Category Archives: Media

Investigative Journalism | Why We All Must Subscribe to Media

November 18, 2020Media, News, Stories of a Life, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

The future of journalism will increasingly depend on you paying for the news directly. Subscribing to newspapers, magazines and online journals represents nothing less than your essential duty to your fellow citizens, a necessary act of good citizenship, particularly when the algorithms developed by social media feeds like Facebook knowingly publish what can only be considered as “fake news”, and a true diminishment of knowledge.
The genesis of today’s VanRamblings derives from this tweet by longtime, respected Globe and Mail labour reporter, Rod Mickleburgh …

I spend about $50 a month subscribing to various US, Canadian and local newspapers…that's about $1.70 day…what a bargain! Cheaper than a bus ride, and you get so much…Support journalism, folks…We need it more than ever #COVID19

— Rod Mickleburgh (@rodmickleburgh) November 17, 2020

For those who don’t know: I love short form writing, have for almost 60 years now. As this is my blog, and in some sense an expression of what I care about, it is also (increasingly) about who I am, and how I have arrived at where I am in my life, psychologically, spiritually, philosophically and intellectually at the age of 70 years, and a few more COVID-19 months on.

As I’ve written previously, from age 6 on, I pretty much raised myself — my father worked the afternoon shift til 1 a.m. at the post office, and my mother worked evenings at Canada Packers / Swift Meats on Lulu Island. After making myself some dinner, or eating some stew that was bubbling away in the slow cooker, I was left to my own devices. Sometimes that involved going to the movies, sometimes in the 1960s that meant rehearsing for a play at Templeton Secondary school, but mostly it meant spending evenings at the Vancouver Public Library, at Robson and Burrard (pictured above). In some measure, librarians helped to raise me.
The library opened up previously unimaginable possibilities about what the future held, not only introducing me to the great works of literature, but providing me with insight into history, politics, development, and the arts.
Amidst the many tens of thousands of books, there was a newspaper and magazine room, where I would spend the better part of an hour each evening, reading through Time magazine, the London Times, the New York Times, the Manchester Guardian, the Toronto Star, and in time, the “gang of activists” folks who began publishing This Magazine, Canadian Forum and Canadian Dimension. I read newspapers from across the globe, and consumed magazines as if I was starved for information about the beauty and breadth of the world around me. I carried on that tradition of magazine and world newspaper reading while attending school at Simon Fraser University in the 1970s, and carry on that tradition thru until this very day.
At present, I subscribe to the following newspapers, magazines and …

The Globe and Mail sets me back $29.36 each month, by far my most expensive subscription, I subscribe to the news channels through TELUS Optik TV. The annual subscription to the LA Times is $71.01 (or $5.92 a month), the Washington Post, $76.08 ($6.34 monthly), Slate Plus is $35.86 annually, while Vulture / New York magazine comes in at $27.36 for the year. The New York Times is $8.40 per month, and The Guardian is an even $5. The total monthly subscription to the news channels, and all the magazines above comes in at a whopping, easy-to-digest $67.28 a month.
Each morning when I arise to Stephen Quinn and The Early Edition, sometimes at 7 a.m., sometimes at 5 a.m., I immediately flip open the iPad Mini beside my bed, and click on the morning digest of news on my Flipboard app, a free and indispensable source of news.

Next, I surf through the New York and Los Angeles Times, then Slate, The Guardian, the Washington Post, and Vulture. Then, it’s up to make some breakfast while listening to the New York Times’ Michael Barbaro podcast, The Daily. Over breakfast I catch up on the news on CBC Network, the CTV News channel, CNN and MSNBC. After breakfast, it’s to my computer to continue with an hour of reading of the Globe, and the NY Times, the Washington Post and LA Times in depth, with a gander at Slate, and checking out Vulture / the New York magazine — and whatever I’ve found on Flipboard that I found interesting, in The Atlantic, Esquire, Vanity Fair, after which it’s off to Twitter and Facebook.
And then, after all that, I’m ready to begin my day.
Okay, okay, I can hear you say, “It’s alright for you to read and subscribe to so many news outlets, but not all of us have money to spend burning a hole in our pocket,” which will now lead to the following graph of my total income for 2019. I have an extra $75 in tax taken off, so I’ve got a bit of money, usually $900 in a tax return, each spring — thanks to my good friend (who knows how he puts up with me?) and accountant for nigh on 30 years, the spectacularly kind Patrick Mokrane, who’s kept me afloat financially thru his on the up-and-up derring do on my annual tax return.

A friend of mine tells me that he believes I live better on $1870.75 a month than anyone he knows. I have created an Excel spreadsheet that tracks every penny I spend, so that helps keeps me focused. My housing co-op monthly charge comes in at around $600, my bills (Internet, TV, mobility, home phone and Hydro, Netflix, Prime, etc.) comes in at around $245 — which leaves me with $67 for my subscriptions, $350 for food and household products, $75 a month on dining out or ordering in, another $75 a month for clothes and shoes — which, ordinarily, would leave me $400 each month left over to pay for dental, books, tech, insurance, hair cuts, donations to various causes (oh yes, I forgot, I donate $100 each month to the NDP provincially and federally, as well as to a faith organization, and various “causes”). Unfortunately, when in 2018 I came into a windfall arising from a 30-year-old union grievance I filed and won (for me, and hundreds of others locally), Canada Pension deducted that windfall from my annual income (economics - the dismal science), but in 2019 I had no such windfall, so in July Canada Pension cut my pension by $172.50 a month!
All of the above is by way of saying, if I can live relatively well on $1698 a month, or so, and can still prioritize subscriptions to various online news organizations, and donate monies to political parties I support, so can you.

As all of us are aware, it costs money to create content, and it costs a lot of money to fund good investigative journalism, as the nonprofit-run Mother Jones pointed out this year during a fundraising effort.
These past few years, we’ve also become aware of the controversy surrounding Mark Zuckerberg; the indifferent Facebook CEO claimed it was “crazy” that fake news on Facebook could have influenced the recent U.S. election results, or that his social media site has anything to do with aiding the repression of citizens across the globe. Sadly, that’s far from the truth.
Awhile back, Facebook eliminated the human editors who curated trending news; now an algorithm handles this — but the algorithm often gets it wrong, as stories from Russian bot sites present themselves as credible news organizations, make the rounds and trend on Facebook, feeding conspiracy theories and misinformation. Little wonder that, at last count, Facebook remains the world’s #1 purveyor of false or inaccurate news.
All of which is to say that you have an obligation to yourself, to those around you, and to society in general to keep yourself well-informed, and read credible news sites that are, in actuality, truly “fair and balanced.”
If you believe the newspapers and magazines above are a little too “conservative” for your liking, in Canada, there’s always rabble.ca, the public affairs journalism of richochet.ca, This Magazine, and Canadian Dimension, as well as down south, In These Times, Mother Jones, Crooks and Liars, and so many other left-of-centre journals and magazines that may be found online. There are places online where you can get credible, well-thought-out and researched, witty & engagingly written truthful news.

Do yourself a favour today: subscribe to one or more online, or home delivery, newspaper, journal or magazine. You’ll feel better for it. Honest.

Stories of a Life + Music Sundays | Three Resonant Love Songs

October 18, 2020A & E, Media, Music, Pop Culture, Stories of a Life, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

The first of the three love songs on VanRamblings today is sung by an American avant-garde musical group formed in 2003 by sisters Sierra Rose “Rosie” and Bianca Leilani “Coco” Casady, and may be heard on their 2004 album release, La Maison de Mon Rêve.
Having lead a nomadic life, in 2000 after residing in in New York City for two years, Sierra moved into a tiny apartment in the Montmartre district of Paris to pursue a career as an opera singer. Meanwhile, Bianca had moved to Brooklyn in 2002 to study linguistics, sociology, and visual arts. Neither sister had seen one another for a period of ten years.
In early 2003, Bianca made an impromptu visit to Paris to rejoin Sierra, and the two ended up spending months together creating music in Sierra’s bathroom which, according to them, was the most isolated room in the apartment and had the best acoustics, adopting a lo-fi, experimental approach to production, utilizing a distinct vocal style, traditional instruments, and various improvised instruments (like toys), recording with just one microphone and a broken pair of headphones.
By late 2003, the sisters had named themselves CocoRosie and created what would become their début album, La Maison de Mon Rêve, releasing the recording only to friends. However, word got out about the album, and by February 2004 CocoRosie was signed to the independent record label Touch and Go Records, and the album was released on March 9, 2004 to unexpected critical acclaim. The rest, as they say, is history.
The song Good Friday has meaning for me, as I sent it to Lori (who I’ve written about previously), expressing in the note I sent her that the song had particular resonance because it reminded me of her. After not having communicated with one another for almost a decade, posting the following song to Lori caused the two of us to, briefly, rekindle our relationship.

If 1988, the year I met Lori, was one of the great years of my life, the next great year in my life was 1995, and the summer of the gregarious 22-year-old Australian twins Julienne and Melissa, now all nicely married with great husbands, and two children apiece. That the three of us still communicate today I consider to be one of the great achievements of my life. I love them as much now as I did 25 years ago — both women (who I will write about someday, but employing pseudonyms) hold a special place in my heart.
1995 was also the year that my friend J.B. Shayne introduced me to the music of British singer-songwriter Kirsty McColl, whose 1989 album Kite became the soundtrack of my life that particularly warm and loving summer. I remember alighting from the #9 bus at Macdonald and West Broadway, as Julienne and Melissa were rounding the corner onto West Broadway, having just come from the Kitsilano library.
Spotting me, the two ran down the street towards me, jumping into my arms and wrapping themselves around me — the same thing happened later that summer, when I had just entered the west entrance of the Macdonald and Broadway Safeway, with Justine Davidson — then all of 15 years of age, and someone to whom I’d been close, and in whose life I had played a fatherly role for years — having entered from the east entrance, upon spotting me ran across the Safeway, jumping into my arms, wrapping herself around me, clearly happy to see me. There is no other time in my life when I felt more loved than was the case in the summer of 1995.

I was first introduced to the music of T. Rex (initially known as Tyrannosaurus Rex), the English rock band formed in 1967 by singer-songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan, when working at LG-FM, by Bob Ness, one of the great all time radio announcers in Vancouver, and more than anyone else of my memory, the father of alternative music radio in Vancouver, when he brought the music of Marc Bolan to my attention.
By the early 1970s, I was a student up on the hill at Simon Fraser University, and arts and entertainment editor at the student newspaper, The Peak — where among my myriad endeavours, I was afforded the opportunity to review five albums a week, one of which was, in early 1971, T. Rex’s eponymous fifth album, and the first under the name T. Rex.
If you haven’t guessed, I am a romantic, always have been, always will be. For me, there is no greater joy than being in love — in which respect I have been very lucky, in platonic and other kinds of love (and even a marriage) with incredibly bright and empathetic women, who are responsible for all the best parts of who I am, and how I have brought myself to the world.
My first great love, of course (and the mother of my children) was Cathy Janie McLean, a striking 18-year-old blonde Amazon of a woman, possessed of a keen intelligence, and the woman more than any other who shaped me, in the early years loved me, and created the somewhat sophisticated wordsmith and bon vivant I’ve been for nigh on 50 years now.
T. Rex’s song Diamond Meadows was a song that was particularly resonant in Cathy’s and my life, a song we returned to for years, when I was at university, and later teaching in the Interior. For me, listening to Diamond Meadows reminds me of a time when I was truly loved, when everything was going well in my life, when I was surrounded by friends, politically and socially active, and a young man of promise and capable of much good.

Arts Friday | Netflix Takes Over the Oscars in 2021

October 16, 2020A & E, Arts Friday, Cinema, Media, Netflix, Television, Video & DVD, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

In 2019, Netflix landed its first Oscar nomination for Best Picture with the release of Alfonso Cuarón’s critically acclaimed Roma. A year later, the streaming service was leading the field with 24 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture nods for both The Irishman and Marriage Story.
As Netflix’s impact on the world of cinema became increasingly undeniable, the younger and more diverse film academy was no longer prepared to shun the streaming service as the old Hollywood guard tried to do. Earlier this year, on April 28th, responding to the changes that COVID-19 had wrought, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences removed the stipulation that a movie must be shown in a theatre before it could become eligible for the coveted Best Picture Oscar nomination.
And thus the stage was set for an Oscar ceremony in 2021 the likes of which no one will have ever seen before, with at least seven Netflix releases eligible for a Best Picture nomination, with each of those films set for Oscar nominations, ranging from Best Actor and Actress, Supporting Actress and Actor, to Best Director, Music, Sound and technical awards.
Today on VanRamblings, the Netflix features set to dominate Oscars 2021.

For the upcoming Academy Awards — delayed due to the pandemic until Sunday, April 25th — Netflix has pulled out all the stops. Already streaming, there’s Spike Lee’s Best Picture contender Da 5 Bloods, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s well-mounted action thriller The Old Guard, and Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay contender, I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
And, available today on Netflix, there’s writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 which is, as Variety lead critic Owen Gleiberman writes, “a knockout, and the rare drama about the 1960s that’s powerful, authentic and moving enough to feel as if it were taking place today, a briskly paced and immersive film bristling with Sorkin’s distinctive verbal fusillades, a cinematic powder keg of film with a serious message that seamlessly blends a conventional yet compelling courtroom procedural with protest reenactments and documentary footage, the film offering an absorbing primer of a ruefully meaningful period in American history.”

Due to arrive on Netflix on Tuesday, November 24th — on the eve of American Thanksgiving — director Ron Howard’s big budget film adaptation of J.D. Vance’s autobiographical best-seller, Hillbilly Elegy offers a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town, that also provides broader, probing insight into the struggles of America’s white working class.
A passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis, Glenn Close and Amy Adams are at the centre of Howard’s film, and solid prospects for Best Actress and Best Supporting Oscar nods. Howard will be in the mix, as well.

Netflix will release David Fincher’s Mank in select theatres in November before the black-and-white film begins streaming on December 4th.
The Hollywood-centric period piece follows alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (certain Best Actor nominee Gary Oldman) as he races to finish the screenplay for Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane. That classic picture was fraught with behind the scenes drama, as Mankiewicz and Welles argued over credit and who wrote what, which became even more important once the film won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
The original script for Mank was written by Fincher’s father, Jack Fincher, so this project certainly means a lot to the filmmaker. Mank boasts a running time of 2 hours and 11 minutes, so it won’t be quite as long as Zodiac or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, not that Fincher ever wastes a single frame. The film is expected to be a major awards contender for Netflix.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. George C. Wolfe directs, Denzel Washington produces, and Oscar-winner Viola Davis (Fences) stars as Ma Rainey in Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s adaptation of the hit August Wilson Broadway play. The late Chadwick Boseman and If Beale Street Could Talk star Colman Domingo play members of Rainey’s ’20s jazz band.
Awards prospects: Ambitious trumpeter Levee was 43-year-old Boseman’s final role before succumbing to his private battle with colon cancer in August; he looks rail thin in film stills. Posthumous Oscars went to Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) and Peter Finch (Network) among others. In this case, with the beloved Black Panther star also in the running for his supporting role as a U.S. Army soldier in Vietnam in the Spike Lee joint, Da 5 Bloods, many believe that it’s likely Boseman will wind up in the Best Actor category for Ma Rainey, with Davis as Best Actress. Like Mank, the elaborate period setting should be attractive to Academy craft branches.
Release date: In theatres early December, streams on Netflix December 18.

Oscar-winner and Hollywood icon George Clooney directs The Midnight Sky, a sci-fi thriller with a script by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) based on the Lily Brooks-Dalton novel about an Arctic scientist (Clooney) attempting to warn a NASA spaceship astronaut (Felicity Jones) not to return to doomed planet Earth. Awards prospects: Netflix took advantage of the London Film Festival this month (October 2 – 18) with a tribute to Clooney, complete with clips. Critical reaction will determine whether The Midnight Sky will figure in the Oscar sweepstakes, but Clooney (Syriana) has delivered in the past, as has Oscar-nominated Jones (Theory of Everything).
Release date: In theatres early December, Netflix début to be announced.

VIFF 2020 | Creating Quite the Stir at Vancouver’s Film Festival

September 30, 2020A & E, Cinema, Media, Pop Culture, Vancouver, VIFF 2020Raymond Tomlin

There’s a new online arts & culture magazine in Vancouver that’s creating quite the stir. Staffed mostly by former (and recent) arts staff at The Georgia Straight — said the weekly’s new owners, MediaCentral (a condition of employment: management must show their horns at all times) “Nah, we’re not cutting arts coverage. We’re just rationalizing it, by dumping a whole lotta staff, and refocusing editorial categories by eliminating any focus whatsoever on venues and the arts”) — the glorious new Stir is the illustrious new home for arts & culture coverage in our city.
Where to find beloved Straight arts & entertainment editor, the kindly but tough Janet Smith, or bon vivant, Adrian Mack, and acclaimed journalist, Gail Johnson? Vancouver’s nascent Stir magazine is the place where you’ll find Janet, Adrian and Gail, as well as a number of other former Straight staffers, and first-rate British Columbia-based arts & culture journalists, who in Stir have created the place to be for arts coverage in our city.
And isn’t that what makes a city, culture? Otherwise, what are we but an amalgam of greenhouse gas spewing towers, and windy roads laden with too many carbon emitting vehicles. Vancouver’s many and varied arts & culture institutions breathe life and meaning into our paradise by the ocean.

In 2020, at the virtual Vancouver International Film Festival, Stir has emerged as the place for coverage of VIFF 2020.
For instance, in her enthusiastic review of Jimmy Carter: Roll and Roll President (which VanRamblings just loved when we screened it at 3 a.m. yesterday morning), Ms. Smith writes …

Jimmy Carter was cooler than you ever knew — even more so when he’s put up against the presidential candidates for the 2020 U.S. election. Turns out the man once derided as the Peanut Farmer was besties with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, both of whom sing his praises here. He also hosted regular concerts, first at the guv’nah’s mansion in Georgia, and later at the White House, after the Allmann Brothers helped propel him to election. In her fun, well-researched, and zippily edited documentary, director Mary Wharton connects Carter’s open-minded approach to music to his political achievements.

The review above is just one of many VIFF 2020 reviews you’ll find on the Stir Vancouver online website, from Janet Smith, Adrian Mack and Gail Johnson, in 2020, your go-to website for Vancouver’s finest VIFF coverage.
Here’s hoping Stir thrives long, long into the future, that Ottawa’s modernized Canadian Periodical Fund provides sustaining monies to aid Stir in its necessary endeavours, and that readers (and advertisers) flock by the thousands to Stir Vancouver, such that Stir becomes a west coast institution, a Canadian version of New York Magazine’s Vulture website.