Me & My Dad & Bob Seger

It’s 10 AM on a Thursday morning in Ottawa. As “Main Street” by Bob Seger plays in the cafe, the memory comes flooding back of the last time I heard this song...


A few nights before Christmas last year, Dad dragged me down to our seedy and centipede infested basement in Woodstock to show me what he’d been working on for weeks. Past all the boxes that had yet to be unpacked (and possibly never would be) was Dads make shift workshop...a downgrade from our previously spacious garage that was all his.

Amongst all the half taken apart (of half constructed, depending on how you looked at it) speakers and other audio equipment and tools that littered the small space, was a fully operational turntable, complete with an equalizer and a set of speakers. The entire ensemble sat proudly in the middle of all the works in progress, turntable on top of equalizer, speakers on either side. A set up that was obviously meticulously planned.

The whole thing looked like it belonged in the 1970‘s. Vintage grills adorned the speakers, while the equalizer had blue accents and silver knobs. The wood on everything matched...maybe it was Maple or something, I can never remember what different types of wood look like. I do remember that it was all the same type though, and that it looked really nice, all of it uniform and intentional. It almost looked like it had all been made from the same tree. One tree, one perfect system, one little family of equipment.

As Dad began to tell me the different features of the thing, turning knobs on and off as he went, I listened with curiosity and genuine impress at what he had made. I always knew that Dad was good with this kind of stuff, but to make a something that works out of nothing is a concept that is entirely beyond my comprehension or ability (something that was always painfully obvious growing up). Admittedly, I only understood a portion of what he was explaining, but it didn’t dilute my intrigue.

It was around this time that Dad dropped a Bob Seger record onto the thing to christen it. Seger was one of Dad's all time favourites, and therefore, I had a soft spot for Bob, too. Funny how the music our parents listen to stays with us no matter how old we get. We either loathe it for the rest of our lives or love it, and for me, it's the latter. From The Who to Peter Gabriel, I always loved whatever Dad played.

The opening chords started in, loud and intentional, distinct but with that warm tone only vinyl paired with an excellent system can achieve. It was at this time that Dad told me that he wasn’t going to sell the set like he had planned on. Instead, Dad said, he had made the entire thing for me. Merry Christmas. As Main Street filled the basement, I realized that this was one of the first times in a long time that we had something that we both enjoyed, and that we had both found something (finally something, after seventeen years) that we could do together, bond over, enjoy.

And so it was that despite all the fights and the tears and all the phone calls that never got made and all the missed visits and the general bullshit that had gone on over the years, here we were, listening to that dusty Bob Seger album in the basement of a house that had never felt like home to me, and never would...but at least for half a second, it felt inhabitable, and almost warm.
The record revolved and the speakers did their job, and for at least two minutes, we were father and daughter, at peace for a little while, even if that peace would only last for a moment.

I imagine that maybe moments like this are common for ‘normal’ parents and kids, but for me, moments like this don't happen, and it’s one of the few good memories I have left of Dad and me.

Me & The Toronto Star: A Writers Rant

So today I was skimming through the Toronto Star, and I came upon a piece that faired to be (dare I say it) potentially interesting: Robert Cribb, a columnist for the Star, was sent to take his six year old daughter out shopping to your average little kid stores (H&M, Gap Kids, Joe Fresh, the Lollipop Guild's Factor Warehouse) to show the differences between the clothes that little girls like...and the ones that their fathers would have them wear.
Okay, I thought to myself, this can go either one of two ways: they'll make an interesting piece of out something that could be nothing; show how little girls are obsessed with looking older and older while their fathers would have them stay young (and then subsequently look at how some older women try to dress younger...coincidence?). Or they could go for something explosive and analyze the little girls crop top choices and show how perhaps, we're allowing our daughters and little sisters to become too sexualized at a young age. That, or they could do a cop out and make it a Three Stooges-style fluff piece that could have it's own laugh track for every time a 'Oh no! Alexandra wants a mini skirt but Dad doesn't like it! Oh Dad, you just don't get fashion!!' moment occurs.
Guess which angle they went with?
Now, I'm not saying that I expect A LOT from the Star...but at the same time I'm not saying that they're anything from an established and well read publication...what I AM saying is that by going with the later option, making this almost-interesting story into a cringe inducing mish-mash of clashing pants preferences between a father -daughter duo that is as generic as it is unoriginal, the Star has made me loose a little respect for it. Why? Because they didn't take it far enough.
As I've mentioned before, I feel that our jobs as writers, columnists, journalists, etc is to make people think. After reading this story, I can honestly say that the only thought it inspired was something along the lines of 'I really have to go read something with substance' (so I guess you could say that through literary inaction, the Star DID kind of make me think by pushing me to read something GOOD, but I really don't think that's the goal here).
The Star had a perfectly good opportunity to present the public with something really worth discussing, something that I don't think enough people are talking about, and that is the sexualization of little girls, and specifically the psychology behind it all, from the marketing of it, to it's sources, to the mind set of the poor tots themselves. Perhaps that's a large area to cover, but at the very least they could have published a snippet of it, along with a link to their blog so readers could further read about it.
Personally, I believe that if you're going to do something, you shouldn't do it half assed. You should go all out, go all the way, and push things to the greatest extent that you can take them to. This is what the Star failed to do. When faced with the decision to create something intellectual or something that was pure people-pleasing at it's core, they took the easy route, knowing it wouldn't require too much effort, and they wouldn't get any heat for it later (imagine the angry letters the editor would get if we even from the H&M loving Moms if for a second it was insinuated that perhaps a mini skirt the size of a napkin isn't the most decent thing for a first grader to be wearing).
Now, I just have one thought left for the Toronto Star. I don't want to have to be literally crude and put everything down to it's simplest form and appeal to the lowest common denominator of readers....but since that's what the Star seems to like to do I have no choice:
Dear Toronto Star, please commence in 'growing a pair' and get back to me when you're ready to do some REAL journalism.
Thank you, and I hope you enjoy your recently acquired audience of people with an elementary school education.

(If you want to read the Star article that's under fire, click here and prepare to be horrified).