Jan 29th The Hours week looks like..

Besides Howie Mandel, Sienna Miller, Ken Dryden, Lisa Ray and Bob Saget The Hour has a report on Jehovah's Witnesses Monday,
James Cromwell rescheduled for Tuesday
Johhny Briggs will be Thursday...
According to my source Howie Mandel with be Friday... I don't think that's possible...The Hour not even on Friday... My source also reminds me 'things change, it's television'
So correction then, Howie Mandel will be on Wed.

I'll update this all when it changes maybe...

This next bit has nothing to do with The Hour but you might like it.
little bit of trivia...If you live in Michigan, it is illegal to put a skunk in your boss's desk...
In Cleveland Ohio, it is illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
In Hartford, Connecticut, it is illegal for a husband to kiss his wife on Sundays.
In Oklahoma, it is against the law to hunt whale.
One more
Under the law of Mississippi, there's no such thing as a female Peeping Tom.
and that is from The Book of Useless Information.

Dream show

Jan 25th 2007
Dear Diary,
I had that dream again last night... The one with George, Jian and the Barenaked Ladies all on one show...

I am still processing the reality of tonight's show. It's a personal thing... I have been a long time fan of The Barenaked Ladies and don't care who knows it.
They were always like 'the band next door' to me.
Their environmental plan for the tour makes a hell of a lot of sense... Why don't all bands do that, or a least do more to make their tours 'greener'?
Oh and I love it when they talk tech about how we all can purchase music and spread the joy guilt free... Me? I always buy the music I love.
I was thinking of making you a mix CD but I think I ran out of times I can copy it...

Does this look like Steve is asking George for tea?
I think it's the quality or lack there of of my photographic ability

I think George is saying you can get a drink over there...
I am tempted to drink what he is drinking because that man has energy to spare.
He never tires of talking to the audience in the 90 minutes or more we were there...

We played both the Thursday audience and the Sunday audience... I think we did a fair job.

There was an audience member that stood out. His name is Jose. He asked George a lot of good questions. He told George of his plans to go protest in DC about the war. That gave George an opening to tell him about how to deal with tear gas... I asked Jose later for his name and his plans for his future because I think he is quite a character. He's sharp, has a wicked sense of humour and happens to have a nose ring. He indicated a desire to make it in music or broadcasting or just go with the flow. Good luck in that protest and in those dreams!

There were two Montrealers in the audience I met as we all sat down. A mother and daughter. The daughter flew into Toronto to visit her mother... not Just to come to The Hour.

Now let's talk about Jian. My favourite correspondent on The Hour... not that I am biased or anything...

It's going to be like old times. If you have not already got your newsletter from Jian in your inbox you can sign up on the main page of Jian.ca
It's a very humorous letter. You can hear his voice as you read it.

What I mean by old times is Jian will be back on CBC Radio One with a Music, Arts and Entertainment radio show 2pm and 10pm starting mid March.... aaaaand he will be on The Hour on occasions to chat with George about it all. Like this time last year, when they would talk on Wednesdays about The National Playlist . That was always fun to watch.

When that radio show was cancelled, I wrote a post on my other blog about the National Playlist .

Cheers!
Barbara W.

I can definitely get behind that

I've been pretty critical about a lot of aspects of The Hour lately, but I really have to hand out major kudos for the Henry Rollins interview that aired this week.

It's in recruiting guests like this, who are intelligent and well-spoken and not afraid to speak their sometimes controversial views, that The Hour truly shines. And by faithfully putting all the best clips on the website, those lovelies at The Hour have ensured that even those of us who can't watch the show on tv, can still watch the best of the clips. And this was certainly one of the best.

If you haven't seen it, and you are interested in watching George interview an American icon, check it out here.

Now if only they could convince William Shatner to come on the show, that would be boffo. Or even better, William Shatner with Henry Rollins. They could even perform
"I Can't Get Behind That"

Barbara B.

The Hour this week

Sunday Jan 21 the Strombo show will be a 'Best Of' because our hard working host is still doing interviews at The Sundance Film Festival.
He will be back home Monday morning.

I am sure we will see the results of that labour this week and perhaps in the following weeks.

UPDATE: Monday's show is not happening maybe... George is currently snowed in at the airport see his website for details... Latest He thinks he can make it in time to do the show.
In fact he made it and looks like he had a great weekend.... if you know what I'm sayin'

Scheduled on Monday is Serena Ryder. Check out her new website www.serenaryder.com

The Actor James Cromwell will be on Tuesday.

Wendesday Russell Simmons Hip Hop Artist.
And Howie Mandel, Comedian, Actor and Game Show Host.

The Barnaked Ladies will be on Thursday. So will Johnny Briggs of Coronation Street.

I would love to be in that audience.
OH and one more thing about Thursdays show
Jian on The Hour!
On Thursday, January 25th, Jian will return to CBC's The Hour. He's got a lil' something on his mind...
and I will be in the audience.

Want more Jian? Try CBC Radio One

The news is out.

Our Hour correspondent Jian Ghomeshi is back on radio.
Jian will host the new afternoon arts magazine show on CBC Radio One.
You can read more about it today on www.cbc.ca and inside the cbc blog
plus Jian himself will tell you all about it when you sign up on the mailing list on www.jian.ca

I'll add more to the post when I get more details.

By the way in other breaking news The Hour has it's very own blog now... go check it out.

Barbara W.

I will look for links about the changes to CBC radio and put them here as I find them.
The Globe and Mail's take on it.

Best Story Ever!

I want to talk about your Best Stories Ever, but first a reminder that the Strombo show is on tonight.
and...
Coming up on The Hour this week R & B legend John Legend will be on, as well as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The interview with Henry Rollins should be interesting from what I've heard.

Do you watch the Best Stories Ever segment on The Hour? You can review them using the link at the top if you want to find your favourite. Have you thought of submitting a Best Story of your own? I will be taping a Best Story Ever of a colleague of mine. She has the best stories ever. I'll let you know how that turns out.

I was asking Paul McGrath, Associate Producer of The Hour, what kind of stories have they received so far from the public.

He tells me they have gotten about 100 stories so far. They range from touching, to bizarre, to raunchy...

A couple of the entries so far are great. They will be putting at least one of them on the air, but they are not sure when.

One challenge is that the viewers write in their stories instead of shoot them with a camera.
That is the reason for some rejection, another reason a video might be rejected is they may be self serving, IE: promoting a political cause or something.

Paul encourages you to submit your Best Story Ever on video.
All the info on how to do that is on www.cbc.ca/thehour/

If you don't want to do that you can just share it with us in the comment section if you like.


Barbara W.
One more thing before I go... www.jian.ca is going to be sending out a newsletter soon about what Jian Ghomeshi is up to. People keep asking me, 'Hey Barbara, what's Jian up to?' If you want to know make sure you sign up to be on the mailing list soon and he will tell you all about it.

Someone please tell me that was an anomaly

I had a chance to watch The Hour again last night, for the first time in months.

What has happened to the show I used to love?

It started to go south for me when the writer, Paul, did his standup schtick on advising George Bush on speech-making. Now from what I understand, Paul is a writer for the show, not a standup comic, but honestly, my comic delivery is better than that, and I can't tell a joke to save my life. That in itself is forgiveable, but the material wasn't really very funny. I think if you are going to use air time to produce a segment like that, you have to make sure you are actually humourous. Yet the audience still laughed at all the lame jokes, confirming my observations that they really add no more to the show as a televised entity than a laughtrack would. I'm assuming they were just being polite.

But the really disturbing thing for me was that the spark (which had made me a faithful viewer for two years) seemed to be missing from the show. There was something oddly flat and formulaic about what was being presented to me. Even George's jokes were stale. I was stunned to hear him make a quip about The One. My god, isn't it time to stop flogging that dead horse?

I used to rely on The Hour to provide me with a fresh perspective on current affairs. In Season One and Two, it was one of the best sources of accessible analysis on television. I saw no evidence of that quality last night, and it saddened me.

I stopped watching halfway through.

I'm hoping that someone can assure me that January 9, 2007's show was a one-off, that it was just a bad night. Hey, we all have bad nights.

Barbara B

Nothing better than the real thing

The MySpace group of 10 or so met up in the atrium of the CBC building today.
No ACTRA picket lines in sight...
The taping of The Hour was not affected by the strike.

We were sitting at a table and Jian Ghomeshi was walking by....
I got his attention and introductions soon followed.
He is so funny, so sweet and remembered all our names... sort of.
He is my favourite correspondent for The Hour.
There I said it. I have a favourite.

Jian was not scheduled to be on The Hour that night
so we eventually had to let him go on his way. We had a show to get to...
One hosted by our buddy George.

My cell phone pic does not compare to Valia's nice camera. Love the group Shot, Me, Robert M., George, Wendy and E.

The show was livey this night with three in studio guests.
Jack Layton had a lot of interesting things to say about the environment.
Second time in two months I have seen the man in person.
The Little Mosque on the Prairie intro and interview with Zaib Shaikh were both very funny and I am looking forward to watching the show Tuesday 8:30pm.... doesn't that time compete with The Hour?
Oh well one could watch The Hour at 11, I guess...
The gossip website was getting me kinda jealous because she has thousands readers and well this here little blog ... I guess we just need to sex this one up a bit to stay competitive.

Just kidding. Not big fans of celeb gossip round here.


As for sexing it up....
With a Host like George playing piano for us all and chatting after the show. Picture from my cell phone

Valia took this picture with her very nice camera...
There is nothing sexier than that my friend!
Too bad I don't have that audio.
What can I tell you about that conversation?
That he is very good about talking about music, motorcycles and what interests the audience...
But you knew that already.
We got to participate in that conversation and that is worth the price of admission .

Barbara W.

Sunday, Monday, and the rest of the week

For fans and friends of The Hour in the Greater Toronto Area, I have been inviting you to come with us to see The Hour Live, together.
This Monday Jan 8th will be the first MySpacers group get together at The Hour. You don't have to be a MySpacer to join the group. If you have not booked your seats by now, all that is left is standby... I will be there in the atrium of the CBC building gathering the group at 3:45 pm on Monday. You'll know me by the black Press hat and if you know E from myspace she'll will be there too...
We are all going out after for food, drink and fun. We can plan these group get togethers as much as you all want. I'll let you know how this one goes and you can let me know when you want to do the next one.

All I know about next week on The Hour is

Amy Lee, of the band Evanescence will be there.

(I know she is doing her concert on Monday night in Toronto)

and Ron MacLean will be taken to The Newsstand

Sunday night The Strombo Show will be live!!

Check it out on CJAD and CFRB

Follow along on Georges MySpace page and chat live with us on the strombo forum.

Barbara W.