Life On Boblo Island

After a long conversation last night with my girlfriend, we began talking about life on Boblo, at least kind of, it started with a debate about whether it was Canadian or American, but it is in fact Canadian! Boblo island is located in Amhersburg Ontario, it's proper name is Bois Blanc Island, but everyone just calls it Boblo. It was originally an amusement park from about 1898 and unfortunately closed in September of 1993. It closed after nearly 100 years; unfortunately money talks, and rich developers bought the island to build houses and a golf course and gutted and destroyed most of the amusement park, but some of it is still there. I enjoy the fact that I was able to visit as a child, and my mom worked there as did many teens her age back in the day, so naturally it still has a special place in my mind.

The Boblo Chapel

I've rambled on far too much about the island, the plan is a PR campaign (kinda) for the island, with a little bit of a crazy and impossible idea that came to me. The island still has some buildings, such as the large dance hall, the Bavarian inn, a tower, and some other pavilions which I have no idea what their purpose was. My random idea is to live in the chapel, the inspiration came to me after seeing Alice's Restaurant starring Arlo Guthrie based off of the song on the same name, more info available at (IMDB). So the plan was to buy the old chapel live in it and put pews on the wall, an orange shag rug, and a wallpaper ceiling, among many other crazy ideas. Then we came to the idea that I would $250, 000 and with that we would buy a bunch of virgin Mary statues, and a pheasant. The pheasant was destined for glory, we would raise him from birth he would speak English and go onto to be top of his class at a wonderful university, and naturally one tear would fall from Jess' eye as he received his degree and overcame all the people keeping him down telling him he was "just a pheasant." From there he would go on to start a successful fortune 500 company, and we would have a party at the church with all our friends and the rest of the island would be saved from the big rich developers because we'd have money to own the rest...

Unfortunately that is a crazy dream, but seemed really cool and still does at the time, and maybe will come true if I think hard enough...but again maybe not. Now you may be wondering how this all relates back to PR, well the plan is to colonize the island with like minded individuals, with money to share. We could by the abandoned buildings and have a small community where we grow everything on the island. Parties every weekend at the dance hall and could times for all. The possibilities are endless. The new island colonists could market this to the public as a bohemian paradise where you are free to do as you please, but still contribute to society off the island.... (more to come/pictures and many fixes to random ramblings to come...)

Belleville Needs a Rock Venue

I've just been sitting in my room listening to some really cool Canadian rock bands like Black Mountain, The Pack A.D, The Trews, and The New Pornographers, among many others. I was looking into tour dates for many of these bands, and although many are not huge, they all skip Belleville. This got me thinking, I've come to the conclusion that the music scene in Belleville is either dead or non-existent...

In a city with about 49, 000 people and a huge college crowd I don't see why there isn't more of a scene, and if Belleville could attract major act's or any acts for that matter it would be great for the community, and something for myself and fellow college students to do other than well....nothing. Now I don't know the first thing about logistics or what it takes to attract bands to Belleville but as I see it now there is nothing! Go out on a Friday or Saturday night and there are no shows going on other than the occasional cover band or 'DJ' spinning club tunes. So I think us folks that like to rock need a venue to call our own.

I propose that someone with money (reading this blog hopefully, but most likely not) will open up a genuine rock and roll bar/venue. It would attract students, encourage kids to pick up an instrument and jam, and offer local bands a place to get their music heard. The possibilities this city is missing out on, after the Slash show I don't see why we can't move from the boring 'friendly city' to the rockin' city! Gimmie some fun, this city just ain't providing any right now....

*rant.

The First Post!

So this is blog post number one. I have another blog that is currently sitting dormant as it was radio related and this one will be all about Public Relations, at least most of the time. This blog will probably only be read by people that know me but in case you don't I'm Brandon Smith and am enrolled in Post Grad PR at Loyalist College. For this first blog I will write a bit about what I've learned/think of the program thus far.

The program has been mostly fun times so far, we kicked it off by having pizza building a marshmallow tower and and playing volleyball. It was a good first or second day for everyone, it was a great way to get to know each other, and it was on a Thursday. It's great that we have Friday's off, it boosts the awesomeness of Thursday's and a long weekend every weekend is alright with me!

In class on a daily basis we've been learning the fundamentals of be a successful PR person by seeing gaffs made by companies and the past and also what they have done right. It will all come in handy in the working world one day.

I'm excited to see where this school year ends up, I've already made a few new friends and learned a few new things. The teachers are pretty cool, and the assignments seem like they'll be mostly interesting too. So three cheers for Loyalist PR, there is a real cool year ahead of me!