Cultural Lowpoints (mister anchovy rants)
The other day we had the radio on in the car, tuned to CFRB, a local talk radio station. The program featured a husband and wife host team called The Motts. They were talking about the dangers of of strands of wire from your BBQ brush sticking to your BBQ grill, then sticking to your food, causing you to swallow wire-brush strands, which subsequently get lodged in your throat, causing the need for surgery. People, I am not making this up. They were going on and on about it, hoping somebody would call in with their own BBQ wire brush stories. This marks an all time low in Canadian radio. This is the honest-to-God best thing this station could come up with to broadcast. I shouldn't be surprised, though, as the station has lost much of its credibility due to on-air personalities 'ho'ing for anything and everything. There is one guy who (I'm really not making this up) compares a housing development in Peterborough to the highlands of Scotland. Man, I wanted to rush right out and buy me one of those new homes.
Not to be outdone, the character the Toronto Star has writing art reviews these days, today featured a massive article about the merits of various hockey team logos. Is it too much to expect a major daily paper to expend a little bit of effort to cover the art scene in this city?
While I'm on a rant, when exactly was it that pop stars became artists? Perhaps it happened because you can't exactly call Brittany a musician? Everybody is an artist these days, particularly if there is some money to be made. Artists however, are mostly ignored by the media (in favour of articles about corporate logos, naturally).
4 comments:
On CityTV news last Friday (the 29) they showed a segment about those wire brushes and an interview with a kid who got some wire on his throat from the bbq. I think it might have been that same day that you heard it on the radio.
I'm sure there was an actual event, which is for sure an unfortunate freak accident - a news item, yes, but as a talk radio segment, it was pretty lame. In a lifetime of BBQ, this is the first I've heard of a macabre wire brush accident.
Even then, it is a step up from The Sun which devoted a whole coumn to the search for topless women during the first heat wave. They found none, and found that perplexing, given the fact that it is perfectly legal for women to bare their breasts and be oggled by Toronto Sun readers.
the real musical artists never get mentioned on commercial radio!
Hockey logos as art? Well, maybe Chief Blackhawk. And that winged wheel is kinda cool.
In all seriousness, art covereage is becoming a lost art in a lot of major newspapers. Here in the states, there are only a few with what you would call great coverage of the the arts (New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times). I find the best arts coverage in the online mags like Slate and Salon!
Post a Comment