talk radio

Adam and I had a great show today.
I had to record my interview very last minute (yesterday), and edit it very late last night.
Maya Ruggles from FedUp Windsor Community Gardening, came to Phog last night so I could interview her, as she had knee surgery this morning, when I might have been able to do a phone interview. She was game for a phone interview, from home, no less than two hours after her surgery, but having had two knee surgeries (including something very similar to her procedure today) there is no way I would expect ANYONE to talk to me for 10 minutes after that gruesomeness.

The piece was maybe one of the best I’ve done since Adam and I started recording Not In My Backyard. I just got a real sense of groundbreaking, up-and-coming buzz around the work that Maya and FedUp is doing. It was great to talk with her and to get a greater appreciation for what they’ve done and for what lies ahead. I think I see some volunteering in Jhoan’s and my future with FedUp.

Adam interviewed Chris Mangin of Artcite over the phone, and discussed Art’s Birthday. No, not the dude, Art…but art, the expression. It’s having its 1,000,046th birthday this year, and is being celebrated at Phog Lounge. During the interview, I was surprised to learn that The Situationists (Socialist Parisian artists in the 60s) had a hand in how this event is celebrated. For those of you paying extra-close attention, The Situationists were the “originators” of psychogeography, something I’ve been involved in locally a bit, and would often travel through Paris with a map of London, TRYING to get lost in order to see the city from different eyes.

If you missed the show and you want to listen, go OVER HERE!!

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Adam and I finally got back into the swing of recording Not In My Backyard for CJAM.

Again, we are live to air every Tuesday at noon on 91.5FM in Windsor/Detroit, or you can stream it to your computer, OR go to the archives and check it out.

I interviewed Chad Howson of Another Saturday Knight. His band released a new CD (their first) and I felt it was worth asking what it was like to do such a thing…being a non-musician. I strayed away from the “What does your music sound like?” kind of questioning, because you an go to his website and listen for yourself (I’ll post the link). I wanted to delve into the excitement, worry, and thoughts of someone releasing something new.

For your benefit, I recorded video of the interview, in two parts. The batteries in the recorder died, so I had to kill the video until I located some new batteries.

Here’s the radio interview link, and the videos are below.

I love how, as soon as the audio recorder is off, we get relaxed. We start speaking less formally. I think I like that feeling more than the feeling of the interview. I will begin trying to speak loosely DURING interviews instead of only on EXTRA FOOTAGE which is not on the interview.

By the way, there’s about 4 minutes of relaxed (extra content) that would not fit on the CJAM interview. Well worth seeing.

Also, you should listen to the CJAM version because Adam’s interview with Dianne Clinton (participant at the upcoming Made in Windsor Craft show). It’s a great connection to someone who conveys the importance of spending money with local artisans.

Click this link to hear the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) version on CJAM.

Turn up your computer volume to hear the audio from the video. It’s a little quiet.

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www.myspace.com/anothersaturdayknight

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24 Hrs. New Orleans map from Good Magazine.

A 24-hour walk.

Along with Scott Knowles, two guys named Kurt Braunohler and Calvin Johnson have created a series of psychogeography projects called 24 Hrs., of which I am a huge fan.

I read THIS article in Good Magazine (a wonderful mag you should check out).

In short, these guys take a group of 30-40 people and they walk around the city (New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, etc.) for 24 hours, mimicking a 24-hour road trip, visiting unique businesses, cultural hot-spots, eating, drinking, performing tasks (cleaning a cemetery for an hour) until they are tired, disoriented, and experiencing their city in a mindset and time that they are unaccustomed to.

Since then, I have been having meetings about hosting a walk like this in Windsor. I want to make it a little different though. I want it specifically to be an orientation or re-introduction to our fine city of Windsor. I want it to run from 8am until midnight instead of being 24 hours.

The idea struck me so fascinating that I decided to find one of the organizers and interview them for Not In My Backyard, the new radio show on CJAM.

Scott Knowles, a professor of Urban History at Drexel University in Philadelphia, was an incredible person to talk to, and I felt a kinship to a man who has an explorer within him that has successfully reached the surface in the form of many psychogeographical projects like 24Hrs.

Before and after the recording, we spoke a little longer about the area of Windsor/Detroit and how I hoped his group would come and offer a walk in the Detroit area. Scott encouraged my participation in having a walk of my own, which was a fairly uplifting suggestion.

We discussed liability, which was a concern for the walk, and he offered his experience as an example. He tells his groups what’s a stake with their physical health, but he does not require a waiver to be signed. Why? Well, he feels similar to me on this, as the legality that people jump to when they are simply going on a friendly, organized walk is part of what ruins events just like this. It’s a sad commentary on society as a whole when the first thing you have to consider on a walk that will find you immersed on a ground level to your dwelling is liability waivers.

We talked about his other projects, including disorienting groups of blindfolded people by dropping them off in the middle of an urban centre, in the middle of a park or parking lot, and asking them to find their way back, as a group, to a particular spot. It is mostly a unnerving time when they first remove the blindfolds and try to figure out where they are. Secondly, it is a challenge to envision the city and the easiest route to the final spot. It’s a wonderfully fun idea I also plan on borrowing after the Big Walk.

Another event involved people keeping track, on paper, of every single minute that passed (in a given time frame of an hour or two) while walking through the city. It was an experiment and observation of the passage of time. The amount of things that occur in a given minute that we don’t bother consciously recognizing because of our haze of hurry we immerse ourselves within.

The last event he told me about was equally incredible. Artists, urban planners, etc. go to a venue (restaurant, coffee shop, McDonald’s, whatever) with tons of drafting paper and pens and markers. Then they decide, individually or in groups, what SHOULD be in the place of the building they are sitting in. They tape up the designs and ideas on the front of the building and debate the worthiness of their designs/arguments. It’s a beautiful concept because it’s an imagining. It allows those capable of envisioning better, to dream. It encourages wild-eyed hope and appreciation for a city, a surrounding that we want.

Talking with him was as uplifting an experience that an interview can be because of the clarity of his intentions and penchant for the less ordinary.

My interview with Mr. Knowles will run on October 7th at noon.

As it stands, with some unexpected and expected obstacles, the Big Walk will happen on Saturday, November 8th. I am only taking 25 people on this walk, and it will be first-come, first-serve. Interested? E-mail me at phoglounge@gmail.com

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