Don't get me wrong -- I love listening to Stuart McLean's Vinyl Café, roughly the equivalent of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion. I enjoy the stories with "Dave and Morley" as well as McLean's witty observations about life in Canada; and how he introduces us to acts that would not otherwise get national exposure. But it also says something about the incredible dearth of humour and satire in Canada that McLean manages to win the Stephen Leacock award not once, not twice, but three times. Only Arthur Black has also pulled off three Leacock wins.
Come on, fellow Canadians! We live in the shadow of an economic superpower while being heavily dependent on it. We have winter anywhere from four to nine months of the year depending on where we live (one in the Lower Mainland of B.C.), yet think summer is when Canada's true nature shines. We're considered unpatriotic if we dislike Don Cherry, yet we don't seem all that worried about the possibility of Québec separating. We want to enjoy the vast back country to take in nature yet have no qualms about driving our SUVs to get there.
We're an inherently funny group of people. Why should McLean, Coupland, Air Farce and 22 Minutes have the monopoly on wisdom? Surely the Leacock Foundation could actually be bothered with trying to find struggling artists who have better use for the the $10K prize than Stuart does.
Not that I wouldn't attend a live taping of the Café the next time it comes to Hamilton -- of course I would. I just wish Canada's broadcasters actually gave more time to our own than the often repulsive people that come out of the Broadway or Tinseltown factories.
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