My apologies for the lack of activity at the Legion last week. We've been busy. But we'll be back with lots more because of it real soon. When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's always hard to keep track of everything else that's going on in the world. That used to be a simple thing. Buy a newspaper on the way home, catch the 11 o'clock news, spend Sunday lounging over a magazine. These days, the news cycle runs 24/7....

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Father's Day always gets you thinking of your own dad and sidetracks most of us into recalling the times when we were primarily "fathered". Maybe it was that which inspired today's sermon. Maybe it was seeing a dour TV news report from rain drenched Saskatchewan about police cracking down on the dangerous sport of "Ditch Boarding", better known in some parts as White Trash Water Skiing. The concept is about as simple as simple...

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Sigh… There are no Lesbians in Canada. Hey, don't look at me like I'm Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, standing in front of the student body at Columbia University declaring that there are no homosexuals in Iran. I'm deducing this from a TMN press release that landed in my inbox today promoting "The Real L Word" a summer series about the lives of six LA Lesbians --- "every bit as glamorous, fashionable, fabulous and even as cutthroat...

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Proponents of the digital age first began calling their creations "New Media". And when it had been around for a while they opted for "Next Media". Cause we all know it's going to be the next big thing. Never mind that government funders still insist that it's "Experimental", nor that everyone is still struggling to figure out how to make it stand out or even stand on its own, not to mention devise...

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Sometimes, not being at the center of the action can tell you more about the industry you're in than actually rubbing shoulders with the movers and shakers. I'm not at the Banff International Television Festival this year. Actually, I've never been. Scheduled as it is, I've usually been shooting or lying face down on a remote beach recovering from a long season when it's in session. I've heard all the stories, of course....

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Every time CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein speaks lately, I get the feeling that he pictures he and his fellow commissioners as lonely warriors guarding our porous frontier against the invasion of Barbarian hoards. Every ruling, every regulatory proposal smacks of an arrogance based on seeing yourself as all that stands between order and chaos, one of the brave few insuring Canada isn't drowned by a flood of outside...

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I was still in high school when I learned CPR (Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation). A couple of bored firemen came to gym class with this blonde dummy in a blue track suit that they laid out on the floor to teach us how it was done. Up until then, the most reliable way of saving somebody who'd drowned was pushing on their back and lifting their elbows until you pumped out all the water. But CPR could...

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It ain't over 'til it's over. But it's officially over. 57 days after the finals began, Chicago triumphed in overtime to win their first Stanley Cup since 1961. And with them all the way, following an "All or nothing" strategy, Barry Kiefl takes the crown in the 4th Annual Infamous Writers Hockey Pool. Second place goes to Mike Foster, with Will Pascoe making the podium for the 3rd straight year, this time to claim the bronze....

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Most people's eyes glaze over whenever we creatives try to explain why copyright law based on protecting corporations doesn't really work for us. I know it's hard. A lot of us get lost as corporate lawyers detail how a lot of people are looking at what you made, but not enough so you get paid. Well, maybe this will help. It's like this… ...

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This blog has been churning through some darker waters of late, dealing with a growing feeling on my part that things just aren't heading in the directions I'd like 'em to in either show business or the world at large.  All of that's subjective, of course, bolstered by my reading of Michael Lewis' astonishing book "The Big Short" which basically explains how all those institutions you were...

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Who knew the answer to saving Canadian television would be revealed in an ad for mayonnaise…? As Canada's television networks announced their fall schedules this week, it became clear that there would be little if any increase in Canadian production and that all the tears shed over their "broken business model", "catastrophic advertising losses" and the need for an infusion of Public funding to "Save Local TV" were just more...

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Screenwriters regularly engage in a key element of the craft  we call "Spit-balling" or "breaking a story". It's a relatively simple process in which you ask two basic questions -- "What if…?" and "And then what?" Take any real life situation, apply this inner, fellow-writer debated or white-boarded dialectic and you'll soon map out a story in which the motivations of the major players have come into conflict and a plot...

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