Good day, ladies, gentlemen, and various other individuals I haven�t e-mailed in over a year.
�Tis I, Mark Cappis, with my annual note updating you on all the occurrences in my life. Usually, I send this out at the start of December, to get snail mail addresses and weed out my Christmas card list. But, life got busy and I wound up putting this off for most of December. It�s too late now to be a Christmas letter, so I guess it�s a New Years letter. All for the best, really. I�ve always felt that New Years was a more universal and inclusive holiday.
Writing this letter reminds me of the classic fantasy comic book The Sandman. In one issue, a man comes up with the ultimate scheme to live forever. When Death comes to collect his soul, he�ll simply say, �No thanks. I�m not going.� Death, overhearing this conversation and being a cheeky character, decides to grant this wish for immortality. Death�s brother, Dreams, not having much of a life, decides to strike up a friendship with this newly immortal person, and they vow to meet every 100 years, have a drink, and catch-up.
So what I�m trying to say here is, it�s been a hundred years. Who�s buying this round?
What�s Going On In My Life
My life is still very much uneventful. You�ll still find me up in Athabasca, working at 94.1 the River. I�m still the wacky morning guy, and you can hear me on the air every morning from 6AM to noon. Back in April, I celebrated 5 years up in Athabasca, and I�m still loving every minute of it.
The job really showed me how important a radio station can be to a community. You may recall that back in May, Slave Lake was victim to some devastating wildfires that burned down a portion of the town, resulting in the entire town being evacuated. Athabasca became home to the largest evacuation centre. Every day, on the air, I�d provide daily updates on what was needed at the evacuation centre, and every day, the listeners would provide it in droves. It was a very busy couple of weeks, but really reminded me that this job does have certain great powers, and great responsibilities, to paraphrase an old comic book.
This year, I also ended my time with the Magnificent River Rats Festival, Athabasca�s Canada Day celebration and music festival. I spent two years as treasurer, and I was really starting to find the job very taxing. I�m proud of my work with the festival, and I�m sure it will be very successful in the years to come. But rather than kick back and relax, I quickly found something else to fill my time.
Like a lot of other facets of the entertainment industry, radio tends to be full time work for part time pay. I�ve spent my five years in Athabasca living on a very tight budget, and I had some cost-of-living increases over the past year that threw my budget out of whack. So, I finally had to break down and, like a lot of my radio brethren before me, get a second job. I now spend my evenings down at Buy-Low Foods keeping the produce section stocked. It�s created some interesting reactions from listeners who recognize me. One assumed I was starting some kind of Dirty Jobs segment on my show and wanted to know when I�d be coming down to her business. Another seemed genuinely angry that I have to work two jobs and threatened to call my radio boss and demand I get a raise. I never got a befuddled memo from my radio boss about that, so I�m guessing he never called.
That�s the main reason why this letter is so delayed. Between Christmas events that I was broadcasting live from, and working double shifts at the grocery store for the Christmas rush, I was run pretty ragged this December. But now, I�m looking forward to a quiet January and things settling back into some sense of normalcy.
Favourite Quote of the Year
�Didn�t you go to NAIT? Didn�t you run for president? Dude, your campaign was hilarious.� � An Edmonton Oilers PR exec, when the Oilers came to Athabasca for an event. Turns out he was taking some business courses at NAIT when I decided to...make an impression. Let this serve as a reminder that you never know when, where, and what you�ll be remembered for.
�How on Earth can I find you?� �Just make a wish. That seems to work.�
As always, my online footprint is massive, so if you ever want to catch up with me, a quick Google search will turn up all manner of options.
Chaos in a Box.com (my website): www.chaosinabox.com
Midnight Ramblings (my blog): movie-dummy.blogspot.com
U62: The Targ (my podcast): www.chaosinabox.com/targ
My work blog: www.941theriver.ca
Facebook: www.facebook.com/chaosinabox
Twitter: www.twitter.com/chaosinabox
My YouTube Channel, where I sometimes make videos: www.youtube.com/mcappis911
...And the Adventure Continues...
And that pretty much sums up my 2011. No runs, no hits, no errors, as my dear ol� Dad would say. All in all though, I�m starting to find that Dr. Johnny Fever summed up the radio announcer lifestyle quite accurately on a rerun of WKRP: �Pushing 40, and still living like a college kid.� But when all is said and done, I can�t imagine doing anything else.
See you again in 100 years. Next time, you�re buying.
Mark Cappis
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