Jan 4th 2014: Self Improvement

Hello! I and one other person will be cataloging our thoughts on every episode of Vinyl Cafe that is released this year, alternating every week.

Vinyl Cafe is an ongoing radio program hosted by Stuart McLean, and if you wish to follow along with these articles, you can listen to it on Sundays at noon EST on CBC Radio One or Saturdays at 9am EST on CBC Radio 2. If you're like me and don't own a radio, you can grab the most recent episode off of iTunes, which is where I found this convenient description of the show: “CBC Radio presents the stories and misadventures of Dave, the owner of the 'Vinyl Cafe', the World's smallest record store, where the motto is 'We may not be big, but we're small.' The show also features Dave's wife, Morley, their two children, Sam and Stephanie and assorted friends and neighbours.”

Expectations

I would have ended the previous paragraph by recommending that you give Vinyl Cafe a try, but I can't do that in good faith because I haven't listened to this program in many, many years (15?). Mostly what I remember are the smooth, pitch perfect tones of Stuart McLean's voice as he narrates some minor episode of Dave's life. I remember the show being fairly folksy and entertaining, so that’s what I’m hoping for as I dive into these episodes. I'm returning to this show (and writing about it) on a whim, because it's a new year, and the perfect time to try something different, which conveniently segues me into this week's episode:

Jan 4^th 2014: Self Improvement

Stuart introduces us to this week's program by announcing that it consists of two re-broadcast stories related to the concept of the New Year’s resolutions. Both were originally performed around the early 00's, but it's all new to me so let's begin:

The Cart

Synopsis: Driven by a child-like curiosity and sense of adventure, Dave decides to use one of the motorized scooters available to customers at his local grocery store to improve his typically abysmal shopping time. Things escalate quickly as his scooter malfunctions, leading to a series of Mr Magoo-esque accidents that end with him getting pinched in the nuts by a lobster and mistaken as a mentally handicapped man by a free-samples grocery store employee. Morley nearly dies from embarrassment but Dave makes it up to her by cleaning the toilets in the house (upstairs and down!).

Things I liked:

• Stuart's impeccable voice and perfect delivery as he describes Dave's erroneous grocery trip with excellent comedic timing. You can tell he's been doing this for years: judging by their laughter the members of the audience was digging it, and so was I (this story and the next one were recorded with a live audience; I don't know how common that is). His voice is the definition of easy listening: he could read excerpts from the phone book for 30 minutes and I don't think I would mind.

• Related to the above point: this is a pretty funny program when it wants to be.

• This will likely be the first of many times that I say this: Dave and Morley remind me of my parents. I assume this is intentional, and that Stuart has managed to create characters that remind almost everyone of their friends/relatives/significant others. This week's similarity: an equal and permanent separation of chores (i.e. Dave always does the shopping).

• Dave sometimes steals peoples' grocery carts before they can take them to checkout. I've always wondered if anyone actually did this. Would a store ban you if they caught you doing this?

The moral of the story:

This one seems like a bit of a downer as it presents itself as a cautionary tale against trying new things. Really though, it's highlighting an often-overlooked aspect of new years' resolutions: they often fail. And that isn't a bad thing! No one gets (permanently) hurt in this story, and it provides Dave & Morley with an amusing anecdote they can laugh about somewhere down the line. You try new things to gain new experiences, and even ones that end in disasters (like this blog?!?) can be rewarding in their own way.

Walking Man

Synopsis: Two stories from earlier in Dave’s life (1976-1977), chronicling two of his numerous attempts to quit smoking. In the first, he quits and relapses for nearly a month before giving in for good when his Czech musician roommate offers him a cigarette. In the second, he spontaneously decides to temporarily part ways with the band he is roadie-ing for to walk from northern Ontario (somewhere north of Sudbury) to Barrie. His rationale is that if he keeps moving, he won’t be tempted to smoke. Unfortunately the path of virtue is fraught with temptation, as a kid begs him for cigarettes, a chain-smoking truck driver offers him a ride, and a fisherwoman introduces him to chewing tobacco (with amusing results). After over a day and night of walking, he takes a bus to Toronto and proposes to Morley (he was trying to quit for her, how sweet). Her response is to say she’ll think about it and to ask for a cigarette. Stuart mentions, almost as an afterthought, that Dave spontaneously quit smoking for good 6 months later.

Things I liked:

• Dave’s attempts to quit smoking are practically biblical in nature. He describes his musician roommate as the anti-Christ, but for my money he skews closer to the devil: his offer of a cigarette to Dave might as well be as offer of an apple to Eve. His pack of cigarettes even has a picture of a snake on it. Symbolism! His 2 day journey in northern Ontario might as well be 40 days in a desert (a desert would have more interesting scenery, of course).

• Dave uses a drive-thru on foot, but I can confirm via a friend that drive-thru employees will refuse to serve you unless you’re in a vehicle. 1977 was a simpler time.

• I like walking as much as the next person, but walking all day and night along a northern Ontario highway is crazy. You’re crazy Dave.

The moral of the story:

New Year’s resolutions can be divided into two categories: ones that attempt to try new things and ones that attempt to quit old things. Walking Man relates to the latter category. Stuart gets at a truth that is often overlooked when it comes to dropping bad habits: you don’t just quit a habit one day; you quit it every following day, every time you feel the urge to relapse. Dave’s solution to this problem is to keep walking, because he knows that if he slows down he’ll feel the need to smoke again. When I try to kick a bad habit, I also find that keeping busy is the best way to keep my mind off of it. Perhaps this story can be generalized as advice to anyone kicking a habit on New Year’s: find a hobby to keep you busy. However, Walking Man acknowledges that this strategy doesn’t always work, as Dave manages to regress to smoking again when tempted by people close to him: the musician in ’76 (they’re roommates, that’s kinda close) and Morley in ’77.

So what causes Dave to ultimately quit smoking? Stuart says he did it on a whim 6 months later, but I think there’s more to it than that. In that 6 month span, Morley accepts his marriage proposal. Perhaps Dave’s lifestyle change from band roadie to fiancé had some affect on his final, successful attempt to quit. If so the lesson here is clear: the best way to quit a bad habit may be to change your life in a way that minimizes external influences that make you want to continue it.

That’s it for this week. I hope you didn’t mind my rambling. I may have fudged some details about the stories in this episode, as memory can be a fickle thing. I’m not sure I’m happy with the format I wrote this article in, so it may change over time. I’m definitely happy with the program itself. I wasn’t sure how I would find it years after I stopped listening to it but it’s very enjoyable, and I highly recommend checking it out. Check back next week as someone else reviews another episode!