October 18, 2010
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Polls

Does the Campaign have to be this long…?

We’ve been innundated with polls over the past week or so about the municipal election here in Toronto, which takes place a week from now. One radio station commissioned a poll and actually stretched the results out over a week, focusing one day on which of the candidates you’d prefer to have a beer with.

Enough already. There is so much voter apathy in this city that it’s difficult to put much stock in the polls. After all, we can expect that well less than 50% of eligible voters will bother. That includes some who have opinions as well as those who aren’t even aware there is an election on.

What’s with the length of our municipal campaigns? It seems to me that we manage to have federal election campaigns in really compressed periods of time, something like a month and a half. We’ve been listening to candidates for mayor for months and months and months now. I’m about done with it. How many debates have they had? It seems like there have been dozens. There have been so many debates that there have been times with multiple debates scheduled for the same night, causing some candidates to pack up and leave one debate to move on to a better one.

So now we’re down to three candidates and if the polls are indicating anywhere near accurately, it’s close between Mr. Smitherman and Mr. Ford, with Mr. Pantalone well behind. The election may well be decided by the ability of the candidates to actually get their supporters out to the polls.

I’ve mentioned on this blog that I’m not thrilled with any of the candidates running for mayor, and I feel the same way about the candidates running in my ward for councillor. The one good thing is that there are some councillors retiring this year, and a couple running for mayor, so we’re going to see at least some change in the council make-up by default. If we’re fortunate, a few incumbents will fall and overall we’ll have a council with a significant amount of new blood.

On the whole, I think the last council was weak. They didn’t manage very effectively, and their activities as a group were puncuated by unprofessional, immature, petulant and sometimes bizarre behaviour. My advice to voters is to consider not voting for the incumbant. Let’s get some new blood in there, some new ideas, hopes and dreams.

Update

We  attended an all candidates meeting in our ward tonight. As you know from this blog (and this post, above), I’ve expressed some frustration at not finding a candidate I can fully back, but to be honest I may have been unfair in my blanket criticism. I’m going to say that after watching the candidates in my ward in action, I think we do have some quality candidates running. They’re intelligent, articulate, and passionate and all of them have some strengths.

I still can’t say that one particular candidate has everything I’m looking for and I’m going to have to decide which of the candidates on the whole will provide the best representation for our ward. I’m getting there. I did hear a few things I didn’t like at the meeting tonight, including a thing or two I really didn’t like and I’m going to have to weigh those comments carefully.

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October 17, 2010
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Train Song of the Day

Orange Blossom Special

I couldn’t post a series of train songs without getting around to the Orange Blossom Special. There are about 500 Squillion versions of this song, and almost all of them are pretty good. It’s hard to go wrong with this one.

Let’s start with Buck Owens and his Buckeroos, featuring Don Rich. You know a lot of bands these days go up to the stage wearing jeans and old t-shirts as if it really doesn’t matter. The Buckeroos on the other hand, they understood the value of excellent outfits. For this video, you’ll have to click and then click again to watch it directly from YouTube. The YouTube mandarins have rejected my attempt to embed this baby. I bet YouTube mandarins don’t wear awesome outfits like Buck, Rich and the boys.

Here’s Vassar Clements with the Del McCoury Band with loads of fiddling friends. The fiddle player’s national anthem.

And now, Johnny Cash at San Quentin

And finally, here’s the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain… I love these guys.

I know some folks are mighty particular about the way this tune is played. Feel free to post your favourite version in the comments.

October 17, 2010
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Gordon Rayner RIP

I only heard until this morning that Toronto painter Gordon Rayner died September 26. He was 75.

When I was a high school kid in Etobicoke, I started visiting art galleries in Toronto and the work of Gord Rayner at that time, along with several other painters, really got me excited about painting, so much so that it became an important part of my creative life.

RIP

 

Filed under: RIP
October 17, 2010
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Shadow World

Sunday morning. Let’s travel the spaceways, with Sun Ra and his Arkestra. I had the good fortune to see these guys perform in New York City back in the 80s. Maybe it was 84. I’m not sure. At that moment of time they were Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Omniverse Arkestra. I didn’t know much about them except that Mr. Ra was from Saturn, and since he was the only musician from Saturn playing in NY during my visit, going to the show seemed like the right thing to do. It was at a club in Greenwich Village. I can’t recall now which one it was. They played a tribute to Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, and the show was excellent.

Here’s the group filmed in Berlin…

Here’s the Arkestra again….excuse me, this time it’s Sun Ra and his Intergalaxtic Arkestra…from their fine salute to Walt Disney, Second Star to the Right.

October 16, 2010
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An Afternoon Walk

Both our dogs caught kennel cough at the local dog park. They’ve been on anti-biotics and we haven’t been letting them run around much. Today, they were both obviously feeling better. I didn’t know if they were still contagious or not so instead of taking them to the dog park, we drove north to a nice forest I know from mushroom hunting. It was a beautiful afternoon as you’ll see from the photos. Dogs and people had a great time.





October 16, 2010
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Train Songs of the Day

Today, I’m going to feature Hank Snow. Hank Snow was born in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Nova Scotia that is. His music career goes way back to 1933 when he billed himself as Hank Snow the Yodeling Ranger. He ended up recording over 100 albums.

Here’s Blow Your Whistle Freight Train…

Canadian Pacific (lots of Canadian content here….)

Train Whistle Blues. Mr. Snow has an excellent outfit in this video (in case you’re wondering what to get Mister Anchovy for Christmas). Was his hair painted on or what?

And one more. This is the first song I learned all the words to back when I was a little anchovy.

Ok ok…one more, if you insist. The Last Ride. I love the spoken word part of this one.

 

October 16, 2010
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My Castle’s Rockin’

As some of you know, my friend Fitzgerald is kind enough to allow me to post from time to time over at his fine blues blog, SqueezeMyLemon. This morning I featured Alberta Hunter, live. These performances were recorded when Ms. Hunter was in her 80s. She returned to music after a career in nursing. The hospital she worked for retired her, and she wasn’t much for sitting around being retired. She became quite popular after John Hammond from Columbia Records started recording her.

I’ve been familiar with Alberta Hunter’s later music for many years, but I don’t think I’ve heard any of her pre-retirement work. Perhaps Barberella has some? Meanwhile, pop over to SqueezeMyLemon and check out Ms. Hunter’s mature work.