Waving Goodbye & Good Luck

The city is poorer today; a voice which's easy timbre and friendly tone has enriched the fabric of our metropolis' mornings for almost 25 years is leaving for Calgary.

We will all be worse off for the departure of Terry DiMonte, who is, as they say, a class-act. His brand of humour is warm & friendly, yet sarcastic & cynical. He is kind to people who are respectful, but is unafraid of telling off callers, listeners or public figures who he feels have been disrespectful, cruel or just plain stupid. His close relationship with cohost Ted Byrd has made listening to CHOM's morning show a pleasure - less a case of listening to the radio than a case of listening in on a very funny, sometimes very serious & very comfortable conversation between friends.

The true measure of Mr. DiMonte's contribution to the city is the effect he's had on innumerable charities and small businesses who, through his on-air endorsement, have seen an influx of contributors and customers; his voice has helped hospitals, like the Montreal Children's Hospital - an institution whose annual fundraiser has seen the radio host spend neary 12 hours on the air in an effort to keep the donations coming; the Sainte-Justine Children's Hospital; the Westmount Palliative Care Clinic; he's helped charities aimed at aiding the poor and charities aimed at helping our Veterans; he's helped groups who've worked to help children's sporting initiatives; he's plugged small companies like Mersen(sp?) tires & his friends' Centre Hi-Fi franchise.

DiMonte inspired responsibility and charity in us during his run at CJAD and CHOM and gave us a hell of a morning to go with it; he is without a doubt one of the best good people to ever come out of our great city and Astral Media's shameful greed and inability to realize the value of their assets has sent him to Alberta of all places.

He will be sorely missed, in Montreal, and I promise that once he has begun his show at Q107 I will post a link to that radio station here, that we all may listen to his show.

A Belated Condolence

I'd like to offer my sincere condolences to the students of Jokela High School in Tuusula, Finland. The horror that was visited on Dawson College, Polytechnique, Concordia, Virginia Tech and Columbine has crossed the ocean and once again given us a glimpse into the monstrous evil that some people are capable of. My sympathies go out to the victims and my unforgiving rage goes out to those who'd blame this on society rather than the individual with the weapon. Malum Futurus.

I had planned to write a lengthy piece detailing my thoughts on the event, but I found that I could not; there simply is not much to say about it, other than that it is Evil, that it is one of the most terrible things that could ever happen and that it is a perfect example of why school security should be either trained and armed police officers (as they were at my high school) or armed, well-trained security guards who've passed psych exams, background checks aswell as gun-safety and marksmanship tests.

Let this man's name be forgotten, in the end, as I have endeavoured to condemn to obscurity the monster who attacked Dawson College.