Oh Canada

As I've mentioned once or twice in the virtual pages of this blog, I am a nightly listener to "Coast to Coast AM." In fact, it is really difficult for me to fall asleep if it isn't on.

Fortunately, AM 1100 plays the show from 11 PM to 5 AM, except when local sports are on. And, for whatever absolutely moronic reason, on Sunday nights, when they choose to play the absolutely wacked out, racist/sexist/homophobic trologdyte Bill Cunningham. Cunningham is also the revolting douchebag headlining the effort to publicly refer to Senator Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama," and beyond the lunatic right-wing fringe is best known for prompting a McCain apology to Obama because of some of the words Cunningham used during an introduction in North Carolina. (See here for a decent version of the story.)

The sound of that guys voice, not to mention the poisonous venom he spouts, is enough for me to start surfing the airwaves. A few weeks ago, I tuned into 800 AM, which I guess is some Canadian station, and also showcases George Noory and Co on Sunday nights. Ever since, I've had my radio tuned to it, which not only allows me to avoid the neo-fascist Cunningham's deplorable rhetoric, but also has me waking to news broadcasts in some Canadian town I haven't identified yet (mostly because I don't really care all that much).

For example, today the news led off with some excited coverage of the previous weekend's strawberry festival, which apparently attracted 20,000 people. Ironically, there was a strawberry festival in Cleveland Heights over the weekend, and for a minute I was in disbelief that 20,000 folks showed up at what had appeared to be a rather intimate affair. Then I heard one of the reporters use the word "about" and I remembered I was listening to the Canadian station.

After extensive discussion of the strawberry festival -- the length of which only unsurprising because a week before the station had an entire call-in show dedicated to debate over the drop-off point for the public transportation at some other festival -- the newscasters got to the really troubling topic: the demise of the Hockey Night in Canada theme song.

Apparently, because of some licensing agreement issue or some other reason I don't quite get, the folks at Canadian Broadcasting have elected to abandon the song, which was written by an charming Vancouver native named Dolores Claman in 1968.

Canadians, and the 437 hockey fans that are not Canadian, are in a rage. I spent 25 minutes in bed this morning, hitting the snooze option on my cell phone alarm clock, listening to caller after caller top the previous one in their efforts to talk about the epic proportions of how disastrous for Canadian heritage this decision is.

After a while, I found myself chuckling along, a little bit making fun of the callers but a little jealous, too. Our call-in shows feature hysterical (and not in the ha-ha way) screamers, upset about issue from global wars to mortgage foreclosures to rising prices at the pump to whether/the degree to which Obama must atone for defeating HRC and so on and so on and so on.

I wish I lived in a place where changing a theme song was the biggest civic deal to erupt in a week. Of course, we don't see Canada manufacturing intelligence, selling itself to China, invading the middle east, nourishing a corrupt and extensive military-industrial complex, deregulating the shit out of anything that might actually merit regulation, allowing the banking industry carte blanche, and so on and so on and so on.

I usually think those folks that say "If (fill in the blank here) wins the election, I'm moving to Canada" are stupid. Some times, though, after listening to broadcasts about strawberry festivals and theme song controversies, I think they have the right idea.