Joe from Winnipeg

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

“Hey you guys, this is me, Joe from Winnipeg. Today I’m gonna be
talkin’ to you about dirty hans. I kine of like today’s topic
’cause it means lots of things. Anyways, the other day I was going to
the cheap movies. Did you guys know that reg’lar movies cost
eight-fifty now? What’s up with that? I ’member when they were only
eight dollars. So anyway, I just saw that movie with Mrs. Brown in it.
Somthin’ where she falls in love with a Scottish guy there. ’Cept
she was a queen, an I think it was some kine of inter-racial love thing,
what with him bein’ Scottish and her bein’ English. I think that’s
still a big taboo.”

When Ian Ross won the 1997 Governor General’s Award for drama, the
jury cited these reasons for handing Ross the top honour: “Each
character is presented on his or her own terms, with humour, compassion
and dignity. ... Finally, it is very, very funny.”

Joe From Winnipeg is also the creation of Ian Ross. Although there is
only one character, a down-on-his-luck Cree Canadian named Joe, Ross
again manages to combine compassion and dignity with a deadpan
man-on-the-street sensibility that is very, very funny. Joe from
Winnipeg was performed by Ross as a series of weekly commentaries aired
on CBC Radio One from the spring to the fall of 1997. Joe’s topics
include Judging Society, Letter Glue, Budget Surplus, Christmas Cake,
Batman, and Band-aids, ’Lympics, Meegwetch, Droppin’ Babies, and
Summer Fish. In his introduction, Ross describes the creative process
that led to the creation of Joe (mainly hunger). Later he explains some
of the changes he and his character went through as the series became a
success.

The transition from radio series to print is not always successful, but
Ross has managed to capture Joe’s playful observations without making
him sound like a made-for-TV Indian. The result is that these essays are
every bit as much as fun to read as they were to hear. Joe becomes a
real person in the reader’s mind; when the last commentary ends, it is
as if a friend has suddenly vanished into thin air. May Joe from
Winnipeg return to the air as soon as possible.