There has been so much fighting on George St. that city councillors should rename it Muhammad Alley

Update This was also printed in Saturday's Telegram on Aug. 28.

There have been a couple of good Telegram articles recently about the good and the bad of St. John's famous/infamous George Street. A few hard-hitting messages came through - George St. has an image problem, there is an alarming hard drug problem, and our culture of alcohol glorification show no signs of waning. Police authorities surely have their hands full dealing with weekend brawls, vandalism, noise and unruliness. Councillor Tom Hann saw it first-hand as he took a drive with the RNC 3 am Sat. night. The police say it would be helpful to install closed-circuit television cameras on George St.

Maybe it will deter some potential public brawls on that particular street, but it won't stop people from acting out of control either with drugs, booze, or their inner selves. Our whole culture, whether it's a city, town, or outport, has found the lure of alcohol, well, intoxicating, and from young ages on up, many still glorify it. For better or worse, our realities are influenced by the activities, personalities around us, attitudes, and habits that are powerful in our environments. This particular witness to a culture of over-drinking has noticed that there does not appear to be much emphasis, in general, on self-control. At least it wasn't a topic in my school curriculum, or there were few, if any, public messages about it. As we see, it affects adult behaviour and society in negative ways.

We are all human, and it is not always easy to take control of some habit that we have become accustomed to. However, as we also know, good habits can begin to replace unhealthy ones, and we can control our lives, rather than have negative habits control us. It goes for drugs, alcohol, food, and personal behaviours.

Naturally, parents and guardians have a huge role to play in educating their kids, and imparting messages of self control when it comes to potential problem temptations. However, young people still don't hear much about self-control in general. On the contrary, it's cool to throw away any antiquated sense of that, to "treat yourself", "just do it", "par-tay", and don't even think about what any "foods", drugs or alcoholic toxins can do to your body. As a matter of fact some restaurants use an opposing message to self control by their tantalizing "All You Can Eat" lure.

A message that can be out there more, is that we as individuals can control so much, like what we decide to eat and drink, and how fit we are, hence also helping to control the demand on health care, and the demands on the authorities who have to patrol all the George Streets, wherever they are. What happens on George Street and lots of roads and streets are preventable in the long run, but the roots of the problems and behaviours need to be studied, and addressed by every segment of our culture.

Electric 2010 Junos Heats up St. John's and Canadian living rooms

The two hour broadcast of the 2^nd Juno awards show in St. John's in 9 years was electric, fast paced, with a heavily music based component to the show rather than a more host(s)-centered show. There were two venues for the broadcast, the main Mile One Centre, and a live feed from a lively sardine-packed George Street.

The live awards show kicked off with rap group Classified rapping their crowd supported "Oh ... Canada". The trio walked, rap-danced through the crowd of possibly 1000's of George St. fans, chasing the camera, as an aerial cam panned the group making the way through. They ended their performance on a circle in Prince Edward Park, which immediately was sequed by the announcer to inside Mile One where fan favorite Michael Bublé took the stage to sing his hit, "Haven’t Met You Yet".

At first, it appeared, at least on my tube that the sound was somewhat stifled, but it improved toward the end of his performance. The crowd reacted with enthusiastic appreciation, and was acknowledged by the BC crooner.

Bublé went on to win three Junos during the night, and shutting out teen fave, Justin Bieber. Whenever, either of their names or appearances was announced, the fans harmonized well practiced screaming. A few other acts were prominent during the night. K'Naan, and Drake both picked up two, they are hip hop and rap artists, which seemed to get plenty of exposure in the broadcast, with Drake taking the stage to sing three different times, and two for K'Naan. It is not surprising, as rapper Drake had been a big hit at the Grammys, and thus, is a hope for the less than super hot Canadian music industry right now.

For this blogger, the most energetic, and riveting highlight was the explosive sounds of rock group Billy Talent. Their song "Saint Veronica" had a hard edged, catchy melody, but carefully crafted sound that makes their music recognizable as Billy Talent. With great guitar riffs, combined with vocal cord shredding screeches by their lead singer, and solid bass and drums, their interesting hooks and stage presence was the most magnetic stage act of the night - interesting lyrics to "Saint Veronica" as well.

The 2010 Junos will also be remembered for the amazing creative and eye-catching stage design. Icebergs were the backdrop scene, which could also have been versions of west coast mountain ranges, and would have been appropriate since the west coast representation were such a big part of the show.

The iceberg set design allowed many different images, lights, strobe effects, and variations to keep the generation of short-attention span audiences, still stimulated by them. The iceberg light, and image patterns were changed for different performances. For example, in parts of the Billy Talent song, when the song reached a momentum point, the whole iceberg set design lit up bright all of the bergs at once to coincide with the particular musical high point. It was executed with excellent timing, and effect to compliment the emotional energy created by the band's fantastic song.

In 2002, St. John's was a big hit with Juno organizers, being the first city to host the Junos on the road. This year has outdone that first Juno event, and the broadcast will be seen as successful event.

Congratulations to NL musician Amelia Curran on winning for the best traditional/roots category.

As a broadcast, it depends on your perspective how you would describe it. From this one, it was mostly exciting, well planned, generally smooth flowing, with nice production direction, coordinating crews, personalities, and two crowded venues. Up to the time of the blog post, there have not been many show reviews nationally. There certainly have been no negative comments so far. The Vancouver Sun said it was a "a potentially tame awards show, uplifted by the energy of fresh blood into the Canadian music canon"

It was tame perhaps, but had some gracious moments, which from this blog view is much more pleasing than some other obnoxious music awards shows internationally.