Things I should do

Monday is my day off.

Last night, I started to make notes on my Sean Ward tape, listening to the stuff I collected when I spent the afternoon with him as he sold his comic books on Queen Street. Today, the plan is to listen to the two hours I recorded in his his studio, and make a couple more pages of notes. I’m also going to call the Silver Snail to see if someone will talk to me about “how to become a successful comic book artist.”

I should also call Richard, my polka music guy.

I should also start my BRD303 paper. I’m comparing two CDs recorded by Ian McGettigan: Rick of the Skins’ Here Comes the Weekend and Plaskett’s Truthfully, Truthfully. According to their answering machine, Ian is living in Toronto with Rob Benvie. He was nice enough to do a phone interview with me last week, so I’ll have a shiny interview disc to hand in with my paper. Now I just have to write the thing.

Gary Gould from the Ryerson Journalism school gave me the name of a friend of his at CBC Radio. I should email him. And set up lunch with Gary.

Got a call on Friday afternoon from The Arts Report’s Joe Cummings. Returned his call this morning, left voicemail.

Lots of things on the go.

Starting a new blog. A radio blog.

So I’ve started a new blog. Starting is always the hardest part.

Posts, I suppose, will fall into one of three main categories.

1. What I’m listening to
   • What I’m working on

     • How the hell I’m going to get work once I graduate </ol> This first entry fits under #2. Consider it a backgrounder.

       I am working on two projects for the CBC. Hooray!

       One is for Metro Morning: a profile piece about Sean Ward, an autobiographical comic book artist who sells his work on Queen Street. I’ve got all my tape dubbed. I have about three and a half hours, which has to be boiled down to maybe five minutes. I don’t think I’ll be transcribing everything. At this point, I just need to find the time to listen back, write a script, and get it vetted. Piece of cake.

       Another is for DNTO: a little feature about what I’ve been calling “trend piggybacking.” Basically, I’m going to go out and figure out what polka dots have to do with polka music. I already know the answer, but the fun is in the finding. I’ve heard back from folks at the Polka Dot Door, a polka band, and I have the numbers for a couple textile/fashion people from school.

       Progress reports to follow.