By Christopher Foulds
He grew up listening to urban music and wanting to become a rapper while chasing his dreams of skiing for a living.
But it was the crooning of two generations of country stars that led to a cowboy hat on the head that now turns out some of the best lyrics in music today.
“It was Brad Paisley and George Jones on a trip to Tofino that really got me into country,” Ridley Bent recounted minutes before he took to the stage at this year’s Merritt Mountain Music Festival.
Bent’s music is weighted heavily on lyrics and the man who now calls Winnipeg home pens songs that tell tales — tall, sad, funny, irreverent, profound.
He cites Lyle Lovett as a fellow singer with whom he would like to share a stage — and it makes sense, considering both share a talent for telling stories that are linked to damn fine music.
Through his songwriting and his stage presence, Bent is equal parts Hank Williams Sr., Lovett, George Jones and every other classic country storyteller.
Compared to the generic, mass-produced schlock from Nashville that plagues country-music radio airwaves today, Bent’s creations evoke a style that is legendary and lasts.
Go ahead. Drop a few bucks and download Buckle and Boots (‘That rough-stock truck stop has still got my pictures up, so that’s where I eat my beans’).
Or Nine Inch Nails (‘I got her tool collection, she got my working man’s blues, she got my Tom T. Hall, I got her Husker Du’).
Or Suicidewinder (‘I said I’m Johnny Cash when I’m drinking, I’m the Clash when I’m thinking . . .”).
Now, compare this richness with the vanilla stylings of Rascal Flatts, an abomination and aberration — granted, a very popular aberration — on the country-music scene, a band that is to country what Christopher Cross was to pop in the early 1980s.
Lots of sales, lots of awards, lots of money — and a whole lotta grimacing when looking back.
While Bent may never reach the stratospheric heights of popularity currently occupied by the wafer-thin offerings of many alleged country acts, he has already surpassed them in the realm of importance.
How he does what he does is a question posed to every artist.
How does Bent come up with such spectacular songs, again and again, be it on his latest album, Buckles and Boots, or his debut creation, Blam?
“Sometimes a line in a book becomes a song,” he said.
“Sometimes there’s a chord in the guitar that makes you go, ‘Ooh, that sounds good.’
“Sometimes you just want to tell a story.”
Some of those stories are somewhat autobiographical.
Some aren’t.
“I just imagined myself as a rodeo star,” he said of the eponymous track from Buckles and Boots.
“I’ve never even ridden a bull. I’m past that stuff.”
With a new album in the works — most of the songs are done, including Yukon Belle, which he performed in Merritt — the popularity of Bent is growing.
He played Merritt on opening night (Thursday), yet had to be in Evansburg, Alta. the next day and in Winnipeg the day after that.
As for his bad luck in Kamloops last month (Bent was to headline the June 17 Country 103 show in McDonald Park, a concert that was cancelled due to a lightning storm), he is hoping to take his tales to the Tournament Capital soon — and mentioned he wouldn’t mind sharing those stories at a venue like Cactus Jack’s Saloon.
Here’s hoping management of the country bar are reading this.
For more on Bent, go online to ridleybent.ca.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The shorts heard 'round the world
The province is burning, the provincial government’s HST will increase the cost of living, Convergys is saying goodbye to Kamloops — and the story that has the most tongues wagging is the tale of Mohd Abdullah and his short shorts.
Kamloops This Week was the media outlet to first report on Adbullah’s ongoing debate with the city’s Tournament Capital Centre as to whether the shorts he prefers are a tad too skimpy for the public gym.
When Abdullah walked into the newsroom of KTW last week and gave us a synopsis of his tale, it was obvious his ongoing disagreement with TCC manager Clint Andersen would be a news story of interest.
But little did we realize how far and wide Abdullah’s clothing contretemps would travel.
The story was carried by local media. It was picked up on by the provincial media.
It was covered by the national media. It was the subject of ink in dozens of other newspapers from coast to coast.
Then there are the countless blogs and other websites that have linked to our original story.
The day the story ran on our website at kamloopsthisweek.com — that would be eight days ago — the editor of this newspaper received a phone call from Fox News in New York City, requesting permission to use our photo of Abdullah.
Then there was an e-mail query from a reporter in Perth, Australia . . .
The short story of Mohd Abdullah and his brief(s) battle is the stuff of water-cooler legend and can spread like the fires now engulfing B.C.
It speaks to the nature of the story and to the power of the Internet, which can and often does transform a cute local story and photo into an international debate.As for those shorts?
They are eyebrow-raising, to be sure, but nothing a good-quality jockstrap wouldn’t cure.javascript:void(0)
Kamloops This Week was the media outlet to first report on Adbullah’s ongoing debate with the city’s Tournament Capital Centre as to whether the shorts he prefers are a tad too skimpy for the public gym.
When Abdullah walked into the newsroom of KTW last week and gave us a synopsis of his tale, it was obvious his ongoing disagreement with TCC manager Clint Andersen would be a news story of interest.
But little did we realize how far and wide Abdullah’s clothing contretemps would travel.
The story was carried by local media. It was picked up on by the provincial media.
It was covered by the national media. It was the subject of ink in dozens of other newspapers from coast to coast.
Then there are the countless blogs and other websites that have linked to our original story.
The day the story ran on our website at kamloopsthisweek.com — that would be eight days ago — the editor of this newspaper received a phone call from Fox News in New York City, requesting permission to use our photo of Abdullah.
Then there was an e-mail query from a reporter in Perth, Australia . . .
The short story of Mohd Abdullah and his brief(s) battle is the stuff of water-cooler legend and can spread like the fires now engulfing B.C.
It speaks to the nature of the story and to the power of the Internet, which can and often does transform a cute local story and photo into an international debate.As for those shorts?
They are eyebrow-raising, to be sure, but nothing a good-quality jockstrap wouldn’t cure.javascript:void(0)
Friday, June 26, 2009
Verify, verify and, when you have — verify some more!
The death of Michael Jackson proved again the immediacy of the web in reporting news.
It also illustrated how susceptible even news organizations can be in believing a report before independently verifying it to be true.
When reports broke that Jackson had been rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles, the race was on between traditional media outlets — most notable the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times and CNN — and their cyberspace peers — most notable TMZ.com and myriad Twitter users — to be the first to declare Jackson dead or confirm a recovery.
As far as I can tell, TMZ.com was first to report the demise of the King of Pop, which is not surprising since TMZ has evolved from a celebrity-gossip website fighting with sites such as Defamer to becoming the leader in celebrity scoops.
Even as TMZ was reporting Jackson's death at the age of 50, the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post were working on independent verification and had, at the same time as TMZ's declaration, Jackson in a coma.
From my viewpoint, it appeared as though the three organizations did what is supposed to be done in journalism — verify before publishing.
TMZ's focus is solely on celebrities; therefore, it stands to reason it would be ahead of the pack in reporting on celebrities since it likely has unparalleled sources in the field. The Times and Post, of course, are news organizations with a far more widespread mandate. If the story was a political scandal, TMZ wouldn't even be participating (providing the scandal was bereft of lewdness and any connection to Hollywood), while the Post and Times and various others would be on the case.
Now, so farm so good.
A celebrity icon falls ill and dies and new and old media are covering it the old-fashioned way, working contacts and publishing online by the minute as new information is gleaned.
However, amid this frenzy were what I would call Twidiots, those among us with Twitter accounts who began posting false reports of other celebrities dying this day.
Just before Jackson was rushed to hospital, Farrah Fawcett's death from cancer was announced, leaving June 25 as a momentous day in celebrity obituaries. Earlier in the week, Ed McMahon, the legendary sidekick to Johnny Carson, died.
Perhaps this trifecta of tragic news was too much for some Twidiots as word spread virally that actor Jeff Goldblum had died following a fall while filming a movie in New Zealand.
The odd thing is this rumour was quickly being reported as a rumour on various sites compiled by the Google news aggregator.
Harrison Ford was then offered up as dying and the whole thing got out of control.
Turns out Goldblum and Ford were and are very much alive and safely at home in America.
But the frenzied competition online means spurious rumours can become a line or two that resembles fact.
But such eagerness to not fall behind isn't limited to the web.
Our paper was caught in a similar situation this week concerning a story about a man who was assaulted and dropped off at Royal Inland Hospital here in Kamloops.
Details were scarce. All we knew was the man was in serious condition with head injuries, that a truck had been seized from the parking lot of a former strip club and that two people were being questioned by police.
Word soon got out that the man may have been shot in the head. Though the police would not comment on the nature of the man;s injuries, our reporter heard from some sources that the man had been shot, so we reported what we called an "apparent shooting."
Turns out the man had been beaten about the head, and not shot.
Even though we qualified the injury in our story by adding "apparent" to shooting, my headline stated it was a shooting.
And that's not good enough.
Sometimes in this business, with a deadline staring at you, you take a chance.
As the Chicago Tribune realized in 1948, Dewey did not defeat Truman.
And, as I found that this week, a beating is not a shooting.
You live and learn, and what we learned here is that verification will trump all else.
It also illustrated how susceptible even news organizations can be in believing a report before independently verifying it to be true.
When reports broke that Jackson had been rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles, the race was on between traditional media outlets — most notable the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times and CNN — and their cyberspace peers — most notable TMZ.com and myriad Twitter users — to be the first to declare Jackson dead or confirm a recovery.
As far as I can tell, TMZ.com was first to report the demise of the King of Pop, which is not surprising since TMZ has evolved from a celebrity-gossip website fighting with sites such as Defamer to becoming the leader in celebrity scoops.
Even as TMZ was reporting Jackson's death at the age of 50, the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post were working on independent verification and had, at the same time as TMZ's declaration, Jackson in a coma.
From my viewpoint, it appeared as though the three organizations did what is supposed to be done in journalism — verify before publishing.
TMZ's focus is solely on celebrities; therefore, it stands to reason it would be ahead of the pack in reporting on celebrities since it likely has unparalleled sources in the field. The Times and Post, of course, are news organizations with a far more widespread mandate. If the story was a political scandal, TMZ wouldn't even be participating (providing the scandal was bereft of lewdness and any connection to Hollywood), while the Post and Times and various others would be on the case.
Now, so farm so good.
A celebrity icon falls ill and dies and new and old media are covering it the old-fashioned way, working contacts and publishing online by the minute as new information is gleaned.
However, amid this frenzy were what I would call Twidiots, those among us with Twitter accounts who began posting false reports of other celebrities dying this day.
Just before Jackson was rushed to hospital, Farrah Fawcett's death from cancer was announced, leaving June 25 as a momentous day in celebrity obituaries. Earlier in the week, Ed McMahon, the legendary sidekick to Johnny Carson, died.
Perhaps this trifecta of tragic news was too much for some Twidiots as word spread virally that actor Jeff Goldblum had died following a fall while filming a movie in New Zealand.
The odd thing is this rumour was quickly being reported as a rumour on various sites compiled by the Google news aggregator.
Harrison Ford was then offered up as dying and the whole thing got out of control.
Turns out Goldblum and Ford were and are very much alive and safely at home in America.
But the frenzied competition online means spurious rumours can become a line or two that resembles fact.
But such eagerness to not fall behind isn't limited to the web.
Our paper was caught in a similar situation this week concerning a story about a man who was assaulted and dropped off at Royal Inland Hospital here in Kamloops.
Details were scarce. All we knew was the man was in serious condition with head injuries, that a truck had been seized from the parking lot of a former strip club and that two people were being questioned by police.
Word soon got out that the man may have been shot in the head. Though the police would not comment on the nature of the man;s injuries, our reporter heard from some sources that the man had been shot, so we reported what we called an "apparent shooting."
Turns out the man had been beaten about the head, and not shot.
Even though we qualified the injury in our story by adding "apparent" to shooting, my headline stated it was a shooting.
And that's not good enough.
Sometimes in this business, with a deadline staring at you, you take a chance.
As the Chicago Tribune realized in 1948, Dewey did not defeat Truman.
And, as I found that this week, a beating is not a shooting.
You live and learn, and what we learned here is that verification will trump all else.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Kamloops (Twice) This Week
So, it has happened.
Our community newspaper in Kamloops, one that was born in 1988 as a weekly and grew to a thrice-weekly publication in 1991, is taking a step back.
As of June 14, 2009, Kamloops This Week will become a twice-weekly publication as the Sunday edition is jettisoned.
This is not a surprise, as I have been awaiting this decision for months.
No, I did not have inside information. Heck, I was on vacation when I got the word.
But, when a number of other papers have done likewise and, so far, avoided massive revenue loss, it was, in my opinion, only a matter of time until the powers-that-be decided to add Kamloops This Week to the roster of papers that are now twice-weekly entities.
These include the largest community paper in the chain, the Surrey Leader, along with the Peace Arch (White Rock) News, Chilliwack Progress, Tri-City (Coquitlam) News and Penticton Western News.
It has been stated in our paper this decision will better position KTW as the newspaper industry continues its path through a very tumultuous time.
Maybe so, but the decision saddens me nonetheless.
To be clear, there are wiser minds than mine who make the big decisions in Black Press, and they obviously see this move as being necessary.
The cost of newsprint has essentially doubled in the past year, while the remaining costs of getting the newspaper to 30,000 homes in Kamloops is expensive.
But I grew up with ink on my hands.
Newspapers are in my marrow.
As a 14-year-old, I couldn't sleep on the night of Aug. 1, 1983, as I was anticipating with glee the arrival the next morning of the very first tabloid Province newspaper.
I would rush home twice a week to grab my local Abbotsford News, just to devour the headlines and stories and smell the newspaper ink, which to this day still offers my nose a waft reminiscent of potato chips.
I could recite, word for word, Jim Taylor's hilarious prose from his sports columns in the Vancouver Province and would pray to the almighty to spare me one-tenth of the talent that flowed from Denny Boyd's brain.
I was fortunate enough to land a job with that Abbotsford paper upon my graduation from journalism school in Edmonton.
And I was there when the paper jumped to three times a week from its twice-weekly mandate.
So, when your very passion is contracted, regardless of the reasons given, it is not, in my opinion, a positive.
It may be necessary, and it's a damn sight preferable to shutting down the entire operation, but it's still disappointing on so many levels.
This is simply common sense.
When the Rocky Mountain News closed, it was horrible news. When Heart could not find a buyer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and killed the print edition, leaving an online news presence with very few journalists, it was horrible news.
As it has been when the two Detroit daily papers decided to cut back home delivery to three times a week, and when the National Post announced a summer stint without its Monday edition, and when the venerable Victoria Times-Colonist decided to axe its Monday product for good.
Not healthy signs, for certain.
Cutting back on publishing dates while newspaper owners and managers the world over try to find a way to make an online newspaper profitable and hope the recession fades away and brings about more advertising revenue?
Well, maybe a step back here and there is necessary if the spawn of Gutenberg's invention is to resume galloping among those who crave a good lede, a great photo, pertinent information from city council, a recap of a sports team's triumph and a column that will stir all sorts of emotions within.
As usual, our staff will focus on turning out the best papers we can twice a week, along with continued constant stories, photos and video posted to our website at kamloopsthisweek.com.
We live in interesting times.
Our community newspaper in Kamloops, one that was born in 1988 as a weekly and grew to a thrice-weekly publication in 1991, is taking a step back.
As of June 14, 2009, Kamloops This Week will become a twice-weekly publication as the Sunday edition is jettisoned.
This is not a surprise, as I have been awaiting this decision for months.
No, I did not have inside information. Heck, I was on vacation when I got the word.
But, when a number of other papers have done likewise and, so far, avoided massive revenue loss, it was, in my opinion, only a matter of time until the powers-that-be decided to add Kamloops This Week to the roster of papers that are now twice-weekly entities.
These include the largest community paper in the chain, the Surrey Leader, along with the Peace Arch (White Rock) News, Chilliwack Progress, Tri-City (Coquitlam) News and Penticton Western News.
It has been stated in our paper this decision will better position KTW as the newspaper industry continues its path through a very tumultuous time.
Maybe so, but the decision saddens me nonetheless.
To be clear, there are wiser minds than mine who make the big decisions in Black Press, and they obviously see this move as being necessary.
The cost of newsprint has essentially doubled in the past year, while the remaining costs of getting the newspaper to 30,000 homes in Kamloops is expensive.
But I grew up with ink on my hands.
Newspapers are in my marrow.
As a 14-year-old, I couldn't sleep on the night of Aug. 1, 1983, as I was anticipating with glee the arrival the next morning of the very first tabloid Province newspaper.
I would rush home twice a week to grab my local Abbotsford News, just to devour the headlines and stories and smell the newspaper ink, which to this day still offers my nose a waft reminiscent of potato chips.
I could recite, word for word, Jim Taylor's hilarious prose from his sports columns in the Vancouver Province and would pray to the almighty to spare me one-tenth of the talent that flowed from Denny Boyd's brain.
I was fortunate enough to land a job with that Abbotsford paper upon my graduation from journalism school in Edmonton.
And I was there when the paper jumped to three times a week from its twice-weekly mandate.
So, when your very passion is contracted, regardless of the reasons given, it is not, in my opinion, a positive.
It may be necessary, and it's a damn sight preferable to shutting down the entire operation, but it's still disappointing on so many levels.
This is simply common sense.
When the Rocky Mountain News closed, it was horrible news. When Heart could not find a buyer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and killed the print edition, leaving an online news presence with very few journalists, it was horrible news.
As it has been when the two Detroit daily papers decided to cut back home delivery to three times a week, and when the National Post announced a summer stint without its Monday edition, and when the venerable Victoria Times-Colonist decided to axe its Monday product for good.
Not healthy signs, for certain.
Cutting back on publishing dates while newspaper owners and managers the world over try to find a way to make an online newspaper profitable and hope the recession fades away and brings about more advertising revenue?
Well, maybe a step back here and there is necessary if the spawn of Gutenberg's invention is to resume galloping among those who crave a good lede, a great photo, pertinent information from city council, a recap of a sports team's triumph and a column that will stir all sorts of emotions within.
As usual, our staff will focus on turning out the best papers we can twice a week, along with continued constant stories, photos and video posted to our website at kamloopsthisweek.com.
We live in interesting times.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
A puzzling election-night Brownout
Was he being petulant or proud — or was he pouting?
Whatever the reason, Kamloops-North Thompson NDP candidate Doug Brown was acting mighty odd on election night for someone who wanted to represent the people.
The man who would be MLA, the man who carried the flag of the party long known as that which champions the ordinary voter, essentially shut out the public throughout the day and night, refusing to speak to reporters and only granting his supporters a concession speech as the clock inched toward 11 at night.
Perhaps Brown was simply heeding the advice of Salomé Cerqueira and the rest of the campaign staff from Ontario as he watched Liberal Terry Lake ride to victory.
This would be the political gang that couldn’t shoot straight, as evidenced by its inability to discern between a mill that had burned down and one that had been closed due to economic conditions.
Whatever the reason for Brown’s reluctance to interact with those he wished to represent, it was a poor decision.
And it was an attitude highlighted even more by the gracious demeanour offered by Tom Friedman, the Kamloops-South Thompson NDP candidate who lost to Liberal Kevin Krueger.
While Brown became the reclusive political spider, Friedman offered a wide web of access, inviting KTW into his living room as Krueger’s lead increased and making sure to be at Krueger’s campaign headquarters at a decent hour to offer congratulations and his help.
The tale of two candidates was instructive — the margin of victory doesn’t account for the margin of error in simple human behaviour.
Whatever the reason, Kamloops-North Thompson NDP candidate Doug Brown was acting mighty odd on election night for someone who wanted to represent the people.
The man who would be MLA, the man who carried the flag of the party long known as that which champions the ordinary voter, essentially shut out the public throughout the day and night, refusing to speak to reporters and only granting his supporters a concession speech as the clock inched toward 11 at night.
Perhaps Brown was simply heeding the advice of Salomé Cerqueira and the rest of the campaign staff from Ontario as he watched Liberal Terry Lake ride to victory.
This would be the political gang that couldn’t shoot straight, as evidenced by its inability to discern between a mill that had burned down and one that had been closed due to economic conditions.
Whatever the reason for Brown’s reluctance to interact with those he wished to represent, it was a poor decision.
And it was an attitude highlighted even more by the gracious demeanour offered by Tom Friedman, the Kamloops-South Thompson NDP candidate who lost to Liberal Kevin Krueger.
While Brown became the reclusive political spider, Friedman offered a wide web of access, inviting KTW into his living room as Krueger’s lead increased and making sure to be at Krueger’s campaign headquarters at a decent hour to offer congratulations and his help.
The tale of two candidates was instructive — the margin of victory doesn’t account for the margin of error in simple human behaviour.
Dealing with deadlines and an election
As usual, the date of an election and our deadline conspired to make for a difficult day.
We are a thrice-weekly newspaper, publishing Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
The deadlines for those editions are horrible, but out of our control.
Deadline for Wednesday is Tuesday at 11 a.m.; deadline for Friday is Thursday at 11 a.m.; deadline for Sunday is end of day Friday.
This is because our paper is printed in Vernon - an hour and a bit away - then trucked back to Kamloops to be delivered to 30,000 homes.
And so the dilemma we face each time there is an election.
Of course, we have a fantastic website (kamloopsthisweek.com) to which we post breaking news, photos and video all day and all night.
But I am focusing our our newspaper here, the print version.
This year's provincial election fell on a Tuesday, which meant we could not have results in Wednesday's paper, considering we went to press while the polls were still open for ninr more hours.
What to do. What to do.
We hit the same challenge in last fall's federal election and we confront the same problem every three years, when municipal elections are held on a Saturday in November.
This is a longwinded way to explain why our day-after-election paper featured Kevin Krueger on the cover, casting his ballot.
Since we cannot have results of the election in our paper (though we did manage to have updated results on our webiste, along with quotes from candidates, in real time on election night), we decided again to at least include an election-themed component for the cover.
I chose Krueger because, quite frankly, I felt he was the surest bet to win a seat.
This time, we were correct; Krueger romped to victory in Kamloops-South Thompson and it was good to see we put a victor on the cover.
We weren't so lucky back in the fall, when I decided to get a shot of NDP candidate Michael Crawford casting a ballot and toss it on the front page of the day-after-election paper.
Again, I felt he was going to win.
Of course, he didn't. Conservative Cathy McLeod triumphed.
So, we are 1-1 in post-election cover shots taken before the polls close.
Yes, it is this tough planning when you are a thrice-weekly competing with a daily newspaper, local TV News and five radio stations.
We are a thrice-weekly newspaper, publishing Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
The deadlines for those editions are horrible, but out of our control.
Deadline for Wednesday is Tuesday at 11 a.m.; deadline for Friday is Thursday at 11 a.m.; deadline for Sunday is end of day Friday.
This is because our paper is printed in Vernon - an hour and a bit away - then trucked back to Kamloops to be delivered to 30,000 homes.
And so the dilemma we face each time there is an election.
Of course, we have a fantastic website (kamloopsthisweek.com) to which we post breaking news, photos and video all day and all night.
But I am focusing our our newspaper here, the print version.
This year's provincial election fell on a Tuesday, which meant we could not have results in Wednesday's paper, considering we went to press while the polls were still open for ninr more hours.
What to do. What to do.
We hit the same challenge in last fall's federal election and we confront the same problem every three years, when municipal elections are held on a Saturday in November.
This is a longwinded way to explain why our day-after-election paper featured Kevin Krueger on the cover, casting his ballot.
Since we cannot have results of the election in our paper (though we did manage to have updated results on our webiste, along with quotes from candidates, in real time on election night), we decided again to at least include an election-themed component for the cover.
I chose Krueger because, quite frankly, I felt he was the surest bet to win a seat.
This time, we were correct; Krueger romped to victory in Kamloops-South Thompson and it was good to see we put a victor on the cover.
We weren't so lucky back in the fall, when I decided to get a shot of NDP candidate Michael Crawford casting a ballot and toss it on the front page of the day-after-election paper.
Again, I felt he was going to win.
Of course, he didn't. Conservative Cathy McLeod triumphed.
So, we are 1-1 in post-election cover shots taken before the polls close.
Yes, it is this tough planning when you are a thrice-weekly competing with a daily newspaper, local TV News and five radio stations.
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