‘Edge’ radio changes slogan

Ucluelet’s CIMM FM 99.5 The Edge radio has a new slogan, as a result of pressure from a top advertiser.

The old slogan — Playing what we’ve got — was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the station’s initially limited selection of music. The new slogan is fairly self-explanatory: Playing what they tell us.

The rewrite comes on the heels of a protest by advertiser Marine Drive Properties, an influential development company that has been remaking Ucluelet in its own image for several years. MDP was not impressed with the station’s infamous spoof ad campaign for WYNDANPEE, a fictional (we hope) real estate development sited on Hyphocus Island overlooking Ukee’s sewage lagoon.

Popular shlock jock Lance Blackwell had fun with the concept over several days, and then mysteriously pulled the spoof ads and issued an on-air apology. Rumour has it that a certain “name brand hotel” construction crew visited him late one night and suggested he might want to “terminate” the spoof ad campaign. Blackwell, no fool, complied at once.

The issue marks the death of yet another outlet of humour in a town growing grimmer by the day, as winter sets in and rampant development drives an increasing number of year-round residents out. It also provides further evidence that MDP is now able to call the shots for pretty much every outfit in town — up to and including town council, according to some pundits.

Still, locals remain puzzled as to why the regular Wyndansea ad now airs on the radio at least six times per hour, day and night. “Do they think anybody left in town can afford those million-dollar lots?” said one listener (who wished to remain anonymous) from her heavily mortgaged home. “Tourists don’t listen to the radio, so what are they trying to do? Brainwash the locals?”

“At least the WYNDANPEE thing was funny,” added another, suggesting that maybe the station’s new slogan should be All Wyndansea, all the time.

In the wake of the embarrassing cave, Edge radio has been extended an invitation to join the People In Mindless Prodevelopment Stance, or PIMPS, a group of mostly insiders who stand to benefit greatly from mass Ucluelet development. PIMPS is known for its knee-jerk approval of anything brought forward by developers, regardless of the social consequences. It was formed early this year in reaction to the CAVE people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything).

Blackwell has not yet announced whether he plans to join the PIMPS.

MDP installs new community rec facility

Marine Drive Properties, the Ucluelet developer responsible for the town’s skatepark and basketball court, has continued its tradition of creating recreation facilities for the community’s use.

The most recent addition to the rec roster is a large, rectangular paintball target recently erected in the Encon yard at the Junction.

The target range was built for Ukee’s growing number of paintball aficionados, to give them a leg up on their drive-by shooting skills. Ukee Shooters Association president Erik “Trigger” Heston said that “paintball competitions are starting to include a drive-by component, and until now we’ve had nowhere to practice.”

The target has two ranges: When travelling away from the Junction on Highway 4, the target is about 12 metres from the shooter’s truck window. When travelling toward the Junction, the range is about 16 metres. Players can also vary the difficulty by increasing the speed of the drive-by.

MDP said in a press release that it is delighted to be providing district youth with excellent recreation facilities as a byproduct of its comprehensive development plans for the district, adding that all Ukee shooters are welcome to blast away at the target, so long as it’s in a safe and discreet manner.

Famous Ucluelet radio station slogans

‘We may be local but we ain’t yokel’

 

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‘Pumpin’ the wattage to the West Coaster’s cottage’

Gumboots made for walking?

In a transparent effort to get slothful British Columbians on board for the looming 2010 Olympic debacle, the Liberal government has pitted town against town in a “friendly” Walk to Whistler competition to see whose populace can register the most kilometres of walking. Cynics decry the effort as a cheap ploy to distract voters from upcoming massive Olympic cost overruns. Other commentators, in a more sinister vein, say that future provincial funding initiatives will be closely tied to performance in the “contest,” with the losing town being on the chopping block for significant spending cuts.

Still, West Coast residents gleefully donned pedometers by the case lot on Saturday, ready to hit the walking paths for the glory and honour of their town. Their enthusiasm, according to local fitness guru Peter “The Blimp” Rotunde, should last until the next rainfall hits — “about Tuesday, if we’re lucky.”

Not every area resident was pleased about the competition. “I liked it better when we could just sit around watching TV and hating each other,” said Eleanor “Couch Crumpet” Boyd, longtime Tofino resident. “We never had to get up and actually do anything about it.”

The towns’ titular heads are said to have embraced the contest wholeheartedly. Mayor Al has reportedly attached his pedometer to the wheel of his car. Rumour has it that Mayor Dianne has attached four of them to her dog — one per leg.

The Ukee Tee

Tell it to the world with the brand new Ukee Tee Shirt.

Fro years, we’ve been blaming our problems on everybody but ourselves. Tree-huggers … tourists … government officials … we know it’s all their fault! Now stick it in their faces faces with a bold new fashion statement that tells it like it is.

Disclaimer: Manufacturer not responsible for bodily injury when wearing Ukee Tee in Tofino.

Welcome to Where??

Many years after it was first installed, a spelling mistake has finally been discovered in Ucluelet’s carved wood welcome sign at the entrance to town.

Apparently, up until this week no local had ever bothered to actually read the sign. As for tourists, they have trouble enough just pronouncing the town’s name, never mind noticing subtle spelling mistakes.

The sharp-eyed Uclutian who spotted the error was Ellie Spanutti, a single mom and unemployed futures trader. “I was out walking with my daughter Lugnut,” Spanutti said, “and she asked how to spell ‘Ucluelet.’ We were right by the sign so we went over it letter by letter. I kinda figured at first the E and U were mixed up, but then I remembered how I’m dyslexic and then I got totally mixed up. Lugnut figured it out, though, smart kid — she read the right spelling off my Ucluelet — a quaint little drinking town with a fishing problem sweatshirt.”

Spanutti reported the screw-up at once to district staff, who went “doh!“, slapped their foreheads, and declined to issue any further comment.

The district administrator who was in place at the time of the screw-up could not be reached. He is reported to be hiding out in (rumours vary) a villa in the Turks and Caicos or a yurt in Outer Mongolia.

The man who carved the sign showed reporters the original drawings he received along with the purchase order for the sign. “I just carved what they told me to,” he said. “Of course I noticed the spelling mistake, but I thought they’d have checked that over a hundred times. I figured maybe they had discovered the correct First Nations spelling and wanted to change the name of the town, or something.”

The cock-up has reportedly led to the revival of an old movement to change the town’s name to one less confusing to tourists. “Long Beach” is a popular alternative, though extremists hope to simplify further, to just plain “Bob.”

Chasing Crackpot — the review

The navel-gazing capital of Canada (not even Toronto comes close) has deepened its narcissistic gaze still further with the publication of Chasing Crackpot, by eccentric Tofino author David Pitt-Bulle.

Going at his topic with the furor of the eponymous canine, Pitt-Bulle chomps down on the jugular of every marginally interesting aspect of Crackpot Sound and shakes it till it falls to the ground, bloody and shredded. Nothing is too small to escape his pedantic nose, no adventure insignificant enough not to be chewed over in excruciating detail.

Indeed, despite its name, this breathless paean to the wonders of everything Crackpot does not even restrict itself to Crackpot Sound. P-B wanders far and wide — all the way over to Ukee’s own Barkingmad Sound for one chapter, and 25 miles offshore for another. Though he somehow neglects to mention it, one wonders what P-B’s smoking on his navigation breaks, anyway.

Coincidentally, one also tends to notice that every landscape or human activity turns evil, exploitive or guided by ignorance the instant P-B leaves the Crackpot Sound watershed. But no matter — Tofino, always gracious, is willing to take under its own mantle of achievement anything good or interesting that happens anywhere on the coast.

But hey — let us not be harsh with our northern brothers, here at the Ukee Tattler. The bottom line: Chasing Crackpot is a definite must-read for Ukeeites and others who still, after all these years, have no idea why Tofino is a shining beacon in the world’s eyes and Ukee lies somewhere between a truck stop and a pit toilet.