Recently I've seen a few articles (including this one) complaining about the change in programming on Flow 93.5 FM here in Toronto. From primarily an Urban station format, Flow has apparently morphed into a top 40 station and some folk here are up in arms.

I really don't see why all of the hoopla over Flow. I mean in my opinion we were all hoodwinked on this station from the inception anyways.

Back in the day, read 10 years ago, Toronto, gasp, didn't have its own homegrown urban station. Say it wasn't so? No it was so! We had WBLK straight out of Buffalo instead and the reception for that station was spotty at best. You could pick it up in Scarborough not so well downtown etc etc. Mind you BLK as it was known loved Toronto, after all they were getting paid off Toronto focused advertising, something like 60% of total revenue at the time I had heard. We in Toronto did have though and continue to have some excellent urban and black oriented programming on local college radio; CKLN, CIUT, CHRY.

Anyway at that point in came Mr Denham Jolly of Milestone Radio with his proposal to the CRTC for an urban, at that time read black, station and his complaints that the CRTC had kept turning him down (3 times actually) and how it was a shame that a major city like Toronto didn't have an urban station. Which it was by the way!

The urban, read black, public bought his argument and threw their support behind his cause and in 2000 Toronto and Mr Jolly finally got the CRTC to see the light and sometime early in 2001 Toronto had its own urban station. Flow 93.5 FM.

They started well. Grabbed up a bunch of local community radio personalities (Somebody send out an S.O.S for my man DJ X) to fill some slots and we the public thought it was on and popping. Finally!

Except that what should have been cause for real celebration wasn't really in my opinion. See the black community had thrown its support behind Mr Denham because most of us naively thought we would be getting the equivalent of the community radio shows on this new urban station but more of it. All day long, we had envisioned as opposed to those late night time slots that we had on the community radio. We were picturing 24-7 hip hop, rnb , calypso, reggae, jazz and programming speaking to the needs and desires of the urban read black populace.

Yea sure in the back of our minds we knew that BLK an urban station as well didn't do that but BLK wasn't that bad and we thought Flow being all based in Toronto would cater more to the needs of the unique mix that is Toronto's urban population.

What we got instead wasn't even sorry was nowhere near as good as BLK and is what I refer to as BET radio. The same 10 or 20 tunes played ad nauseam in slightly different sequences for the whole day. I personally still remember hearing John Legend's Used to love U about 5 times in a 40 min trip from downtown to Scarborough a few years back.

Oh don't get me wrong though we did get a few bones thrown our way to appease us. Our little calypso show on Sunday evenings and the occasional reggae (read nuff nuff nuff Sean Paul) and the late, late night real underground hip hop but prime time and the rest of the day for the most part was just like watching 106 & Park with a few exceptions, big up Starting From Scratch.

In my opinion the station never lived up to our expectations or desires. Of course maybe we were a bit too idealistic. Its cool to have that urban station but the majority of us who supported the application back in the day I'm pretty sure if you ask us 7 years later this is not what we expected or in some cases were led to believe the station would be like.

A so it go sometimes, the argument being that the format we envisioned wouldn't make the money required to run a successful business. Got to market the station and get a broader base and I guess playing the same 10 rnb and hip hop songs does that. Its all about that C.R.E.A.M still ain't it?

So no I don't see what folks are getting all upset about. It doesn't really matter if Flow starts playing Madonna and Britney now cause they let us down from the inception. This is not what we had in mind when late in the last millennium we talked excitedly about having an urban station or signed petitions to enhance Mr Jolly's claims. Flow used us and sold us out but we were naive and idealistic so its not totally their fault. After all what did we know about urban stations, it was all new ground for us. How were we to know that Urban radio meant the same playlist over and over until we actually think we like the tunes being played.

Still like I Said Top 40 or BET radio makes no damn difference to me. I don't listen anymore. Give me the community shows. Big up Worldwide, big up Masterplan, big up Mixtape Massacre, big up Morning Ride. Flow, new Flow who cares.

(wrote most of this last year when Castro stepped down as leader of Cuba never posted it)

Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant
Fight the Power - Chuck D

Been thinking some random type thoughts lately. Was just on the bus last week or was it lounging around the house when something occurred to me. Actually I think I was thinking about music and my favorite mcs and how some people have elevated some of these guys to hero and icon status. Of course that got me thinking about Kris and this foolish Celebrity fat thing and I came to a conclusion.

You can only live on as a hero and icon in the hearts of the public if you die young. Well not only but it increases your chances by quite a bit. Think about it; Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, even Tupac , Biggie, Bob Marley. Why all those fellows have icon status? Yes they were great men to some extent but it also has a lot to do with them being cut down in their prime.

I not feeling to really go into a lot of detail hopefully but the point is its easier to lionize these
young dudes. These only the good die young, cut down in their prime , showing so much promise, with possibly great futures ahead of them types.

Why? 'Cause of the unfulfilled promise mostly. We think wow they achieved so much in so short a span what would they have achieved if they had lived longer? We imagine all sorts of lofty achievements all sorts of greatness ensuing from these cats and it is possible they would have become greater but I beg to differ.

I really think that its also possible that some of these fellows would have crashed and burned, fallen the bleep off. Would have become footnotes rather than the icons they are presently. Is possible n'est pas?

Think about it. If Martin Luther King had lived on, was alive today he would probably be as irrelevant as Jesse Jackson is. Actually Prof Dyson made a very good point at his speech two weeks ago when he said that King had become disliked before his death mainly because of his stance on Vietnam in 68. Its only that the media has crafted his image to reflect his 1963 I have a dream speech and thats the lasting image we have of the man today.

Bob Marley would have probably made some horrible album that everyone hated or tried to fuse reggae and grunge or something and we would be cussing him as a sellout or we might have just said boy your time has past and moved on to more relevant artists.

Same with Malcolm. To be honest I love Malcolm but at the end I see a man with very little in the way of a coherent ideology. In a sense death saved his legacy.

I know people not going to agree with me but thats just the way I see things. Che would have become fat and old like Castro and we might be thinking of him today as some throwback to the old ways not a revolutionary icon. Biggie could have been eclipsed by Jay Z, Pac might have ended up in jail again and could have become a crazy Mike Tyson like figure who didnt know to quit when he was ahead.

The point is dying early without fulfilling their dreams and goals really to me saved some of these guys. Not that they wouldn't have made further useful contributions just that at the end of the day odds are they might not have been placed on the pedestals we keep them on. Not that one can second guess history in a What-if manner but just consider the one's who lived
and how they turned out.

Plus who does the lionizing, the canonizing with these public icons? Is usually the young and the young usually idolize those like them or just older. Ok so Nelson Mandela is a bit of an anomaly in my argument but he spent a few decades in jail. Would he be as big if he had not been incarcerated through those years or would he have petered off into irrelevancy in our thoughts?

I needed to talk about the transit strike some more.

On the subway this morning there was a pre-recorded message from the TTC thanking customers for their patience during the strike this past weekend. Found it a little annoying actually but I think they were afraid the public might resort to violence or something.

Actually you could tell that the bus drivers and subway guys seemed a bit sheepish today after the strike. Also a little fearful. There were all sorts of statements issued about not assaulting or abusing TTC staff and from a certain perspective it was kind of funny to see these mighty transit men who had just held the City at ransom quake in their boots as if Torontonians were going to dig out the torches and the pitchforks and drag a few of them from behind the wheels of their iron machines and give them a lynching. As if! (wait am I allowed to use that word lynching or will I get into trouble?)

It was also sort of like watching a kid that knows he has done wrong slink away in shame and wait on a punishment that he hopes isn't coming but can't really be upset if it does come cause he feels he might deserves it or in some way provoked it.

That's the way it seemed to me anyway. Don't worry though aside from the odd oddball I'm sure most folks will be as indifferent to their bus drivers as most Torontonians usually are.

The other thing I thought about was just how unfair a transit strike on the weekend is. Transit strikes in general target those that cant do better but its not that simple in a big city like Toronto. A lot if not most of the Torontonians who use transit have access to their own cars. It just happens to be more convenient to escape the gridlock and the $20 a day parking downtown or more environmentally friendly to take the bus or subway to work or school.

but then when you strike on a weekend .....

Well then you are basically just targeting the captive riders cause anyone who can do better doesn't use the service on the weekend with its lackadaisical schedule. You only use transit on the weekend if you really cant do any better otherwise you drive where you're going.

So by having a strike on the weekend the TTC really targeted, shift workers, the working and non-working poor, the disabled, those that couldn't do any better like those that make $10 dollars an hour and have no wheels and for who a taxi drive to work would be prohibitively expensive. These vulnerable folk are the types who suffered the most from the strike. The middle class, the rich well they probably didn't even notice its effect beside worrying as to whether it would be back to normal in time for Morning rush hour.

So this strike to me we just have a union just picking on the really vulnerable. That sucks.

Oh well just wanted to get that off my chest.

ps: as an aside blogger spell check keeps asking me if I want to change Torontonians to Trinidadians. Imagine that eh he!

You is really a dirty, stinking so n so! you kno dat?

Now don't take that too personally but really you can't blame Torontonians if that is how we feel right now that you went on strike this weekend.

The thing is I aint really mad at you for striking that much. If you felt you couldn't accept the contract then by all means strike its your right. Its just that last week you promised that you would give us 48 hrs notice of a strike and then out of the blue we wake up Saturday morning and hear you was on strike from last night. No 48 hr notice, not even as much as two hours notice just sudden so out of the blue .... bram! bus and subway stop running. People left in the middle a de street like idiots looking for the next bus that ain't coming. Got them digging in their pocket for two coppers to mek taxi fare. Ya mean you couldn't even wait till after payday come to strike? What a ting!

It was also vexing because you weren't supposed to go on strike now. A settlement had been tentatively reached after a strike threat for last Monday. And even though some of the improvements and clauses on the settlement looked to the average man like you and the Transit Union had gotten away with murder and had most definitely gotten the best of the negotiations with the City and the TTC management we had breathed a collective sigh of relief that no strike would occur and all was well again cause yea gas prices shooting through the stratosphere at the moment and this is a City where about 20-25% of people rely on transit to get to work in the morning. So no bus, no train means more drama. Nuff people scrambling to get to work and the city looking confuse like misery move up.

So there we were thinking that all was fine and dandy. You had clauses that if any other transit workers in the whole province got more money than you then the City would renegotiate to keep you the highest paid in the area. That just goes to show how special and important we feel you is that you get that clause in there.

Ya get ya 100% sick leave pay and we was happy for ya. Man nobody din even cuss ya for all them drivers that working overtime and end up mekkin over $100,000 last year. Imagine that $100,000 from driving a bus? I gine let my mudda know that she mek me waste my blasted time wid all this stupid university schooling nonsense when I could have been learning to drive bus and make some real money. Chupse!

And you know what? You had sympathy too cause people was saying cuhdear is a stressful job and we respect that and if a bus driver get assault or hurt on the job why should he only get 80% of his pay while on sick leave? We empathized with your demand for the 100% which you got in the end. It only seemed fair to us.

And we were giving you props for saying you'd give us 48 hrs notice so we could make alternative plans be it slapping tar, bike, electric bike, Go-Train, taxi, car or stand home. We knew a strike would produce bachannal on the streets and we weren't looking forward to one but at least that was right decent of you to be giving us proper notice.

And now this!

Mr Transit man let me tell you now all good will towards you done. D.U.N done!

You had people out Friday night, Saturday morning trying to get home from a late shift or from a fete downtown stuck on the streets, waiting at bus stops far from home, and not a single train, bus or streetcar ain't run after midnight. Not me mind you! Wunnah ain't ketch me! I old, I duz be in my bed at 830 so I wasn't out on the road like some poor fellas waiting on the last bus to take them back to North York or Scarborough or Etobicoke. No sir not me!

But is the principal of the thing man. Cause first off we didn't know that you were even contemplating strike. Like I said tentative deal was reached last weekend and needed to be ratified and everyone breathed sigh of relief. Strike averted, people happy and looking at the makeup of the tentative deal we thought you were happy.

You met Friday and didn't ratify it. Cuhdear now what wrong with the deal? Ya trying to get blood out of a stone now. The City broke, the transit people never had no money in the first place, them raise bus fares umpteen times already in the last two years. What more ya want now? Look this is think line ya walking cause if you ask for too much it could backfire on everybody and I don't know what other driving jobs you going find out there where you going t make as much money as you currently making.

To me the move if the deal didn't get ratified by your members would have been to say we don't like that offer can we go back to the bargaining table or to at least give the people a day or two of warning that you will be going on strike. That would have been the decent thing to do. We might still have cussed you as ungrateful, greedy curs but still you shouldn't just stop the buses at midnight with no warning and leave people stranded so. That is a nasty move man. That show me you ain't got no broughupsy, know no common courtesy, no feeling for ya fellow man, nuh compassion, nuttin so.

I going to pray for all ya at church today though! Ask the Lord for now to hold off on the smiting wid de Thunder and Lightning that some a we feel ya rightly deserve!

Then you say you ain't give us the 48 hrs notice cause last weekend people cuss you when ya do that. Well boy if ya think people cuss ya when there was only a strike threat and you didn't actually go on strike imagine how much cussing you going to get when you are forced back to work Monday.

Did I also mention that ya decide to strike in the middle of the highest gas prices here ever. $1.21 a litre and rising! Chupse! Got me looking to get a used tricycle cheap and done wid car, bus, train and everything one time!

Anyway they going to legislate you back to work on Monday so I will see you then. Ya don't have to be frighten when ya see me Monday morning though. I ain't one of them fellas that going abuse you and cuss you for this debacle. I might even offer you a good morning (yes even though I don't speak on the train I will say morning to the bus driver) if my mind bid muh to but just remember that somewhere deep in my head even if I smiling I still thinking that all ya is dirty stinking so n sos to leff the people stranded so with no warning.

Ya use up all the good will we de people had for ya!

Lemma guhlong to church before ya mek me sin my soul more. I still going pray for you though.

Your Truly
Jdid



ps: just because I cuss ya here don't play ya driving past me tomorrow morning and don't pick me up ya kno!

"Good Morning!"

Those two innocuous words threw me for a loop this morning. They came from a man sitting adjacent to me on the subway as I rode in on my way to work.

In the three seconds it took for my bajan manners to kick in and respond likewise about 20 thoughts ran through my head.

Wait I kno he?

He cud be talking to me?

Wha um is he want now? I aint got nuh money ta give a fella! I aint care wha kinda sob story he got fa me.

Wait he is ona dem cult fellas dat gine try to start confusing me bout visiting he church? Cause fa right now I aint looking to follow nuh cults. Next ting I know dem tekkin all my salary an de Pastor tief off my wife to be he concubine an leff me by my one self. Actually wait that cud be a good ting, lemma hear wha he got to say an if de pastor lookin fa concubines.

He head bad? he aint look like he escape from Queen Street but still ya can neva tell dese days, he head cud be bad.

Wait was I was talkin to myself agin and he thought I was talking to he? I gotta stop talking and singing ta myself cause dis ting like it duz only attract mad people ya!

Chupse what um is bout me dat mek it look like I interested in conversation dis blessed morning. He cann see I got a newpaper an headphones on specifically cause I aint looking to listen or talk or hear from nuhbody this marning. chupse!

Wha I been in this country umpteen years and nuhbody neva say good morning ta me pun the train. He cann be Canadian!

Naa he want money I kno he want money, cud only be cause that is the only time a complete stranger will say morning to ya on the Train. yea dat is it.

And on and on it went in my head even after I had responded to his greeting and sat down and started reading the newspaper. I was wary. You would have thought the man had threatened me with a knife or something instead of offering me words of greeting.

As the trip started I kept glancing up, surreptitiously trying to take the measure of the man. He still looked sane, was dressed ok; plaid shirt, jeans, sneakers looked like a computer dude so maybe he didnt want my money and no he didnt try to say anything else to me for the duration of the trip so that ruled out the whole cult thing.

Strange indeed. He said Good morning to a stranger. My mind trys to wrap itself around that unfathomable concept. He didnt stare, he didnt push, he didnt plop himself down next to me almost crushing my leg, he didnt give me a wha you looking at mind ya business look, he didnt give me the unless thats the only seat left in this whole train I aint sitting next to you look. Instead he said good morning.

Whoa! Head rush!

Whats that all about? Doesn't he know that in the subway we try to interact as little as possible with our fellow man? Its bad enough we're stuck on this damn infernal, prone to random break downs, vehicle some for 1/2 hr or more or that we might inadvertently have our space violated, get crushed or accidentally brush against another person we didnt want to touch. Like the white woman who kicked me last week and gave me what I can only interpret as a 'dont touch me you dirty n****' look when my foot accidentally touched hers as I moved to let someone pass. And yes I had said sorry. Dry up ol hag! Ya feel I wanta play footsies wid de likes a you. Chupse!

Willingly inviting contact with a stranger? On the subway? You mad or drunk boy? No sar. What gives?

I mean as an aside funny thing about it is that we attempt to be islands in this sea of people. Independent, not interacting, ignoring, pretending to sleep, pretending to read, staring into space, trying not to let our eyes linger too long on one spot or person, listening to our music to drown out the others but yet a lot of these folk acting as islands will pull out that cell phone and have a totally and might I say loud as what not, what should be private conversation in the midst of a complete bunch of strangers. I still haven't figured that one out yet though. Trying to be innocuous, blend in, not gain attention, no touch anyone yet have the most personal of conversations in a crowded train? Hmmm. Must be a they are strangers so who cares if they hear what I'm saying they don't know me thing. Guess that can work in a big city but I may never really figure that one out.

Anyway I kept my eye on dude until he got off at Woodbine. In the end I just figured although he showed no other outwards signs of being a stranger to the city he definitely wasn't from around these parts. yep thats it, he's definitely a newbie. He couldn't be Torontonian.

Unless he mad.

Damn I still wish he was from the cult and had come to take my wife off as a concubine. Way to get a brothers hopes up. Chupse!

(sorry havent felt much like posting recently. its all kind of blah)


Now while I dont think Americans have a bigger proportion of stupid people than the worldwide average maybe it is because we duz get blitzed by so much US news that sometimes I duz have to really question that notion.

They crucify my yout Obama for his relationship to Pastor Wright. Say his pastor is racist and un-patriotic and is a devil incarnate for saying the things he say from the people pulpit blasting the Nation. So then they say well if the pastor of the Church that Obama goes to, been going to for donkey years, is so then Barack definetly got to be the same so they try and try and try to paint Barack with that said same brush.

It was all over the news fa weeks. Ya couldnt miss it man, youtube, myspace, she-blog, he-newspaper, them-tv every single place ya look dey had Barack under heavy manners on the back front defending himself against these allegations about his pastor and church.

True?

So how it is now that they just do a big poll the odda day of these same American people in the same U S of A where everybody was claiming that Obama's pastor is a racist and unpatriotic and yet the poll results can claim that 15% of American people still think Obama is a muslim.

How de man cud have a unpatriotic pastor at his church and be a muslim same time? The man bi-racial not bi-religional!

Good gosh! stupid stupid stupid people!

This supersedes the last date and venue. Hope to see some of you Toronto folk there.

New Date & Venue

A Different Booklist

&

The Centre for Urban Schooling

(University of Toronto)

are proud to host an evening with

Michael Eric Dyson

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 – 6.30 pm

The Earth Sciences Centre Auditorium

University of Toronto

# 5 Bancroft Ave.

(Willcocks & Bancroft - across from Bancroft Hall)

One of the top 100 most influential black Americans (Ebony magazine) Michael Eric Dyson, is coming to Toronto to launch his latest book:

APRIL 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How it Changed America

The author of 16 books, including Debating Race, Holler if You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur and Why I Love Black Women, Michael Eric Dyson is making a rare Toronto appearance to talk about the “Promised Land” MLK spoke of in his final speech. Dyson has made recent appearances on Larry King Live to discuss “from King to Obama” – as the U.S. heads toward its first African American presidential nominee, the question of King’s legacy is as relevant as it’s ever been.