Mike's Bloggity Blog

With the season premiere of Being Erica just a few days away, I’ve been emotionally preparing myself for what many are saying will be its last season.   I’ve made no secret about how much I love this slow, and I feel proud to say that I’ve slowly converted many of my friends to the addictive Canadian drama.  That’s right, I said addictive.

Erin Karpluk is the series’ star and the other day she tweeted from the set, pictures of the cast and crew as they gathered, for what could be there last time together. For Being Erica fans, the pics also reveal a sneak peek at the show’s final moments….

Being Erica returns to CBC this Monday.

What could you do with $1,000?

Turns out, with a creative mind, a classic movie and food trucks, you can create perfect fall night.

On Saturday night, I had one of my most favourite nights ever in Calgary, and it was all because of a really cool program called Awesome Calgary.   The initiative sees one lucky Calgarian every month  win $1,000 so they can do something that will make Calgary more awesome.  Well Matthew Hamel won and he decided to create @YYCmobileMovie, a wonderful event that will see classic movies displayed outdoors, for free, for everyone to enjoy.

On this particular Saturday night, it was easily one of the hottest days of the year and a crowd of 200 people gathered to sit under the stars and watch Casablanca. Watching the movie displayed on one of this city’s most historic buildings was just icing on the cake.

The project will continue next week with The Incredibles in Inglewood, and if there’s any lucky, we’ll hopefully see it again next summer.

If you think you have a way to make Calgary, make sure you submit idea to the Awesome Calgary foundation.

Until the next time, here’s looking at you….Calgary.

In this week’s Metro column, I take on the controversial issue of keeping junk food out of schools.

It was announced this week that the Calgary Board of Education will soon be taking out candy from all of their schools by 2012.

While initially taking out the sweet stuff from the halls, that are littered with teenagers every day, makes sense.  I think schools across Canada are also going to have to deal with some pretty dire consequences….

Click here to read it!

My excitement for Dan Mangan‘s upcoming third album next week is unmatched by almost anything in the entire world.   An unlimited supply of Kit Kat Chunky or a Moffatts reunion might be more exciting. My iPod has pretty much decided to stop playing Dan’s latest single, Row Houses, because it just couldn’t keep playing the song over and over.  So yeah, I need some new music.

Well if you’re like me and the idea of waiting until next Tuesday for the release of Oh Fortune, then you’re in luck.   Exclaim.ca has the entire album streaming for free and since I’ve already had a listen, I can tell you that it’s good.  Like really good.

Before you buy the album on Tuesday, have a listen to the entire thing and then let’s meet here again next week and discuss!  Mmmkay?

I just got the chance to do CBC Radio’s The Unconventional Panel and they’ve posted the clip for you to listen to.   Not that I’m surprised, but it was actually a lot of fun.  It’s kinda cool to go on CBC and talked about things that are very un-CBC.  For this particular panel I joined George Brookman and Corie Mac.

Click here to listen to the segment, I think you might get a laugh or two.

Annnnd I’m puking.

Is this really my 3500th post?  Holy shit.
You know it’s serious when I swear, I’m not usually a fan of swearing on the blog, but in person is a completely different story.

So wow.  Thank you.  Thanks for sticking around, thanks for commenting, thanks for reading and thanks for not trying to beat me up whenever you see me in public.

I actually noticed that this milestone was coming up a few days ago and I’ve been thinking about something brilliant to say, and truthfully I really don’t know what to say.  How great is that what started as a hobby five years ago has turned into a full-fledged career?  I’m totally lucky, totally thankful and still totally have a great time. I don’t consider my story as inspirational, but more as an option. Stay in school.

Seriously, thanks for sticking around.

To celebrate, I was hoping to giveaway a big prize..but I totally forgot.  So instead, I’m posting the video for my favourite song of all time, which whenever I’m tired, stressed or generally just being an asshole, I listen to and instantly feel better.

Is it that time of year again already?

Screw the Oscars, Emmys and Junos, it’s all about the bathrooms.

Cintas is currently on the search for Canada’s Best Bathroom. This is actually, their second year looking for the top stall, after awarding the prize to Vancouver’s Cactus Club last year.

So if you have a favourite bathroom, make sure you nominate them.

Seriously though, whenever my therapist says it’s okay to talk about, I really want to tell you about how much I HATE public bathrooms. Someday, I’m going to have a book, in which three chapters will be dedicated to the things I’ve done to avoid having to go number one in public. You will be disgusted and elated all at the same moment.

But back to the point, if you have a bathroom that you’ve gone great lengths to relieve yourself in, then now’s your chance to make sure that they get recognized.

I have a select list of bathrooms in a different cities that I enjoy, but I’m not going to share them with you because then other people will start using them, then I’ll have to move and start building a whole new life, I can’t afford to do that.

Nominations are open until October 24th.

Tonight, in a star studded gala, The sixth annual Polaris Prize was handed out.  The night featured performances from some of the ten bands that made the Polaris Short List including Austra, Braids, Galaxie, Hey Rosetta!, Ron Sexsmith and Timber Timbre.

When the big moment came, Arcade Fire were announced as the winners of the Polaris Prize.

I can already feel it, you don’t know what The Polaris Prize is do you?

The Polaris Music Prize is a not-for-profit organization that annually honours, celebrates and rewards creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music…and they throw one hell of a party. Past winners include Montreal’s Karkwa (2010) for Les Chemins De Verre, Toronto’s Fucked Up (2009) for The Chemistry Of CommonLife, Dundas’ Caribou (2008), for Andorra, Montreal’s Patrick Watson (2007) for Close To Paradise and Toronto’s Final Fantasy (2006) for He Poos Clouds.

I didn’t really talk about the awards as much as I had in the past few years because it always seemed like Arcade Fire was a sure thing.  I mean they won the Grammy, Brit Award and Juno for The Suburbs for god-sakes, how can they not also win the Polaris prize?  The album is plain and simply perfection, I’m glad it’s gotten the international recognition that it so rightly deserved.

But there’s a problem….

The Polaris Prize came with a cash prize of $30,000.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been a struggling artist in Canada, but I’m guessing that money could have gone a long way for the artists that will never win Grammys or even being invited to Junos…oh who am I kidding, EVERYONE is invited to the Junos.   Obviously Arcade Fire has had an amazing year and while awards like Grammys and Junos don’t come with cash prizes, I’m guessing the residuals of winning big awards like bigger tours, album sales and huge contracts is enough to help the band stay in the black, which maybe can’t be said for the other nine Polaris Short list nominees. I guess I’m sorta stuck on the thought that it would have been nice to see an artist win the $30,000 that would use every penny to put a dent into making their next album.  Given Arcade Fire’s year, that money will likely be gobbled up by agents, managers and lawyers.

So my question is this: Should Arcade Fire have won The Polaris Prize?

I think there’s enough that I could argue both sides until I turned blue, so I’d love to know what you think!

Click here for more information about The Polaris Music prize!

If you want to see the awards yourself, they’ll air on Much on September 24th at 1pm and Midnight.

Unless you were inundated by press releases like I was, you probably didn’t know CBC’s Cover Me Canada premiered tonight.  But that’s not your fault, it had heavy competition going up against the Emmys, leaving most of eastern Canada to choose between the popular award show and the unheard of reality singing competition.

Luckily, those of us in the western part of Canada got to take advantage of time shifting and were able to watch both the Emmys and Cover Me Canada.

But in case you didn’t get to watch, here are my immediate thoughts.

Three things I liked:

-The talent:  The bands up for the top prize of $100,000 can actually sing.  If this show is going to stand out among all the other singing shows, then focusing on the this country’s amazing talent is the best way to do it.  With just a brief segment with each of the show’s bands, producers have chosen a great variety of exciting contestants, that seem to be break today’s pop idol mold. Which means yes, they skipped the audition process and I’m really, really thankful.

-The set:  Picture what you thought the set of a CBC rock concert show would look like and then immediately forget it.  Weak lighting, a lame set and the show’s overall production would have been easy reasons to change the channel, but Cover Me Canada is proof that the network has been getting our tax dollars.

-The winner: I like how Cover Me Canada will let the judges pick which band will be eliminated each week.  Thanks to every single winner of Canadian Idol, Canadians have been proven that we can’t be trusted when given the power of the vote.

Three things I didn’t like:

-Nicole Appleton’s accent: If you can identify it, you win.

-The judges:  It’s not that I don’t like the judges completely, I think they are just finding their “characters.”  Jordan, I’m over it.  We don’t need you to just be nice.  Deborah Cox said that she liked the first band because she “could hear every word they sang.” Ron Fair is awesome, except that he also told the first band that they were the ones to beat. If that’s not producer manipulation, I don’t know what is.

-Song length: I’m not sure how long the bands were allowed to sing, but it felt like they were only singing for ten seconds, enough to sing the chorus and maybe a few other lines.  I know the show has a lot of bands to get through, but the judges’ elaborate critiques seemed pretty in-depth for the likely sixty second performance. This problem will hopefully be fixed as more and more bands get eliminated.

Final thought:  I’ll be honest, I went into watching Cover Me Canada wanting to hate it and afterwards, it really surprised me. It wasn’t that bad.  The producers, judges and contestants seem to know what they are doing and it’s remarkably watchable.  Like I said, I really wanted to hate it. If done with Simon and Paula, then Cover Me Canada is singing your tune.

With so much always going on with the internet, it can sometimes be hard to keep up. If you feel the same way, here are some of my favourite blog posts from the week.

• At 17, I was working at McDonalds. Connor Jessup is making movies. (Out Is Through)
• There’s so much to do in Vancouver, but what if you only had 24 hours? (Toque and Canoe.)
• The sneak peek of the new season of Fringe. (The TV Addict.)
• Now that TIFF is over, it’s time to get ready for CIFF. (I’m Mr. Fabulous.)
• Worth your day of the week?  A Review of Michael Tuesday & Thursday. (TV Feeds My Family.)
• Why the Polaris Prize is not a popularity contest…or is it? (The Ampersand)
• Who wants the shoes from Back to the Future?  Me! Me! Me! (The Review Crew)
• The Hits and Misses of the TIFF Red Carpet. (The Globe and Mail.)
• The lighter side of online dating. (Plenty of Bitch)