Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

 Sir David Wants You To Drive In To See His First Show In A Year   By Stephen Weir:   If you are a David Rudder fan and have missed seeing “Sir David” perform during the pandemic, honk your horn this July 31st.  And if you really want to hear some of the new material he has written over the past year or so, honk again and flash your high beams.   On Saturday July 31 st  Soca legend  David Rudder  will be performing live in Toronto for the first time since the shutdown.  He will be outdoors, on stage at the  City View Drive-In  playing for a lot filled with parked cars!  The car-only venue is back this summer since the relaxation of Covid restrictions in the city. The drive-in is located adjacent to the  Rebel Night Club  on Polson Street in the Toronto Harbour District.   Trinidad’s David Rudder is based here in the GTA and has had to quarantine along with the rest of the city.  It has been quiet for a normally very busy entertainer but “I did perform three months ago at Exhibition Pla

Two Radio Station News Shorts by Stephen Weir Scarborough’s Second FM Station Still Two Years Away! You wouldn't think there's any more room for another radio in Toronto, but the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) has decided to squeeze in one more. The CRTC gave the station the nod back in April and made it official last month when it approved a licence for the International Harvesters for Christ Evangelistic Association and their new station 105.3 FM. Don’t go looking and listening for the station just yet, the new Scarborough outlet – CKSC - says that it will be up and broadcasting by April 28th, 2023. The new micro-broadcasting station’s 150-watt signal won’t reach too far outside of Scarborough – in contrast G.98.7’s FM signal at its peak time is 1,000 Watts (and has difficulty being heard in downtown Toronto. According to the CRTC the new station “indicated that it would broadcast 126 hours of programming each broadcast week on the proposed station, of w

For Caribbean Foodies Carnival Food Comes in 25 Flavours (and counting) Freedom Mas photo from Facebook By Stephen Weir  For the stripped down version of the 2021 Toronto Caribbean Carnival the timing is turning out be perfect.  Just as the Province begins relaxing the restrictions on dine-in restaurants, outdoor patios and purchasing take-out meals, The Festival Management Committee, has soft-launched a new Carnival food festival  -- Carnival Flavours -- that runs throughout the month of July. “ Earn points every time you order and you could win weekly Carnival Flavours prize packs!” explains the carnival's event website ( https://www.torontocarnival.ca/carnivalflavours ).  Carnival Flavours  is a brand new project for the 2021 Carnival and is dedicated to bringing the best in Caribbean food in  Toronto ,  Brampton  and  Whitby  to hungry Toronto Caribbean Carnival foodies.   Be it in a popular resto, or dinner on a patio or meals delivered by DoorDash, the month of July is all ab

  Emotional pain of losing parent hits different during age of COVID-19 Author of the article: By stephen weir Publishing date: Jun 12, 2021   •   June 12, 2021    My 96-year old father died recently.  I was busy looking under the bushes for our garbage bin — the men on the truck continue to find unique places to deposit the empties — when my iphone vibrated. I didn’t take the call as bin retrieval is a serious business. The call rolled over to text. The message was short and to the point. “Dad has gone! It happened 10 minutes ago.” He had been recovering in a Manotick senior’s facility near Ottawa following surgery a week before. Dad, a Second World War vet and former Windsor optometrist, had been rushed to hospital when he couldn’t get out of bed that morning. The hospital admitted him and less than an hour later he was gone. The phone vibrated again. It was my wife. She had heard and wa

  It is a Two-Fer Day for St Lucian Canadian poet Canisia Lubrin   By Stephen Weir   Oh what a day it has been for one of the country’s most successful poets.   Canisia Lubrin   has just   learned that she has won one of the world’s richest poetry prizes.  She also had been told today that she has won a Canada Council administered literary prize too!   37-year old  Canisia Lubrin is the Canadian winner of the 2021  Griffin Poetry Prize.  She will receive $65,000 in prize money for her latest book  The Dyzgraph x st .   The Prize describes  The Dyzgraph x st  as a    “spectacular feat of architecture called a poem …  it is about  contemporary capitalist fascism, nationalism and the climate disaster, where Jejune, the central figure, grapples with understanding their existence and identity.”   The Griffin Poetry Prize  was founded in 2000 to encourage and celebrate excellence in poetry.  This year 682 books of poetry, including 55 translations from 28 languages from 14 different countri

  For The Caribbean Camera Everything Is Local  The Caribbean Camera Newspaper  just celebrated its 21 st  anniversary.  If there had been a party, we might have been able to get publisher  Anthony Joseph  (pictured below) to tell us how he manages to keep the Toronto Black community newspaper afloat during a time when he is unable to sell advertising; distribute his 24-page weekly newspaper; and pay journalists (including me) all since the arrival of the Covid shutdown.   The paper and its online website is considered the voice of the Caribbean community in the GTA.  The paper is written by journalists who have a connection with the Caribbean (most learned their trade in Trinidad) except me. The 65-year old publisher gives his 80 something Trinidadian born editor a small honourium, has assist with his basement digs and from time-to-time makes sure that the editor gets his  three solids . Everyone else fends for themselves.   Pre-Covid the Caribbean Camera was given away free at Patty