The Lonely End of the Rink isn't so lonely anymore.

Hopes this finds you happy and healthy this spring of 2015! Much like the changing of the seasons, it’s a period of transition for me, especially at the CBC.

For the past ten years, I hosted a four-hour daily live show, Monday to Friday, on CBC Radio 3. I primarily played Canadian independent music, falling mostly under the umbrella of “indie rock”. It was an incredible experience to channel my DJ heroes like Wolfman Jack, Alan Freed, David Wisdom, and Nardwuar, while simultaneously broadcasting live to North America on SiriusXM satellite radio and streaming to the world on cbcmusic.ca.

Like many things at the CBC these days, Radio 3 is going through changes. The big one happened at the end of March, when we ended our live hosting on the network after a decade. The final broadcasting day, Friday March 27, 2015, was extremely fun but also very emotional. Ten years is a long time, and the audience and community that has grown out of Radio 3 is second to none. I’m proud to call many of the international listeners, who engaged with me on air through many means on a daily basis, my friends. Thanks again to all for the kind wishes for the future.

And the future is… now! I’m still at the CBC, still working with Radio 3 (which continues!) and CBC Music. You’re still hear me in recorded segments on Radio 3, and on various programs on CBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 doing what I always do: promoting new Canadian music. You’ll also see me all over CBC Music’s social media feeds and on regional CBC television. I also still host the CBC Radio 3 Podcast, and will be guest hosting on CBC Radio 1 this summer.

When it comes to writing, I’ve also proudly been writing a local Vancouver column for The Westender, the city’s longest-running entertainment weekly. The feature is called Vancouver Shakedown, and is all about the culture, society, and zeitgeist of this Terminal City. I’ve already caught roses and thorns while covering such topics as weather bragging, the whales still in captivity at the aquarium, attempted stroller theft, the new “heron cam”, and the infamous West Coast social condition known as “The BC Bail”.

I also continue to plunder away at my third book. It’s still a rock ‘n’ roll story, a warts-and-all tour diary expose of my many years on the road in The Smugglers. Sometimes the process is fun, other times embarrassing, and sometimes a struggle, but I’m determined to finish it for both my sake and for your hopeful enjoyment.

As for hockey, my team the Flying Vees had our best season ever, going 17-5-1. Sadly, we lost in the playoffs, but my hockey-obsessed son Joshua was able to come to some games and loved it.

When it comes to live events, I’m about to enter a very busy spring season of appearances in and around BC and Ontario. All the dates are listed below. If you’re around, it’ll be fantastic to see you as always.

Thanks for the support, hope to see somewhere this spring or summer,

-GL

Grant Lawrence Spring / Summer 2015 Live Schedule:

Sat May 2, Authors for Indies, 32 Books, North Vancouver BC, 1pm – 3pm.

Sat May 9, A Whisky Library, Lynn Valley Library, North Vancouver BC, 7:30pm (whisky and literature pairings; a benefit for the Trish McMordie Memorial Fund).

Fri May 15, Sun May 17, Word on the Lake Writers Festival, Salmon Arm BC.

Sat May 23, CBC Music Festival, Toronto ON.

Sun June 14, Canadian Independent Music Association 40th Anniversary Awards Gala, the Great Hall, Toronto ON.

Sat June 20, Unofficial CBC Radio 3 Fan Picnic, Trinity Bellwoods Park, Toronto ON.

Fri July 17 – Sun July 19, Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Jericho Beach BC.

Even when I was a little kid, I knew keeping whales in captivity at the Vancouver Aquarium was wrong. Despite my misgivings, I’d still scramble and jockey to sit in the “splash zone”, hoping the cold salt water from the killer whale and dolphin shows would slosh over the glass and soak me.

It was when the magnificent bodies of those gigantic mammals exploded out of the water at their trainers’ behest, all for a reward of a meager mouthful of dead herring, when I felt the stab of guilt. It was painfully obvious that the animals were simply way too big for their tank.

“Look at the dolphins, they love it!” squealed one sopping kid, as the dolphins bobbed and leapt across the surface of their stage. “They’re smiling!”

Such is the curse of the dolphin. Just like belugas and, to a lesser extent the orcas, when opened, their mouths curve up at the jaw, giving the false impression they’re perpetually “smiling”, as if a visit to a Yaletown botox clinic had gone permanently wrong.

That “smile” also gives the appearance, especially to impressionable children, that these incredibly smart mammals actually somehow enjoy being held prisoner in aquatic cellblocks, where they are forced to do tricks for dead fish. You know in your gut that nothing could be further from the truth.

How is it even a fathomable reality, that decades after my childhood guilt, we still allow the Vancouver Aquarium to imprison cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), in tanks hardly larger than an Olympic swimming pool? Our mayor has publicly spoken against our incarceration of whales. Last summer, our parks board voted against further captive breeding (what a disgusting phrase), but since the civic election, that ban has been sunk.

The aquarium justifies the confinement of cetaceans as research, and yet their website still clearly offers “dolphin shows” and “beluga shows” (to their credit the Vancouver Aquarium no longer keep orcas). The “shows” might well be more on the instructional side than the old killer whale splash zone antics of yore, but they are still marketed as performances, and you just know it all comes down to money: the cetaceans are literally the aquarium’s big ticket items.

To make matters worse, the aquarium has imminent plans to expand, which means even more loaner beluga whales will return to Vancouver. One such beluga was on loan for breeding at SeaWorld Orlando. Tragically, that unfortunate whale/sperm bank died from an infection caused by a broken jaw, which apparently came from some sort of altercation with other belugas. Excuse me?

According to the Vancouver Aquarium, the cetaceans in their command have been deemed “non-releasable by government authorities”. Even if originally rescued, these beautiful mammals do not deserve to be kept as pets and show pieces. They are mostly migratory, highly social, and keenly intelligent. In their natural habitat, most beluga whales are seasonally programmed to migrate thousands of kilometres, spending social time in pods of anywhere from three whales to groups of thousands. Think about a naturally migratory mammal in a fish tank. They must go crazy.

All that said, you can add my voice to the long list of critics calling upon the Vancouver Aquarium to end their long-standing, unethical, and hypocritical captivity of whales, dolphins and porpoises, and to release them into their natural habitat.

If these intuitive creatures cannot survive in the wild after release as the Aquarium predicts, they would at the very least taste freedom, something we all desire.

And you would finally know in your gut that for once, that “smile” would be genuine.

Read more of my weekly Vancouver Shakedown here.

“The snow is in Whistler, but the flakes are in Vancouver”.

It’s an unflattering phrase I’ve heard a few times, describing a social ill that is supposedly creeping into our behavioral patterns like mold in a grow-op. You’ve likely already heard about Vancouver’s not-so-nice social rep of being “unfriendly to newcomers” and that “it’s hard to make friends here”. Apparently these days, if you actually do manage to make friends and then make some plans, there’s a very strong possibility that your new Vancouver pals won’t even show up. This rampant condition has a nickname. It’s called “The BC Bail”.

When my friend Lizzy relocated from Toronto to Vancouver, she received advanced warning of the BC Bail. According to Lizzy, “the BC Bail is when you make plans, but know in the back of your mind you might not actually go through with whatever it is you just agreed to, then you cancel last minute”.

Lizzy’s lived in Vancouver for five years now, so I asked her if she thinks flaking out is still an issue. “Oh yeah”, she said without hesitation. Lizzy is the founder and producer of the wildly successful Rain City Chronicles storytelling event. It’s almost always sold out at venues across the city, yet an average of 15 per cent of ticket holders don’t show up, at $22 a pre-paid ticket.

“I plan for people to bail.”

“It’s just downright disrespectful to flake, and definitely a Vancouver phenomenon”, says Jay, a recently thawed-out transplant from Winnipeg. “Vancouverites take their reputation for being laid back way too far. No one can stick to a plan. Maybe it’s the lack of a real winter? In a Winnipeg deep-freeze, there’s real value in getting together with friends. In Vancouver, I’ve bought concert tickets for a friend and me, and have been stuck with the extra ticket when he inevitably jammed out. Not cool.”

Leigh moved here from Charlottetown, a city known for its close-knit community. Surprise! She agrees with Jay and Lizzy. Leigh feels it’s all about the better option. “When people make plans here, they wait until zero hour to see if there’s a better choice, or a cooler party. Then they bail. It’s so frustrating.”

Vancouver! What can we do about this abhorrent behavior? According to my friend Lauren, who wrote about the BC Bail on her fantastic blog “Grown-Up Party”, it’s best to get out ahead of the problem by not over scheduling. “I’ve recognized that I don’t like to have plans two nights in a row during the week. So now ahead of time I try to spread them out, as a pre-emptive strike on the BC Bail.”

Lauren also strongly believes that cell phones are a huge part of the problem, when all it takes is a quick, shockingly guilt-free text to bail on plans that may have been in the works for months.

OK look, as a guy who has lived in Vancouver my entire life, I’m willing to do my part to put an end to this ridiculous BC Bail stuff. In fact, I have plans to meet friends for drinks at a craft brewery tonight, and damn it, I’m going to show up. But then again… I do have three episodes of Better Call Saul on the PVR… and it’s raining… and I’m already in my boxer shorts….

Do you think the BC Bail is a social problem in Vancouver? Are you guilty of pulling a BC Bail? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or tweet me! #BCBail.

Read more of my weekly Vancouver Shakedown here.