ok, enough family stuff. you want to hear about my escapades in radio....

One thing that never fails to make me smile is the jazzfm listener and his or her enthusiasm for having found this jazz oasis.  i have received email from not only around the corner in parkdale, but around the world in the most unexpected places. 

i hope joe doesn't mind, but i would like to share one email with you...

'Morning, Dani,

Just emailing to say hello from Tramore in Ireland - I enjoy Jazz fm Toronto on an almost daily basis. It's 1303h here and 9 degrees C. Just back from the fish-market with a gargantuan turbot...to look forward to, later on!

Good wishes for 2010.

Joe

a second email followed....

Good afternoon, Dani,

Imagine my surprise...there I was in the kitchen, preparing a desultory Sunday lunch...when I hear you reading my email.  We gathered around to listen to you speak of Tramore, and thank you for the mention...and the music.

Serendipity brought me to Jazz fm Toronto.  When I lived in London (UK, not Ont.), I used to listen to Jazz fm there.  And with radio here so laden with depressing recession stuff, I googled Jazz fm one day and - as well as the London one - I saw the Toronto option.

"Hey", I say to myself. "I'll give that a whirl", and since then I am an almost daily listener. [I'm a sucker anyway for those mellifluous Canadian accents]

You can see more about Tramore on the town website www.tramoretown.ie<http://www.tramoretown.ie/> should you wish it.

Do keep in touch, and may good health attend your 2010 also.

Joe

PS  The turbot was delicious



To me, this is magic.  Of course I checked out Joe's beautiful world immediately on-line and then tried to imagine him, with his seaside life, what was i'm certain,  a very delicious fish and jazz floating thru his day.

If i ever get to Ireland, I'm definetly dropping by...

How Come...

my daughter has a cooler collection of t-shirts than I do...

still....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxkzTn3SblI

what about you...

gabriel over collins
richards over jagger
lennon over mcartney
rotten over vicious
branford over wynton
noel over liam....

a quiet love letter to my stefano.

its been very quiet lately.  on the street, in the air, in my mind and on the blog.   and thats good.

however tomorrow is my husbands 50th birthday.  this, obvioulsy, cannot go unnoticed.

not that i'm planning some crazy party with tons of friends (he'd die of embarrassment, this is one
private man), noisemakers, great cheese, the best dark rich wines available and some nine inch nails in the air.  no, this is the kind of soul that would prefer a quiet nite with my daughter and I, roasting marshmallows at our shack by the beach.

next month, we will have been together for 23 years.  he pretty much moved in the day after i met him.
One couldn't have thrown two more completely different souls together.  everyday, i find myself wondering how did this happen.  we were raised vastly different.  our perspectives on life often conflict.  But, somehow... some magical way, it works.  to be truthful, after 23 years now, we're very much alike.

he has the patience of a saint.  his arms are loving and comfortable.  he makes me laugh all the time.
i can still tell him anything.  his concept of family is deep and respectful.  he's my man.

and i love him.  inside.  he's in my blood, he's in my heart, he is part of my soul.

happy 50th birthday stefano, may the next 50 be even more wonderfilled than the last.

d.

question...

since i started this at the end of november, you have visited.  sometimes once, sometimes once a day.
tell me, who are you?  why do you come here?  what is it that you'd like me to tell you?

forever, curious.

KALANCHOE...

the succulent of all succulents....

gone...

Its an odd feeling when someone you know and love is just gone. Its final.

You'll never see the character lines in their face or hear the pitch of their voice again.

Those final words that reached your ears, etch themselves into your mind like a knife cutting through your soul. Forever changed, forever damaged. Real curiosities like, what could I have done differently or what was their true meaning. Was each word chosen because time was limited, or did they just flow out of her lips on a wave of air effortlessly. Such few breaths left, the time in which they were spoken, still and quiet.

I miss my mom. Her house seems empty. The hospital where she died, a brick cage for ghosts that never seems to release. My heart alittle darker in colour and tone, sad. Her pictures hanging on the wall, now lifeless and just moments in a life that has ended.

It has only been a few day, a few hours, a few minutes, but everything is strange and different. The world is a little less yellow and green.

I look for her behind me, I ask for her sign, I want to be haunted, but she's gone. This world is now just an echo in her ears.

Evelyn Elwell (Major)

My mom was from a small town. Or what was certainly a small town in 1934…. Oshawa… my moms memories of Oshawa were wonderful. Lots of kids to play with, skating, being outside all of the time, two wonderful loving parents…. It was bliss and remained some of the greatest memories of her life. Even up until the end.

Later in life, she worked on building her bookkeeping business, proudly helped to put her two children thru post secondary education, did some traveling with her hubby, took on the role of grandmother, took good care of her own mother kitty and lived a life.

14 years ago, my mom had a stroke. And even tho she often tried to rise above it with what at the time seemed like little damage, it sometimes got the best of her.

In the last few years of her life, it made life alittle more uncomfortable.

And even tho it has been difficult, for her and those of us that she has left behind, here are the things that I will remember most about my mom….

That small town girl. She was sunshine. When she worked our family store cindiloowho, she talked to everyone. Loved it. Jokingly threatening to keep all the babies to herself…. Coming up with incredible stories about where pieces came from…. She was the kind of person that would welcome a complete stranger in… she was giving and always warm. To this day, people ask me about her… remember her. Comment about her kindness.

Her love of animals and nature. Creating complete raccoon and squirrel epidemics wherever we lived. Neighbours were mad, the animals were happy. We didn’t mind. Nuts were left on window sills, babies had shelter in our backyard. She had every dog in the neighbourhood surrounding our first store, scratching at the door at nite when we closed, expecting that kind lady with the dog bisquit.

She was proud. Proud of her grandchildren definetly, but highly proud of my sister and I. Education was a must and she did everything she could to ensure that we worked hard and accomplished something of ourselves. I watched her beam as she explained her daughter the lawyer/academic or the radio gal that loved music.

Really never had a bad thing to say about anyone. Lord knows she had lots of reasons to blast my father Vince for leaving us in such a mess in California, but she left it up to me to decide. Even when I asked for the horrific details, she allowed me the oppourtunity to meet him first when I was 21 and find out for myself with a clean slate. Then talked about her real feelings when I got home. My mom was the kind of soul that believed if you didn’t have something nice to say about someone, don’t say it at all.

Again…. She was sunshine. Its no wonder her favorite colour was always yellow. She passed away in the morning on the only sunny day we’ve had in the last little while. I’m certain she chose it.

My mom was a free spirit. And now she’s truly free.

top five Corus radio programs...

1.   Kim Mitchell, afteroons on Q107.  the stories, the guitar breaks, the lack of pretense. 

2.  Alan Cross, "the ongoing history of new music" on The Edge.  what can i say, i can listen to Alan pretty much talk about anything.

3.  John Oakley, mornings on AM640.  "I will follow...."

4.  Jeff Woods, "the legends of classic rock".  that voice.  that life experience.  he does the work.

5.  Mike Stafford, "640".  respect Mike.  respect.

(following close behind....  Fearless Fred afternoons on The Edge.  this guy has the uncanny ability to drop me into a conversation without feeling outside of it.  he has a bit of the everyman that i like...)

secret....

I have an insane fascination for mls.ca!!!

jazz fm...

cathy wanted some behind the scenes stories about the station.  unfortunately, other than the occasional meeting or party, i'm there at such an obscure hour, that i rarely hear the stories to tell.  what i can write is that i enjoy the people that work there.  kind, passionate, professional, and great lovers of music.  its refreshing.

a couple of the joys that i experience on a regular basis....

its been awhile since i've done a radio show.  the universe has changed dramatically.  now, the reach is massive.   the introduction of the net as a vehicle for sharing the frequency has changed the relationship drastically.  I now have a continuing dialogue with folks in austrailia, a facebook exchange with another fellow in argentina, an obscure note from an ex-torontonian living in china.  its amazing.  not only are we having a conversation about jazz with the great fan in scarboro or in parkdale, but we're developing followings in all corners of the world.  the community is vast and yet it still strangely feels like home.  and the amount of respect between the listener and the broadcaster is something i'm proud to play a small part in. 

the music.  of course its the music.  i can't remember anything that i've talked about that isn't based on the music.  o.k., maybe the occaissional coy comment about my daughter or family, but no ridiculous stories about the price of gas or an obscure reference to some element of pop culture that is already exhausted on every media outlet in the world.  the music and the stories behind the musicians are  enough.

brad barker.  ok, the man does everything.  part of the management, the music and on-air spaces.  the amount of hats that this man wears so successfully is indeed rare.  on top of that, if he makes me stop breathing again during our fund raising moments from that unbelievable sense of humour of his, i'm going to have to bring in some oxygen.

the live to air performance area.  this space just breathes...

thats enough for now...    others, still to come.

todays creation...

wooden painted carousel horse head....

i was given this beautiful horse head by one of the most intriguing characters i have ever met.  he had just returned to canada after 10 years away, only to be hunted down by revenue canada for not taking care of his finances.  instead of dealing with the issues at hand, he decided to let go of everything he had accumulated over the years in a storage container and head into the forest.  he had, after days and days of sleepless nites, decided to check out of this world.  disappear for awhile.  when he handed it to me i could hardly hold back the tears as i thanked him endlessly.  later that day, hidden inside, was a chunk of wood, wrapped in plastic.  glued onto that piece of wood was a lottery ticket from the Louisiana State Lottery Co. issued in 1888.  a monthly twenty dollar draw.

if i end up deciding to disappear one day, into the woods, i'll pass it along to someone else as well.

my favorite alternative bedtime hour memory...

1.  O.k., so it wasn't my resignation.  My most memorable Bedtime moment was a request show. 
Too be honest, I don't really remember when it was, I do remember that it was in the summer and it was our first of this kind. 

Somehow we discovered a mobile microphone.  I would sometimes use it live on the air to go through Alan Cross's desk drawers or visit some of the quieter spots of the station during the occaisional late night prowl.  However the true test of its range came when I decided to do a request show from the parking lot of 83 Kennedy Road.  Paul Dhingra fielded phone calls and ran the board back inside the station, while I, with barely audible headphones and a crazy ass mic ventured out into outside territory.

We were skeptical as to wether or not it would logistically work.  Was the microphone powerful enough?   Would it sound terrible for such an intimate luscious show?  Would anyone request anything?

Well, dear reader and possible past bedtime hour listener,  it was magical.  Not only did people make the trip to the parking lot to request a song (one person i remember arrived all the way from downtown near the end of the hour) but the headlights on from the parked cars in the dark, on a hot summer nite, were glorious to view.   There must have been 10 to 15 cars.  Some just curious, others completely in the moment.  A nite I will always remember.

So, there ya go. 

abbie... not a day goes by without her thanking us for finding a shack by the beach.

todays travel tunes...

On the road trip back to Toronto...

Japan "Television and Halloween",
Celestial Navigations "Space Princess"
Muse "The Resistance"
Molly Johnson "Ode to Billie Joe"

who are you....

one of the reasons i love cities or towns near water....

one of my husbands 'totally cool' pieces.