Category Archives: Freelancing

The Story of Rosalie Trombley

Rosalie Trombley was the influential music director of CKLW from 1968 to 1984.

Rosalie Trombley was the influential music director of CKLW from 1968 to 1984.

Rosalie Trombley’s life is a quintessentially Canadian story.

Why? Because her modesty and desire for privacy have largely kept her story out of the limelight. Some people know about her because it’s tough to keep a story like hers in a can forever. It’s disappointing how some people get fame for doing little or nothing yet someone like Rosalie Trombley, who deserves fame, accolades, and respect, remain largely unknown.

She was a single mom of three who started working at CKLW in Windsor, Ont. Nicknamed The Girl With the Golden Ear, she demonstrated an ability to pick songs that would become hits. She started using that talent at CKLW and soon, the fourth-most listened to station in North America (yes, it trailed only radio stations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) became a trend-setter.

Record company executives and musicians would visit her office on Thursdays and try to convince her to play their record. If she liked it, and played it, it became a hit. She was bold, bucked conventional wisdom, worked hard researching what her listeners wanted, and never compromised her principles.

In the male-dominated world of commercial radio, Rosalie Trombley of Leamington, Ont., became one of the most influential people on the North American music scene during her tenure as CKLW’s music director from 1968 to 1984.

With a 50,000 watt transmission tower, CKLW reached into as many as 30 states in the U.S. and wielded more influence than the CBC could ever dream of. Her unique view of music, and a willingness to play all kinds of music — including R&B and soul — recognized that music has a unifying force on people and provides people with something to share. Not only did CKLW do this without a dime of taxpayers’ money, it faced the constant badgering and red tape from the CRTC, which failed to recognize what CKLW had accomplished and could only think of rules and regulations for it to follow.

Rosalie Trombley’s story is an inspiration for women, for people who start from humble beginnings, and for people who dare to do things differently. Tony Orlando once said there should be a movie about her life. The first draft of the script has been written and it will be read tonight.

Nova Scotia embraces red tide, elects Liberal government

New Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil

New Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil

Nova Scotia voters are strutting tonight like drunken revellers who feel like they are about to get lucky. I just hope that strut doesn’t turn into walk of shame in the next 4 years.

The Liberals have created high expectations, much like the NDP did in 2009, and they will be hard-pressed to meet them in this climate of cynicism. When only 56 per cent of voters turn out, that tells me that 44 per cent of the population thinks that there is so little difference between the parties that it doesn’t matter who gets elected. I would like to see a political party eschew the partisan barbs and start appealing to voters because they will make the right long-term decisions for the province, not short-term promises to get elected.

Can the Liberals govern differently than most governments in Nova Scotia have governed in the past? Should we expect different and will we get it?

The slate is clean. Prove yourselves.

Packed house on opening day

Photo by Devaan Ingraham / www.devaaningraham.com

Temptress! Sophia Smart (Fiona Kirkpatrick Parsons) turns on the charm and Richard Clod (Rob McIntyre) is sure it is against regulations in this scene from Department of Common Sense. Photo by Devaan Ingraham

As a playwright, your job is done before rehearsals begin and long before the curtain rises on a play. When it’s your first play, though, the work is never done. The cast of Department of Common Sense have put so much sweat and toil into this play that they deserve an audience to give them a little extra energy. That’s where my new role of producer comes into play because one of my responsibilities in that role is publicity.

We had great media coverage leading up to our first performance as part of the 23rd Atlantic Fringe Festival in Halifax, and I was delighted to see a packed house for the cast. It was a bit of a steam bath at DANSpace — one audience member quipped it would be great for hot yoga — but the cast persevered and delivered a great show that people enjoyed. It was hot, not as hot as the picture of Fiona Kirkpatrick Parsons (above), but still hot. Kudos to my friend Devaan Ingraham for this great production still.

We learned after the show that Stephen Cooke of The Chronicle Herald attended the play. I waited anxiously for the review — the first time a newspaper had reviewed my play — and I celebrated with a beer after I read this.

I think the cast, and our director Nick Jupp, should take another bow.

Department of Common Sense

DCS-production still-6

When I used to work in government, I would often joke about ridiculous ideas or policies needing to be vetted by the Department of Common Sense. No such department exists — unfortunately — except in my first play.

I took one of my favourite stories from my time in government and I turned it into a play. When I would go to parties and tell this story, people’s jaws would drop, but, as absurd as it was, they did believe it because governments and bureaucrats can do some pretty stupid things. Sometimes, it can be enough to make you want a stiff drink, like the character of Adele Courage above in a scene from the play.

I took that story and built a play around it. It’s a fictional tale of a straight-talking, tequila-sipping government minister who gets two whip-smart women on his staff to take on a persnickety bureaucrat in a battle of wills and wits.

It will make you shake your head in dismay, nod your head in understanding, or seethe with anger. It might make you do all three, but it is sure to make you laugh. We have a fabulous cast including Lianne Perry, Mark Adam, Fiona Kirkpatrick Parsons, Rob McIntyre, Neil Van Horne and Fiona MacKinnon. Nick Jupp did a great job as our director and had a hand in the development of the script when he acted as a dramaturge for me when I took part in the Theatre Arts Guild’s inaugural Playwrights’ Festival.

To learn more about my play, check out this link to the play’s blog or see our Facebook page.

It will be on stage for six shows during the 23rd Atlantic Fringe Festival. Check out the Atlantic Fringe and support local theatre. Hope you enjoy the show.

Rehtaeh Parsons and her family deserve the truth

I have a daughter and I cannot imagine the pain and suffering that Rehtaeh Parsons’ parents are going through right now.

I also have four teenage sons and I cannot imagine any of them participating in what happened to Rehtaeh Parsons and, if they were, I would be ashamed and turn them into police.

Four boys are alleged to have raped her in November 2011. One of them took pictures that night and shared it on Facebook. The RCMP investigated the incident and decided not to lay charges. The four boys – who were not interviewed by the Mounties until several months after the incident – were not charged with sexual assault because the police said it was a he said, she said case.

Rehtaeh Parsons was 15 at the time, so that means that the person who took her picture and distributed it online should have been charged with making and distributing child pornography. That didn’t happen either.

One of the basic tenets of Canada’s legal system is that all people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. This, I agree with. In cases of sexual assault, the issue of consent is often the point that is argued in court and determines whether there is a conviction or an acquittal. Even if you assume that the four boys had consent, that in no way excuses what happened with the photograph.

It is illegal to create and distribute child pornography in Canada. That is what happened here and the only thing that can be disputed is who took the picture and who pressed the send button. What the police should have done was found out who owned the phone that sent the picture and on whose Facebook account the picture was posted. Given modern technology, these two things should be easy enough to do. Once charges are laid, the person – or people – responsible should have an overwhelming urge to tell police what they know and assist them in piecing together the facts.

Consent, if it existed, also doesn’t excuse the unjustified scorn Rehtaeh Parsons faced at Cole Harbour District High School and online.

That suffering ended this past weekend when, after she hanged herself in the bathroom at home, she went into a coma and was taken off life support.

Given that tragic result, even if one of my sons was questioned and not charged,  I would be taking them to the police station and making sure that they told the truth – the whole truth – about what they did and what they saw.

Unfortunately, the “My-Johnny-Can-Do-No-Wrong” Syndrome is all too prevalent and many parents fail to hold their kids accountable.

I worry about the world my daughter is growing up in. I worry that she is growing up in a province that has failed to properly investigate this incident, but I am glad that our provincial Justice Minister, Ross Landry, is looking in to this.

In the poignant words of Peter Gabriel in his song about Stephen Biko, the eyes of the world are watching now. Let’s do the right thing, Nova Scotia. Let’s find the truth and let’s have justice.

A maestro in our midst

An old acquaintance of mine told me a funny story once about how she “discovered” Harry Connick, Jr.

She was in a bar in Connick’s hometown of New Orleans and listening to him perform. She was mightily impressed and told him so after his song was over – something she could do in the intimate setting of the bar they were in.

“Hey, you’re pretty good,” she told him, not realizing who he was. She had heard of Connick, but didn’t recognize the man who had already won a Grammy Award for best jazz male vocal performance thanks to his work on the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack.

Connick was gracious and said “thank you” but someone – perhaps a friendly bartender – pointed out to her who he was. She was sheepish, but not so much that she didn’t delight in telling the story when she returned to Nova Scotia.

Sometimes, you see somebody perform and you feel like your discovery is the world’s discovery.

So it was with me and the first time I watched Dinuk Wijeratne conduct the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra.

While I didn’t approach Wijeratne or the orchestra to say “Hey, you’re pretty good,” I did decide to write about them for Halifax Magazine; that article will appear in the magazine’s April issue.

The more I researched Wijeratne’s background, the more I realized what a virtuoso he is. It was his work as a conductor that prompted me to write about him, but his talents are more diverse than that.

We are fortunate to have him plying his craft here in Nova Scotia. If you haven’t watched him play the piano, conduct, or seen one of his compositions brought to life off the page, then you must change that.

To get a sense of Wijeratne and what he and the NSYO can do, watch this video.

Now, go “discover” him like I did. The NSYO and Symphony Nova Scotia will be performing a joint concert at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on Feb. 17.

Watch out for the last kid picked

If you’ve ever played a game of pick-up hockey, you know that some poor kid always ends up getting picked last. Sometimes, though, that person can surprise people with their unknown ability.

That happened on January 16 in the CHL Top Prospects Games in Halifax. Laurent Dauphin was the last replacement added to the roster after Hunter Shinkaruk couldn’t play because of the flu.

No matter. Dauphin has skills and had averaged more than a point per game with the Chicoutimi Sagueneens of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. After the game, he said he wanted to show that he belonged.

He had a rough start to the game as he was decked with a clean open-ice hit just 20 seconds in the game. Ticked off, he came back on his next shift and set up his team’s first goal. He later added a goal to make it 2-0 and had two other good scoring chances as he earned player-of-the-game honours for Team Orr, which won 3-0.

After filing my story for The Canadian Press, I was musing over the game and Dauphin’s effort made me think of that old Canadian Tire commercial featuring Albert.

I mentioned it to a couple of colleagues and one of them, Neate Sager, ran with it. The Yahoo blogger who compiles the CHL blog Buzzing The Net, converted it into a nice post. Yes, I bet Don Cherry wished he had a guy like Dauphin on is team.

Well played, Neate. Well played.

Olympians make the best stories

CSCA's Excellence in Sport, London 2012 Edition

Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a story about a Nigerian who emigrated to Canada to escape religious persecution in his homeland. His name was David Defiagbon and he was a boxer who went on to represent Canada at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics where he won a silver medal.

I’ve had the privilege of being able to interview other Olympians and cover some high-profile international events. Nothing — absolutely nothing — compares to writing about an individual’s singular pursuit of the Olympic dream. Their training and dedication are non pareil and yet their stories are most remarkable because they all started from humble beginnings — humble beginnings that we can identify with.

This summer, 19 Atlantic Canadian athletes and a coach are going to London for the Olympics and the Paralympics.

Canadian Sports Centre Atlantic commissioned a magazine with some profiles on our region’s best. Enjoy the show, and remember, you won’t get this kind of coverage on NBC.

Follow the link below to see the magazine and download it if you like. Enjoy the Games.
CSCA-Magazine-London-2012

Wilderbeats know how to connect with kids

The Wilderbeats in concert at The Music Room in Halifax while recording a promotional video.

I made my debut for Halifax Magazine in their June issue with my article and photo spread on The Wilderbeats, a children’s band from Halifax. (See story here.) My kids are big fans of the group and watching them in concert and interviewing them provided me with some insight on why kids and grownups who listen to their music love it so much.

The three members of The Wilderbeats — past and present — have two important things in common.

  1. They love connecting with kids during a performance, and;
  2. Their catchy music has a clever way of educating people about nature.

The first reason is why they have dedicated so much time to the genre despite the difficulties children’s musicians face achieving commercial success. The latter is why their music is so noteworthy and not only deserves to be famous, but should be.

For Ashley Moffat, who started The Wilderbeats in 2001 with Joyce Saunders, her personality doesn’t change when she’s on stage. She treats kids the same way she would treat an adult and that’s likely because she admits to having a little bit of kid in her.

“They’re just my buddies, I don’t talk down to them,” she said during an interview for the feature article in the June issue of Halifax Magazine.

Audience participation is a key ingredient in any Wilderbeats performance and part of why they love performing for kids says Shannon Lynch, who replaced Moffatt as Saunders’s sidekick in 2009.

“How boring can you get if you don’t want to children to join in,” Lynch says. “They just want to mimic, they want to be part of it. Kids are the greatest audience ever because they don’t lie to you. If they don’t like what’s going on, they will just shut down. It’s amazing, as a performer, to have a clear read on your audience.”

When Moffatt is writing music, she looks for inspiration in nature and while she often sings about Canadian wildlife, she admits some creatures catch her fancy from afar. One such song would be Clickety Clack, I’m a Yak.

“I come across things that I think are cool,” Moffat said. I put it in a song and try to make it fun.”

Fun indeed; I’ll forever remember my three-year old coming into our kitchen while that song was playing and hopping and bopping to the tune.

For Saunders and Lynch, their love of nature — and sharing that with kids — comes out in their music.

“We have a really deep appreciation of the Earth and all of the different creatures,” said Lynch. “We can share that with children and hopefully, cultivate, instill and inspire an appreciation and an excitement on their part about some of that immense beauty.”

Lynch has teased Saunders about her song Himalaya, Home of Snow because it’s a bit too “chewy” or technical. It’s a beautiful song, though, and teaches kids a great deal about the world’s greatest mountain range.

Saunders takes the ribbing good-naturedly, but adds “kids are way more intelligent than we are in many ways. There’s a certain age where kids like to know stuff. They really want to know the big words or how things work.”

Natural gas could lower power rates

There has been a lot of complaining about Nova Scotia Power Inc.’s (NSPI) latest application for a rate increase and rightly so.

However, the groundswell of opposition is directed at rising salaries, bonuses, and a swanky party by executives, and does not address the root of the problem. Even the opposition parties in the Nova Scotia legislature got into the act as they repeatedly stood up in Question Period and railed against the NDP government and accused the Dexter government of being too cozy with Emera,

The only defence the NDP mounted was that it had taken the HST off home electricity. Time and time again, the NDP went back to this defence, looking like a boxer against the ropes, gloves held up over their face and absorbing punch after punch. The Liberals and the Tories were more than happy to deliver them, too, much to the delight of the angry mob that was watching.

While the NDP did remove the HST — and that move did provide immediate relief — it didn’t go far enough in addressing the short-term pain associated with the Renewable Electricity Plan that the NDP implemented in 2010. This plan was designed to get Nova Scotia Power off its dependence on coal and set a legislated target for 25 per cent renewable energy by 2015. This switch was a no-brainer and the NDP should be lauded for this.

What the NDP realized, but not all ratepayers realize, is that there is a short-term cost associated with this because building new infrastructure costs money.

Unfortunately, the prospect of stable rates in the future has not been enough to placate the growing discontent among ratepayers. If added infrastructure costs for renewables was the only cause for rate hikes, it would be easier to stomach — but it’s not. Another huge problem for Nova Scotia Power is their outdated blueprint based on burning coal, a commodity that has gone up in price because of a growing demand in China and other industrializing countries.

Meanwhile, there is a glut in the natural gas market — something that has existed for a few years now — and there hasn’t been a big enough shift away from coal to natural gas. Doing this would help reduce electricity rates, provide a better back-up for renewables, reduce emissions, and allow Nova Scotia Power to burn a made-in Nova Scotia fuel. While it can be risky to rely too much on one fuel source, clearly Nova Scotia Power needs to increase its ability to burn natural gas — and pronto.

Most of the coal Nova Scotia Power burns is imported and last year it generated 57 per cent of its electricity from coal. Meanwhile, natural gas generated only 20 per cent of electricity in Nova Scotia. Tufts Cove in Dartmouth is going flat out, but it’s the only thermal plant in the province capable of generating electricity by burning natural gas.

The Renewable Electricity Plan should have been introduced in tandem with a plan to boost the use of natural gas, but it wasn’t and this was a missed opportunity.

So, while the government can’t tell NSPI to lower rates and it can’t tell the Utility and Review Board to reject the latest application, it is not powerless to address rising power rates.

Just like it changed the rules of the game for NSPI to make it create more renewable electricity, the government could do so again and make it burn more natural gas. Many other jurisdictions have made a more rapid move away from coal to natural gas, but Nova Scotia is lagging behind.