Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

The Log Driver's Waltz with Aaron Reynolds: Deep Thoughts About Canadian Masculinity, Quirky Comedy, and Keeping Animation Weird

• Tracie Guy-Decker & Emily Guy Birken • Episode 105

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I'm not sure that it's business of yours, but I do like to waltz with a log driver.

Tracie and Emily welcome six-time Webby Award winner Aaron Reynolds (of Effin Birds fame) to the podcast this week to share his deep thoughts about the animated short The Log Driver's Waltz. Created by the Canadian National Film Board in 1979 and aired between gaps in children's programming (because there were no commercials!), this three minute animation ran so often that it became burned in Aaron's brain. He thought that meant the song was just what he uses to tune his ukulele and introduce Americans to Canadian culture. But, as he discovered during the conversation with the Guy sisters, The Log Driver's Waltz has also had an outsize effect on his understanding of comedy, romance, and masculinity, and it gave him permission to be unexpected.

You can find Aaron at EffinBirds.com

Check out The Log Driver's Waltz here:

https://www.nfb.ca/film/log_drivers_waltz/

Throw on your headphones and go birling down and down the podcast! It will please you completely!

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

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We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.

SPEAKER_03:

I treasure the juxtaposition of things that don't feel like they should go together, and then yet somehow they do. And I find that the funniest, and I find that like my brain says that's the highest form of humor. And I'm I mean, that's probably just because that's what I'm good at, and I can, you know, and I do it. But I also did not consider that part of what makes the log driver's waltz so delightful is that juxtaposition between his manly brawliness and his ability to dance and the fact that that makes him so desirable. Yeah, I don't know. Like, did this set me on my career path?

SPEAKER_01:

Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about. And so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. I'm Tracy Guy Decker, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, we're welcoming a special guest, Aaron Reynolds, the mind behind effing birds. And Aaron is going to be sharing his deep thoughts about the log driver's waltz with me, my sister, Emily Guy Birkin, and with you. So let's dive in. Aaron, welcome.

unknown:

Hello.

SPEAKER_01:

It's great to have you on Deep Thoughts about Stupid Shit. So, listeners, Aaron is the sixth-time Webby Award-winning cartoonist behind F Birds. And if you're unfamiliar with it, you should pause this podcast right now and navigate over to Fbirds.com and take a look because hilarious.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

So the Log Driver's Waltz. I have to admit, I have no idea what that is. So I have nothing in my head about this one. What about you, Ann? It's nothing. I got nothing. Tabula Rosa. Tabula Rassa, Tabula Rassa. Cool. So, Aaron, what is the Log Driver's Waltz and why is it so important? Like what's the take here?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So there are multiple things involved. Canadians of a certain age, like, and I mean basically 50-year-old Canadians, will have the log driver's waltz burned into their brains because there was a National Film Board of Canada animated short film made of the song The Log Driver's Waltz that has it, it's very fanciful animation and it's quite beautiful. And it would run whenever there was three minutes of loose time at the end of a block of children's programming on the CBC because they didn't run commercials during children's programming. And so they would generally run a national film board short aimed at children between the end credits of that show and the next show. And more often than not, it was the log driver's waltz. And what's extra funny about it is because it was always fitting into that little time, you would never see the whole thing. You would see the first minute of it, and then it would fade out, and the next show would start. And so most people who know the Log Driver's Waltz very intimately don't know the last verse of the song, the Log Driver's Waltz. So it's actually a very, very old song. It's one of the songs that was. Do you guys know Folkways? Do you know that record label that the whole project to try to collect all of those folk songs? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03:

So there are recordings of Wade Hemsworth, who is a Canadian folk singer, playing all of these songs, like Black Fly and Eyes the By, which is a song, very Newfoundland song, and Donkey Riding, which all for some reason every Canadian schoolchild learns donkey riding, even though it's a song about moving your lumber out of Quebec. His version of it in the recording, his guitar is out of tune, and he's a man with a very burly man voice singing a song from the point of view of a woman, which is like this extra disconnect. And it's also like a somewhat like it's kind of a gentle and heartfelt song. So it's that version of it sounds very funny. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01:

Is that the Log Driver's Waltz or the donkey riding? That's the donkey.

SPEAKER_03:

No, no, that's that's Log Driver's Waltz. Log driver's waltz. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So this old recording with the out-of-tune guitar. So Log Driver's Waltz is from the point of view of a woman. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_03:

And so and I'm not clear on whether Wade Hemsworth wrote this song or if this is a folk song that he heard from somewhere else and then recorded. I mean, it feels very much like all of the other songs that are Wade Hemsworth songs that are vignettes of being Canadian or of traveling around Canada and discovering a thing. Because like the whole thing about donkey riding is about like laborers who go from job to job and who are like riding the iron boat down the canal and getting the next job and breaking their backs, doing this and doing that. And Eyes the By is a song about a man in Newfoundland trying to impress a woman by building a boat and stuff like that. And Log Driver's Waltz is about a woman whose parents would like her to marry a doctor or a lawyer, but she waits until all the log drivers come to town during the drive and goes dancing with them because they're all so light on their feet. Aaron Ross Powell Do you know the whole the whole idea of a log driver?

SPEAKER_01:

Are they the ones who dance on the wood on the river?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. And it's not and it's not dancing as much as they are trying to direct all those logs down the river because they've cut them down, they've thrown them into the river, and now they're going to collect them at the mill. So they have to make sure they don't like wash ashore. They have to make sure that they're all lined up and going down the river. And so they have pikes and boots with spikes on them. And they are literally like running forwards and backwards on the logs to turn them in the right direction and using the pike to grab other logs and drag them around. And it was incredibly dangerous work because you could easily fall off and get crushed between the logs. And you had to be so nimble and so agile and so fast. Yes. So much so that the other name for a log driver is a Rough Rider. And the Ottawa Rough Riders were the longest-running professional sports franchise in history until they went bankrupt in the mid like 2010s, which was a crime. But also so much so that there are two football teams in the Canadian Football League, both called the Rough Riders. There were the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Winnipeg Rough Riders, which are still around. So, you know, no spot in that Winnipeg.

SPEAKER_01:

So you gave us the quick synopsis of like what happens in this song, this woman who doesn't want a professional, she wants a log driver because he's he's he's light on his feet. Talk to us about like the whole experience of this cartoon that you were watching over and over and over again. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

It's so beautiful. Yeah. So the recording of it is the McGarigal sisters, who are like iconic folk singers. And they've done a really beautiful arrangement of it. And it starts with some piano and then some accordion and they start singing it. The short opens with black and white footage of real log drivers doing the log drive, like working the logs down the river. And at one point, they pass a point in the river at the bend of the river. And as they pass the bend in the river, everything becomes animated and more fanciful. And suddenly the log driver has a longer cap that like is trailing behind him and these long socks and this colorful plaid flannel shirt, and he's, you know, dancing along the logs and it becomes much more animated and big. And the animation is a very literal representation of the song. The lyric that I always like, and the part of the animation that I always like are when she's talking about the doctors and lawyers, their manners are fine, but their feet are of clay. And it's this lineup of these really sort of boring looking men along the wall at a dance. And then the log driver swoops in and, you know, sweeps her off her feet and they do their little dance. And it's just, oh, it's it's the most beautiful. And it's very like part of it is that I'm sure that I watched it so many times that it's just burned into that part of my consciousness. And part of it is that it is it really is great. Like it is one of our most like celebrated and most seen shorts. And the National Film Board in Canada are very they have put together a lot of great art and particularly a lot of great shorts. Did you ever see like The Cat Came Back, the animated film of The Cat Came Back that was a short about the man who keeps trying to get rid of the cat?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Sounds familiar. I mean, I know the song.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, this yeah. So it's based on the song, and it is but I mean it's like a almost like a Warner Brothers cartoon because there's dynamite and like, you know, just trying to get rid of it. That does ring bells. Yeah. That's some national film board, or things like the big snit, which I can't even describe it. No, I'm not gonna describe it. Um but like it's like it's about a dispute between a married couple, but it ends with nuclear war. Like it's it's crazy. But that was the great thing is the national film board was a place that you could go and get funding to make something weird or something different or something that nobody was willing to put up the money for or that didn't have a commercial prospect. And so it's where beautiful things came out of it. And I was always I used to work near the National Film Board offices in downtown Toronto, and I I didn't ever go in, but I always sort of took a moment to be thankful by their door when I went by.

SPEAKER_01:

So I want to dig into like so it's however many years ago, 40 years ago, and like young Aaron is watching children's programming in Canada, and there are no commercials. Instead, there's the log driver's walls, or at least some portion of it.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. There would also be like we used to have things called the heritage minutes, which were little dramatized one-minute vignettes out of Canadian history, like the moment that the harbor blew up and or the what's the best one? I always remember one that's about a rowing race or the discovery of the polio vaccine. You know, like there are all these like little like one, but they're like one-minute, very earnest dramatizations of moments in history. Oh, the invention of basketball. That's my favorite one. Canada taking credit for the info.

SPEAKER_01:

For basketball.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So, okay, so you're sitting there, you're 10 years old or whatever, and all there's heritage minutes and there's children's programming, and there's all this happening. Like, and right now you're feeling very nostalgic about it. Yes. Which is great. I love nostalgia. That's part of our whole project. But let's like look behind like what were the lessons lurking. What are the lessons there lurking behind the nostalgia from the log drivers waltz in particular? Like it sounds to me like there's some stuff about romance, about masculinity, maybe. Yes. Like, what's in there?

SPEAKER_03:

I think that oh wow. So I hadn't really put the masculinity part onto it. And when you say that, it is it's a very distinct kind of masculinity because this is a man who does a job that is like very tough. And also he's a great dancer.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And like that is not your typical picture of the working man and that it makes him so attractive. Right. And that it's and so that's really funny. I never really thought about that, but I'm sure that that has had an impact on me and the way that I live my life.

SPEAKER_01:

Tabula rasa for me, hearing you talk about it, like I'm hearing, like, we've got these smart guys who are accomplished, but they're boring.

SPEAKER_02:

They're boring.

SPEAKER_01:

They're really boring and they can't dance. And so, like, this the ideal man, like he faces danger and like he's he's very athletic, you know, he's strong, and he can sweep her off her feet on the dance floor, like sort of that particular picture of masculinity and what that then the seed of that, like what does that grow into as that 10-year-old becomes a 20-year-old, becomes a 30-year-old? Like, it's there from the line driver's wall. It's like the fact that we met you at sp at fan expo and we were like, we do this thing. And you were like, Yes, I want to come on and talk about stuff. And this is the thing that you picked.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What is like, what is that that plant that's growing back there that's been there for all this time?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, like I was not prepared to have a real like uh Oh, we do it really.

SPEAKER_01:

We are deep thinkers. Yeah, we want to know what furniture's in your head.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow. Yeah. I'm oh, this is so strange to like actually try to layer that onto my life. But no, no, 100%.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's also to get into like what is it saying about Canadian masculinity? Because like the log drivers, like I have no doubt that there were American log drivers, but this feels like there is no log driver's waltz in America. Like we don't have we don't have this.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, yeah, I don't think you have the same kind of like it's not part of our culture.

SPEAKER_00:

Not even in like Vermont or in the parts of the country where logging was was an important part of the Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Was a thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to try to paint a larger picture of Canada. We're a big place and we don't we don't value conformity as a country, right? We're very much the opposite of a melting pot. We like everybody to bring their own stuff and then like have all our neighborhoods be filled with lots of weird things. In general. In general. There's some people who chafe at that, but you know, that's our that's the general Canadian ethos. But yeah, I oh I think that because I've always I have never loved the idea of trying to be a manly, manly man. And that has been a struggle for me. Did I stand up when you guys were there at the show? I'm a big guy. Like I'm six foot two. Oh no, you were seated.

SPEAKER_01:

You were seated in drawing.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm tall and broad. If I were born in that time, I would probably be in one of those industries. Do you know what I mean? But not but I don't think that I'm emotionally in a place where I would ever want to do that kind of work. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm not a I'm not that guy. Like I want to do I want to make music or, you know, make art or like do things with my do things with my hands that are not a hammer. And that's not saying anything negative about a person who does want to do something with a hammer. It's just that it's not it was never the path for me. And I don't think that I interrogated if this animated short that I watched a lot as a child ever had any impact on that.

SPEAKER_01:

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I mean, I think that's the what you're describing about yourself is reflected in your art, which like you're Aaron draws birds in at FM Birds, and they're very precise. Like there's a and there's a delicacy to your line work.

SPEAKER_03:

You're not like strokes, big brawny kind of artist, you know, you're not like sharpie drawing.

SPEAKER_01:

So I think that is sort of reflected. I'm interested in the fact that this ideal masculinity from the log driver's balls. Yes. Like it's actually not the fact that he's a log driver.

SPEAKER_03:

No, it's the part of the fact that he's light on his feet. That he that and that he's yeah, and that he's a good dance partner. Like I think that the idea of being a good partner in being what the other person wants is like so potent and so powerful. And I mean, so it's quite romantic in the short and in the song. I'm very thankful that we're having conversations blowing my own minds there while we're like, this is great.

SPEAKER_00:

Tracy will tell you, I am a chronic rereader of books. Do you remember Tracy saying that you wanted to like write about the fact that every time you see me, I'm rereading the same book.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, there was this one book that like every time, like I would go, I went away to college and I'd come back, and every time she's like, I'm like, you're still reading that book.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's um it's called The Grubb and Stakers Move a Mountain, and it's by Alyssa Craig, who which was the pen name of Charlotte McLeod, who she was based, I believe she was Canadian, but she lived in Boston. But this was a Canadian cozy mystery that I know better than she did, probably. I've read it so many times. I've actually like, if ever we're in an alternate universe, I'll know because the book has changed. Like little phrases in the book have changed. I'm like, we're in an alternate universe. That Canadian cozy, which is in set in a like fictional small town. And I've I've read the entire series, and long story short, it's bringing up like some of the things like this is like how I know Canada is through the through my reading, through like those sorts of things. And it's bringing up the similar sort of a sense of romance and sense of like quirkiness, I guess. The idea that, like, you know, her parents are like, Well, we want you to to to marry someone who's got a good job, who's like smart, who's gonna be like able to take care of you. And she's like, No, I want someone who can dance with me. These books are about it's a gardening club that is also an archery club, because when they started the archery club, everyone who wanted to join the archery club was already in the gardening club, so they just changed the bylaws. So that sense, as you're describing it, I was just like, yeah, that tracks.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. And what's funny is like I as in my own writing, I treasure the juxtaposition of things that don't feel like they should go together, and then yet somehow they do. And I find that the funniest, and I find that like my brain says that's the highest form of humor. And I'm I mean, that's probably just because that's what I'm good at, and I can, you know, and I do it. But I also did not consider that part of what makes the log driver's waltz so delightful is that juxtaposition between his manly brawliness and his ability to dance and the fact that that makes him so desirable. And yeah, I don't know. Like, did this set me on my career path?

SPEAKER_01:

Did it? Like I mean, talk to me about the artwork when it goes from this the live action to animation.

SPEAKER_03:

Like it's a very playful, rubbery style. It was common in in national film board shorts, and I'm sure that's because there was a whole apprenticeship program that people would learn animation from other people who did animation in this style. But all of like the arm and leg motions are very broad and sweeping, and there's no things will change size in an elastic kind of way for playfulness, and there's a lot of great like physics with the bouncing of the logs in the water and things like that that are that are very distinctive, like a slow fast that happens in the um. Yes, absolutely. And it's very and it's all waltz time and it's all set to the song. And a lot of like big perspective stuff, like out to the screen and then back to to change scenes or to just like to give you a little, like a little bump as the viewer. I tried for a long time. When I was in high school, I would do comic strips for the high school newspaper. And there was definitely a there was definitely an influence there in style. Like I tried to do that the way that they did hands and feet. I definitely aped those hands and feet when I couldn't figure out the right way to do hands and feet from people. And what I eventually had to learn was that I can't. Um this was a whole conversation that I had. I did a comic book cover for a comic called Sweet Paprika recently. And I was so happy to be asked, but then I was like, I was like, I don't draw people. Like, what can I do from your book that's not people? And we settled on me doing a cover that predominantly featured the dog that's a minor character in the story. And it was the dog reading the previous issues of the comic and giving side eye to the reader, like, what are you getting here? You know? But like, yeah, I there's these little like there's these little dinner roll feat that they that all the characters have in this, in that, in that short. And I, when I realized I was, I just couldn't draw a shoe or a boot, so I just started drawing the dinner rolls, and I was like, oh, that's easy, I can do that. So um I'm I'm sure I've stolen lots of it over the years. And it was, by the way, the first song that I learned to play on the ukulele. It's my go-to. If I pick up a ukulele and tune it, and then I'm gonna play the log driver's waltz for about 10 seconds to make sure it's in tune.

SPEAKER_01:

So I I really want to learn to play the ukulele. It's like a bucket list for me.

SPEAKER_03:

It's so easy. It's only four strings. It's only four strings. The hardest part is strumming patterns. That's the hardest part, and that's just repetition.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm gonna cut circle back to something that you said when you talked about like the highest form of humor, which is exactly what you do, right? Which is to like the juxtaposition of things that don't seem like they should go together. I mean, that is F and birds, right? You've got these Audubon quality drawings of birds with these, like, you know, F word over and over again. And it is hilarious. It's interesting to think that the log driver's waltz was in some way influential on that sense of humor. Like from that sense of humor. What I'm teasing at here is that it's more than just what's funny. There's also some like desirability and merit in it, right? Yeah. Like, yeah, and especially like as you grew to be your six foot two broad shouldered self, right? To sort of see that, like that's actually not what the log driver was valued for.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01:

So like he was big and broad and athletic and all those things. But that actually wasn't the thing for which he was most valued in that sort of juxtaposition. Like, I I hear the humor, I see the humor in your work of that juxtaposition, but it feels like it the tentacles are much broader than that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, deeper than that.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, even the the what you just described that you did for the comic book, right? Like the dog who was reading and breaking the fourth wall with the reader, like there's a lot of juxtaposition of things that shouldn't go together there and yet somehow do.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. And I didn't mention this, but the dog is in heaven is and is surrounded by heavenly rays and is sitting in a cloud and his little angel wings because he is, in fact, an angel dog in the book. Yeah. I would normally have said when trying to like trace influences, I would say that a lot of my humor comes from the Adam West Batman series because it's so dry and it's so deliberate at not telling you why it's funny. It goes out of its way to pretend that it's not being funny at all. I was thrilled to read through, I got a huge cache of production documents from the series. And I read a lot of memos and a lot of letters back and forth from the producers and the writers to each other. And my favorite line was if they see us winking, we're dead. And so it's about being like not telling jokes. You're writing very funny things and you are just saying, Oh no, those aren't jokes. That's not jokes. You know, we're gonna deliver this like it's the most serious thing in the world. I've always had that kind of like in the back of my brain when I do stuff, just from like I watched so much of that as a kid and really loved it, and then was thrilled to find out later that it was funny. Do you know what I mean? Like when I watched it as a kid, the whole point is as a kid, you think it's serious, and as an adult, you find it's incredibly funny. And and so I guess that would have been a more subliminal one because I was making funny things before I knew that Batman was funny. And I did always find the Log Driver's Waltz funny, not in a ha-ha way, but in a, oh, I've just been delighted by something way. You know, like here's my big smile, and I really like it. And by the way, the last verse of the song is that when the season's over, she's gonna ask him to marry her. Oh. Which is so nice. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

But you said a lot of you didn't hear that bit.

SPEAKER_03:

A lot of people, yeah, you don't you don't get to that part unless you get all the way to all three minutes of the log driver's waltz, which you often wouldn't get to.

SPEAKER_01:

So there's something about femininity as well here.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. Right?

SPEAKER_01:

And about like she knows what she wants, and it ain't those guys.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, and they're fine. I love that she's kind to them, but they're not just not the one she wants.

SPEAKER_01:

And once she knows what she wants, like that's very subversive. I'm gonna ask him to marry me, like that. Yeah, especially from when we were kids, that was not a thing. And if this is a folk song that's even older.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly. So this is a yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

There's a subversion of expected gender norms in both directions, then with the final verse.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. That's great. That's quite lovely. Yeah. I should just send you guys a link so you can just spend a moment watching the show.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, please do.

SPEAKER_00:

We'll include it in the show notes so our listeners can watch it as well. I asked my husband to marry me in 2007, and I had people freaking out about it. In 2005.

SPEAKER_03:

And was he a log driver?

SPEAKER_00:

Is that is he uh is he uh no uh mechanical engineer, which not at all similar. I mean that's simple. There's there's less likelihood of being crushed by logs. So I mean it's non-zero chance, but I guess it depends on what you're mechanically.

SPEAKER_01:

I surprised you by talking about masculinity. What did you think you were gonna be talking about?

SPEAKER_03:

I wasn't sure. I was just gonna talk about the place that it holds in my heart because I don't interrogate my feelings for I actually I don't interrogate my feelings for a lot of things. Like I don't I find it interesting to do sometimes, but I often am just like, you know what I'm happy to do is I'm happy to just like this. Because sometimes when you think about it too hard, you're like you can break it. Do you know what I mean? Like Oh, we know what you mean.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we we almost subtitled this podcast Ruining Our Own Childhood since 2023.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Right. There's a lyric to a song that I really like that I have never understood. And I ended up sitting in a bar with the songwriter for about half an hour before a show and having a great conversation with her. And I it took every fiber of my being not to ask her what the lyric meant meant, because I knew I would break the magic of it for myself if I gave it a concrete something. You know, you know what I mean? And so I was like, I didn't, but I boy want to know. And I mean, I can just like tweet at her and I'm sure she would tell me, but I'm not going to. So Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So you were just going to nostalgia us.

SPEAKER_03:

I was just going to see. Yeah. I was going to see what happened, and I was interested to see what your questions would be. To where they would they would take me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So Well, I mean there's a lot in what you're you're you're telling us about. I'm just that brought up for me the difference in because we're approximately the same age, the difference in our childhoods, even though I don't think of like a 70s, 80s, 90s childhood in America and c Canada being that different.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. A little different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

There are a lot of differences. Like just the fact no commercials in children's television. That's huge. Yeah, right. That's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. If we wanted to see, if we wanted to know what action figures were coming out, we had to put on the Buffalo channel.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and our our television's like I love He-Man, and they came up the action figures came first, and then they came up with the car too.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Oh yeah. He-Man was advertising. He-Man was straight up advertising. I mean, even G.I. Joe was that. You know, I that was I had a very weird nostalgia-fueled moment because I ended up meeting Larry Hama, who's the guy who gave G.I. Joe all their stories when the little G.I. Joe's came out. You know, because G.I. Joe used to be a big size. Yeah, like a Barbie. Barbie-sized. Yeah. But he was one dude and he was G.I. Joe and he had different costumes. And the Larry Hama version of G.I. Joe was every one of these guys has a name, a backstory, a real name, a code name, you know, and how they got here. And I've met him a bunch of times at Comic Cons now. And it is really wild to like talk to the guy who like is the architect of so many afternoons spent lying on my stomach on the carpet, making these little men interact with each other, you know? And so yeah, that was that's it's I would love to be able to do that, have that kind of connection with anybody involved in the creation of the log driver's waltz, but it's so long ago. I don't I don't know that we know who wrote the song.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's it sounds like I if it's with if it's recorded on Folkway's records, my recollection of their whole mission was that they were collecting things. Like so it wouldn't have been something that I don't remember the singer's name, Wade. Uh yeah, Wade Hemsworth would have written, but that he had collected, like he had learned it from someplace else. Exactly. So it's probably fairly old, which makes it all the more delightful, the subversion of the gender norms because it's old. And then the fact that it was then like drilled into a whole generation of Canadian children's heads. There's something really fascinating about that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03:

It must have made us all a little bit weird. Or a little bit weird's not the word. A little bit l let us question all the other things that we were being told about these things.

SPEAKER_01:

Aaron Powell Well, it gives permission, and not just permission, it rewards sort of Resisting the cultural norms, the gender norms, the very practical expectations of the girl's parents to marry this a professional man, at least in terms of romance, it gives permission to counsel those norms. We talked about the juxtaposition position earlier, and I was thinking of sort of the vlog driver himself, but even the medium of it's live action and then they abend in the river and then it becomes the animation. There's something in that juxtaposition position too, something sort of magical when it's viewed through her eyes that I still like when SpongeBob like cuts to like an actual live action sponge, I still find that.

SPEAKER_03:

Very funny every time.

SPEAKER_01:

Juxtaposition of the animation and the and the live action. And SpongeBob, it's the other direction. But even if it were just from black and white to color, like the Wizard of Oz or something, there's magic in that. It's all the more magical when the live action, like old-timey film, I'm imma I'm imagining like old film, like from the 30s or something.

SPEAKER_03:

You got it.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's all grainy and it's dirty and it's and then it like a bend in the river, and all of a sudden it's this very flowy animation that like that moves in time to the music.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

Just in my imagination, that is so delightful. And there's as you said, it's funny, not in a ha-ha, but in a like a magic sort of way.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly. And I think too that like lyrically, it is clever in a way that surprises. You know what I mean? Like you just I you never really know what's around, what's gonna come for that rhyme. And I like that a lot. I like not being able to complete the rhyme in my head before we get there because it's an unexpected little bit. Oh. I yeah, it is very I'm having a hard time thinking about my own work and like the DNA of this inside of it. Well, I think this is very strange for me.

SPEAKER_01:

That's you said it made a whole it made you all weird. It didn't make you all weird. What it did was it like rewarded you for not being predictable.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Right. Which is what you do. Predictable is the worst.

SPEAKER_01:

That's what you do, though. That is what effing birds is. Like, if I didn't read English and I just looked at it, there's no way I would guess what the captions are on your cartoon.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. That has been, by the way, that has been the biggest challenge for when we talk about translation. Yeah, uh moving this to other markets. Like it it works pretty well in France French, but it doesn't work in Quebec French. Really? So funny. Yeah, but France French, it's quite terrific. But part of that is the man who did the translation is an absolute poet. There are people who here's the problem with being on the internet is that uh you get people interacting with you that you would never want to interact with in real life. And I because I do something related to birds, which is a special interest topic for a lot of people who have like who get into very like the nitty-gritty of the understanding of all these things. People will nitpick in truly insane ways. And I had someone like the way you render the bird.

SPEAKER_01:

They'll be like the beak is the wrong color or something.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, sometimes people are like that, and I don't care, but because I don't care. Um but um the thing that that they get often the most picky about is what the caption says and how that is in some way not applicable to a bird.

SPEAKER_01:

To that bird.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, or to any bird.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the Did you say like, you got it? You got it. That's the joke.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm not making bird jokes. I'm making emotion jokes. Because bird jokes are only funny for bird people. I posted one page of the French translation, like just to show it. It was the eagle that's flying away that says eat fards. And in French, it was just a very beautiful way of saying it in French. And there were there was this guy who just kept insisting that his translation was more accurate and my and the translation in my book was wrong. And how could I do that? And I was like, well, first of all, I didn't translate my own book. Like, I'm not a translator. My publisher in France translated this book, and they had an award-winning poet to it. But if you would like, I will tag him into the replies and ask him why his is better than yours. And and so I tagged him in in the replies, and God bless him. He said, Well, what they want you to have written is a very pedestrian eat the fart that I made. And what I wrote, which I think is much more elegant, is eat the smell of my farts. And and I was like, there you go. There you go, buddy. That's why you're wrong. That's like, why would you and then he was like, Well, I only I only did French in university anyway. So I was like, fuck me. What are you doing? Like, you know, like why? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Let me guess. White dude?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, of course. Of course. It was uh it was gonna be a white dude or an anime avatar or a Roman statue avatar. Like those are the only guys. Those are the only guys who do that.

SPEAKER_00:

I just recently had someone describe someone I like someone was wrong on the internet. And I weighed it in. I shouldn't have. A friend, I shouldn't have. But a friend of mine uh was like, she said she was like, I was gonna tag team and I was realized you were okay because that guy was strung up by his nose hairs. And I was like, that is the greatest description of it ever. Strung up by his nose hairs.

SPEAKER_03:

By his nose hairs. Oh, that's really good. I like that.

SPEAKER_01:

That's gonna end up in the comic soon.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Well, that's I'm always looking for what's the new version of like let's take a chestnut of an expression, like hoist on their own petard or whatever else. And then like, what is the version of that that fits in effing birds? And my favorite when I was trying to figure out a new variation on you know, cutting off your nose to spite your face, and I wrote try not to set your dick on fire. And I that one I think I nailed it. You know, I think you did. I think you did.

SPEAKER_01:

So my my challenge to you is I want you to go back and like print out the lyrics to log driver's waltz and figure out at least one at Bird's comic.

SPEAKER_03:

That's oh my god. That can be inspired by lyrics by the log driver's waltz. I'm sure I can find something.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm sure you can too.

SPEAKER_03:

Man. I'm trying to like now I'm I'm trying to go through the song in my head because I part of knowing it so well is that I'm almost not singing words. Playing it and singing it, I'm just making the sounds that I know come next. Totally.

SPEAKER_01:

That's why I said print out the lyrics. Don't do a memory.

SPEAKER_03:

I gotta, I gotta like, I gotta go look at them all. Yeah. Oh, she'll say, I'm not sure that it's business of yours, but I do like to dance with a log driver. That's my that's that's the that's right near the top of the song. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. This has been a lot of fun. Tell me, Erin. I like, okay, so you just you were just gonna bring this and like just nostalgia over it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

So we got through what you needed to do.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. All right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm realizing that my my task of remembering all the takeaways is actually pretty heavy lift today. Right. Sorry. So I'm gonna start a little earlier than I ordinarily would to make sure there's time for you two to like remind me of the stuff I'm forgetting.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because there's a we talked about a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

This was surprisingly deep for a three-minute national film board animated.

SPEAKER_01:

It's in the name of the show, Erin. Did you not know what show you were calling on?

SPEAKER_03:

Listen, I intellectually knew what I was in for, but I didn't really didn't game it out in my head what was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. So we're talking about The Log Driver's Waltz, which is, we think, a folk song from Canada that was turned into a delightful animated short that also has some live-action film to the song that was recorded by Remind Me, the Somebody Sisters.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh Kate and Anna McGarigal.

SPEAKER_01:

The McGarigal sisters are singing in the version that you were watching as a young one. And this is fascinating as an American, as having grown up in the United States, about the same time. The idea that the Canadians did not show commercials during children's programming, like, wow.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

And how did you know what to buy?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that's that's the thing. But we also like, but and that programming wasn't like if you wanted to watch G.I. Joe, there wasn't a Canadian channel showing it. If you wanted to watch He-Man, there was not like you would have to find the Buffalo channel or get the rabbit ears out and find an NBC affiliate from across the water, you know?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. Okay. So this delightful piece, this delightful short. Yeah, seriously. Like it's a totally different kind of a childhood. Like the I have nostalgia for those commercials.

SPEAKER_00:

But anyway, I can sing, I can sing the songs of those uh totally. They're they're in there. They are furniture of the minds.

SPEAKER_03:

Aaron Ross Powell And to be clear though, like I totally did see all those commercials because we would also watch American television. Right. Right. But we would just do the hop back and forth. You know, be like, oh, we're gonna watch this. And now but now this one's up to the code. It's just that like Yeah, the concept of the Aaron.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, it's just the fact that the the Canadian television was like thinking about the well-being of the children and American television.

SPEAKER_03:

Let me like Right. So let me tell you, let me tell you what was up against G.I. Joe when I was a kid. Buffalo 29 was showing G.I. Joe, and at the same time, TV Ontario was showing a show called Magic Shadows, in which El Wee Yost, who is their in-house film critic and programmer and interviewer, and is a man with a voracious appetite for all kinds of film, who loves film and can contextualize film for you, he would chop up a film into 30-minute chunks and show it over the course of a week. And he would do an intro to tell you what you had missed to catch you up on it, and then he would show you, and then he would do a little teaser at the end to tell you what was coming tomorrow. And so he would show up against G.I. Joe would be Treasure Island, chopped into five parts with El We Oast. And then the exciting part, too, is that El We's son Graham is quite a famous screenwriter and television producer now. He did Speed was a film that he wrote. That was his big breakthrough movie. But most recently has been working on a lot of great television, including Silo and Slow Horses and some really great stuff like that. Yeah. Love that guy. So yeah, so that's a lot of my lot of that childhood comes from El Will Yoast and TV Ontario.

SPEAKER_01:

So Canadians actually like program television for children, like for the children's well-being, which is really mind-blowing. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

It wasn't it wasn't to make money.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. What?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You can do that? I mean, we're I don't know if you guys know this, but we're socialists.

SPEAKER_00:

So can you say that out loud? So so there.

SPEAKER_03:

Sure. I mean, I my voting record, I tend to vote for the new Democrats. So, you know, that's that's their socialist party. Shall we?

SPEAKER_01:

You socialists up in Canada were showing this little short when there was time that Americans would have filled with advertising. Yes. And so this short, which often you didn't see the whole thing, we had this story told from the woman's point of view of this young woman whose parents want her to marry a very practical lawyer or doctor, but those men can't dance. They're just so boring. And so in she's waiting for the log drivers to come into town because she wants to dance with them because they are light on their feet. And if we make it through the full three minutes, not only is there that subversion of sort of the practical, like she wants the magic of dance and artistic expression in dance, if you will, if I can push it that far. She also subverts gender norms by saying she's going to ask him to marry her.

SPEAKER_03:

And I just realized something that I'm really big on is there's a whole anticipation aspect to the song because the second verse is when the drive's nearly over, I like to go down and watch all the lads as they work on the river. I know that come evening they'll all be in town and I'll get to dance with my lock driver. Just going to watch them at work because knowing that hours later they're going to be there to dance.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, she can also sort of evaluate which one is like that's right.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right.

SPEAKER_01:

So I sort of surprised you when, based on your description of this short and the song and the content, like I immediately asked you about romance and masculinity. And so we started talking about masculinity in general, but also in particular for you, Aaron. Like, because you're a big guy who, if you had been in Canada in the 30s, like probably would have been pushed into log driving or some similar like brawn-based profession based on your physical shape. And that was never really it for you, you know, which plays out in what you do now with this very funny cartoon with very precise drawing. And this short, this song that was drilled like just over and over, over, layered into your head to build the furniture of your mind, gave you permission to still be a manly man, even though you weren't doing the manly things.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, that's yeah. That's it. I'm not being a man in the wrong way.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Well put. This song and animated short gave a whole generation of Canadian men permission to issue toxic masculinity. Like that you don't have to be hyper-masculine in order to be a man in the right way, in a way that is desirable, that the women will appreciate and want to be with you and even maybe ask you to marry her.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And you can even you can wear the plaid shirt, and it's okay. You don't have to be the guy who chops the wood to wear the plaid shirt. You can go dances and wear the plaid shirt.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So we talked about how, like there was some tension, I think, in our conversation about whether this led to weirdness, which I think was said with affection.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But I think we push back a little bit on that idea that it's not exactly weirdness so much as it's permission to not be predictable. And in fact, like reward to be unpredictable, which happens in so many ways through this short, not just through the song, the lyrics that you can't predict what the next rhyme is going to be, but also through the animation that moves in like flowy, unpredictable ways. The actual content of the story of what happens, the fact that this woman wants to dance rather than like have a safe life, in so many ways, this little piece of media told you again and again and again that predictable is not so great.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

It's better to be unpredictable. It's not necessary and it can be delightful to be unpredictable.

SPEAKER_01:

So this led us to also conversations about humor and what is funny. And the highest form of humor is when we stick two things together that seem like they shouldn't go, but actually do, which is epitomized in F and Birds. Listener, seriously, go check it out. Where it's not just sort of the juxtaposition, but also there is some merit in like not even acknowledging that you're being funny while you're being funny.

SPEAKER_00:

That's I'm gonna have to go back because I I loved that Batman as a child and I never revisited it once I was old enough to see that it was funny.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, let me tell you, you gotta watch for all the words on the screen because there's a a running gag where there are labels on everything in the Batcave, and they are overly explanatory and they are not helpful. There's there's a shot in the first episode where he shouts, quickly, Robin, to the giant lighted Lucite map of Gotham City. Run across, and there's a giant lighted Lucy map of Gotham City, but it has a label at the top of it that says giant lighted Lucy map of Gotham City. And that gag put me on the floor as an adult. And then it happened like four more times during the episode. And that exact gag of them walking over to the television in the Bat Cave and it having a big label that says television across the top of it is like it's at least five times in every episode. It's so good. I tried to collect them all. I had I did a Twitter account called Bat Labels, and I was trying to tweet every label in the Batman series. There's a Tumblr for it, too, and it was oh, that was a good time.

SPEAKER_01:

So, all right. So we spend some time thinking about Canadian culture as well. And Emily brought in the Grub and Sakers Move a Mountain, which she read seriously, folks, like so comfort read times. There was never a time in the 90s when Emily was not reading this book.

SPEAKER_02:

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Comfort read. So I think there's an interesting piece of the sort of weirdness or the juxtaposition or the permission to be unpredictable or rewarding of being unpredictable and sort of mashing things up that maybe don't seem like they go together, like gardening and archery. That it sounds like we're saying is somehow quintessentially Canadian, not universal because y'all do not conform, but somehow like kind of gets to the ethos of Canadian culture, which I I found that very interesting.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you know Stephen Leacock, the humorist Stephen Leacock? I think. He's a very famous Canadian writer, and his big book was Sunshine Sketches of a Small Town, and it is a series of humorous short stories about small town living in Ontario. And it is always because a colorful character does something unexpected or weird. And I love those books and I love Stephen Leacock's writing. And actually the thing that I aspire to most, and I know that I can't win it because I don't write the kind of work that they award, but there is a thing called the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor. And one of my friends wrote a novel that was shortlisted for it. And I have never been more killed about that. I was just like and then I really needed her to win it because I was in the special thanks. Because I helped a little tiny bit. I helped a little tiny bit with information that I knew, and I got a thank you and the special thanks in the book. And I was like, I need my name to be in Associated with Yeah, with the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor.

SPEAKER_01:

So we also spent some time talking about idiots on the internet. Yes. And we could probably do a whole episode about translation and sort of the ways in which, like, because I said if I looked at an F and Birds comic and I didn't read English, I would never predict what it actually means.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And so that led to the eat the smell of my farts in French, which is delightful. Um, there's smells of elk berries. I think there's something there's something really interesting about that too. If we were to delve even deeper into humor and sort of culture, you know, the fact that we talked about the fact that log drivers, even though surely there were some south of the US-Canadian border, like it's not a piece of the broadest culture in America. The ways in which the cultures kind of build and then translation and all those things. So that could have been a whole nother episode. Yes. We don't have to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, and I think that I think that when you see the short, you're gonna look at that short and you're gonna see the design of the character of the log driver, and you're gonna be like, oh yeah, that's the Canadian stereotype. You know?

SPEAKER_01:

Like, interesting. Interesting. What am I forgetting? We talked about so much. I know I'm I'm missing some takeaways here.

SPEAKER_03:

I know. And I'm a D-rader. Oh, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, it's beautiful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

We talked about the ukulele.

SPEAKER_01:

You did a little bit, yes. Indeed.

SPEAKER_03:

We talked about drawing feet as dinner rolls.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we did we talked about the ways in which this maybe influenced you as an artist, which I think is really interesting. Like you talked about literal ways that you aped the look of it at when you were a young artist, but I think there also were some things that maybe you hadn't examined about the ways that this has influenced what appeals to you and like sort of what you want to be portraying and rendering in the whole piece of the comic, which I find really interesting. It's not a coincidence that we invited you to come on this show to talk about something important from your childhood, and this is the thing that you brought us.

SPEAKER_03:

I think you're right. I think that this is a I mean, it's a thing that I bring up at any opportunity because uh every time that I meet people who don't know what it is and they're like always because they're not Canadian. I just need to expose them to this vital piece of Canadiana because like I think it says a lot about us as a country.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's it seems to me that it's not just like a side chair in the furniture of your brain, Aaron. It's like it's like the whole name couch.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's it's right up here. Yes. It's yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, which is pretty great. Well, this was a lot of fun. So, listeners, we will link to it in the show notes, but please go check out Aaron's work at fnbirds.com. So that's E F-F-I-N birds.com. And from there you can get to all the social media places. And as Aaron put it when we were first logging on before we hit record, you don't have to like see news about awful stuff, like news in order to re-resignate. That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

I yeah, I I put all the comics up on the website. I put a new comic up every day around two o'clock in the afternoon. And they're also scheduled. I had the horrible realization that because of the way that my publishing schedule works for calendars, I submitted all of my 2027 comics back at the start of June. And now we're in editorial for 2027. But if I were to die today, the comic would post online for at least 18 months. Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. You gotta get better about scheduling our posts and right. All right. Well, this has been absolutely delightful. I'm so glad that we met you at FanExpo. And thank you for accepting our invitation.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you so much for inviting me. It was like and what and which fan expo did we meet at? Because I did so many in a row in Chicago. That was part of Did I tell you that I was in the middle of like seven shows in nine weeks? Yeah, I still had like three more to go after that. And I oh my brain was so fried. But did you guys get to the live painting event? Did you see any of the what happened there?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh not yours, no, uh-uh.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh I had a parrot join me and I painted a parrot while the parrot was on my canvas. Oh cool. Yeah, that was a good time.

SPEAKER_00:

That's fun.

SPEAKER_03:

That's I like to do a stunt, and that was a good stunt.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a good stunt. That's a good one. It's funny that you brought up speed because I was supposed to do Twister next time, but I wanted to switch it to speed. So you're gonna bring me deep thoughts about speed for our next one.

unknown:

Cool.

SPEAKER_03:

I love speed. Speed is so good.

SPEAKER_01:

You'll have to listen to our next episode.

SPEAKER_03:

I've seen speed a lot of times, I hate to say. It's all right, it was full of cans. It was full of cans. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Well, I look forward to hearing that. And Aaron, you'll have to listen.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon. There's a link in the show notes. Or leave a positive review so others can find us. And of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin McLeod from Incompitech.com. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture. And shouldn't you know what's in your head?