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radio is boringaboutThis story was told to me by a guy I met on a cold winter afternoon in Saskatoon, 1997. He and I walked together for a few blocks, and he told me about the tv he was carrying. That evening, I wrote down his story, trying to capture, as clearly as I could recall, his speech patterns, the flow of his language, and the way he told the story. The encounter stuck with me for a long time, and I eventually made it into a film. I shot it in January 2001, and edited it over the next few weeks. I got my buddy Johnny (Michael Johnson) to play the part. And I delivered the voiceover myself, my accent flopping around like a bewildered crow. It screened at the Local Exposure sidebar of Local Heroes 2001 in Edmonton. The audience seemed to like it, and I got to wear fancy clothes and feel all puffed-up and proud. A few people have asked me why I "talk like an Indian" in this piece. Well, the guy the story is about was an old Native guy, and I wrote the monologue with his voice in mind. When it came to making the film, I read the monologue myself, and found that I couldn't shake the old man's voice in my head. Listening to myself, I sounded like I was affecting a cheap and distasteful accent. But I got mixed signals - a few people heard the accent the way I did (my dad, my brother), but most people said they didn't hear it at all. So I didn't bother to change it. But recently, a new batch of people have seen the film, and they've all asked about the accent. So I've decided to have an actor re-record the voiceover. Hopefully I can be more objective if somebody else is saying the lines. Anyway, here it is. made by starring voiceover recorded by
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