MF GALAXY

Wes Borg is a legend. In the 1980s he cofounded the influential sketch comedy troupe Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. He's written widely for the screen, beginning with the Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie television series, and moving to the 2003 TV movie The Western Alienation Comedy Hour, serving as head writer on the 2004 series The Geek Show, and creating the short film Café Utopia.

He's also appeared on CBC Radio's The Debaters and The Irrelevant Show. He wrote the comedy songs "The War of 1812" and "Toronto Sucks" even though people often attribute them to The Arrogant Worms. He co-wrote Piledriver! with Darrin Haggin and Ha! with Chris Craddock, and The War of 1812 with Paul Mather, and he's acted in various BioWare games including the Mass Effect trilogy and Jade Empire.

He's received two Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards for his participation in the Trolls shows Kevin Costner's Naked Butt and Skippy Gets a Boner, and a Bronze Medal in the Calgary Winter Olympics Theatre Sports Tournament in 1988. In 2014 he was nominated as "Best Variety Act" in the Canadian Comedy Awards, and won "Top Improv/Sketch or Variety Performer" from Victoria's "Monday Magazine," and was named Victoria's Favourite Comedy Performer two years in a row.

On November 25, 2014 Borg spoke with me by Skype from his home in Victoria, and explained:

• Why you have to suck at writing
• What it's like to create a legendary sketch comedy troupe and then lose the national TV show produced for it
• Why improv makes you a better writer
• How a high school improv training programme is failing a generation of would-be improvisors, and
• Why Edmonton became an international theatre city

Along the way, Borg cites the Fringe, meaning the Edmonton International Fringe Festival, which is the second-largest small theatre festival on the planet, and Cathleen, meaning Cathleen Rootsaert, one of the co-founders of Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. He also refers to GST, which for US listeners is the federal sales tax which was a new experience for Albertans who to this day do not pay provincial sales taxes.

You can find him on Twitter @deadtroll.

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Full disclosure: I grew up watching the original Star Trek in re-runs. Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted the first year I went to university, and it was a major disappointment in many ways, but especially for how it handled Klingons: how they behaved and whom they represented.

Mostly they behaved as obnoxious, single-minded, bloodthirsty brawlers, to be avoided and feared, mostly artless and without sophistication, and to be laughed at for their pompous seriousness and quaint and disgusting customs. Despite growing up among humans, Worf is such an idiot that with august earnestness he calls prune juice a "warrior's drink." He's so violent and stupid that in the Next Generation pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint" he aims a phaser pistol at the bridge viewscreen when the bad guy Q appears on it because he apparently doesn't know what TV is.

Another Klingon is so egotistical and stupid that he attempts to headbutt Data, an nearly indestructible android, and knocks himself unconscious. Klingons are so gross that they eat worms and drink blood wine. They are obsessed with killing and dying. In other words, on a show whose fans like to claim it as universalist and anti-racist, the writers spent a great deal of time depicting Klingons in a way that, had they been Chinese, Nigerians, or Mexicans, would have been instantly dismissed as racist.

And that's the other thing. Whereas the Klingons in the original series were a completely obvious analogue for the Soviet Union, and were all played by European actors, in the Next Generation era, Klingons were partially post-glory-days Russians, but also Muslims… and also African-Americans, especially Worf, who was not only not raised by Klingons, but raised by White Earth people, kind of like Arnold Jackson from Diff'rent Strokes or Webster from Webster.

Now I'm not saying that every member of the audience saw Worf that way, but clearly plenty did, and actor Michael Dorn is an African-American, and so were a disproportionate number of the other actors who played Klingons, that parallel seemed all the more available. So while the show was a bonanza for African-American actors seeking work, depicting the Klingons as violent, subhuman morons became an ever bigger problem.

So I might have chucked the whole enterprise, so to speak, except for a first season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Heart of Glory." In that episode, written by Maurice Hurley, Herbert Wright, and D.C. Fontana, Worf breaks out as the single most provocative character on the series. While confronting renegade Klingons, he must confront his own place as the most alienated crew member on the USS Enterprise. Worf must decide whose kinship matters to him most, and why—and while the deck is stacked against the Klingon renegades, they are treated as characters with dignity, and so is Worf.

While The Next Generation thrived during its peak seasons three and four, again and again the shows featuring Worf stood out as, for me and many others, its most fascinating. After TNG wrapped production, Michael Dorn and his character joined the production of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where again many of my favourite episodes focused on the galaxy's loneliest Klingon. The always-excellent Dorn also brought subtle and dry humour to The Next Generation which sorely lacked it.

Around 1992 in Edmonton, I met Michael Dorn at a science fiction convention, and my friend Fish Griwkowsky was there to photograph the chance-encounter and the interview that followed. I say "chance encounter" because I was making a call to my friend Steve Notley from a payphone near the parkade just as Dorn was walking in. I said, "Michael?" He looked up and boomed "Yes?" and I hung up on Steve and asked for an interview. So in today's episode you'll hear that interview, and also the reflections of several writer friends on what Worf means to them, including:

• Scott Bourgeois on Worf as the self-doubting cultural overcompensator
• Khaalida Muhammad-Ali on Worf's aching and unfulfilled quest for happiness
• Zig Zag Claybourne on Worf as the navigator of poetical relationships
• Fish Griwkowsky on Worf's essentialist claims about Klingons
• Natasha Deen on Worf the alienated stand-in for cultural or racial hybrids everywhere, and
• Stephen Notley on the terrible trope of the Worf effect and how writers eventually sexualized and "humanised" Worf for the better and made him into one of Star Trek's most pivotal characters.

Along the way you'll hear excerpts from a supercut by YouTuber tarnationsauce2 called "Worf gets DENIED again and again on Star Trek TNG" which will help demonstrate how often the writers and producers failed to use Worf properly, casting him as the security chief who constantly gets beaten up and whom pretty much everyone overrules about everything, every time.

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In the world of journalism, Robert Fisk is a rock star not just for the "songs" he's written but for the people he's shared the stage with, including Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Osama Bin Laden, whom he interviewed three times. Based in Beirut since 1976, Fisk currently writes for London's Independent, and over four decades he's covered the Iranian Revolution, the Lebanese civil war, the USSR's occupation of Afghanistan, and virtually every war or conflict in West and Central Asia.

Having authored five books including his classic Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, and having received more British and international awards than any other English-language journalist, Fisk frequently defines his role not to "write the first draft of history," but, by quoting Israeli journalist Amira Hass, "to monitor the centres of power."

A few years ago Robert Fisk was touring Canada on behalf of Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East. On January 31, 2013, I spoke with Fisk at the Union Bank Hotel in Edmonton before he addressed the University of Alberta's International Week, delivering a talk called "Arab Awakening, But Are We Hearing the Truth?" The day before he arrived, Russia and Iran claimed that Israel had bombed Syria, with CBC claiming the target was an arms convoy headed to Lebanon.

In today's episode of MF GALAXY, Robert Fisk discusses:

• The posturing and transparent face-saving of Middle Eastern governments following Israeli air strikes
• Why the Israeli military doesn't want war with Iran, whatever the Israeli government says
• What Osama bin Laden was like in person and how far Fisk was willing to push Al Qaeda's murderer-in-chief during an interview
• How Bin Laden reacted during the Arab Spring to seeing that his personality and programme were irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of Arabs
• Why Bin Laden eventually supported allying his supporters with the remnants of Iraq's Baath party, which he'd always opposed and despised
• Why France invaded Mali and who was fighting its government
• Why US intelligence can't make adequate use of the giant amount of electronic surveillance it performs on the Muslim world
• Why journalists have such a short memory of history that perverts their view of contemporary politics, and
• What he thinks is the greatest and most beguiling difference between the global European empire and the remnants of the Islamic one in the east

Along the way, Fisk mentions Timbuktu, one of the most famous and ancient cities in the world, an historic seat of learning and wisdom in Mali. Note that Fisk spoke with me just a few months before DAESH, known in the West as ISIL or the IS, declared itself to be a state or Caliphate. Fisk also uses the Arabic word "mahdi" which means, essentially, the prophesied final redeemer before the end of the world.

Finally, while discussing Bin Laden's claim that the United States was heading towards civil war, Fisk recounts that he told the fanatic to his face that his idea was "rubbish." Chillingly, the chief jihadi's prediction no longer seems so unbelievable.

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As shocking as it is in 2017, HIV-AIDS disproportionately afflicts African-Canadians in Alberta. The reasons are varied and complex, which means fighting the pandemic here is all the more difficult. But the reality is that in this province, African-Canadians are six times more likely to be living with HIV-AIDS than the general population, and comprise 26 percent of all new HIV infections despite being only 2.5 percent of the population.

While some people might want to avoid the subject due to stigma or mortal fear, my guest today isn't one of them, and she's dedicated her life to stopping new infections and helping those already afflicted.

Morenike Olaosebikan is a health scientist and the founder of Ribbon Rouge, which uses fashion and the arts to raise money to fund relief and treatment for those affected, and to educate and empower those most vulnerable so they can avoid being infected, or share their human experience through the arts if they have already been affected. The Ribbon Rouge project is more than a decade old and has raised tens of thousands of dollars to help those living with the human immunodeficiency virus.

In today's episode of MF GALAXY, Morenike Olaosebikan discusses:

• The hidden and disproportionate scourge of HIV-AIDS among African-Canadians in Alberta
• Why and how she uses fashion and art to combat the AIDS pandemic
• Why fighting HIV-AIDS forces a confrontation with religious values, cultural norms, the education system, and the poverty-to-prison pipeline
• Which African country, which South American country, and which African-Canadian NGO are doing the some of the best work in the battle against HIV-AIDS, and
• How traditional rural leaders and clergy are joining the struggle to protect those who have HIV and prevent others from getting it

We spoke on August 25, 2017 at downtown Edmonton's Camel Boyz Somali restaurant.

RibbonRouge.com

Profiles on Morenike Olaosebikan

woman.ng/2017/07/morenike-olaosebikan-advocating-social-justice-zero-hiv-ribbon-rouge

morenike.co/tag/morenike-olaosebikan

blackcanadians.com/morenike-olaosebikan

Mark Meer is possibly the most affable fellow in showbiz. He's a terrific stage actor, voice artist, and improviser, and I've known him since we were both cartoonists at university and worked together in the sketch comedy troupe The 11:02 Show. He's best known as the voice of Commander Shepard from BioWare's Mass Effect trilogy and has done other video games including Gods of Rome and Baldur's Gate: Enhanced.

And he's not just someone whom fans love—he's a fanboy himself, and attended numerous conventions in costume. He's literally a pro at cons. He's also appeared in short films such as Tar Zombies Barbecued and Flight of the Polar Bear; and he's been a stalwart of the Edmonton theatre community for decades in ongoing longform improv such as Die-Nasty! and Gordon's Big Bald Head. And if that weren't enough, many radio listeners in Canada and the US know him as one of the actors in The Irrelevant Show.

In today's episode of MF GALAXY, Mark Meer and I discuss:

• How video game acting differs from other types of acting
• Why there is no definitive version of Mass Effect's Commander Shepard
• Why improv is so valuable for any actor but especially for video game work
• The most important concepts one must internalise to excel at improv
• How he gets such outstanding costumes to wear to conventions, which characters are his favourites for cosplay, and which friend and Hollywood star loves cosplay as much as he does

We spoke at Meer's home in Edmonton's theatre-arts district on July 4, 2017.

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When the New Democratic Party of Alberta formed a majority government in 2015, I quipped that night that Alberta had just become a Western democracy. After all, it was the first time in forty years that the governing Progressive Conservative Party had been voted out.

But my joke depressed me. After all, it's just not normal or healthy for any jurisdiction, let alone one of two economic engines of a G-7 liberal democracy, to be shackled to any one party for almost half a century. My joke depressed me because it meant we were just a petro-state. But hey, even Alaska under Sarah Palin paid higher oil royalties to its citizens than Conservative Alberta did. What is up with that?

But two years into the NDP's first provincial government, the devastated PC party and the official opposition Wild Rose party have merged under the slogan "Unite the Right." Yep, that slogan. Just a coincidence? Sure… and yet as it turns out, if you drew a Venn diagram of the US "Unite the Right" constituency and that of the Wild Rosers, you'd find at the centre many of the same type of toxically racist, sexist, anti-queer, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish media personalities, shadowy funders, and gun fanatics. In some cases, you'd find the exact same people on both sides of the border.

In Alberta, the Unite the Right merger produced the United Conservative Party, which turns into the great acronym UCP, or as some apparently want it to be "u-kip," to sound like the United Kingdom Independence Party that created Brexit and emboldened racists across Britain.

There are two front-runners for the leadership of the UCP: former Wild Rose leader Brian Jean, and former PC leader Jason Kenney. Both have enjoyed the attention that ultra-right-wing Canadian media has given them. Days after the racist torchlight rally and terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Brian Jean and Jason Kenney each stated they would no longer appear on one far-right site in particular, but neither explained why they'd appeared on it for years throughout its constant Islamophobic publication.

Another firebrand of the UCP and beneficiary of right wing media, legislator Derek Fildebrandt, is now formerly of the UCP. Just recently he resigned from the brand-new caucus as the result of three scandals: double-dipping on meal reimbursements, profiting from his taxpayer-financed housing by offering it on Air B-n-B, and doing a hit-and-run on a neighbour's car.

Fildebrandt has always been a fiery figure—if not a lake of fiery figure—in that movement, and his work in the Canadian Taxpayers Federation combined with his recent spending and profiting has rubbed many folks raw. What does his future hold? Will the UCP welcome him back in time for the next election?

Joining me to analyse all the above is David Climenhaga, who is "an award-winning journalist, author, post-secondary teacher, poet, and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions at the Toronto Globe and Mail and Calgary Herald. He holds a Master's Degree in Journalism from the Carleton University School of Journalism in Ottawa. His 1995 book, A Poke in the Public Eye, explores the relationships among Canadian journalists, public relations people and politicians." Climenhaga blogs at AlbertaPolitics.ca.

We spoke last week on August 16, 2017 at Climenhaga's office in downtown Edmonton. Full disclosure: I have volunteered for the provincial and federal New Democratic Party, and have also provided paid public speaking training for some of its members.

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Today's show lets me reach back into the archive for a conversation with a remarkable man who died far, far too young. That man was the Sudanese-Canadian musician, singer, lyricist, music producer, and band leader Tarig Abubakar.

Abubakar came to Canada in 1988 to build his fame and fortune in North America, and despite a rocky start he'll tell you about in this episode, he formed his pan-African band the Afro-Nubians, toured the country four times, and delighted hundreds of audiences across Canada. He also released three superb albums: 1994's Tour to Africa, 1995's The Great Africans, and 1997's Hobey Laik. His bandmates included guitarist Adam Solomon, Joe Slant, and Mohammed Hagelamin. Together they were named band of the year at the Toronto African Music Awards.

Tragically in 1998 while visiting his home country, Abubakar died in a car accident. He was only 34. In 2005, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation released a CD of two Afro-Nubians' concerts. Thanks to streaming services, you can access some of the albums any time you want.

In the summer of 1995, I met Abubakar at Edmonton's Mayfair Hotel the afternoon before his gig at the now-long-gone Sidetrack Café. We discussed:

• How he create a trans-Atlantic new Pan-African music from a Sudanese base
• Growing up in E-Dume Esh-Sharghia, better known as Dem, Khartoum's toughest neighbourhood
• The South Korean connection in becoming a musician and why he had to hide his training and career
• Coming to Canada with $10 in his pocket and nothing else, and
• The Nubian spirit to survive against the odds

On a personal note, twenty-two years ago when I recorded this interview, I was a young man who'd lost little in my life. I had no idea that Abubakar had only a few more years on this planet. In the decades since I've lost far more than I ever expected, including some of the most important people in my life. I've been producing today's show over the last two days and hearing Abubakar's voice and his stunning music from back before I lost all those people. And as it's August 14, 2017, I've also been reacting to all the horrible news about the terrorist attack in Charlottesville and wondering about how we're all going to defend ourselves, because it's going to get worse, I'm sorry to say.

So hearing Abubakar and his ideas and his songs has been especially powerful. We lost him when he was too young and he had so much more to give, especially with his message of unity and his undying love of African peoples. I hope wherever he is, he knows we still remember his music and we still remember him.

James Hale's article on Tarig Abubakar + the Afro-Nubians

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This show is mostly about creators in various fields showing and proving what they know about how to make what they make and how to make money from what they make.

Today we get to combine two fields: making movies and making novels. Jeff Carroll is an amazing creator. He's worked as a booker at comedy clubs and also managed comedians, which gave him access to plenty of working comics whom he could cast the movies he wrote and produced, including his Blaxploitation/ B-Movie/ Grindhouse films such as Holla If I Kill You and the award-winning Gold Digger Killer.

When his distributor went belly-up and took his money beyond the grave, Carroll leveraged his existing intellectual property by turning one of his features into a novel. He's also a speaker and known online as Yo Jeff the Hip Hop Dating Coach. So the man definitely knows how to hustle to keep on reaching audiences through multiple venues.

In today's episode of MF GALAXY, Jeff Carroll discusses:

• The ideal locations for indie movie-making and why you should use night clubs with expired liquor licenses
• Why you should hire comedians to star in your movies--and it's not just because they're funny
• What movie-making taught him about writing and promoting his own novels, and
• How he shapes his screenplays and characters, and why he solves script problems by going Full Sharknado

We spoke by Skype on June 23, 2017.

Jeff Carroll's blog 

Coach Yo Jeff the Hip Hop Dating Coach

Jeff Carroll page at African American Literature Book Club

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Hip hop at its finest is a poetical, political voice for those whose voices have been silenced; it speaks to the anger, the dignity, and the triumphant joy of the oppressed. If hip hop is the music of the dispossessed, then no one in North America should have a greater claim on it than the First Nations. Combine that revolutionary rage and cultural crucible with artistic passion and power, and you have what was Canada's finest hip hop band—WAR PARTY.

Formed in 1995 under the leadership of Maskwacis Cree artist, lead vocalist, and executive producer Rex Smallboy, and co-vocalists Cynthia Smallboy, and Thane Saddleback, War Party won the Canadian Aboriginal Music Award for Best Rap Album in 2001, and were the first Indigenous crew featured on Canada's Much Music channel. The video for "Feeling Reserved" exploded across Canadian television in 2001 with a powerful set of voices and images that was thankfully bling-bling- and booty-shaking-free. Instead, the video showed everyday people with extraordinary voices and lyrical intelligence, denouncing settler-colonial genocide.

War Party performed with Ice-T, Wu-Tang Clan, Guru, Maestro Fresh Wes and K-OS among many others, and recently Chuck D. recorded an introduction for the new album "The Resistance." The band got global attention by representing Canada at the World Expo in Nagoya, Japan and for performing for the First Americans Festival at the Smithsonian Museum.

Fiercely proud of their Cree heritage specifically and their First Nations heritage generally, the band refused to fall into the trap of not wanting to be known as "Native rappers." Their embrace of their heritage made them universal, in the same way that Miriam Makeba, Public Enemy, or Nusrat Khan are emblems of their people, and emblems of human culture, struggle, and aspiration generally.

While the group has since splintered into factions, one of which is named RezOfficial, their original ground-breaking work lives on. Rex Smallboy continues to make albums and also works as a motivational speaker.

In the summer of 2004, I spoke with band members Rex Smallboy and his then-wife Cynthia at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. You can hear Cynthia Smallboy in the bonus content for today's show. Rex and I discussed:

• Finding Indigenous identity in hop hop while fighting the corrupting influence of gangsta rap
• When hip hop's real slogan should be "misrepresent"
• Using Cree slang on wax
• Representing women with respect in videos
• Debating K-Os on social responsibility vs personal desire
• The importance of hip hop innovation to challenge youth and elders alike
• The artistic burden of bearing an entire race's multiple agendas, and
• When and why he'd praise a settler for wearing a head dress

Note that our conversation includes reference to the Cree Nation's reserve that was once called Hobbema, about 90 minutes south of Edmonton. The reserve finally discarded that German name and is now called Maskwacis.

War Party.ca

War Party music videos

War Party with Chuck D. – The Resistance

Rex Smallboy – "Children of God"

Feelin' Reserved

All for One

Super Sikh! That's right. He's a Sikh. And he's a secret agent. He's a Punjabi 007 who fights for girls' education and loves the music of Elvis Presley, while holding down a fake I.T. job to convince his parents that he's not risking his life for truth, justice, and the five Ks of the Sikh religion.

Super Sikh is the co-creation of Supreet Singh Manchanda, artist Amit Tayal, and writer Eileen Kaur Alden. While Alden was working on a career in screenwriting, her friend Manchanda approached her about creating a family-friendly Sikh action hero for comic books. They went to Kickstarter looking for $5000 to create their first issue. They got more than $22,000 in pledges, and in 2015 began publishing. Now they're up to issue number four and their fans love the comic enough that several issues have gone into reprints.

The comic has done more than thrill readers with great stories and inspire Sikh kids. Background research for the comic and its title character led its writer, Eileen Kaur Alden, to change her life in one of the most profound ways possible.

On June 17, 2017, I spoke with Alden by Skype. You'll be able to hear her dog yipping in the background of her Oakland home. We discussed:

• Her work in various creative fields including filmmaking before she began making comics
• Why Super Sikh loves Elvis but isn't an Elvis impersonator
• The potential to turn Super Sikh into a movie
• The degree to which the Super Sikh comic will be historical or political
• How real-life atrocities in Pakistan mirrored events she'd just written in the comic
• How readers, especially Sikh readers, have reacted to the comic, and what she hopes they'll do now that Super Sikh is in print.

supersikhcomics.com

facebook.com/supersikhcomic

kickstarter.com/projects/eileenalden/super-sikh

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