of Hope
• Village of Hope Zimbabwe
• Sub-Saharan HIV and AIDS statistics

Photo of Carrie-Anne and the Bracelets of Hope provided by Pamela Bauer.

The highlight of our trip was a whale watching expedition on the Jolly Breeze, a tall ship based out of (beautiful) St. Andrews by the sea.

• Soundseeing tour of the Jolly Breeze
• Interview with Rob Carney
• Interview with Captain Troy

Photo: Derek Beardsworth

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Sir Ken Robinson (part 2 of 2)

I recommend Sir Ken Robinson’s book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative and a video of his presentation Do Schools Kill Creativity? which he delivered at the TED conference.

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Sir Ken Robinson (part 1 of 2)
  

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

I had the opportunity to interview Michael Kositsin, one of the beekeepers, about his amazing honey bees.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Michael Kositsin of Ottawa Valley Honey

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Bill was part of the Ottawa music scene that centered around the Cafe Hibou. Among the drops ins to the scene were Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, John Hammond and Frank Zappa.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with William Hawkins
• Song: Royal Boost
• Final thought from Bill

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Photo of William Hawkins by John Garner.

Electric Sky led to The Canadian Podcast Buffet (which led to Podcasters Across Borders). Some brainstorming at home led to Growing Enthusiasm. Podcasters Across Borders led to Just One More Book. Do you see the pattern yet?

In addition to all of my hobby podcasts, last year I started to produce a number of Podcasts on contract through my company, Third Storey. Suddenly this little seed that Tod planted had become an all encompassing way of life.

To celebrate my second anniversary as a podcaster, I invited the creator of the monster I have become to talk a bit about podcasting and how the movement looks two years later.

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Tod Maffin
  • Todbits

A long version of this interview will be released on MarkBlevis.com later this week.

The Electric Sky logo, second anniversary logo and website created by Nico.

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Alex Overwijk
  • Freehand Circle Drawing Society
  • YouTube video
    

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interviews with participants and event organizer, Pam Hunter
  • Ottawa Scrabble Club
  • Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada
• The search for ‘qi’

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Photo: Valeria Huber

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Choir Director, Jeannie Hunter
• Song clips:
  • Our Voices
  • Dubula
  • Ipharadisi
  • Somagwaza
  • The Drinking Gourd
  • Freedom Is In Your Hand
  • Funga Alafia
  • We Shall Not Give Up The Fight

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with June Creelman of Apropos Planning
  • Canadian Museum of Nature
    

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Thomas Wartenberg
  • Philosophy for Children

The full length version of this interview is available at Just One More Book!!

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Photo: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~twartenb/

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Commissioner George Da Pont
• Search and Rescue
• Ice breaking program
• Active fleet (including self-righting vessels)

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Crest of the Canadian Coast Guard: http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Stephen Hardiman
• Projects Stephen is involved in
• Gibby Media Group
  
• Discovery School
  

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Audio of STS-115 launch (recorded by Yves Seguin)
• Interview with Yves Seguin and Suzanne Roy-Seguin
• STS-115 at the Canadian Space Agency
• STS-115 at NASA
• Information on Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP)

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

During a conversation with Sheree for Just One More Book (another Podcast I produce with my wife, Andrea), Sheree introduced an idea she has called The Theology of Nonsense. I had to have it on Electric Sky.

• Show ID and Intro
• Sheree Fitch explains The Theology of Nonsense
• Conversation with Sheree Fitch on Just One More Book

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Neil Hutton of Cumberland Third Rail
• Railfair 2006 video on YouTube

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Thomas Grande of Grande Law Offices
• The Qui Tam Online Network

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Note: At the time that this interview was conducted, Mr. Grande was a partner with Davis Levin Livingston Grande Attorneys.  This post has been updated to reflect that change.

• Show ID and intro
• Interview with Ashley LaFave of the Spencerville Hillside Rabbitry

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Karen Boire and Lisa Miller
• Married to the Canadian Forces
• Audio clips from Red Friday on Parliament Hill (Ottawa, Canada)
• Steve Madely (CFRA)
• Gen. Rick Hillier
• Prime Minister Stephen Harper

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

How to SUBSCRIBE to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Transcript of “Portrait – His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar”

[Portrait theme music] Podcasting visual insound, this is another edition of Portrait on Electric Sky.

Mark Blevis: In February of this year, two-and-a-half million people including religious and political leaders of all faiths and backgrounds gathered in Bangalore, India to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Art of Living Foundation. I’m your host, Mark Blevis. On this edition of Portrait, humanitarian, spiritual leader, founder of The Art of Living Foundation and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Things are in concept in the mind about peace and love, but how to bring that in day-to-day life and how to get rid of all the negativity, how to break down the barriers and prejudice against each other?

What was bothering me was the prejudice that people had between urban and rural, between different religious groups or gender or race. I want to break down this prejudice in the minds of people and to become like children again and relate with each other with heart, sincerity and love.

We find that stress is the main cause that blocks people. Lack of understanding is testimony to that. So, we put together this program, The Art of Living. It all began very simply. I just started teaching whatever I knew to a bunch of people in the drawing room and then word of mouth, it kept growing.

Mark Blevis: It grew to two-and-a-half million people in one place.

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yeah.

Mark Blevis: You have mentioned religion. In your mind, is there a distinction between religion and spirituality?

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes. Spirituality is the essence of all religions. There is some common trait between all religions, it is spirituality, but in spirituality, you are in contact with the divinity deep within. Spirituality is honouring life. Spirituality is love and compassion, service. See?

The communication or communion with God can happen only in spirituality. Religion is the external thing though the central part of every religion is spirituality, but unfortunately people are more stuck in the outer periphery rather than reaching the center chord.

Mark Blevis: Do you think the concept of secular spirituality is threatening to religious leaders?

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: They shouldn’t because they must be tired by now with all the conflict, you see.

A religious leader cannot afford to think “only these people belong to me.” When a Catholic priest prays, he should pray for the entire population of the world, not just for only Catholics; or a Buddhist monk when he prays, he doesn’t pray only for his people. Or even for that matter, a Muslim imam or a Hindu priest. I feel when a swami prays or a priest prays, they pray for the entire world and if they are not, the prayer is not very fruitful.

Mark Blevis: The other interesting point that I see mentioned in a lot of your literature is the blame culture. Do you think that we can get past the blame culture and what are ways that we can do that?

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: A stress-free mind will stop blaming. If you are stressed, you start blaming; either you blame yourself or blame somebody else. Wherever you begin you end up in the other. So, to get over the blame culture we need to be more compassionate.

When you see a culprit is also a victim, when you broaden your horizon, you will see that every culprit is also a victim. So then you can’t be angry on a victim. You will not take revenge on a victim. Inside every culprit, there is a victim crying for help. We need to heal that victim. Help them out. Non-violence and compassion should be the guiding force. If this is prevalent in our society, we can definitely make a difference. It may sound very impractical, but we will have to move in that direction because non-violence is — nobody likes violence for themselves, but we need to bring those values in life. It has to come from education and from culturing.

Just for example, nobody litters in Ottawa, but if you go to third world countries, people are littering. What is the difference? Because that has been a part of education. Everyone, mostly, follows the rule and they drive on the right side here and left side in England and that’s a matter of education. Similarly, dental hygiene, the physical hygiene we teach, but we are not teaching mental hygiene where you should handle rage and anger and frustration and depression and these sorts of antisocial feelings. That’s where yoga, meditation, breathing, all these techniques will be of immense help to bring such a balance in the mind and softness in the heart and behaviour.

Mark Blevis: At your Silver Jubilee back in February, you had two-and-a-half million people in India and among them were religious and spiritual leaders and people of backgrounds of every sort. What was it about the Silver Jubilee that drew all these people to one place and to one mind?

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You know, Silver Jubilee was to be celebrated and we have known people would all be coming from all over the world because anywhere we had to celebrate, somewhere we had to begin that. So, we had to make the big arrangements for that and we invited religious leaders. They readily accepted and we had nearly one thousand religious leaders of all denominations and many political leaders and three-thousand-eight-hundred musicians all on the same stage.

Yeah, I know, you look back now and see it’s a humongous task. Mind you there was no traffic jam even. There was no incident. That was what somebody asked me in the Belgium Parliament. He said, “Here in Belgium, we have a soccer game where ten-thousand people coming, there are a hundred casualties. We need to have five hundred police. How could you manage 2.5 million people?” I said, “The peace and silence and the non-violence as main theme and goal will make everyone move in that direction.” I think it’s our intention when we want to bring that non-violence and meditation as part of our event in the society, people will get into it.

Mark Blevis: Has anything changed in the world or through your organization since the Silver Jubilee?

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: A Silver Jubilee is just an event, but a lot of social work is happening through the organization whether in tsunami or recent flooding in parts of India or earthquake or bomb blast, train bomb blast. Trauma relief work is going on. We are keeping the temper cool on the planet wherever we can reach. Of course, Israel and Lebanon we are not able to reach as much as we would love to. We need more volunteers.

Generally, I feel the stress and depression level wherever we have started working have tremendously changed. I still feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. There is a lot be done, a lot to be done in this field to educate people, to handle their emotions and to be happy and compassionate.

Mark Blevis: Show notes and links to resources discussed in this episode can be found on my website, electricsky.net. While you’re there, be sure to check out my podcast archives. The theme song for Portrait is Bigfoot by Robert Farrell. Electric Sky is a proud member of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate. Thanks for listening and please stay subscribed.

Send feedback to electricskypodcast@gmail.com.

Imagine a children’s fantasy book that entertains, inspires and illustrates the magic of facing ourselves. Imagine that book enjoys enough success to merit a sequel. That book is Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Lee Edward Fodi
  

Hear a review of Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers on Just One More Book.

Photo: www.leefodi.com

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Transcript of Portrait – Lee Edward Fodi

Lee Edward Fodi: I am Lee Edward Fodi and you’re listening to Electric Sky.

[Portrait theme music] Podcasting visual insound, this is another edition of Portrait on Electric Sky.

Mark Blevis: Every picture tells a story. Some tell a book, and then another. I am your host Mark Blevis. On this edition of Portrait, author and illustrator Lee Edward Fodi.

Lee Edward Fodi: I think in a visual way and I get so many of my ideas either by looking at other peoples’ art or to my own art. With this book, I had actually just finished writing my first book, which had been published by a different publisher, a small press out of New York. It was quite exhausting.

So I was just in my studio painting one day just trying to let my imagination unravel and relax and I was painting this picture of these small characters sneaking past a giant eye. You couldn’t necessarily tell what the eye belonged to but I worked on this painting and I ended up with these small characters sneaking past the giant red dragon and I realized when I was done painting it that I actually had a story in this painting because I had some tiny characters. One of them was carrying a box that was glowing and another had a key and what-not and I realized when I sat back and looked at this, I went, “Wait a minute. There’s probably some kind of story going on with this painting.”

So I began asking myself a few questions like ‘why are these characters in this situation?’ and ‘what is in this box?’ and just from that whole painting I ended up with the book Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers. So I like to say that in my case the picture is worth 43,000 words, more than a thousand words.

Mark Blevis: In the story — I do not want to give away the Box of Whispers, the ending anyway, because it’s quite unexpected. Where did you come up with the concept of having a message built into the book that wasn’t preachy and really delivered a good foundation?

Lee Edward Fodi: Well, first I’m glad that you don’t think it’s preachy because that certainly wasn’t my intent and I can say that I… You know, I don’t put a lot of conscious thought – I do not think I do anyway – into messages during the writing process. I think with this book I really did start out with writing a story about some characters who had to go find their precious box that had been stolen by this thief.

As the story developed, I began to realize – as the characters began to grow as they inevitably do during the writing process – certain dots became connected. Of course what we know that what is inside the box are all the secrets of these characters and originally they went and they found the box and the ending is pretty much as we know it.

It didn’t pack much punch in the very first draft. What I realized as I was writing the story along the way, I had that adventure where Kendra saves the life of the monster, the Unger called Trooogul and she decides to keep that a secret. Of course, as soon as that happened in the story, it really took the book to a new level and it really made Kendra have a personal journey in this book whereas before it was very much a generic one. I’m just delighted that it actually turned out that way.

It hit home for me and I am glad to hear that it hit home with a few of my readers. A lot of the readers really loved the ending where she confronts that box because it is such a personal situation now whereas in the very first draft it was just, oh I don’t know, a little bit more action packed, but not so much emotionally intense.

Mark Blevis: Did you consider that this would lead to a series of books or at least a sequel?

Lee Edward Fodi: I did with this book because for one thing I knew that there were a couple of plot elements if you will that I just didn’t have room to tie up with sufficient — I could not tie them up sufficiently. There is the whole subplot in this book of Kendra’s quest to find out what became of her family because as we know she lives with her Uncle Griffinskitch. He’s her guardian. She drew out the book as wondering what became of her mother, her father and her brother. I couldn’t give that sufficient detail on the book. I didn’t want to throw it in at the end, “Oh, by the way, here’s what happened to her family.” At the same time, I thought well if it is not ever revealed in this book that’s okay and if I never write another book it ends happily enough.

The book has been fairly successful. I get so many e-mails from kids wanting more. It really seems to connect with Kendra Kandlestar and some of the other characters and it is the number one question I get. Is she going to go on another journey? Is she going to solve the mystery of what became of her family? I never really thought about what the answer to that question is while I was writing this first book. Now, I have started asking those questions and I have started coming up with few of the answers.

For me, to write a book, it takes a lot of energy and it has to be a pretty enjoyable journey. I’ve got what I think is a pretty good idea for the sequel. I’m pretty excited about it. I’m hard at work at on it. I am probably about threequarters the way through the first draft and I think it’s going to be pretty surprising to my readers. There’s no shortage of surprises in the second book. All the old gang is going to be there, but there is a nice little twist which I hope pleases my readers. That is for sure.

Mark Blevis: Do you find that there is more pressure on you for the sequel?

Lee Edward Fodi: Yes, I do actually now that you mentioned that. Only in the sense that when I’m writing a book, obviously introducing characters that noone’s ever heard of, there’s obviously no expectations from my readers. For people who are to know the first book and want to read more, they have a certain expectation, you know?

You do become a little bit of a hostage to some of these things because I know I need to make sure — for example I need to make sure Captain Jinx is in the book because she is a character — the grasshopper in the first book is the tough one with all the weapons and the rather bad attitude I suppose, but she’s a fan favorite, so I know I have to make sure Jinx plays some sort of role in this book.

Mark Blevis: Your website suggests that you do a lot of public speaking, that you’re out and active in schools and communities, and there’s always pictures of you drawing the characters and you are wearing a fun hat. You really look like you are actively engaged with the audience. When you deliver your sessions, what is it like for you?

Lee Edward Fodi: Oh, it’s completely invigorating. I mean love doing it. Personally, I love the smaller ones, the smaller groups, a little bit better because it affords me an opportunity to connect with individuals better than when it’s a large group. I can’t see the kid in the back row, but I get in a real high and I have a real… You know it’s an energy — the energy goes both ways. I put all my energy into those sessions but I get a lot of energy back and it’s just a really invigorating experience for me personally.

Before I became an author, I never really thought about the public presentation aspect of this type of career and a lot of authors I think are somewhat notorious for not wanting to be in public or not liking to speak in public and I’m just darn lucky that I like it because I never — that was something I did not really know about myself until I was afforded this opportunity to start going into schools. Now, I actually teach creative writing to kids as well. That’s slightly a different experience because we’re working on more of a — with ten to fifteen kids at a time. It’s a little bit more — even more educational, a little bit more institutional. It’s the same thing. It’s a great exchange of ideas. It’s a wonderful experience. I don’t know if it inspires me in the sense that it gives me specific ideas for books, but it inspires me in a general sense.

I just love working with the kids and hearing their ideas. They’re so fresh and enthusiastic and sometimes they come up with ideas that are a hundred times better than anything I would ever come up with because they’re just that much more original and fresh.

[Portrait theme music]

Mark Blevis: Links and more information can be found in the show notes on my website, electricsky.net. While you’re there, be sure to check out my podcast archives and my behind the scenes and outtakes feed, ES2. The theme song for Portrait is Bigfoot by Robert Farrell. Electric Sky is a proud member of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate. Thanks for listening and please stay subscribed.

Send feedback to electricskypodcast@gmail.com.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Miles Copeland
  

Electric Sky has interviewed Miles’ brothers, Ian (click here for Ian) and Stewart (click here for Stewart).

Photo: The Copeland Group website

How to subscribe to Electric Sky – it’s free.

Transcript of Portrait – Miles Copeland

Miles Copeland: This is Miles Copeland and you’re listening to Electric Sky.

[Portrait theme music] Podcasting visual insound, this is another edition of Portrait on Electric Sky.

Mark Blevis: It takes vision, confidence and a lot of passion to make an idea success especially when others think you’re crazy. I am your host, Mark Blevis. On this edition of Portrait, a man whose ideas and personal dedication have played a significant role in shaping the music and entertainment industries for 30 years, Miles Copeland.

Mark Blevis: Which three ideas are you most proud of?

Miles Copeland: The Bellydance Superstars, which is my current project, because everybody thought I was crazy to do that and it’s succeeding. I guess secondary to that would be my promotion of Arabic music which everybody thought was crazy after September 11th and, of course, getting involved in the whole punk-rock era of The Police and all of the bands that came out of that Wall of Voodoo and Oingo Boingo and Squeeze and all that sort of thing. I mean that was another period where, again, it was considered whacko to be dealing with this kind of music. So, those are really kind of the three areas that I would say were definitely out of the box.

Mark Blevis: And they’re all incredibly successful, which begs the question why aren’t more people daring like you?

Miles Copeland: Well, there are, but they’re in different walks of life. I mean there are people that are making huge successes in the computer world, in the Internet world, and all sorts of places and those people become successful, but it’s often; I’m actually writing a book at the moment called Marketing the Impossible and I sort of say that sometimes the most left feel things, the things that are mistakes that become the big successes.

In the laboratory, you put two chemicals together to try to make fire and it turns out it cures cancer. So, it’s sometimes mistakes that lead to great things and it’s a matter of being able to spot them and have the right attitude to be able to spot them.

I think there’s successes in every walk of life.

In the music world, people tend — the problem of the entertainment world is that people tend to want to follow successes. So, if a movie about a mouse is successful, then the next studio says, “Well, gee, we better have a mouse movie,” and if a French group happens then the next label comes along and said, “Gee, we need a French group.” So they tend to be followers. I think that usually means that you get one or two things in and then it’s like, well, it’s not unique and original. Most people do not want to venture out and do things on their own because it’s risky. There’s no guide. Like what I did to Bellydance Superstars. There was no other dance troupe like it in the world, so who are you going to point to as your template? You just have to just create it from scratch, but that’s what makes it exciting.

Mark Blevis: How do you create those processes by scratch?

Miles Copeland: Well, you just do it. You’re going to fail sometimes, you’re going to win sometimes, but I think if you believe in it and you think the thing is good there should be enough people — I always felt that I was not such a freak, but if something I really liked, that very fact was enough to make me think, “Well, if I like it, there must be some other people to. I just have to find those people.”

Mark Blevis: So thinking in terms of record industry then from your early days, well they even pre-date 1976, but let us go back 30 years for argument’s sake. What are the significant differences between 1976 and 2006?

Miles Copeland: Well the Internet has meant music is so available and it’s so free that it’s very hard to make money in the traditional ways where you could sell an album and that in itself would be a moneymaking business. Now you tend to think in terms of, “Well, I got to sell an album, I got to sell a T-shirt, I got to sell a concert ticket, I got to sell the program, I got to sell the sponsorship, I got to sell-” and it all adds up.

You have to now look at it as an overall business as opposed to compartmentalized where you just do the song, you do the album, you do this or that. That’s the major difference. I think that the advent of the Internet is exciting on one level, but it’s a problem on another and digital rights are very hard to protect.

Mark Blevis: To the outsider it seems that the music industry is far less creative than it used to be and perhaps even agile as well. Do you think the industry has the same sense of daring it once had — or do you think it ever had any sense of daring?

Miles Copeland: Well I think the industry had — I think there’s those who have been daring and those that are not. I think it’s as exciting today. It’s very easy to say, “Oh, well the music’s different now.” I think for an 18- or for a 17-year-old, he would not think so, but we tend to get older and we do not really know what’s going on.

I think there’s a lot of great music being made today but I would not necessarily know about it because I am not looking at it the same way I did when I was 18. I mean it’s always dangerous to say, “Well, you know, it isn’t the same anymore.” The structure’s different. The way you make money is different but I think music will always be — there will be always interesting music coming.

Mark Blevis: Does the music industry treat the, I guess the creative process of music and the promotion of music differently now than it did? I mean, obviously the Internet…

Miles Copeland: Well, it has to because they — it has to treat it differently now because the finances are different. It’s much harder to make money. The number one selling record in the United States about three weeks ago sold 85,000 copies. That’s a disaster. To sell only 85,000 copies and you’re the number one record in the country? That just means that the economics of advertising and marketing have just gone through the toilet. Eight years ago, a label might not have — they would have spent $2-3 million promoting a record and thought nothing of it. Now, they spent half a million and it’s an issue. It means the acts have to learn more about how to promote themselves than to rely on the label because the labels do not have the money anymore.

Mark Blevis: Okay. This actually brings up an interesting point. Do you think the balance of power has shifted from the majors to the independents or do you think that the majors still have the strength that they need to move to the next level?

Miles Copeland: There’s no set rule on that. I think a hot act is very powerful no matter what the situation is. I think if a label happens to be very strong and it has a lot of good relationships, they can open doors for people, but the problem is that the economics have made things very difficult right now for the majors and for smaller companies. Well, actually the very small companies and the very big companies I think always will succeed. It’s the ones in the middle who do not quite have enough money to really go for it, but they still got a big overhead and everything is a little scarier. I think a really big company who has got all the facility if they decide to push a button, the chances they can come through are greater than the middle company who puts the hammer down and then three weeks later isn’t working fast enough and they panic because they make a mistake they are out of business and here is where they pull the plug. A small company that has no overhead can kind of be risky, can take more risks. You’re neither a fish nor foul, that’s the real danger in this business.

Mark Blevis: Now I would consider and many people would consider the Bellydance Superstars to be an unqualified success and you basically rammed with that on your own.

Miles Copeland: Yeah, yeah. Well, that was not easy. I had to do it on my own because nobody would listen to me. They would all laugh at me and thinking, “Well this isn’t gonna work,” but we did it by keeping the costs down and being very careful where we went and building it step by step same way we did with The Police. If The Police had been a six-piece group and they all needed big salaries, we needed big road, trucks and big equipment, The Police would have never happened. The same with the Bellydance Superstars as if they had been –if I had to pay fortunes for everything, but everybody realized what we were doing and since nobody — it was the only professional troop in the world. The girls kind of rolled their shirtsleeves up and said, “Let’s make this happen,” because what was the alternative? It was the only game in town.

Mark Blevis: The Copeland family is clearly creative. I mean Ian documents that in his book Wild Thing, Stewart obviously his accomplishments speak for themselves and as do yours. Where does that creativity come from?

Miles Copeland: I think we were always encouraged when we were young that we could do anything if we just put our minds to it and I think it comes from that. I mean I say that because I have cousins on both sides of my family who are as smart, if not smarter than we are, on our side of the family but they never succeeded in doing anything because in both cases the parents were very cynical about their kids being successful.

My father and mother were always very encouraging and I think we never thought about it. We just thought, “Yeah, we can do music, why not? Let’s do it,” and nobody would stand there going, “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t do that. You’re stupid. You can’t do it.” I think just the basic positive attitude — and it’s whether you have certain good instincts and you are smart enough and you learn by your mistakes.

[Portrait theme music]

Mark Blevis: Links and more information can be found in the show notes on my website electricsky.net. While you’re there, be sure to check out my podcast archives and my outtakes and behind the scenes feed, ES2. The theme song for Portrait is Bigfoot by Robert Farrell. Electric Sky is a proud member of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate. Thanks for listening and please stay subscribed.

Send feedback to electicskypodcast@gmail.com.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Stewart Copeland
• Audio clips from Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out

NOTE: Everyone Stares is dedicated to the memories of Kim Turner (Tour Manager for The Police) and Stewart’s brother Ian (Booking Agent for The Police). Click here to listen to an interview I did with Ian in June 2005.

Transcript of “Portrait – Stewart Copeland”

Stewart Copeland: Hi! This is Stewart Copeland and you are listening to your computer. It’s tuned to Electric Sky.

[Portrait theme music] Podcasting visual insound, this is another edition of Portrait on Electric Sky.

Mark Blevis: What if you had fifty hours of home movies that documented a life of yours that was a lifetime ago? I’m your host Mark Blevis. On this edition of Portrait, drummer, composer, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, and creator of the new film Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, Stewart Copeland.

[clip from Everyone Stares]

Stewart Copeland: That shot is the first mob scene that we had of that kind. There is a distinction that needs to be made here, which was a surprise to me when I looked at this footage. We over time developed a lot of credibility as musicians, that our music was considered important and that we were — that our music had substance. We’re all very proud of that. What we have forgotten is that one of the greater leaps in our progress; which felt like to us inch by inch up the ziggurat, some of the steps were larger than others. One of the largest jumps in our fortunes was our first breakout with chart success in England as a boy band; as a bubble gum teeny bopper phenomenon; as pinups; and that audience there, those crowds, those mob scenes there are the result of that profile.

The bands that have been substantial bands, you know from Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Tool, whatever, they have a respect from their fans, but it doesn’t verge into that hysteria that you only get with teenage girls who are inflamed by youthful passion, and three blonde heads in that case.

So, those shots there; that’s our first time that — we had no security staff, we had no — you know, there was our roadies. We had no idea, when we walked out that door, I am walking right behind Sting and we can hear this kind of noise out the door, the door opens, Oh my, God! It’s right there in full frenzy with that high pitched shriek of those young girls. And if piranha fish could make a sound, that is the sound they would make. And I loved the shot because it gets the bedlam out of it. We can’t even see the car. “Where’s the car, Kim?” “It’s right there!” So we make it into the car. As soon as we are in the car and the door closes behind us, the screen goes black and you can hear us hyperventilating and you can see all the — then you can make out, gradually you can make out all the faces pressed against the glass. That moment is just perfect palatically for my movie, because that is the beginning of the gold fish bowl, where they’re pressed up against the glass looking in at us and the first weave of the cocoon is beginning to weave itself around us, the first layer of the cocoon.

Later on, when we were more just passionate about it and it was just part of our work environment.

Mark Blevis: It seems that every few years a jewel of Police memorabilia leaks out to the public. Is the movie intended to be one of those — keep up that tradition?

Stewart Copeland: No, in fact I have not been aware of such a tradition. I’ve pretty much forgotten about the Police and I have assumed that everyone else had as well. Of course, the catalogue division deep within the bowels of whatever company bought our record company, you know, they do that stuff and I guess I enjoy the royalties derived there from, but I’m certainly not aware of it. There is not really much to regurgitate other than repackaging the greatest hits of them, which I believe they have done at least twenty times by now in the last twenty years. If you say every two years that sounds about right as far as that goes, but this really doesn’t fit into any that at all. This is something that I originated and took to them and comes from the other direction.

Mark Blevis: Now, is this your answer to a book?

Stewart Copeland: No, not at all. None of these important sounding things. It was pretty much a lucky accident. I discovered that I had this material which combined with the advent of personal computers, Final Cut Pro, and cheap memory — that is to say hard drive memory — that suddenly it became possible to play with the stuff that I had had sitting in shoe boxes for years and I was just playing with it pretty much for my own amusement. I got this new software, Final Cut Pro, and I was reaching around for something to play with it, on it, and these pictures hoved into view. So I started cutting a whole movie. Then, came Sundance [Film Festival] and my little home movie, my little toy escaped from the playpen and became product.

Mark Blevis: Now, when you were going through the footage, what kind of memories did you go through? What kind of emotions did you go through?

Stewart Copeland: Mostly glee over the exciting quality of the images that I had to play with as I made my little home movie. You know, a dad carving up his home movies of his son in the football game is full of a similar form of glee when he actually got the shot where his son caught the ball and ran with it and scored! That happiness that a dad would feel having got that shot is what I felt as I looked at all the stuff that I had as this amazing adventure unfolded before us.

At the time, really the motivation at the time was — you know, one analogy is the dad with his home movie camera — the other is a tourist. We were tourists on our own adventure and we all had cameras. Andy had a stills cameras and Sting had a mild camera obsession, but nothing like Andy’s. We were taking shots, snap shots, of this incredible adventure because it was almost too much to believe with our own eyes so we would take pictures of it and stuff it in our suitcases to play with later.

Mark Blevis: It’s twenty-two years since the last piece of footage from that movie was actually recorded.

Stewart Copeland: Yeah.

Mark Blevis: So you could be the father of that Stewart Copeland that is in the movie? Who is that Stewart Copeland?

Stewart Copeland: Well, I am the father — you know — my son Patrick fits perfectly into that scenario you just described. Looks just like me, too. What was your question?

Mark Blevis: Who is that Stewart Copeland when you look back on that person?

Stewart Copeland: He is a wild out of control twenty-five year old rock star, in the middle of the hurricane. The film was shot by this twenty-five-year-old rock star and edited by a fifty-four-year-old father of many.

Mark Blevis: Do you have any advice for that guy?

Stewart Copeland: Yeah. Lighten up, dude!

Mark Blevis: At the end of the movie, you close out by saying:

[clip from Everyone Stares]
“Hollywood’s knocking on Stingo’s door,
Andy wants to play with his cameras more,
and I want to know what this life is for.
You know what? We’re done. When you get to where you’re going the ride is over.”

What is this life for?

Stewart Copeland: This is really goofy and I wish I had a sexier answer for you, my kids. Now, that is an answer entirely lacking in mystique and charisma and yet that is the honest answer to your question. I have seven kids. That’s the meaning of my life.

Mark Blevis: And how old is your youngest now?

Stewart Copeland: My youngest is — well they range from thirty-something to twenty-five, twenty-three, twenty-one, thirteen, eleven, and seven. I can’t remember all their names, but I’ve got a mnemonic for remembering their ages.

Mark Blevis: For Stewart Copeland, when is the ride over?

Stewart Copeland: Oh, my personal ride, I’m just getting started. I’ve discovered the meaning of life for me and it’s taken a while, but I’m on it.

[Portrait theme music]

Mark Blevis: Show notes and links to resources discussed in this episode can be found on my website, electricsky.net. While you’re there be sure to check out my podcast archives. The theme song for Portrait is Bigfoot by Robert Farrell. Electric Sky is a proud member of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate. Thanks for listening and please stay subscribed.

Send feedback to electricskypodcast@gmail.com.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Sue Lubeck, founder and owner of The Bookies
• A new Podcast about children’s books, Just One More Book
• Soundseeing of the Fractured Fairy Tales section of the bookstore

Transcript of “Portrait – The Bookies”

Sue Lubeck:  For somebody not to enjoy reading, something’s wrong, then they haven’t been exposed to what’s out there.

[Portrait theme music] Podcasting visual insound, this is another edition of Portrait on Electric Sky.

Mark Blevis:  It started in the basement thirty years ago, and ten years later it outgrew the house.  I’m your host, Mark Blevis, back from a summer holiday.  On this edition of Portrait, Sue Lubeck, founder and owner of The Bookies, an independent bookstore in Denver, Colorado that specializes in children’s books and resources for teachers.

Sue Lubeck:  It was really out of necessity because there weren’t many in Denver.  I can remember really just one book, a children’s bookstore in Denver.  So, we went to our local distributor and asked if we could buy books from him, discount them, and sell them.  He said, “You can do anything you want to it once you get them.”

So, I brought them home and actually had a partner and she took some to her home, I took some to mine and after a year she said she didn’t want to work this hard and so she left, but I continued and then we contacted schools and showed them some of the books we had and would they be interested in book fairs and they were.  For many years, we would fill as many as thirty-five tables in a school.  It was lot of work but, again, a labour of love.

Then we decided once we got into computer that it was too labor intensive and it just didn’t work, but by that time, people had learned who we were and are and have been coming to our store and we will have in-house book parties as fundraisers for schools and churches and so forth.

We do things a little differently in our store and make it a little more user friendly in that as an example, the picture books of the different countries are all in by countries rather than just in picture books and in back we have the novels of the foreign countries, multi-culture, and they too are separated out by country.  We also have that by periods in history starting in the very early history and then the novels that are all pertaining to each topic are in that section, which makes it very easy to find.

Mark Blevis:  You’ve organized your entire collection with the mindset of a parent…

Sue Lubeck:  Or the teacher.  It’s extra work because a lot of these books are put in two sections.  They may be put in just a literature section and that same book may also be pulled out and put into the Chinese section or novels, but it makes it much easier for everybody in the long run.  We wish the days were longer and the space was bigger, but I guess in the book business, no matter how big it gets it’s never big enough.

Mark Blevis:   Besides the book collection for children and for young readers, you have also a small adult section and a large reference section — resource section, for teachers and parents.

Sue Lubeck:  Yeah.  About half of our business is teachers and there some marvelous, marvelous teacher books coming out and we try to get them as quickly as they do come out.  We have a very appreciative audience that comes in and who was here sometimes the day they arrive to get them “right now”.

Mark Blevis:  Can you name some of your favourite unsung really good children’s authors that people do not know enough about?

Sue Lubeck:  That’s kind of caught me off guard.  But unsung… Jon Muth who just won the Caldecott is one of our favorite authors.  He wrote Three Questions and to date we probably have sold about 1200 copies of this book because we love it.  Everybody who seem to — in fact, we have one of our salespeople who always comes up and shows the book to a customer and hands her a piece of Kleenex at the same time because chances are she’ll need it.

Mark Blevis:  What’s the best way to pick a book?

Sue Lubeck:  I’m going to quote an Australian author, oh boy, Mem Fox…

Mark Blevis:  Ah, yes!

Sue Lubeck:  Who came in awhile ago and I will never forget this and she said, “First of all,” now they’re talking about pictures, children’s picture books, “The cover should appeal to you.  You pick up the book because you want to from the cover.  You should go through it five minutes, put it down and say, “wow!”  If you’ve done that, it’s a good book.”  We try to do that.  We try to put ourselves in parents’ shoes and children’s shoes, and it has worked, it has worked.  Unfortunately, sometimes we find some very beautiful illustrations with a story that’s kind of flat, or vice versa.  And then, every once in a while there’ll be some books that everybody seems to just love.  We cannot get enough of them.  It’s interesting when you first start in business; you want to do this all yourself.  You want to feel that you have started this and you’ve got this business rolling by yourself.  So ,you do all the picking from your own thoughts.  Then as you get more involved in this business and more mature, you will say to the rep, what do you think of it?  You can even tell sometimes how a rep hands you the book.  From body language, you can tell when he hands it to you almost how he feels about it.  That doesn’t mean he’s always right or that we’re always right and we’ll always say to him, “Don’t let us pass up anything that you feel is good.”  Because when we work with a rep, sometimes it’s two, three, four hours and by the end of it you don’t sometimes care what you are buying, but it’s very important.  We’re very lucky to have reps come to us because then you get to hold the book in your hand.  We seldom will buy a book unless we can hold it.

Mark Blevis:  Do you think people still go to the bookstores and take the time to look at the books and pick them out effectively, or do you think people rush to the web and just pick something and order it?

Sue Lubeck:  No, from what we have experience, people still come to us.  Actually, we have some very, very gifted people in here.  A lot of customers will have a favorite and they’ll ask for that person.  But no, they want to know what they’re buying, they want to know what they’re buying and just as we want to know what we’re buying.  And I think it’s important.  It does mean that you have to create and have on hand a large inventory and we’re willing to do that.  We take pride in our inventory.  I think we’re the largest children’s bookstore in the country.  Our teacher’s section is crowd jammed into this area, but it’s certainly among the best.  There was a time when we would say, “Well, I don’t think we’re gonna sell that.”  We do not say that anymore because chances are somewhere down the line somebody’s going to ask for that book.  We just had a rep in today and there’s a beautiful Mandela book coming out, it’s $50.  That’s always a dilemma because that’s a lot of money.  When the rep said, “Well, they probably will run out of this and it’s gonna be sold internationally,” so I think we got four or five copies of it even though it’s expensive.  You’re making judgments all day long.  You’re learning from people.  We learn from our customers and they learn from us.  It’s kind of a two-way street.

Mark Blevis:  When you started this thirty years ago, obviously you were doing this out of your home and in schools.  What’s changed in thirty years in the publishing and retailing landscape?

Sue Lubeck:  Well, one thing I remember people saying — they always look at the price when they first start, “Oh, I can’t pay…” what were hardback books back then maybe $10.95 that are now $16 or $17, people were more price conscious I think at that time.  Now, they sell them– they might bring up a hardback book and say, “Do you know if this is coming in paper?”  Chances are if it isn’t, they will say, “Well, I’ll just take this one.”  Price is not nearly as important.  We’re suggesting to people that they don’t give their children’s books away when they’re through with them because their children will want to have them, so save them, put them away.  We also get – We’ve had very good luck in getting out of print books.  I had one man who said — I don’t remember the title, it’s either dinosaur or dragon book.  He said, “I really want it because it was my favorite as a child.”  So, I called him one day and I said, “I’ve good news and bad news.  I’ve found the book, but it’s $95 paperback.”  He said, “I’ll take it.”  He was absolutely thrilled.  That’s a nice part of business, too, when we can bring these people and books together.  It’s a very happy business.  I look forward to each day and sometimes hate to see it end.  So, I feel very fortunate to be involved in something like this where you can help people.  You help teachers who help children.  It’s kind of everybody is helping each other.

[Portrait theme music]

Mark Blevis:  Show notes and links to resources discussed in this episode including a link to a new Podcast called “Just One More Book” can be found on my website, electricsky.net.  While you’re there, be sure to check out my Podcast archives.  The theme song for Portrait is Bigfoot by Robert Farrell.  Electric Sky is a proud member of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate.  Thanks for listening and please stay subscribed.

Send feedback to electricskypodcast@gmail.com.

[Soundseeing of the Fractured Fairytales section of the bookstore]

Mark Blevis:  So that’s another thing is fractured fairytales.  My wife’s really good about this.

Sue Lubeck:  Let me show you.

Mark Blevis:  Al the, like — the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf ; oh, the three…

Sue Lubeck:  That’s what started it.  That’s the — what was the title?  I can’t even think — the book about the — the wolf wasn’t such a bad guy, all he wanted to do was borrow a cup of sugar.

Mark Blevis:  The True Story of — yeah…

Sue Lubeck:  True Story!  That started this whole genre and it is fabulous.  I mean we have — let me show you a Cinderella book.  Here, look at the Cinderella books.  Now, it starts here, goes all the way over here.  Look at the different countries involved.

Mark Blevis:  Oh, look at that.  Egyptian, Korean, Irish, Persian…

Sue Lubeck:  And they are still coming.  There are even more down here I think.  Look here, still more Cinderella.  Wild western Cinderella…  Look at this!  I didn’t even realize we got so many.

Mark Blevis:  And people think that the real Cinderella story is the Disney version.

Sue Lubeck:  Yeah, I know!  Look at all the way here.  All the way here and over here are your Cinderella…

• Show ID and Intro
• Preparing to take off
• Interview with Jim Terry, owner of the Pacific Prowler
• Interview with Michael Potter, vintage aircraft collector
• Air Show Ottawa 2006

Transcript of Portrait – Preserving Aviation History

[Portrait theme music] Podcasting visual insound, this is another edition of Portrait on Electric Sky.

Mark Blevis:  Air shows aren’t just about flashy aerobatics.  To many, it’s an opportunity to preserve aviation history.  Some of that history is coming to life at the 2006 Air Show Ottawa.  I’m your host, Mark Blevis.  On this edition of Portrait, Jim Terry takes me on a flight in the Pacific Prowler, a World War II B-25 bomber, and collector Michael Potter introduces me to one of his spitfires.

Jim Terry: We’re required to tell you by our FAA that this is not a commercial airliner.  It does not have the safety redundant systems that commercial airliners have.  It’s designed to fly with pieces shut off.  So, if we have any pieces shut off over the capital today, we think we can come back.

Crew member:  Okay, no one fall out this hole or I get in trouble.  Alright.  [unintelligible] We’ve got a fire extinguisher on board, a first aid kit, and we’re out of sick bags so don’t get sick.

Passenger: Good to go!

Crew member: The window’s open.  In case of any emergencies, move out this way if we can land.  If we land with wheels down, you’ll go out the same way you came.  If we land wheels up, that will be your exit or this will be your exit; whichever is safest.

Mark Blevis:  If we land, what?  Wheels up?

Jim Terry: Wheels up.  Hopefully we won’t land wheels up, but you know…

Mark Blevis:  How many B-25 bombers were there?

Crew member:  There’s almost 10,000 made and there are only about 35 that are in flying condition.

Mark Blevis:  How many of those 10,000 came home with their crew alive?

Crew member:  About half.  Half of those came home and with their crews.

Jim Terry:  My uncle flew these in World War II and I grew up with him and as a child, his stories were amazing and remarkable and crazy.  It was very inspiring.  All my whole adult life we knew when we were growing up that we wanted to a B-25.  This one came available.  It was in a junk yard.  It had to be saved.  It was my duty to go save that airplane.

Mark Blevis:  How did you end up owning the plane?  What were the circumstances that led to that?

Jim Terry:  Well, she was in the junkyard.  We just took out a second mortgage on the house.  We sold the pick-up trucks and the junk we didn’t need.  We made the down payment.  We got possession of it.  Now, we are just doing everything we can to support it and keep it and keep it flying.

Mark Blevis: It must be expensive to maintain a plane like that.  Just buying it was expensive, but you must have had to invest heavily in getting it up to flight condition again.

Jim Terry:  It was insanely expensive.  We maxed out all our credit cards.  We borrowed money everywhere we could.  We’re in the process now of just trying to keep our heads afloat financially and keep the airplane flying.

Mark Blevis:  Can you tell me a little bit about the type of person who would be on that airplane starting with the pilot and working backward to the tail gunner.

Jim Terry: The pilot generally was the old man and the old man at that time might have been 21 years old.  So, we were turning 21-year-olds with a machine like that, loose, to go fly it at 20 feet above the water and bomb and strafe and do all those things that they had to do, stuff we would not even think about doing today to our young men.

They came from all over the country.  They came from farms.  Most of the guys, of course, have never been away from their home states, let alone flying the airplanes across the Atlantic and across the Pacific and landing in Algiers.

You got a pilot and co-pilot and they were in their early 20s.  Then you had a navigator that sat behind them, also an officer.  In the nose, you had the bombardier who was also an officer.  So, we had four officers on board.  You had a top turret gunner who was an enlisted man.  We had a radio operator who sat in the center section, also operated the waist guns, and a tail gunner.  Those were both enlisted men.

It took seven men to operate the airplane.  She carried 3500 pounds of bombs.  It took seven men to get 3500 pounds of bombs on target, which of course today, a single man flies an airplane that weighs twice that weight, carries three or four times that amount of ordinance and puts it on target.

Mark Blevis:  You said something before we took off which was oddly reassuring and that was these planes are designed to fly with pieces shut off.  I actually felt a little bit more uncomfortable being on the plane with that piece of information.  How is it possible to design a plane that can fly even though it’s missing pieces?

Jim Terry:  If you look in the plane, I can show you the control cables.  The airplane’s very simple.  It’s all fly with control cables.  When I pull back on the yoke, it moves the cable which activates the…

Mark Blevis:  Which is all the banging sound, right?

Jim Terry:  No, that was the backfiring in the engines.  That’s also normal.

The cables physically move the services and I physically move the yoke that moves the cables.  They have double redundant cables.  We have cables running down both sides of the fuselage.  So, if any one side of the airplane is hit and those cables were cut, you have the cables going down the other side.

Mark Blevis:  How does somebody who lives in — well, I guess you picked us a plane up in the nineties, so how does somebody, an adult, in the nineties learn to fly a plane that was built in the forties, I guess?

Jim Terry:  Exactly the way you learn anything.  They start you out in a Cessna.  You work your way up to a twin engine and then you fly in the right seat of this airplane for a year or two.  I’ve been in that right seat for two years.  I’m just working my way into the left seat, just a very slow progression.

Obviously, World War II, they moved them incredibly fast.  They were training crews, but a lot of those guys got killed.  Most of the accidents were in, believe it or not, in training accidents.  Most of the guys were lost in training.  More guys were lost in training than were lost in combat.  As insane as that sounds, but they were in a hardcore pressed to get them trained and get them on the road and get them in combat.  They were expendable.

Mark Blevis:  What can you tell me about the names that are signed on Bombay Doors?

Jim Terry:  Those are the men flew that these airplanes in World War II.  They have come to see us since we have been on tour.  We have asked them to sign the inside of the airplane.  They are our nation’s heroes.  We want to make the airplane a living memorial to them.  We are losing those men at the rate of about 1500 a day and because of all these things that we just talked about, we owe them everything.

[inflight audio: squeezing past another passenger to get to the tail gunner's position]

[interview with Michael Potter]

Mark Blevis: What got you into airplane collecting?

Michael Potter:  Well, first of all, I’ve been flying for nearly 40 years, although not these kinds of airplanes — that goes back about six years.  It’s just what you do after retirement.  I was in a position to — I was flexible enough with my time and the resources to do something interesting.

I first bought a Staggerwing and then a Spitfire and one thing led to another.  What really made it take off is that we saw the level of interest there was particularly with the Spitfire; interest by people who saw this not just as a cool airplane, but as a little window on history.  We saw the tremendous response from veterans and their families.  Once you start seeing that, you realize that this is really an opportunity to do something more than just have fun flying airplanes.  You can really reach out to people tell them what these airplanes mean, what they did, recognize some of the veterans that flew them, some of the older folks that remember them when they were doing the job.  One thing’s led to another.  We now have 10 airplanes or eight airplanes and two more on the way in the hanger.

Mark Blevis:  You treat this as not just a hobby, but you actually treat it as preserving history?

Michael Potter:  Correct.  I am a collector in that sense.  I enjoy owning the airplanes.  I fly them all.  It’s a great pleasure for me.  We really put together a different kind of enterprise, a foundation that uses these to expose them to the public and tell people, particularly young people, a little bit about history.

It’s amazing how you can take a young teenager or even my kid’s grade three class have done a tour of the hanger.  Put them in front of a veteran, teach them a little bit about where they came from, and all a sudden, what might be — history is almost considered boring by kids of that age when it is just being read out of a book, but you can make it come alive by looking at the airplanes and talking to people who flew them.  All of a sudden, they are fascinated by it, but it is history, they’re learning history.

Mark Blevis:  What can you tell me about this aircraft that you flew today?

Michael Potter:  Well, I flew the Spitfire and it is a Mark XVI.  It was built in 1945 before the end of the war.  It didn’t see combat, although it had quite an interesting life after the war, until 1951, as the personal airplane of Air Chief Marshall James Robb.

Mark Blevis:  What can you tell me about the type of pilot that would be in that seat?

Michael Potter: Well, they were very young people.  These folks often started before they turned twenty.  They might do their primary training at age eighteen or nineteen and be with an operational squadron before they were twenty.  In fact, I understand that at some point in the war, it was decreed that no pilot, no matter how successful, over the age of twenty-eight was going to be continuing to fly operationally.  I think the point there was — perhaps they were speculating there would be a degradation of skills as they got older, funny for me to say.  Also, they were too valuable with that kind of experience and they wanted them to teach others, help others.

It must have been — One can only imagine, they must have been very confident, skillful young men.  What they did was tremendously dangerous.  The odds were clearly running against you.  And how could you do this?  I believe that people fly under those odds because they have a fundamental belief that they’re learning skills will keep them alive.  I don’t think people volunteer for jobs that have such a large loss of life unless they feel they’ve got the capability to do it.  I’m speculating, but I imagine they were not only very capable, very well-trained men, but they were awfully confident in their skills.

Mark Blevis:  You prefer to fly these things in your retirement, I assume?

Michael Potter:  Yeah.  It’s entirely different.  It’s great to feel you’re sitting where they sat and indeed it’s a great adventure, but let us not kid ourselves.  There’s absolutely nothing to compare with the kind of flying we do under ideal conditions, carefully regulated, mostly straight and level, nobody shooting at us.  It’s the only way to do it these days.  The airplanes are too valuable let alone how you feel about your own life, but it’s certainly not what these young men faced sixty years ago.

[inflight audio]

Mark Blevis:  I’m sitting in the tail-gunner section now. I don’t know if any of these could be heard, because it’s really friggin’ loud up here.

[Portrait theme music]

Mark Blevis:  Links to resources discussed in the show can be found in the show notes on my website, electricsky.net.  While you’re there, be sure to check out my Podcast archives.  Electric Sky is a proud member of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate.  Thanks for listening and please stay subscribed.

Send feedback to electricskypodcast@gmail.com.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Kirk Starkey
  • Sonore 2006 for young musicians age 13-20
  • Turtle Island String Quartet
  • Suzuki School of Music

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Steven Page
  • Canadian Music Creators Coalition
  • World Intellectual Property Organization
  • Barenaked Ladies
• Other Electric Sky podcasts about the digital music revolution
  • Ian Boyd on its impacts on independent music retailers
  • Michael Geist on Canadian copyright and anti-circumvention laws

Note: The Barenaked Ladies have a Podcast which you can subscribe to using a link on their website.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Michael Pickard

[Portrait theme music] Podcasting visual insound, this is another edition of Portrait on Electric Sky.Mark Blevis:  Say what you will about the restaurants of Italy, New York, Paris and London, the best bruschetta in the world is right here in Ottawa, Canada.  I’m your host, Mark Blevis.  On this edition of Portrait, Michael Pickard of Infusion Bistro explains to me how to make the world’s best bruschetta.

Mark Blevis: So, is this your recipe for bruschetta or-?

Michael Pickard: Yes, it is.

Mark Blevis:  You made it yourself?

Michael Pickard: Well, it’s a traditional recipe.  The problem with cooking is that so many people try to pretend they reinvented the wheel.  The fact of the matter is it’s fresh basil, fresh garlic, some nice Roman tomatoes, some olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.  So, you’re not really doing anything different all the time.  People try to pretend that they’re tweaking it.  The tweak that we added to it was the balsamic reduction, which is a bit of residual sweetness and the goat’s cheese, which works well with anything with tomatoes.

Mark Blevis:  Oh, yeah.

Michael Pickard: All right.  So, now we’ve all the ingredients essentially that we need.  The key is fresh Roma tomatoes.  What I tend to do is I’ll cut them in half. Some people, some I guess traditionalists if you will, will squeeze the juice out of the Roma tomato.  I personally don’t.  I think that all the flavours melding together is a good thing.  You can slice the Romas.  After you’ve cut them in half, you could quarter them, you can put them into strips, that’s completely up to you.  It depends on what you would like.  For us at the restaurant, what we do is we slice it into three and then we just slice it into little bite-sized chunks in that respect.  So, we’re going to cut a few of these up.  Then what we’re going to do — for the rest…

Mark Blevis:  You actually figured out how to do this without losing fingers, obviously.

Michael Pickard: Yeah.  I have a few little cuts, but my mom being a good German lady taught me one thing and that is everything in life should be built on steps.  So, the first thing I learned was how to hold the knife properly.  As I learned to hold the knife consistently and properly, then it’s a matter of trying to go a little bit faster.  Sometimes people will try to just be faster from the start.  I should knock on wood as I say this.  I haven’t cut myself in a long, long time.

Mark Blevis:  So, you’re holding the knife actually kind of by the base of the actual blade.

Michael Pickard:  Yeah, the handle should fit somewhere in the palm of your hand and where you grip the knife should be essentially right around where the centre of gravity of the knife is.  Then, you grip it like that.  What happens then is when you go to angle, you have more support.  The knife just will not all of a sudden slip off.  The other key is have very sharp knives.  Some people think that that actually could lead itself to you cut yourself more.  It’s actually the complete opposite because then you would stop struggling with the knife to try to get through something.  More importantly, if you do happen to, by accident, cut yourself at least it’s a clean cut, whereas, if it’s not such a sharp knife…

Mark Blevis:  The whole thing finger instead of just a piece.

Michael Pickard: Yeah, exactly.  Now, I’m just going to grab a mixing bowl.  Pardon me.

Mark Blevis:  Okay.  The other thing I’ll mention while you’re walking around here is I noticed that you do not have your fingers sticking out.  You actually have your fingers rounded so that the tips of your fingers are tucked away from where the knife is actually cutting.

Michael Pickard:  That is correct, yes.  What you do is you essentially just rest it against your knuckles.

With the basil, what we tend to do now is we just take the leaves.  The only thing you do not want is the stem at the bottom, which is really thick, but as a far as taking the leaves off of the stems, you do not have to do that.  It’s up to you, but I find with basil it’s all very usable and it’s all soft.  It’s not like some other spices.  Rosemary, for instance, you would not want any of the stalks on top because it’s so hard.  Then, we can cut this into what I would say is julienned.  Again, this comes down to what your interests are, but for us it’s just shaved slices.  Then I just add the fresh basil to the Roma tomatoes, which we’ve already cut up.  Then I reach for some garlic.  Anybody who is eaten at our restaurant is quite aware of the fact that we’re very fond of garlic.  I personally think that you can’t really ever have too much garlic.  Other people may say otherwise.  What we do, the exact recipe for this, would be if you were to do a two-pound batch of Roma tomatoes, you’re looking at adding a half a cup of pomace oil.  We use pomace just because there’s a little bit more flavor.  Extra virgin olive oil really is not going to bring anything to it.  It’s generally flavourless, if you will.  One bunch of fresh basil, which we’ve chopped up; salt and pepper to taste, some people have different preferences, and half a cup of chopped garlic.

Now, with ours in the restaurant, what we do is we cut it so you can actually see the garlic.  I think it’s a good thing.  I like the little chunks of garlic.  If you would prefer to stick your garlic in the Cuisinart and puree it and do it with the oil so that it actually does get chopped up and by all means you may do that, but just as far as how we do it here, that’s how we chop it up.  Give it again just some more flavour.  The key is, well, if I haven’t already said it or if I have said it, I apologize, fresh ingredients, it’s just such a huge difference, it makes such a big difference.  When it comes to certain things like beef, organic beef is still through the roof as far as cost, but when you come to any of the produce these days it’s getting to a point where it’s very affordable and the flavor it’s just so much different, I find.  I just cannot get over it.  The other thing with the bruschetta, if you know in advance that you are going to be having a dinner party or you’re having people over and you want to serve the bruschetta, it’s actually one of those things that you’re better off making it two or three days in advance and letting it sit.  I find that the way that the flavors then begin to combine and meld together, if you will, is a good thing.  So, we’ve done this portion of it, and…

Mark Blevis:  We’ve actually added the pomace oil, which you just kind of poured arbitrarily, I’ll say, but obviously the calculated eye and you stirred it all together so that is the tomatoes, the basil, and the pomace oil.

Michael Pickard:  That is correct and we’re just going to grab a pinch of salt.

Mark Blevis:  Okay.

Michael Pickard: What we also do, as well, here at Infusion is just prior to serving we bring it up to temperature.  We heat it on the stove top in a frying pan or saute pan, but we don t make it so that the liquid that is in the pan is boiling, but what we do want to do is we want to just warm it up because, again, we find it just combines all the flavors.  Sometimes when things are too cold, the true depth of the product doesn’t come out  Then the last part that we won’t do today because it’s about a two-hour process, but which I’ve no problem telling you what it is, is the balsamic reduction.  The balsamic reduction works on having one litre of balsamic vinegar.  It can be any balsamic vinegar.  It doesn’t have to be any of these expensive aged things, just regular balsamic vinegar, and if you’re going to use one litre, use one cup of sugar, and then you simmer it and you continue to simmer it until it gets to the thickness that you wished for it to be.

Mark Blevis:  So, balsamic vinegar with sugar.

Michael Pickard:  With sugar and it could be regular sugar.

Mark Blevis:  So the measurement was?

Michael Pickard:  One litre of balsamic to one cup of sugar.  If you simmer it you’re going to be looking at from an hour-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours depending on, again, it comes out to how thick you want it.  If for some reason you forgot it and when you cool it you find it’s too thick, it’s almost like cement or molasses just add a little more balsamic, bring it back up to temperature.  The other thing is make sure you put your hoods on or your vents on because it does create quite an interesting, well, vinegar smell because you’re reducing this, so you want to have windows open or hoods on.

Mark Blevis:  Is that where the name reduction comes from?

Michael Pickard: Precisely.

Mark Blevis: Okay.  Boy, this is like an education experience for me.

Michael Pickard: We’re trying.

Mark Blevis:  I don’t work in the kitchen.

Michael Pickard: Well, maybe you should now.  Then the goat’s cheese, just put a little goat’s cheese ball.  We take a crostini, a baguette, we slice it.  If you do not have a grill you can cook it on, just put it in your oven.  If you want to put a little bit of olive oil on it just to allow it to get crispy and then you’re ready serve.  It doesn t have to be long pieces.  It can just be little medallions.  It can be however you wish to do it and you’re good to go.

Mark Blevis:  What were you doing before you started Infusion?

Michael Pickard: I went to Carleton and I got myself a degree in economics and decided that I was going to work in the banking industry.  So, I was in Toronto and pursuing that and after about
Mark Blevis:  How’s that going for you?

Michael Pickard:  Well, it wasn’t meant for me.  Unfortunately, this is radio so you can’t see my long hair and earrings, but it was a little too formal for me, but I thought that from my upbringing and my parent’s background it was something that I thought would be — it was something I knew.  I thought that I would enjoy it and certainly didn’t enjoy it that much.  I’d always worked in restaurants when I was in university.  So, I went back to work in a restaurant in Toronto.  That’s where I met my lovely wife and it turned out we were both from Ottawa and it turned out we both wanted to have kids and so we thought, “Well, let’s move back to Ottawa.”  In Toronto, you drive an hour-and-a-half to play golf and in Ottawa we drive an hour-and-a-half and we’re at our cottage.  So for quality of life’s reason, we decided to move back to Ottawa.  We couldn’t work for others forever, so we thought, “Well, let’s open up our own place.”

[Portrait theme music]

Mark Blevis: If you ever make it to Ottawa, be sure to check out the Infusion Bistro.  Tell them Mark from Electric Sky sent you.  Electric Sky is a proud member of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate.  Thanks for listening and please stay subscribed.

Send feedback to electricskypodcast@gmail.com.

• Show ID and Intro
• My first Portrait monologue
• I Am Cow by The Arrogant Worms

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Nicole Horlor

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Devin Service
• Girl Guide Cookies
• Rogic’s Easter Egg Hunt

• Interview with Dr. Bert Blevis
• Publications by Bert Blevis
  • The Pursuit of Equality: The Role of the Ionosphere and Satellite Communications in Canadian Development
  • The Implications of Satellite Technology for Television Broadcasting in Canada
• Canada Science and Technology Museum (Ottawa, Canada)
• John Chapman on Science.ca
• Hermes on FriendsOfCRC.ca
• COSPAS-SARSAT official website

For a Podcast of adults and children discovering life, check out Growing Enthusiasm.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Barbara Coloroso
• Books by Barbara Coloroso
• Just Because It’s Not Wrong, Doesn’t Make It Right
• Kids Are Worth It (Revised Edition)
• The Bully, Bullies and the Bystander
• Parenting With Wit And Wisdom From Barabara Coloroso
• Parenting Through Crisis: Helping Kids In Time Of Loss Grief And Change

Transcript of “Portrait – Barbara Coloroso”

Barbara Coloroso: This is Barbara Coloroso. I’m talking about my latest book, Just Because It’s Not Wrong, Doesn’t Make It Right, on Electric Sky.

[Portrait theme music] Podcasting visual insound, this is another edition of Portrait on Electric Sky.

Mark Blevis: When we forget how to act ethically ourselves, how can we expect our children to think and act ethically? I’m your host, Mark Blevis. On this edition of Portrait, author, teacher and presenter, Barbara Coloroso, on teaching ethics to kids.

Barbara Coloroso: I distinguish between ethics and ethic. Ethics is the study of our way of being in the world. What I want is for children to have a very strong ethic and that is our way of being in the world that is rooted in deep caring, not in rules, not in dogma, not in commandments or laws. Those are at the service of the deep caring. I want to teach kids to care deeply, share generously and to help willingly, which are the antidotes to the three virulent agents that rip apart at the fabric of our humanity and that’s hating other human beings, hoarding — me, mine and more instead of us, ours and enough — and harming through lying and cheating and stealing and deception. It’s not easy, but it’s a simple way of looking at using the stuff of everyday life to raise an ethical human being.

Mark Blevis: Wow! It almost sounds easy, but I’m sure it’s a lot of work. What’s the trick?

Barbara Coloroso: It’s not easy at all, but it’s using the stuff of everyday life rather than imposing some kind of program. For instance, it’s in children to care. It’s in our DNA. If you yawn, I yawn, it’s called empathic distress. If I mention the word yawn, some people will yawn. If I’m distressed, you’ll get distressed a bit and either want to resolve my conflict or fix my pain or in any way care deeply for me and you’ll also wish me well. That’s the compassion and loving kindness elements of deep caring. You see an 18-month-old baby and they see another child in distress, they will run over to them with their own blanket because I know as an 18-month-old that that blanket soothes me so I’m going to relieve that other person’s stress with my blanket. By 4 years old, children are able to discern what will soothe or relieve the stress or the pain of another child more appropriately. For instance, a 4-year-old might see a baby in distress and go get a pacifier or see a 2-year-old in distress and offer them a toy. It is in us. What we have to do is nurture that in our children. The first way we do it is we have to walk our talk and talk our walk. Do we care deeply about our children and about ourselves? When someone is distress or our children see us caring for them, do we relieve the stress of our children or do we say horrible things like “stop that crying or I’ll give you something to cry about,” which is the brick wall parent. An ethic rooted in brick wall is very much rooted in laws and rules and commandments and dogma. It’s my way or the highway, trying to make kids mind because people who believe in moral absolutism are so afraid that if we don’t have that absolutism then what we have is moral relativism, that slippery slope.

In the language of my work, the brick wall is moral absolute, the jellyfish is moral relativism. What I really want to do is help families become backbone families where you can flesh out the answers to things and we’re in this together. Backbone families have their ethic rooted in deep caring. So, if a rule or a guideline or a principle or a commandment or a law violates, denigrates or in any other way would diminish that deep, deep caring, we don’t bend the rule or the law, we put it aside because deep caring trumps it. I give the example in my ethics book about some young soldiers after the Hurricane Katrina. They were sent on a mission to deliver some supplies. They weren’t life-saving supplies, but they were necessary supplies. They flew over New Orleans and saw hundreds of people stranded on rooftops so they diverted their mission and rescued well over a hundred babies and young children and adults and old people. When they landed at their assignment, they were promptly reprimanded by their commanding officer and several were docked in pay. Every one of those soldiers said, “I’d do it again and I’ll accept the consequence.” That’s an ethic rooted in deep caring where they had an order, but they weighed that in terms of the deep caring and the needs of people on rooftops. They knew they had the skill and the equipment necessary to rescue them and they chose to do that, but they were also willing to take the consequences for the choices they made. That is what I want to teach young people to do.

Mark Blevis: Is there an easy way for a parent to introduce the concept of ethics to a child and work them down the path so they can be like the soldiers and take those chances?

Barbara Coloroso: Or be like the Norwegian coach who saw a Canadian skier in need. He didn’t even think about it, he gave her a pole. People were on him, “Why did you do it? Why did you do it?” He finally, in exasperation, said, “Because she needed a pole.” He was relieving her suffering and wishing her well. That’s deep caring. How does that go about being taught to young people? I think it’s more caught than taught and that is they view us doing that. How do we treat hired help? How do we treat the person at the grocery store that is going a little slower than we would like them to be going? How do we treat someone who looks different than us or talks differently than we do? Right away, we’re teaching our children to care deeply about one another and about people around us. I don’t tell children, “You have to like everybody,” but I say, “You must honor their humanity” because I want them to see themselves as an I, a very powerful I and the other human being as a Thou, not an It, not an obstacle, not someone they have to defeat. That Norwegian coach, those soldiers saw those other human beings as Thous and treated them with that dignity and regard. When we teach them to do that, we then teach them the second concept of that and that is the We, the We or community.

Margaret Mead said it so beautifully. She said, “You’re unique just like everybody else.” She also said that people say that a small group of people cannot do anything and she said, “Indeed, this is the only group that ever has made a difference.” These small communities that we create can make a world of difference for our children. Yes, we are batting up against media influence. It’s not always so helpful. It’s good, bad, indifferent, and ugly. We have to teach our children how to navigate the media world today in a way that will serve them well and help them become better human beings and not get caught in the trap of a culture of mean. That is a major job today. I will not even pretend that it’s simple. How do you teach them to share? Deep caring is sharing generously. I don’t say to a 3-year-old, “Now, if you share that toy with that other little girl maybe she’ll share a toy with you” because that says to kids, “Everything’s a deal.” Our culture is so steeped in “you do this, you get something. If I don’t catch you something wrong, it’s not wrong,” because everything is about getting caught, getting caught being good, getting caught being bad. That is an inner discipline. What I will say to a child instead is, “If you share your toy with that little boy or that little girl both of you can have fun with this toy.” So, that is creating that community. I don’t make a child share everything. I think there are some things they can hold on to themselves, for themselves, as very special toys. I don’t share everything. I’m not going to share my spouse. I’m not going to share — although I must say, my children have a wide extended family and we share a lot with that, but there are some things that we keep to ourselves that are very personal and very much our own. That is okay. If it came down to hanging on to a possession or reaching out to somebody who is desperately in need of it, I think the deep caring thing to do is let go of that possession because it’s people first. That is what I want to teach children. You are changed when you do good things for other human beings in a way that nothing else can change you. When they are little, I’m going to help them out. I’m going to say, “We’re going over to the Seniors Center this Saturday. There are some people there with Parkinson’s and there are people there who are blind, so maybe with your spelling you could write letters for them or maybe you can answer their E-mails or send thank you notes for them.” Giving them a way to serve as they get older and you have exposed them to Habitat for Humanity to Soup Kitchens and not just on holidays, that kind of thing, where it becomes a part of your life. They will then begin to use their own minds and their own hearts to look at ways that they can serve more effectively.

Mark Blevis: Links to Barbara Coloroso’s website and books can be found on my website, electricsky.net. While you’re there, be sure to check out my previous episodes. Electric Sky is a proud member of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate. Thanks for listening and please stay subscribed.

Send feedback to electricskypodcast@gmail.com.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Bruce Tobin of Optical Excellence

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with John Royle
• Interview with Anne Davison (Cello), Marc Weiser (Piano) and Ruston Vuori (Piano)
• Music: Dvorak’s Trio in F Minor

Check out my episode on The Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Sahara, Michel, Raquel and Sophie
• Haircut donated by Bobbipin Hair Studio
• Learn more at Angel Hair for Kids

Incidentally, this is the same Expo at which I interviewed Patch Adams.

• Show ID and Intro
• Farmasea
• Acubeauty
• Ear acupuncture
• Closing comment from Markus

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Clive Doucet
• Books by Clive
  • Notes from Exile: On Being Acadian
  • Lost and Found in Acadie
  • Canal Seasons

Photo: City of Ottawa

• Show ID and Intro
• Sounds of the Rideau Canal (on Wikipedia)
• Maple Syrup with Andrew Mackie
• Sounds of the Rideau Canal
• Beavertails with Al
• Sounds of the Rideau Canal

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Lorne Elliott
• Lorne’s online store (CDs and cassettes)
• Lorne’s tour schedule (current tour: Chasing the Big Silly)

• Show ID and Intro
• Interview with Jim Bouton
• Buy a copy of Ball Four