March 2, 2009
Episode Three
To listen to episode three, click here.
Third time’s a charm? Three times a lady? What other cliches with the word “three” can I think of? Here’s the breakdown for episode three of P3.
Dancing on the Ceiling – In the mid-90s, my friend was a teenager who lived near Manchester. Like most of her peers, she was obsessed with the Brit Pop movement. This tells the story of her innocent and chance encounter with a musician who happened to be the king of the genre at the time, and how it changed her life.
Life Left on the Road - The story of two people who devote a good part of their lives to recycling roadkill. I originally wrote this story for the Canadian Press. Click here to read it.
The Course is Crystal Clear – My friend Dan has a strong connection to crystals – but not by choice.
Second order of business: The song on the first piece is called Alcohol & Tylenol and it was written by Aaron Beckum, the show’s ridiculously talented musical director.
Also, I mentioned in episode two that I’d read out some more most absurd moments. I tried doing that but I kept messing up and it was too much of a process so I’m just going to post two of my favourites on here. The first one is from Sonja Ahlers, who’s one of my favourite artists. She’s published two beautiful books and makes adorable angora bunnies. Look her up. Here’s her story of her most absurd moment ever:
1999using the first royalty cheque from my first book temper,temper to buy a plane ticket to go see my longterm penpal friend who was in my favourite band at the time to go see them play for real and meet up in SF to drive to LA. i was ‘in love’. i thought he was my ‘soul mate’ because we made the same ‘art’. he resembled vincent gallo. buffalo 66 had come out earlier that year.
it was a total disaster. the most absurd moment of it all was being backstage at a fugazi show with him and seeing vincent gallo in a pimped out 7-piece suit with hat and lady accessory. being there in this surreal experience holding together a broken heart and hating every second of being backstage like cattle was the most absurd moment of my life.it was truly absurd.
unfortunately my friend was a totally self-involved asshole musician. the upside is that we worked it out and are still friends. he is definitely one of my friend soulmates. it is easy to be friends with someone who lives in a remote part of france and who i never see.
Second comes from Sheila Campbell. If you’re a fan of Stop Podcasting Yourself, then you’ll know she’s Abby’s aunt. She’s also very funny.
We had rented a banquet room in a downtown hotel in Switzerland’s capital city of Berne and were in search of a convenient unloading spot in the underground carpark. All of the nearest spots were occupied and as we had some heavy items to move we opted to park directly outside the entrance with the hazard lights on. This unfortunately meant that we were blocking one of the two lanes in which to drive but there was little traffic and we guessed it would take only a few minutes. One or two cars passed without too much ado but it was clear to us that the next car approaching contained an old man in the process of blowing a gasket. His car swiftly pulled up alongside our parked car thus blocking the only thoroughfare remaining. He applied his full body weight to the driver’s side automatic window button and had begun foaming and spitting on the glass well before it lowered entirely. He seethed as he berated us in his thick and phlegmy Swiss German for our confounded stupidity, inconsideration and basic disregard for the rules of the carpark. Couldn’t we see that we were blocking a lane of traffic for God’s sake!? When we made an attempt to point out the irony of the situation as he too was blocking a lane of traffic and had cars queuing behind him his anger turned to blind rage and our focus quickly switched to his writhing and pulsing jugular vein. Our lack of effort to speak to him in a polished form of the local dialect and blatant insubordinance when addressing an elder were nearly enough for cause to send this man into cardiac arrest. Our reprieve came in the form of a quickly growing stream of honking horns behind his car. Our giggling and pointing were about all this man could take but before he drove off he was clear to let us know that not only were we devoid of sense or respect but we had just wasted five minutes of his time while he explained what should have been obvious. At that point we pretended to cry and then resumed our fits of laughter while pointing out that there were still no cars behind our vehicle and that we were finished our unloading but we were soon interrupted by the waiting cars honking horns and the sound of his car peeling off into the carpark.I wonder how many days it was before one of his neighbours called police to report a funny smell coming from his apartment.
Finally, I’d like to give a big congratulations to Dave Shumka and Graham Clark of Stop Podcasting Yourself for their one year anniversary. Their podcast is enjoyable (that’s an understatement) and you should really listen. Here’s something they did together a while back that I quite enjoyed (I’ll admit. I’m a HUGE Queen Latifah fan.) Hope you do too.
Oh yeah. I started a Facebook group. If you like what we do, join. Tell all your friends so I don’t have to bug people to listen. And get in touch at noneandonly@gmail.com
February 28, 2009
It’s Coming
Episode Three will be a few more days. What you can look forward to? Let’s just say, Brit Pop, roadkill and magical crystals. Sound enticing? In the meantime, here’s an amazing video of a few kids playing a Black Mountain song. Enjoy. I did.
February 19, 2009
Episode Two
To listen to episode two click here.
First off, thanks so much for listening to the first episode of the People’s Program Project. I wish I could express how much it means to me and Aaron that you would spend your time listening to this collaboration. So thank you sincerely. Secondly, thanks SO SO SO much to those people who were kind enough to give me feedback. It was incredibly valuable and insightful and helpful. It means so much to me that you’d not only listen but spend time thinking about how this project could be better. Please continue to send your comments and suggestions my way: noneandonly@gmail.com
Okay, so on the second episode, we have three stories:
Traffic Camp tells the story of a dear friend of mine and her adventures at a traffic radio station, and the devoted following it garnered.
The Most Absurd Moment Ever tells a series of stories about some of my friends’ most absurd moments ever.
Numb but Alive is a piece I wrote as a final project for my writing degree in university, close to seven years (!) ago. It’s about my father’s experience in the war and how he became immune to the sight of death.
For the next episode, I want to hear about your most absurd moment ever, so please email me at noneandonly@gmail.com. I’ll read some of the best ones on episode three.
Finally, I apologize if I sound somewhat depressed in this episode. I’m dealing with some life changing stuff right now, which I might do a piece on in the future. But I promise more pep next time.
February 6, 2009
Episode One and a little spiel
To listen to episode one, click here.
Welcome to the temporary web home of the People’s Program Project. I’m going to be using this until my website, www.noneandonly.com, is ready to go.
For the majority of my adult life, I’ve been lucky enough to tell stories for a living. As a result, I’ve become obsessed with finding good ones. The People’s Program Project (or P3 for short) is my attempt to do that.
The plan is to start local. All the people in my life are talented, funny, articulate and great storytellers. So my storytelling vault is pretty much endless. But the plan is to eventually start hearing stories from outside my little world, to truly make this program project that of the people.
So on the first episode we have three stories (and a really long intro and extro.) They are:
A Small Band in a Large Amphitheatre
A few years ago my friend’s band was asked, seemingly out of nowhere, to spend a month opening for a ginormous band. I asked said friend, blind-item styles, about what it was like to tour with the biggest band in the world.
Never Been Caught Stealing
The story of a former retail manager who became obsessed with stealing from her own store.
Courage: Living Up to Her Name
The story of a recent reunion with my first baby.
There’s a lot of people who helped put this podcast together. They are:
Aaron Beckum – He’s the musical director of the show and all around very talented fellow. He’s also one of the founders of the Amazing Alphabet People’s Coalition. The podcast would be nothing without him.
Dave Shumka: A local comedian who hosts the consistently hilarious Stop Podcasting Yourself. Let’s call him the technical director, because he taught me everything I needed to know about podcasting. He’s a whiz.
Josh Wells and Amber Webber: Also known as Lightning Dust. They provided the sweet, beautiful theme song, Wind Me Up, with permission from their label Jagjaguwar.
Ben Frey: This mindblowingly talented artist designed the podcast’s logo. Good thing he owed me a favour. You can check out more of his stuff here.
Steve Pratt: He’s the director of CBC Radio 3 (which I used to freelance for) and a multimedia master who has been so generous with his time. If it wasn’t for his encouragement, I’d never have even thought about starting a podcast.
Thanks so much for your interest and stay tuned. Drop me a line at noneandonly@gmail.com and let me know what you think.
