Gig Report

Straight Goods editor, Penney Kome, was in Ottawa from Calgary to meet up with magazine founder, Ish Theilheimer, and their production team to celebrate ongoing success and to initiate a national subscription drive.

Several of the Ottawa Grans happened to have the evening of the 21st free so we thought it would be an excellent opportunity to sing the songs Pat had worked on for our World Press Freedom Day action to protest unfair freelance contracts. We didn’t have a chance to sing at the National Arts Centre location (check out that report) and seeing as how Straight Goods had published a photo and article from that action, the shoe was a fit, so to speak.

An email had been sent to Straight Goods mentioning that we’d be by but they’d been so busy arranging the party, they hadn’t seen it. We didn’t think we’d be a surprise but it turned out we were a surprise, well, sort of.

We’d assembled on Elgin on the sidewalk beside D'Arcy McGee's and were putting on our glad rags, not realizing that the Straight Goods people were in a sub-street level room and looking up at us getting dressed. We were recognized immediately and Ish T. came out to greet us and give us some buttons for our shawls. Not knowing that we were there specifically to recognize and celebrate his e-zine, he enthusiastically invited us to join them. We said, yes, we’d be there.

We practiced in a nearby hallway with grand acoustics that were perfect for the task. We were glad that Pat’s daughter, Virginia’s voice was added to ours; always the more, the merrier. (She is hidden in the back of the photo!)

We made our grand entrance singing over and over again, a chorus of Charley Gordon, Charley Gordon, where are you? (Tune: Frere Jacques) Charles, a contributor to Straight Goods, would have been there but was down-for-the-count with the flu.

This was one of those events the significance of which is more than our hour or so of our attendance. For instance, Penney carried our message with her to The Writers Union of Canada (TWUC) meeting in Toronto the next day. And here’s what Harris MacLeod of the Hill Times wrote about our presence:

"The highlight of the evening was an appearance by the Ottawa-chapter of the protest group, "The Raging Grannies,"a group of women dressed in old-fashioned "granny clothes" who express their opposition to media conglomeration and corporate greed through satirical songs. One song, about media organization CanWest's freelance writers' contract, which many at the party said forces writers to relinquish too much control of their work, began:

Let us tell you a story of writers who can't work for CanWest any more / For the contract they're asked to be signing gives CanWest all the keys to the store. (Song by Pat Howard. Tune: Red River Valley) "

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