thank you, lest we forget

Fundrive 2010 is now over. Great big thanks go out to Jason, Ben E., Michael, Anastasia, Ms. F., James E., Kevin K., Lars, Warren, Matt G., June, and anyone else who we might have accidentally overlooked, for donating to our show(s), on Liquid Chatter. Your generous donations will help CJSR keep chugging along and gaining steam for yet another year.

Tonight, Thursday at midnight, Fiona is unable to make it. But we happily welcome local musician, man of many faces, and all round good guy, the Hoach. We’ll have music, tribute and talk about Remembrance Day, and more.

I could wax on, poetic or prosaic, but I’ll let the show speak for itself. So be sure to tune in and call.

Mike v.2

it’s the most funderful time of the year…

First off, big thanks to our guests for our E-town ward 8 municipal election shows, Duane Goodstriker, Ben Henderson , and Sheila McKay. We laughed, we cried (I did, a little, almost) and I think we all learned something too. Congrats to all those who ran, and voted. Let’s keep working to make the Big E an even better place to be.

Of course, it is also once again time for CJSR FM 88.5′s annual Fundrive. If you value independent, campus and community radio, that plays new music, Canadian music, and covers issues that you wouldn’t otherwise hear about, I implore you to dial and donate. Fundrive accounts for about 45% of our annual budget, and runs until Nov. 6th. So call 780-492-2577(CJSR) or donate online at cjsr.com.

We have a wicked scaaarrrrry (that’s scary not scarry, well possibly that too) Halloween fundrive show lined up for tonight at midnight. There’ll be prizes, candy, pumpkin carving, and more of the usual mix of antics and profundity that Liquid Chatter is famous for.

Once again, I’d like to thank all of our listeners, callers, guests, and well wishers for helping us do what we do, and get better at it.

Mike v.2

P.S. Don’t forget to dial and donate!

Electile Dysfunction

Is that even a word? Regardless, tonight at midnight (MDT) our guests on Liquid Chatter will be Duane Goodstriker and Ben Henderson. They are candidates running for city councillor in Ward 8 in the Big E’s municipal election. Unfortunatelty the other candidates; Lori Jeffery-Heaney, Sheila McKay, and Hana Razga have yet to reply. Nevertheless, it should be an interesting and informative show.

Hopefully there will be a better turnout for the actual election. Last time, in 2007, only around 27% of eligible voters cast their ballots. What people should realize is that a municipal government can make or break a city. They deal with important issues that affect us right where we live on a day to day basis.

So once again, Fiona and I invite you to tune in to 88.5 FM or www.cjsr.com, and phone us at 780 492 2577(CJSR) ext.1. Remember, in more ways than one, you make the call.

With Love,

Mike v.2

just hear this and then i’ll go

last goodbye. hmm, only the second JB reference? let there be Frank:

Excuse me now I’ll take the sun
I’ll take my place in Valhalla
And if the revolution comes
Please take my gun

Liquid Chatter is such a shitty name for a radio show. But King Kong’s Balls is better than anyone deserves, so I’m okay with the Clark Kent schtick. How appropriate. I have to say goodbye and I don’t know if I’ll ever make it back, damn I’m gonna miss radio.

Thanks, if you ever listened.

haitian programming now

you can’t swing a cat without hitting someone urging you to join a cause, facebook group, or petition effort. well fuck everyone else, this is the only thing you need to do this year to feel happy, fulfilled, and socially progressive. okay, ready? listen (read) carefully…

CJSR needs Haitian programming. I happen to know of a couple of Haitians who want to do radio. folks, we have a situation here, the equivalent of a horny young bull just a rickety fence away from a field full of juicy, panting, bovine estrogen. help Liquid Chatter bring down that fence, i say! in the Name of Kong, of course, who has always been partial to things juicy, horny, and promisingly procreative.

Make Haitian programming happen at CJSR! and what is your role, oh swingophile, oh devotee of the black fleshy Spheres? just let ‘em know, send ‘em an email: “I want Haitian programming at CJSR! I *want* to hear Haitian dudes talking Haitian French and spinning great fucking Haitian tunes! I really think the Haitian community in Edmonton is deserving of a voice! I may or may not be Haitian, but this is fucking important! Thank you!” and guess what? I bet noodles to nutsacks it’ll happen. because the good people at 88.5 FM are also smart people, heck they’re probably already *planning* to make Haitian programming come true at the Red Rising Star. but just let ‘em know. they need that, they need you to let them know that you know they’re good and smart, they need to know that you *can’t wait* much longer for Haitian programming.

Send emails to music@cjsr.com, and be very nice.

In other news, if you’re not subscribing to Airtight, CJSR’s weekly newsletter, then you are probably a fucker and a Haitian programming-hater to boot. get subscribed already! find out how at cjsr.comif you are an enlightened owl of  a little bastard, said lovingly and reverently, then you know this week’s Kong Question: Who or what is Athabaska Dick, and what is Athabaska Dick allegedly based on?

Finally!… transcripts of our interview with Connor ought to be coming soon. a wonderful guest, one of our all-time old-time hockey greats. sign interpreter, Jason, was a gifted dude also. Coming soon, we hope to see: the U of A chapter of WUSC (World University Service of Canada), cartoonist Fred Curatolo, Jan from Jelly Parrott, and we’re *still* trying to cook something up with the U of A’s Safewalk program. it’s all about the entourage, friends.

Be good to your little ol’ selves, love your neighbors and cherish your knees.

..sure plays a mean pinball.

Connor is not dumb or blind, and we’ve yet to ask him if he’s partial to pinball. He happens to be a young deaf Edmontonian in his first year of PoliSci. He also happens to be a going and growing concern in Eville’s live theatre community. Liquid Chatter will get a chance to interview Connor Thursday, November 19.. ever wonder what life’s like, sans Nickelback? Do signers make better lovers? Does deaf = handicapped?

We missed Alex Konye, owner of Broad Valley Books, to the flu last week. Alex is preparing to end a long and valiant run as one of Edmonton’s most excellent book purveyors. Here’s hoping we catch him in a few weeks, assuming the hwon-hwon doesn’t take the man.
http://www.yelp.ca/biz/broad-valley-books-edmonton

 

Finally, have you done your part to get Ester to Tanzania? And what is the proper pronunciation of Tanzania, anyway? Should one say it “Tan-zah-nee-a” or “Tan-zay-nee-a”? Get on over to vote for Ester, it’s painless and it’ll totally improve your sex drive:
http://www.i-to-i.com/campfire/gopeeinafridge/posts/1191-My-Ultimate-Trip-of-Novelty-and-Adventure

 

You gotta open an account to vote, but this is no biggie. If Ester does not win, someone evil is sure to.

katie did

A few weeks ago, our guest Katie Peterson described her travels with NGO Falls Brook Centre (via a CIDA-funded internship): http://www.fallsbrookcentre.ca/

In addition to exposure to sustainable forestry efforts and community-building initiatives in New Brunswick, Katie participated with ongoing attempts to revive and protect heritage forests in the region. She also attended a few grand barn dances. Katie then went on to Cuba to get involved with a number of farming initiatives in several regions, including an operation in Guantanamo province. Our visit from Katie quite fortuitously coincided with Sustainability Week. Shoot blindly, murder the stars.

In unrelated news, we urge all decent souls to help send Ester to Tanzania. This will achieve 2 worthy goals: Ester is as deserving as the next person to win a trip to Tanzania, and perhaps moreso than most. Ester will stop spamming people to help her get to Tanzania. Everybody wins. Just click the link, the small bother is truly worth it:

http://www.i-to-i.com/campfire/gopeeinafridge/posts/1191-My-Ultimate-Trip-of-Novelty-and-Adventure

“kiss me out of desire baby, not consolation”

CJSR’s FunDrive 2009′s a wrap. Final tally will take a bit, but we raised somewhere in the order of $115,000.. that’s $35,000 shy of the goal, so it looks as though office staff will continue to share the One Bic Pen. Cost-saving measures with regards to our paperless office will extend to bathroom privileges (please wash the rag thoroughly after each use).

So that makes for a worrisome trend.. 2 years and counting where 88.5 FM failed to meet its fundraising targets. It’s all a bit heartbreaking, when you take into consideration the blood, sweat, and tears so many have oozed through the year.. all the continued support from so many Eville businesses.. the annual fidelity of many hundreds of individuals who never fail in showing their appreciation for community radio. Any ideas why we come short of things, folks? Are the on-air personalities that obnoxious? Is the programming a little too ripe? raw? retarded? I give up. Thoughts?

Happy 25th, CJSR. And thanks to everyone who donated to Liquid Chatter: Joe, Ron, Colin, Harold, Mike, Anastasia, Michael, the Hoach, Warren, Desmond, Krisha, Erika + Rich, and not Rudy (who still called, and donated to Democracy Now, and who is still owed a show, so we’re even).. we maintained at ~$1000, we had fantastic guests over our 2 FD shows (Chow Mein Event, Anarchist Book Fair), and I managed to smuggle an Alpha Flight into the ever-rockin’ Shoebox. To the station super stars who went above and beyond, we salute and/or adore you beautiful fucking people.

The Great Betrayers (originally posted Sept04)

Norway had their Quisling, the US of A had their Benedict Arnold.. and Canada, our Holmes?

The debate surrounding healthcare reform in the US gives us a chance to witness some of the most colossally ignorant behavior ever to emanate from a supposedly civilized and democratic nation. Obama’s proposed reforms are cautious, to put it mildly. Yet to gauge things by the rhetoric of his detractors, you would think he was ushering in some sort of neo-Communist regieme: “Round up the guns! Euthanize everyone over the age of 68! Etc!”

So it was bound to happen.. a partisan and sensationalist US media hungry for the next sound-bite, and eager to fuel this farcical “debate,” found in one Canadian woman an all-too-complicit poster child for Victims of the Failed Socialist Healthcare Experiment Up North. Yes, if not Shona Holmes, then who? But it is Holmes we see all over YouTube now, so be it: Let it never be said that a Canadian wouldn’t speak up to decry ineptitude and short-comings in our public institutions. Gods know, our healthcare is well worth a little pride, and even more so our continued scrutiny and diligence.. each of us. Every level of government in this country has been telling us for years we can’t afford health, we need to cut back, we need “realistic expectations.” Who doesn’t have a personal experience (wait times), who hasn’t felt impotent anger over the poor treatment of a loved one, at least once as a result of healthcare inefficiencies?

Is Canada’s system of universal healthcare perfect? No! But it’s a model worth preserving, and if we let it fail then shame on us. In the meantime, for those who would shill for the US networks, thanks for nothing.. or, for one thing, rather: “Quit trying to Holmes me.” It’s not every day we get to coin a phrase.

somehow, i knew it

i knew it. i always wondered where kong’s balls came from. turns out it wasn’t really king kong at all… it was a boat parts & repair shop next to the trans canada highway somewhere west of thunder bay. it was the loincloth that gave it away… that, and the lack of pupils.