The tribe has spoken

As of noon today, my segment of Canada Writes has officially aired and I am hereby allowed to talk about it! For anyone who missed it (myself included), it will be back on CBC Radio One at 7:30 p.m.. If this is the case, stop reading as what is to come is a big giant spoiler.

I arrived at the Toronto CBC studios early Saturday morning after almost colliding with the TV hockey commentator whose name I can’t remember. Okay, I never knew it to begin with. Fine. I then met the four other contestants – Derek, Jenny, Amy, and Rosemary – and proceeded to experience the wit of writers as we laughed for the next two hours. As it turns out, Rosemary was getting married that evening, Derek’s big prize trip to Toronto meant just driving over in rush hour traffic, Squid became the preferred topic for the writing challenges for its rhyming qualities (Diefenbaker was chosen as the least appealing), and everyone had at one point or another lived in Ontario except for me.

We had a two-hour lovefest where we decided that no one should go home. These cats are awesome, funny, smart human beings and I’m so glad to have gotten to meet them!

In the studio, we had to perform our timed writing auditions from an earlier round (found here), and then the fantastic five would be cut down to three. The judges harshly ripped us from our sunshine & lollipops brigade. I believe the first comment on my piece was something along the lines of: “I just don’t like it and wouldn’t go see it if it were a movie”. Super. It was no surprise when I got the boot.

The best part about getting kicked out? No, it wasn’t getting to shop Toronto all day long…it was the audible sigh of relief from my parents when they heard the next challenge was to prepare a monologue about your childhood and family. This came to mind, as did this, and many stories about this.

It was a lot of fun though. There was much Dartmouth-bashing (if you’re among those offended, please click here before sending your hate mail), an awesome pitch for a Shatner movie, dance-music intros that always went on just a tad too long, and Elvira Kurt asked to see my ass

Now I’m home and loving the day of media attention (both as Brian and Benjamin Boudreau), happy to keep in touch with the rest of the Canada Writes Class of 2007, and looking forward to continuing my creative ventures while finding my dream PR job. Oh right, and in true reality show cast-off fashion, I’m looking forward to the offers for The Surreal Life, Red-Carpet Correspondence, and Infomercial fame.

I have been getting asked where I plan on going with this so I'll answer that question too. I've been working on a piece about a spot out in Wellington on the Shubie Canal. It's where this piece took place and many more. The original settler of that land back in 1800s kept a diary where he wrote one line per day for about 70 years. I'm working on blending my writing with his, some historical aspects of the Canal, etc. It won't see the light of day for quite some time but I may reattempt to win CBC over again with their literary awards next year.

Congratulations to whoever the winner may be. I’ll be listening and awaiting your many moments of brilliance!