Emma Teitel returns as Dave Bidini mansplains class to Joni Mitchell, Bell’s news orgs “report” on Bell’s new product, and SUN news illustrates the Liberal-lesbian-pedophile meetup that wasn’t.

Episode Rundown

[00:00:07] “Hey Emma.” Jesse

“Hey Jesse.” Teitel

“My cousin Emma Teitel is back. Maclean’s columnist. Sang a song about Barbara Kay on the first episode of Shortcuts. Was there any response to that?” Jesse

“I’m very pleased to announce that Barbara Kay loved my song or she liked it. She tweeted at me and said very nice song, nice voice and she is interested in possibly going out for Ramen with me in Toronto, though she did say it’s very high in Carbs. Which she didn’t like, so maybe will get a salad instead.” Teitel

“So got some common ground, too carby.” Jesse

[00:01:09] “I will bring a song next time.” Teitel

“No but I actually feel like as your cousin I have to give you guidance in this industry. I don’t know if you wanna be the singing columnist.” Jesse

“I would love to be that. I used to always do these songs in high school.” Teitel

“I do remember, I put you on CBC radio singing a song about Nelly McHung.” Jesse

“No that was about cybersex. It was about MSN messenger. Nelly McHung, not well hung, but in histories halls, shes got great big balls.” Teitel

“I actually have distanced myself from the poetry I wrote in high school but good on you. We do need a musical interlude.

An open letter to Joni Mitchell from Dave Bidini.

Oh Joni Mitchell, The things you say, I don’t know why you say them

mean things, harsh things, angry pretentious unfeeling things

it doesn’t have to this way

theres a blackness about you Joni, about your way

that is starting to consume and devour what ever light pores from your art

Margaret Atwood just turned 75, and she’s a decent person, full of conviction and fire

ask yourself, are you lending anything to the greater conversation

you make it seem as if as a gilded life of art and success in art is a miserable life

which is not because I lived this life.

Wow, what a putz.” Jesse

[00:02:48] Dave Bidini formed the band Rheostatics.

[00:03:02] The Joni Mitchell interview in question.

[00:03:34] “But she’s got a point and she’s fucking Joni Mitchell and she can say whatever the hell she wants. And if I’m as old and or as accomplished as Joni Mitchell I’m going to say what I want. Like right now, I’m feeling bad I called Dave Bidini a Putz. I don’t know Dave Bidini, maybe he’s not a putz, maybe he just wrote like a putz for that article. But when I’m in my seventies and I read something like that I’m just going to call the guy a putz.” Jesse

[00:04:48] “It seems like it’s been a trend recently of like old broads in the entertainment industry. Saying some mean or at least not positive things and then getting this big backlash, and really being surprised at the backlash. Like Bette Midler recently was recentlly talking about Ariana Grande and saying you know shes so talented. She doesn’t have to be slithering around you know on a couch half naked. People were so mad at Bette Midler, Bette Midler is slutshaming Ariana Granda. That’s like saying my bubbe slut shames me for wearing a short skirt to Shabbat dinner. Bubbe’s can’t slut shame anyone.” Teitel

Grande response

Midler apologizes

[00:05:45] “You step in shit and then he’s the guy who was kinda like what what did I do? And then steps into another pile of shit and grinds his foot in. He took to twitter…He linked to his own piece and the tweet was Dear Joni, someone had to say it.” Jesse

“And anytime you have an open letter. It’s so sanctimonious but it’s also…” Teitel

“His name is in the head line. An open letter from Dave Bidini, oh it’s from Dave Bidini.” Jesse

“If you think about it Neil Young for example last year…At one his concerts at Carnegie Hall. He called out the audience for trying to clap along to one of his songs. He was singing Ohio and people were trying to cheer and clap along. But apparently he thought they were out of time, out of sync with his own rhythm. so he yelled out something like wrong stop at once. and that’s mean I think and I don’t recall a national conversation or any open letters to Neil young.” Teitel

`[00:06:57] “Bidini just kept making it worse for  himself. The tweeted reactions to my Joni Mitchell column brought out the worst in a handful of fellow writers on facebook, very ugly, very sad. He kinda moves from judging Joni Mitchell to judging all his fellow writers on facebook. Now Sheila Heti who I respect is calling me stupid and saying I’m what’s wrong with the Canadian attitude. The internet has ruined us.” Jesse

[00:07:51] I think his comments about the internet ruining us. I think that’s interesting cause i feel like if somebody were to come up to him at a dinner party or at a party and say, hey listen I read your column, I really didn’t like it, I thought it was patronizing and sexist. He wouldn’t respond by saying, parties are ruining us or normal social interactions are ruining us. When people are saying nice things then it’s a very legitimate forum, but when they are not saying nice things well it’s not real…I even do that myself. When people say something mean about my column, I say whatever they’re just a bunch of losers in their moms basements on twitter. But then when they say nice things I think oh well these are very important people.” Teitel

“I tend to give more credibility to the people saying nasty things.” Jesse

[00:09:30] “So that was CTV news and Business News Network giving some objective coverage of the new product launched by their parent company Bell. Producers at Business News Network have been getting in touch with me on the sly. To let me know that when Bell executives come in for an interview, it is handled completely differently than any other coverage they do. It’s all pre-scripted sort of taken aside to another room…It’s just a performance. I  guess the part where I feel like affronted. And maybe this is a, I’m feigning some naivete. Like who doesn’t know that. Why do you buy a newspaper if you’re Bell or 15% stake in one well partly to pimp your new netflix competitor. Christine Dobby is the telecom reporter for the Globe and Mail, and I think shes a good reporter. But they give her the Kevin Crull interview on monday, before the wednesday launch of cravetv. What do you do as a reporter when you are kind of handing this brief like Hey, you’re going to interview this executive of this new bell tv product. No one is telling you that you have to say anything nice about it, but heres this executive.” Jesse

“Well what else can you do I mean it would be totally hypocritical of me to insult this reporter or any news organization for pandering to their parent company. I’m full disclosure an employee of Rogers should I be on here promoting showme the alternative to tv streaming website or program to cravetv.” Teitel

“I wrote for Macleans writing about Telecom and tech and I slagged Rogers all the time. And it’s not that I’m so great.” Jesse

“Well not everyone is so brave as you Jesse.” Teitel

“No I was just such an insignificant gnat. I was a blogger from Macleans that like, I’m sure you couldn’t on the cover of Macleans write an anti-rogers piece but I was able to get away with it somehow. I had editors who protected to me. It’s just this thing with Bell, Simon Houpt wrote, he got the interview with Kevin O’Leary when Kevin O’Leary…quits CBC branches out big time.” Jesse

[00:11:58] “Honestly though what choice do we have but to pander to our parent organization when no one will pay for print. Like we rely on these people, we need them. We live at least my generation like we expect to get things for free, nobody wants to pay for anything. Nobody wants to pay for media. I know that you will never say anything bad about technology or about the way the new world works.” Teitel

“This of course is ludicrous. I don’t believe that you…Do you have cable?” Jesse

“No, I’m part of the problem. Not saying I’m exempt from this, I live in this free world too. I want anything for free.” Teitel

“I don’t want to talk about the youth. Do you expect to get everything for free?” Jesse

“totally.” Teitel

“Do you have Netflix?” Jesse

“I have Netflix but lately I haven’t even been using Netflix. I’ve been using Popcorn Time. which is a free streaming website that looks like netflix but you don’t have to pay seven dollars. You don’t have to pay anything.” Teitel

“And have you cancelled your netflix?” Jesse

“No.” Teitel

“And if you could pay seven dollars a month for popcorn time and if the price was seven dollars to get popcorn time would you pay it?” Jesse

“Yes” Teitel

“Right so if someone offers you the product.” Jesse

“But the point is there will always be the free product.” Teitel

“You can get everything on Netflix for as well, but you pay for it why? There’s 1500 plus people (1556) who pay me to this podcast. But they can get it for free. Why do they pay me? Jesse

“Out of the kindness of their hearts.” Teitel

“It’s not this immoral generation. They understand. It’s not this generation, people understand that you need to pay for things. This weird moral equivalency where you have to be willing to be completely looted by Bell to Rogers to be a moral person. How are we even on this, I don’t even want to talk about this.” Jesse

[00:14:39] “Wow sinister.” Teitel

“Sinister sex ed curriculum. so what’s in that curriculum according to Joe Warmington who wrote about this just this past week and who referenced the photograph. The photograph of Ben Levin, there he is with Trudeau, with Wynne. This highly criticized curriculum was abandoned by McGuinty at the assistance of horrified parents. It included instruction about body parts. Including the actual terms for male and female genitial, to first graders. Homosexuality to grade three students and masturbation to grade six. This is such a weird one where you are trying to parse truth from fiction…So what the fuck if it was Ben Levin. So what that there are pictures of Trudeau next to Jian Ghomeshi. Ben Levin’s brother is an (former) editor at the Globe and Mail… I’m going to go ahead and assume until I hear otherwise that nobody knew that Ben Levin was involved in child pornography if in fact he was involved in child pornography.” Jesse

[00:15:49] “Pedophilia has just been historically linked when it shouldn’t be to homosexuality and it’s completely irrelevant to even mention that fact that Ben Levin. In Joe Warmington’s recent article from this week or last week. Where he talks about…Levin’s upcoming trial, theres just this graph in there that is totally irrelevant where he references the photo and he says Ben Levin was seen at gay pride 2013 with Kathleen Wynne. It’s like what does gay pride have to do with this. It would be just as relevant to mention he went to a leafs game with Kathleen Wynne. But it’s just because we are talking about homosexuality and transexuality that for some reason. Everyoby likes to occasionaly lump in pedophila with homosexuality or if theres a pedophile being charged and he happen to have been an event where there were gay people. Some how these things are connected, and there not.” Teitel

“Now that they know that there is significant doubt that dude is Ben Levin and I spoke to Sun news. They went on with this, oh you know it just happens to be pride, we would of run it if it was a rodeo…If it’s Ben Levin let him come forward, we won’t print his name. It’s not relevant what the guys actually name is. Well why wouldn’t he come forward? Well I think you can understand why he wouldn’t come forward, he doesn’t want to be any where near this. I wouldn’t want to be any where near it. I said look now that you know that at least it’s plausible that it’s not Ben Levin. Are you going to look into this? Are you curious if what you’re printing many many times what lives on in your newspaper. Are you curious that your printing that this is Ben Levin when it’s not Ben Levin and there position is until Joe shmo proves.” Jesse

“Show your face doppelganger of Ben Levin.” Teitel
“Until the body double of Ben Levin says my name is not Ben Levin and stop running my photo. Then as far as sun news is concerned that dude is Ben Levin.” Jesse