Welcome to the GR FunDriving Show! We’ll be leaving the usual format today to enjoin the ballyhoo, barking as on the midways of old, all to excite and delight your ears and mind. A census of our listener’s sensibilities, and ultimately a question we seek you to answer; to wit: Do we make you happy? If the answer is “Yes,” or better yet, “Hell, yeah!” then we’re providing today the opportunity for you to prove your love in the only way our focus group could figure…with MONEY! I’ll touch base with a couple old Gorilla pals to get their take on independent journalism and the state of it, play some show clips of the year past, and feature some favoured musical clips. I’ll be ably joined in this conspiracy of finance by CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft and local horticultural guru, Christina Nikolic. But first, here’s a musical act I’ve played quite a bit as of late…Canada’s own, Hawksley Workman.
1:02:00 5:00 Music Hawksley Workman – Old Cheetah – Teenage Cats
1:04:00 6:00 Blatherskite
Yes, it’s the 2017 CFUV FundingDrive. I’m joined in studio by Winds of Change host, Janine Bandcroft, and long-time CFUV and Gorilla Radio supporter, the chef in the kitchen that is the Organic Gardener’s Pantry, Christina Nikolic. Hey Janine we’ve been at this for a while now. You started contributing events listings to this show a way back in 2002; that’s more than 700 episodes or so ago. And, you began your own show around the same time… How many Wings of Change episodes have you produced since?
Christina Nikolic, I really appreciate your support over the last nine years. Especially as this is the super busy time of year for your business, the Gardener’s Pantry. What’s with the weather, and how can gardeners get ready, while we wait for Spring’s eventual sproing?
Two and half months into 2017 it sort of seems this year has dragged on forever, like a Canadian opera, or least favoured season that just wouldn’t die. I blame Donald Trump. The inevitable human response to the endless deluge of crapulence coming from the south via the media mainline there is to batten tightly the hatch and drown the television in the bathtub. The problem with that is, local actors, the Trumpish filth column so to speak, are on the move too. Here in British Columbia, the news-weary risk missing the dirty doings of our own Madame Clark, as her troupe of mini-Trumps hatch plots to enslave BC’s generations to come. With the election a mere 7 weeks away, a low voter turnout can only cement the province into a dystrumpian future of Mordor-like industrial devastation, where the orcs of profit-at-all-cost wreck havoc, impaling upon their tridents any impulse to human decency, while polluting our souls and despoiling every living creatures they encounter. Don’t get me wrong; I know they can’t help it. Like the scorpion said to the stung and dying toad, “It’s just in my nature.”
And, the federal political scene in this Canada is not a lot better. Those hoping Trudeau’s Frodoian triumph over the Gollum-like Stephen Harper would usher a new dawn in Middle Earth have now discovered, what’s precious to Justin is not a lot different from either the Harpy defeated, or the provincial Liberal namesakes. Namely, the Ring of Power.
The prime minister paid a visit to Victoria a couple weeks ago, and I went down to get a listen. Here’s an edited down version of The Return of the Man Who Would Be the Ring’s King.
1:10:00 4:44 Ape Goes to Peoples’ Impromptu Meeting for Justin Trudeau Visit (stick)
1:15:00 6:00 Discussion w/ Dave Lindorff
Welcome back to GR’s FunDriving extravaganza. Beyond being about raising money for CFUV, the theme of my show this year is how independent media producers manage to make and break stories against all odds. “Dave Lindorff is an old-school journalist who cut his teeth working the dailies Connecticut, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. Way back in 2004, Dave went digital in a big way, founding the news website, ThisCantBeHappening.net. As this site says, the site was begun “[As] a blog by Dave Lindorff in a quixotic one-man effort to afflict the powerful. As the site gained recognition and readers, Dave realized that it would take more than one journalist to cause any significant degree of affliction. He approached three long-time friends, political comrades and colleagues — John Grant, Linn Washington and Charles M. Young — and asked if they would be interested in joining him to found a news collective, thus multiplying the site’s afflictive power by 400%. All three, sharing Dave’s profound frustration with the shallowness and the fawning complicity of the establishment corporate media (and with the establishment not-for-profit media, too), signed on with alacrity and a shared desire to raise hell.” Since then, after the loss of Chuck to brain cancer, the collective has grown with the addition of Dave’s brother Gary as resident poet, and two new journalists, radical MD Jess Guh of Seattle, and long-time Latino activist and journalist Alfredo Lopez.”
Dave has shared his wisdom and insight on this show many times over these last crazy years. Welcome back to the show, Dave.
“Firstly Dave, what value an independent media?”
1:23:00 4:00 Music Neutral Milk Hotel – On Avery Island – Gardenhead Leave Me Alone
1:27:00 1:00 Cart(s)
1:28:00 8:00 Left Coast News and Events Update with Janine and Christina
1:36:00 4:00 Music TRex – Electric Warrior – Mambo Sun
1:40:00 6:00 Discussion w/ Patrick Henningsen
Welcome back to GR, etc. Patrick Henningsen is a freelance journalist, co-founder of the online news site, 21st Century wire and host of its consciousness-expanding radio program Sunday Wire. Patrick and crew have, since 2009 worked to produce independent news, with an emphasis on international coverage that acts as counterpoint to the positions staked out by the corporate and state presses of the formerly Free World. He’s reported from the middle east, and is even now trying to get back there, as the six-plus year old campaign to undo Syria and the greater region enters a new phase.
“Welcome back to the program, Patrick. Over the weekend, your Sunday Wire radio program hosted a special March Madness broadcast recognizing Fake News’ Final Four. “Fake News” may be on every corporate news reporters lips now, but you’ve been all over the fakers for a long time. What do you think the expropriation of the ‘Fake News’ sobriquet means?”
1:46:00 4:00 Music Transworld Underground – ? – ?
1:50:00 5:00 Peter Verin Send-off (stick)
1:55:00 2:00 Blatherskite
1:57:00 3:00 Music Hawksley Workman – Old Cheetah – We’re Not Beaten Yet
2:00:00 –:– -0-