Mike's Bloggity Blog

Now that MTV Canada has found a huge hit with 1 Girl, 5 Gays, the show is doing a special series of episodes that will feature Canadian lesbians.   (I realize that only one of the above females are Canadian, but I really couldn’t think of any out Canadian lesbians.  Feel free to send me some names.)

So if you or someone you know would be perfect for this, all you have to do is make a short 1 minute video introducing yourself and e-mail it to 1g5g@mtv.ca! Make sure you are 18+ and available to shoot in Toronto, Canada.

It doesn’t sound like they are willing to fly anyone in,  so it will be a very Toronto heavy panel, (which I think continues to be a problem for the 1 Girl, 5 Gays mother ship,) but if you can get yourself to Toronto and you’re vocal, then this might be the opportunity for you.

For the past ten days or so, Calgary has been one big giant party.  Yes, the Calgary Stampede is as big as you’ve heard.  People from all over the world descend upon us for rodeos, cowboys, concerts and mini-donoughts.  So far this year, we’ve had the Royals, fantastic weather, huge concerts like Katy Perry, Sugarland, and NKOTBSB, but something felt off, I guess I felt like something was missing.

All of that changed this past weekend when I realized what that something was: MTV Canada’s Paul The Intern and Sheena Snively.  As soon as I heard they were in town, for me, Stampede had officially started!

The two of the four co-hosty types from MTV Live were obviously here to take in what everyone all over the world has always been talking about: The Calgary Stampede. Throughout their three days in the city, they’d been filming segments that will air on MTV Live this upcoming week, I tracked them down in Rope Square to talk about their first  Stampede and Sheena immediately gushed, “I’m really excited for the food segment, they have donought burgers!”

But let’s be honest, Sheena’s expectations of Calgary were already set pretty low, “I want to see Stephen Harper!” she says, (With the same amount of excitement as she does when she talks about her upcoming adventure in eating Prairie Oysters.) Also on the menu was deep fried macaroni and deep fried poptarts.  Paul was excited to see the rodeo and chat with the real cowboys.  Which, luckily, aren’t too hard to find this time of year.

But what would be the point of coming to Calgary, without experiencing this city’s most popular bar Cowboys.  Famous for supposedly buying breast augmentations for their staff, I wondered who at MTV Canada would be the first to sign up to work at the bar…for the perks. Paul quickly suggested, MTV Live host Nicole, but Sheena thought otherwise “Nicole would definitely sign up for that, but Juliana is the one that needs it! She’s like a little boy under there!”

The stories of Paul and Sheena are the stories that interns talk about in journalism schools across the country.  Like Rick The Temp before them, Paul and Sheena were both initially interns at MTV.  “We were actually the first group of interns and did all the shit jobs, like getting Daryn coffee,” Paul remembered. One thing lead to another, which lead to a janitor named Nathan who couldn’t speak English, and now they are regularly featured on the network’s best show. And while the duo weren’t initially hired to be on-air, the gaggle of giggling girls that sat behind us during our chat, probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

With that, Paul and Sheena took off into the Calgary sunset, look for their Calgary segments to air all week on MTV Live.

Everyone’s favourite show about one girl and five gays is nominated for an award and I think we all should take a few moments to vote for them!  (Okay, I’m not sure if there is another show about one girl and five gays on tv, but I wanted to have a strong introduction!)

MTV Canada’s 1G5G debuted in the states last year on LOGO and since then it has exploded in its popularity!  The show has deservedly been nominated for 2011 NEWNOWNEXT Award!  The annual awards show celebrates who and what are about to hit it big and it’s been nominated in the TV You Betta Watch category, even more impressive is the calabre of show the small Canadian production is up against including: Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries and Skins.  (I’m not bolding those shows to decrease your desire to vote for them.)

The voting is entirely done by the fans and the deadline to vote is Friday, March 4th, which is quickly approaching.  The best part about the voting is that it is super simple – no registering or logging in required.

I think it would be so cool for such a small Canadian show to be given an award with international recognition!

Click here to vote!

Click here to vote!

Click here to vote!

While Valentine’s Day is typically about Valentine’s Day, it really should be about love, whether it’s your friends or family!

Ish from MTV’s 1 Girl 5 Gays wanted to share a special Valentine’s Day message for everyone that loves love!  Take it away Ish!

For a long time I was grotesquely non supportive of Valentines Day. To say the least, I would be a bitter mess of a person.  I mean 1 ex-boyfriend, about 3 years of dating various variations of Mr. Wrong and never actually having a date on V-Day really makes you hop over to the “Single Awareness Day” side of the fence.

However, this year I am making a change. It hit me recently that this day isn’t about whether or not you have a boy or girlfriend. Valentines isn’t about how many dozens of roses you get or if you get a box of chocolate. It also isn’t about you getting a cute Hallmark card that sings “From This Moment” when you open it. Those things don’t validate your relationship.

What this day is about is love. Love isn’t an emotion sectored off as a couple’s only feeling. I have lots of love in my life and this year I’m not going to have a Valentine, but I am going to be one. I am sick of being bitter and feeling lonely and pathetic while everyone else is blissfully going about their day! I say this day isn’t about who you screw, it is about who you love.

I love my mother and I will let her know it. I am going to make all my friends smile and spam my older brother’s Facebook wall with character constructed hearts. So this is for you my fellow perpetual singles. To the ones who always watch their bestie get picked up, who is always the tag along on a double date and who are always there with a wet shoulder when someone’s heart breaks. Here’s to not splurging mass amounts of dollars that we don’t have and here is to not having to eat at fine restaurants when really you just want to stay home and have pizza. Here is to not having to pick up flower peddles off the floor and not having to deal with the fire hazard of  candles. Here is to singledom and to most of all here is too love.

The single kind.

Do they make city wide condoms?

Mansion has just announced that the one and only Snooki will hosting a party on February 18th! Yikes, I’ve actually never watched The Jersey Shore but yes, I’ve seen clips. And she looks like four feet of terror. Well, I guess she might be a little taller if you count her heels and hair.

I kid, I kid. By all accounts Snooki actually seems like a really nice and fun person. Does that mean I’ll pay the $23.70 it costs to go to the party at Mansion? I don’t have kids or pets yet, so I’m not going to do anything that might risk either of those from actually happening.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow.

Wow!  This is  sad day for me.  One of my favourite Canadian TV personalities has announced that he is leaving MTV Canada.

Dan Levy just took to his Facebook page to make this announcement:

“Well friends, after five incredible years, I’ve decided to take my next steps and bid farewell to my amazing MTV family. My time at MTV has changed my life in ways I never imagined. That is due, in large part, to all of your support. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. It’s not goodbye, it’s just a new hello. See you sooner than you may think! In the meantime, we’ll always have fb and twitter to keep us warm!”

I’ll see if I can find out where he’s headed to next but truth be told, I’m sorta worried that he is leaving because of this.

Much to my excitement, MTV Canada has been airing Dan Levy’s Holi-Do’s and Don’ts over and over. If you haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, there are a ton of great segments in the half-hour long show but more importantly the special emphasizes something I’ve always thought: Dan Levy and I need to be friends.  And I’m not saying the same way I used to think that me and the cast of The Hilarious House of Dr. Frightenstein could be best buds, I can legitimately see Dan Levy and I hanging out, laughing at people and offering to buy each other drinks but really hoping the other doesn’t accept.

Does our blossoming friendship face road blocks?  Absolutely.  We’re in different cities and while we all know long-distance relationships are difficult, long distance friendships are even harder.   You don’t have that intimacy that you have when you are in a relationship, so instead you have to rely on sharing Glee/Dawson Creek mashup videos on YouTube and playing online scrabble. But when you do get to hang out and reenact your favourite scenes from The Good Son, it just seems worth it, doesn’t it?

Not that I don’t think we can do it.  A Dan Levy/Mike Morrison friendship would be good for everyone involved.  I can help him when he feels like he is having a bad hair day and he can teach me to wear clothes that don’t feature the words: Old and Navy.

But I don’t want to put too much pressure on our friendship, it’s something that has to happen organically.  I get that.  Until then, make sure you check out his special, it will be airing all throughout the holiday break.

If you’ve got a few seconds to spare, you should definitely check out the trailer for Jessi Cruickshank’s Real Hollywood Survival Guide. It looks like since moving to LA, MTV’s most famous ex-VJ has been having quite an…interesting time. The special actually looks pretty funny, classic Jessi for sure. The special airs December 27-29th, 2010.

But more importantly: Didn’t Jessi leave MTV? I mean that’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? I’d like to think I know quite a bit about the TV industry and I have no idea what’s going on with her. First she leaves MTV, then months later she gets a good-bye special about moving to LA, then she starts corresponding for CTV’s Etalk. All that seems sorta-kinda normal but then why is she showing up on MTV again? I mean, yes I get that they are are CTV properties but why say that she’s leaving but really she is just moving?  Sure it’s great to have Jessi back on Canadian airwaves and her not having to fight for airtime with Ben Mulroney is even better, but you know CTV?  You got me, I have no idea what you guys are doing with her.

I certainly hope you do!

Okay no, Jessi Cruickshank isn’t dead but I can’t help but notice that the bosses at CTV are certainly acting like she is. How else do you explain tonight’s Jessi Cruickshank: MTV LIFE, a one-hour retrospective about the super popular host of The After Show.

Ignoring the fact that Jessi actually left MTV this past Summer, what’s really interesting about the special is that I can’t think of the last time someone leaving a job was so celebrated,  especially in the Canadian media world!  Did Kevin Newman get an hour long goodbye party complete with media screeners and press releases when he left Global? At most, someone might take out Lloyd Robertson for a farewell dinner but a whole TV special?

Something seems fishy about this whole thing. By now we all know that no one is better at promoting their talent than the CTV media machine (Ben Mulroney —> Canadian Idol, Leah Miller —> SYTYCDC), so even though Jessi has left her MTV address in Toronto for an “opportunity in the States”, don’t be surprised if she stays in the GlobeMedia family.

The show itself is ridicioulosuy entertaining and it highlights the insanity and bluntness of the all my future co-workers…I mean the MTV Hosts. It’s impossible not to chuckle, cringe or do both while re-living Cruickshank’s best and worst moments. If anything tonight’s special reminds how much it sucks that we lost her to the good ol’ USA.

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So this is weird timing… Only hours after I wrote about my fears of losing MTV Canada’s Aliya Jasmine to an American network, Calgary-native Jessi Cruickshank has just announced that she is in fact leaving MTV Canada for a job in the USA.

Was it something I said?

Cruickshank took to her twitter account to make the big anncouncement:

“The rumours are true. After 4 years, 102+ After Shows and many a questionable outfit, I am moving to LA for a job opportunity there…I promise not to get 10 plastic surgeries and that I will be on your TVs again in Canada very soon! Keep following for updates and above all.”

No announcement on what the job will be, but other Canadian VJs have made the move down south with relative success.  Most notably, MuchMusic’s Rachel Perry who is essentially the voice of VHI.

Hopefully Jessi’s this will be mean that MTV will be hiring some fresh talent too!  With the exception of Paul The Intern, the network hasn’t hired a single new personality since its inception

(Story via Out Is Through)