My Live TV Experience

Who remembers our dear friend Mike Roberts ?  

He was our friendly weatherman for ions and pretty much part of my life, viewing the Okanagan CHBC News (now Global TV – Okanagan) on a regular basis, as a kid. He even had his own show segment on CHBC channel.

Way way…way back!  

Before social media was ever invented. Mike Roberts was the Okanagan social hub of our times. One day, I said to son-in-law Graham and daughter, Tianndra, it was about time Mike Roberts retired so a new fresh face could venture into the media spotlight.  

Now don’t get me wrong. 

I really enjoyed Mike’s broadcasts, but though his time in show biz should possibly give way to the golden years in the Okanagan. It wasn’t long after I said that, my wish was granted, when he decided it was time to hang up his weathering tools and look forward to golfing throughout the Okanagan Valley.

Being an avid golfer, I suspect he’s a member at one of the golf clubs. 

All happy for his retirement, I was applauded to see the runner up for Mike’s position. To my dismay, a rival broadcaster and his running mate, meteorologist Wesla Wong, were picked to continue on Mike’s legacy .

To be clear, I do NOT know Wesla Wong, but I sure know the other person. 

Flabbergasted that it takes two meteorologists to explain the weather in the small community of the Okanagan Valley, is an understatement. But whatever, maybe the two can take that extra time to actually enjoy the Okanagan. Maybe that IS their goal ?
And maybe, Mike Roberts was really superman, when it comes to being a weatherman. Meaning, he overtook a lot of responsibilities, most meteorologist’s can’t handle today, I’m figuring. 

Whatever their reason, it’s not really my concern.

But, I wasn’t at all prepared to see who the other person was going to be. The one to take over the role of meteorologist on Global TV in the Okanagan. 

You know the old saying,” Be careful what you wish for?” 

I will always remember that day. The day I saw the same man who previously embarrassed me on LIVE TV. My routine visit to the sunny Okanagan, (home-sweet-home) and here, I so happened to glance at the TV to hear the weather report. There he was, the man, Mr. Duane English. 

OMG! 

Duane English comes from Edmonton, Alberta and worked for various broadcasting companies throughout the blue-collar city. I met Duane English for the first time, while doing a “spotlight” gig about the Canadian Outdoors, from starting a fire to catching your meal, to cooking by the campfire. It was the day I was promoting my published book, ” Canadian Recipes of the Great White North.” 

The first day I met Duane English, he really did seem like a nice guy, but little did I know about this TV business. After the tight security entering the building, Duane English greeted me in the foyer with a picture prefect smile. Soon he hustled me away into his little cubbyhole of an office, giving me a quick lesson on “live” showbiz.
Being on “LIVE” TV was indeed a brand new experience for me. 

Was I nervous? 

Sure I was, but I thought the trained staff would lead me into a comfortable situation.  

Well, was I ever for an unexpected ride of my life. 

To picture it, you’re on a design set (a green backdrop) with this big TV camera remotely controlled on wheels. It was pretty much in your face – lol.  

And the lights! Wow! So many lights! 

My two 10 minute sessions on TV, were staged as such : one was inside, while the other was outside. You think you have it under control, until the camera operators says,”Three…two..one.” And then he flips his finger meaning you’re now LIVE and…ACTION! 

Now.   Just seconds before the LIVE ACTION was broadcasted across Alberta, Duane English smirks at me and quickly says,” Don’t worry, you have only 300,000 people watching your segment- RIGHT NOW!” 

Suddenly, we are ON AIR ! 

The off-guard thought of so many people watching our segment put me into an immediate “freeze up”.   A term expressed by many, who have experienced this daunting effect.   It means exactly what it says. You freeze ON AIR and anything that was in your head, immediately vanishes. You can’t speak, no matter how much you want to. It’s just not going to happen. Total anxiety quickly sets in, while the whole experience becomes a mortified feeling of devastation.

While ON AIR, we were standing by an island counter, facing the camera. Duane English began introducing me, as I stood there dumbstruck from pure fright. With his cheerful glee to the camera, he physically hits me hard on the leg with his fist (which can’t be seen on TV).

Understanding he wanted me to snap-out-of-it! 

I began to mumble some incoherent words and once again he hit my leg. Another technique so commonly used in showbiz ( in an emergency) is jarring others memory, by asking direct questions. This way they hopefully come out of the shock of being on TV. So, this is exactly what Duane did. 

BUT – his dragger eyes could have killed ! 

It worked. As soon as the ten minute session was over (and I did finally manage to explain my point of the view) the lights and camera quickly turned off, Duane English yelled at me,”What the hell was that?! Listen!  In the next session you look at me, NOT THE FU&@&k camera!” 

I was in shock, to say the least. 

This man, who I perceived as a nice carrying person turned into this viscous orangutan, spitting his words in my face! 

I wasn’t amused! 

Now I had to go outside and start a campfire, getting ready for my next segment. He quickly pointed to the stack of wood in the yard I would use, so I nodded. He told me to be ready in 5 minutes. Once again I nodded, still fuming inside by how I was treated. So I set my watch for five minutes and planned for my campfire to be burning nicely, as the next segment hit LIVE ON AIR once again.  

I planned it perfectly. 

Soon, the five minutes went by and no Duane English. I was getting really concerned after 15 minutes, as my little campfire was smouldering into nothing more then white ash. So, like anyone else, I fuelled up the fire with more wood. And I’m talking about old 2X4’s, which were nothing more then garbage wood. As soon as I did this, a crew member came running out barking orders at me to stop using up the wood. I tried to explain to him, Duane English told me to use it. This character was NOT going to listen to anything I had to say. He was outright rude! As a matter of fact I can’t use the words this arrogant ape said to me. 

I was like ok – WHATEVER! 

So the campfire turned into a smouldering pile of white ash. Soon afterwards, Duane English came hustling out. He looked at the campfire and said,” What the F&@$k is that?!”. 

 I tried my best to explain why, but to my little radar, I saw that little smirk on his face. Right there and then, I knew it was a set-up. He wanted me to fail and made sure one of his bolstering crude crew members, came out to make sure I would become a laughing stock on LIVE television. 

In fact, I was going to be publicly embarrassed on TV. 

Another girl came out to do the forward segment with me. We were supposed to roast marshmallows on a nice open fire. She looked at the campfire and looked at English. Duane just shrugged his shoulders, rolling his eyes, meaning,” What can you do with stupid?” 

I shook my head in disbelief. 

Here we were (the girl and I) roasting marshmallows on a white ash dead fire pit to over 300,000 people – LIVE! The marshmallows were stone cold! The whole experience was totally embarrassing, when the outdoor camera went LIVE showcasing this “expert woodsman” who had no idea how to make a simple campfire ! Well, that’s exactly how it appeared on LIVE TV.

It was obvious where this segment was going. 

So, mad and determined, I set out to make the best ten minute segment I could imagine. I even made it look like the girl and I were old friends from way back.  

You know – Bulls$&@t. 

After the second segment of my first TV appearance career, I really did think it was all over, being humiliated ON AIR.  Thank God there wasn’t twitter back then – lol.  To my disbelief, the Executive TV Producer phoned me up, asking if I wanted to do another couple of segments. 

I was stunned. 

Listening over the phone, I said,” Are you sure… I mean…my last performance wasn’t star quality.” 

He said,” Oh no! We received a lot of emails and they want you back.” 

“No kidding!” I said. Once again, I was totally dumbstruck! 

Well, after that I did three more LIVE quick shows of two-ten minute outdoor segments. My fans seemed to love me. The Executive TV Producer told me, the reason they loved you so much, was because you showed them what really happens to a green-horn out in the woods. My fans compared me to them.  Oh boy!  The thought they compared me to a bubbling fool in the wilderness. 

Go figure! Oh well, so what!  

I went on another couple of shows, with one explaining what really happens when you get lost in the wilderness. It’s a true precarious story, that happened to me. Using only my own determination for survival skills, I was lost for over 14 hours in the middle of British Columbia rugged terrain, with evidence of a rogue Grizzly. Doesn’t matter how experienced you are in the wilderness, strange things can happen. Sometimes you can prepare, but it’s always the unexpected that happens. 

No matter.  

My shows were a success! Soon I received a call from another possible outdoor show called WILD TV.  The Edmonton owner was interested with my segments and wondered if I be interested in doing this part time.  

My response was,”Sure!” 

But I quizzed him, if he saw my performances, and the fact, my shows were portrayed as a green-horn lost in the woods?

He told me,” Sure did! Loved it!” 

I said,”OK then. What did you have in mind?” 

He told me he was working on this new show called WILD TV and he could possibly have some of my segments on his show. It all sounded good, but when it came down to it, he decided to go with hunters perspective instead. Which is kind of sad, because I was looking forward to a career in showbiz. 

Today, you can find WILD TV in full broadcast mode.

TV is all about ratings, and I’m figuring he would get better ratings with all the hunting fans out there in Canada and United States. Mind you, today, with all the reality shows of mix-matched lives of celebrities, I figure I do well with the green-horn effect out in the wilderness.  

The irony of it all ? 

I am very experienced in the Canadian Outdoors and like all of us, you can’t always control Mother Nature and apparently LIVE TV.  Both control you!  Outdoors you can be the best-of-the-best and in a second, a precarious weather situation or rogue Grizzly bear, could place you in a pickle !  As LIVE TV goes, you better be prepared for ego driven announcers. 

Unfortunately I didn’t make the cut for my own segment on WILD TV but, who knows, maybe one day I’ll get another call to showcase my outdoor skills. 

As for Duane English? 

He taught me what lies (get it?) behind the set of TV magic.  All I can say for Duane, I wish him well and I hope he has changed his ways, being more respectful to others, when he’s not flashing his sparkling teeth ON AIR. 

That’s show biz! 

By Bari Demers – screenwriter / writer 

PS – I love the Okanagan!  Raised in Vernon BC.  Went to Polson Park Junior High School when it was still in Polson Park. High school graduation was at VSS ( Vernon Senior Secondary school) and continued on to college at Okanagan College in Kelowna. Skied Sliver Star in Vernon and Big White in Kelowna. 

My storyline behind Black Angels

Now that December has finally come, I’m going back to writing the fictional storylines I so love to do.  My REALITY stories are sometimes too depressing to write about and takes me down a darker path, perceiving the human race as an uncontrollable virus. 

How our human race has acted throughout our historical existence is the reason I wrote BLACK ANGELS. It’s on the belief our human race was genetically altered, creating who we are today. If evolution had taken the same path for another million years, it’s possible our race of human beings might of been passive peaceful creatures. However, as it stands, our so called civilization is plagued with rage, depression and entitlement, forming us into to these callous beings of monsters where a human being has no value.  

We are indeed an anger species. 

It’s true, I have a dim view of our human race, but let’s carry on to my storyline of BLACK ANGELS, where our dreams lay.  My science-fiction story begins with the historical hypothesis, the Dogon people from west Africa are responsible in revealing the existence of the Syrian Gods from the Heavens. 

The story goes like this :  

The Syrian Gods came to earth creating a new hybrid species called Homo sapiens, crossing their genetic with our ancestral Denisovan species. In the beginning, two different species were created from the Denisovan hominin.  

The Neanderthals and the Homo sapiens. 

Anthropologists have proven, it didn’t turn out so well with the Neanderthals.  The aggressive hominin Homo sapien took over, and according to the Bible, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 2 Genesis 1:28

The worldly scriptures are a testament of our gods and how they were responsible for teaching us a better way of life, but slowly we grew into an uncontrollable bloodthirsty race we are today. The Syrian Gods were appalled by our savage instincts. On the outside we appear as a kind respectable species, while underneath we all wore the persona of the most scariest monster, deemed capable of the darkest deeds. Our creators became fearful of the detestable creatures we turned out to be.  

We were an abomination.

They even went as far as to completely decimate our population by a worldwide flood. In time, it didn’t matter how many times our creators tried to correct the problem, we only got worse. It came to a point our creators fled earth overwhelmed by us Homo sapiens, filling the earth like a deadly virus. Their experiment didn’t work out so well and maybe, simply moved on. Interesting, like suggest in the movie Prometheus, it may be our planet and species were considered an outcast and before they were about to carry out their deadly destruction onto our species, something went dreadfully wrong. 

Throughout history there are many versions of how the gods simply vanished: 

1. The famous lost city of Atlantis which was believed to be swallowed up by the sea. It also is speculated, the floating Atlantis may so happen have been a fleet of extraterrestrial Spacecrafts, who eventually left earth. 
2. Another version is the lost continent of Lemuria, believed to have existed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, according to the Polynesians, who tell stories of the “Legend of Mu”. The War Lords who occupied it were considered out-of-this-world gods.
3. The other legend is still read today in the Old Testament of the Bible. It’s a time when Giants walked the earth with us.  
4. It was also recorded of a possible war against the gods themselves.  Not only were the gods fearful of us, they had their own political problems. From African, Aztec, Celtic, Hindu to Chinese mythology, there are written scriptures reporting the Great Wars of the Gods over cities and continents. A fierce war causing complete devastation to cities as the Gods of the Heavens went to war. 
5. From as early as 3200 BC, Egyptian hieroglyphics record the gods and goddesses from the heavens who came to earth as Pharaohs, building incredible Pyramid structures in a short time. An impossible feat even with today’s technology. After the gods left, human Pharaohs tried their best to copy their ancestors, but they failed miserably. 

Whatever happened to our ancestors, they left in a hurry.  

But they did leave behind incredible artifacts our scientists are still try to solve using the most prehistoric method of them all, to explain them. After all, it’s just not possible our species are a remnant of past genetic manipulation. That would mean we aren’t the soul property of one spiritual GOD. Whatever you do, don’t tell the Dogon tribe their centuries upon centuries of folklore is wrong. Don’t tell them they didn’t know about the Sirius system before any astronomers had any indication they even existed. According to the Dogon people their ancestors gods told them about the Sirius star system, including the dwarfs star, Sirius B, only to be discovered later in 1862. Even though in 1844 the German astronomer Friedrich Bessel had suspected something strange was going on, it couldn’t be proven conclusively. The Dogon tribe knew centuries before any other astronomer ever suspected there were a number of anomalies in the present system. 

Interesting, the Dogon people also tell a story where there was a third star, called Sirius C. According to their gods, this star was hard to see in our universal sky, as it was a black dwarf. In 1922, astronomers explored this possibility but couldn’t verify it. To this day, the idea of Sirius having a triple star system is still under serious observation.  

Amazingly, passed down from generation to generation, the Dogon people tell the same story about having first contact with an intelligent alien being from the Sirius star system. Astronomers and past explores only thought of their story as a simple folklore by a primitive tribe. But when they found Sirius B they were loss for words. The day astronomers discover the black dwarf star known as Sirius C, they will be even more baffled.

My story BLACK ANGELS is a screenplay based on the Syrian Gods historical accounts. The same artifacts that were so brutally destroyed by a sect group of savage killers.

Yes, our human race is such a peaceful species – NOT! 

If we don’t kill off ourselves first, just maybe human beings will eventually evolve into a peaceful breed of Homo sapiens. And that’s on the assumption our earth isn’t destroyed by another extinction, like the dinosaurs were, in three separate devastating events. If Steven Hawking is correct, we have (at best) one thousand years left, before our ultimate extinction. Will we be constantly plagued by our own politics and religious beliefs, preventing us from survival? 

Time will only tell. 

Don’t wait too long, as time is ticking away, as we speak.  

By Bari Demers – screenwriter and freelance writer 

PS I started writing my script in 1979, and after hundreds of drafts, I finally finished it a few years ago. It was my first script and quite the learning curve, I must say. Since then I’ve written dozens of screenplays. Have a look for yourself under JAMES MONTANA SCRIPTS. 

My next story will be the arrival on Mars, as a rogue explorer takes on NASA, defying the odds and becoming the first person to step foot on Mars. Please join me by following my stories here and if you’re on twitter, join me there as well.  

Thank you, 

Bari Demers

The Rant of Demons

The Rant of Demons are all around us, fear they may be pointed out in public. 

Recently I received a couple of deranged comments about my story on Twitter. Here on WordPress, you can’t get away with such comments, as your words wouldn’t see the light of day. Instead, like the people they are, they stoop to low insults on their twitter feed. Because I was brought up to always be respectful, I will restrain the urge to make a sarcastic retort, but I will say this : 

First of all, it’s my opinion of the case.   

Secondly, my style of writing is sometimes referred to the art of Picasso because of its dark content. Those with dark thoughts will surely come out of the depths of hell, lashing out like the demons they really are. 

If I were religious I would say, “Out of the Depths I Cried to You, O LORD.” 

With that said, even though I consider myself spiritual, my thoughts are far far away from the grasping hands of man-made stories from the Bible. 

Thirdly, the people offended are those who believe Amanda is guilty. 

Interesting they’re from the UK. Instead of giving their intelligent view of the case they resort to petty demeaning remarks. It quickly shows the character of the person or persons, lacking education and most likely are a bully in the real world. 

Freedom of discussion isn’t even in their vocabulary.

If they seriously looked into the case without their clouded judgement, they’ll soon realize Amanda and Raffaele are indeed, not guilty! 

Guess I should be proud. 

For any of my stories to stir criticism simply because I have a different opinion, means my words are attacking the very soul you’re made of.  

It means my point hits you to the core! 

But frankly, I could do without the bullying tactics by unintelligent Homo sapiens, ranting their incoherent blasphemy. Ironically, Homo sapiens in Latin refers to “wise man”. Let’s be wise about our remarks, instead of being fuelled by senseless rage. 

It just makes one look like a baboon. 

BTW – Those ranting ? They’re the same trying to sell a book (I use this term loosely) about Meredith Kercher. It’s a fact these individuals are callous enough to expect profit over the demise of poor Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher. Exploitation at its best! 

Evil awaits its unsuspecting victims. 

If you haven’t read my story, read it here : An Evil Awaits its Unsuspecting Victims

By Bari Demers – screenwriter and freelance writer   

PS My deepest condolences to Meredith’s family. No one deserves such tearful agony from the hands of a monster. I too have lost a child and it will always torment my heart and soul.  

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher