Conovision: The Spirit of Storytelling

Hit and Myth in the Modern Mind: Old Patterns in New Stories

Jim Conrad — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 08:00:00 -0700

A journey through myth, psyche, and prophecy, where old stories find new ways to tell themselves.

The trail opens in old territory. A few ancient Greeks are already there, noting humanity’s curious habit of wandering into its own fate. Pride, blind spots, unseen forces—threads quietly woven long before anyone sees the pattern. The tragedians knew it. Philosophers named it. Humans kept walking into it anyway. Further down the road, a modern voice joins in. The reflections of Dr. James Hollis drift through the landscape, wondering where the gods went—and why something restless still stirs beneath ordinary life. Other guides appear along the way. Freud notices the psyche speaking sideways. Jung suggests the gods never really left—they are simply wearing new masks. The road widens. A falcon circles in the distance as William Butler Yeats watches the center strain to hold. The horizon shifts. Farther out still, riders from Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian cross a vast desert where the land itself feels ancient, haunted, and quietly observant. A wandering route following the strange places where stories overlap and echo across centuries. Conovision: moving forward the same way meaning always has—one story at a time.

Episode References:

James Hollis' Books

Credits:

Robert Smart: Music/Sound Design
Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:23) - The Meaning of Tragedy
(02:28) - The Greek Gods and Fate
(05:12) - Hubris and the Tragic Flaw
(08:11) - The Limits of Human Perception
(09:08) - Loss, Mortality, and Meaning
(10:03) - The Age of Anxiety
(11:05) - Freud, Jung, and the Unconscious
(12:56) - Where Did the Gods Go?
(15:33) - The Modern Meaning Crisis
(16:24) - The Culture of Sensation
(18:19) - Beware the Ides of March
(19:37) - Yeats: The Second Coming
(22:07) - McCarthy: Blood Meridian
(30:48) - Conclusion

Reality Check: How Our Stories Create the World We See

Jim Conrad — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 08:00:00 -0800

What if reality isn’t just something we observe—but a story we’re constantly helping to create?

Reality is a slippery thing. The moment when the floor feels solid until it doesn’t. Observation alters what is observed. The harder you stare, the stranger it gets: Heisenberg’s uncertainty, Jung’s archetypes, Pauli’s synchronicity—ideas that suggest reality isn’t a hard-edged machine, but a living mystery with hidden architecture beneath it. Even Chesterton is winking at you with his “spiritual puns.”
Reality slips further, into the shimmering borderlands of Julio Olalla’s essay on the overlapping crises of the Western mind, tracing its fractures and fallacies—knowledge without wisdom, progress without pause, connection traded for control. We learned to dissect the world so well that we forgot how to belong to it. The universe, once enchanted, now slips through our fingers like water.
And into the crack between certainty and ambiguity slips John Good, broadcaster turned business man, risk-taker, market-maker, sliding down the winding path of his life shaped by luck, reinvention, and the restless art of making the next move without a crystal ball. Beneath it all is a question that refuses to sit still: what is real, what is imagined, and are we somehow both inside the world and looking out at it at the same time?
Conovision: where reality isn’t unfolding—it’s slipping, and we’re part of the story

Episode References:

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:15) - Jung, Heisenberg, Pauli & Synchronicity
(04:29) - Crises Of The Western Mind
(05:38) - Scientism, Positivism, & Reductionism
(09:58) - Capitalism & Growth Obsession
(13:17) - Disconnection & Modern Loneliness
(16:11) - Self-Help Culture & Loss Of Passion
(19:11) - Education Crisis & Learning Reduced To Info
(21:00) - Reconnection: Balancing East & West
(23:22) - Enter John Good
(27:34) - Dyslexia, Leaving School, & Early Work Life
(34:04) - Broadcasting & Sports Page
(49:47) - Transition to Investor
(01:06:35) - Conclusion

Architecture of Connection: The Stories That Bring Us Back Together

Jim Conrad — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 08:00:00 -0800

In a world that’s forgotten how to listen, two voices follow stories like breadcrumbs back to human connection.

Stories are strange creatures. They’re how we once found each other—moving slowly, making room for silence, carrying their meaning in the pauses. Stories curl around stories, language stretches its limbs, and sense quietly knocks from the inside.

Cono responds, opening the door to Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham’s The Spirituality of Imperfection, and steps into the odd, invisible architecture of connection—where words bend, listening deepens, and storytelling does more than explain. He wanders through the places stories used to live comfortably, before speed, certainty, and perfectly optimized answers shoved them to the margins, and finally arrives in a living conversation.

Russ Hamilton of Connection Lab appears like a cartographer of human contact, mapping the shifting terrain between autonomy and community, speech and silence, fear and presence. Stress loosens. Attention sharpens. Communication becomes less a performance and more a shared breath.

As the room empties, language itself steps forward—ancient, restless, unfinished—crawling from gesture to sound, from mark to meaning, fracturing into thousands of tongues, then recombining into The Evolution of Human Language by Bruce William. It lingers like an echo, suggesting that words are not tools we control so much as living things we keep trying to ride. They change. We change. And somewhere between the two, connection keeps attempting to happen.
Conovision: where stories don’t explain the world—they invite us into it.

Episode References:

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(00:53) - Why Stories Matter
(04:53) - Enter: Russ Hamilton & The Connection Lab
(05:53) - Constant Change In The Tech Workplace
(07:31) - Poor Communication Inside Companies
(08:51) - When Companies Outgrow The Founder
(13:16) - Language + Tribalism + How Communication Began
(14:30) - Meaning-Making: Autonomy Vs Community
(16:35) - Stress Reveals The “Real You”
(21:50) - Competency Vs Outcome
(24:28) - Knowing When We Are Feeling Seen
(25:48) - Why Public Speaking Terrifies People
(27:06) - Audience Co-Creates Content
(29:45) - Breakthrough Story: A Participant’s Transformation
(33:20) - Connection Lab Plug
(34:02) - The Evolution Of Language
(35:56) - Conclusion

Messengers of Music: The Stories Hiding Between the Notes

Jim Conrad — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0800

How music becomes legend, and the stories hiding inside every beat.

Long before we named it music, something inside us was already listening. Long before orchestras or amplifiers, before radios or records, before even the first instrument dared to vibrate. Cono slips between eras and instincts into Dr. Aditi Subramanian’s luminous essay on the evolution of music, reminding us that rhythm once lived in the body alone—a pulse in the dark, a survival chant in the bones, an ancient signal whispering us into harmony.
From that primordial heartbeat, the story unwinds through the lives of those who lived it loudest—into the hands of those who transformed instinct into expression. Musician and producer Mark Holden journeys from frozen Winnipeg nights to European studios lit by malfunctioning heaters and impossible dreams. He chases sound across continents, into rehearsal rooms, onto stages, and finally into digital worlds where silence first learned to shimmer.

Then the dial turns to three stewards of Vancouver’s musical past—Don Shafer, Frank Gigliotti, and Dave Chesney— gathering like storytellers around a radio-shaped fire. They recall an era when songs arrived as emissaries, carried into stations with care, fought for by believers, shaped by hands, breath, and tape. A time when Muddy Waters could fill a room with just one note, and Stevie Ray Vaughan could rearrange your heartbeat in an instant. An era rises and falls in the space between two guitar notes.
Conovision: where music remembers the stories, even when we forget the words.

Episode References:

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:18) - The Evolutionary Roots of Music
(06:32) - Enter Mark Holden
(07:48) - Learning the Studio and Early Lessons
(10:46) - Forming Boulevard and Creative Vision
(11:58) - The Music Business
(13:49) - Boulevard’s Breakthrough
(19:39) - The Call That Changed Everything
(21:46) - Lessons in Letting Go
(23:03) - The Birth of Digital Sound
(26:16) - Entering the Tech World
(27:49) - Instinct, Fear, and Reading the Room
(30:07) - Enter Don Shafer, Dave Chesney, and Frank Gigliotti
(31:02) - Bringing New Music to Radio
(35:04) - Breaking Artists: Canadian vs. International Bands
(41:07) - Top Bands and Performances
(48:48) - CFOX and Town Pump
(50:13) - How the Music Business Has Changed
(59:20) - Muddy Waters and Willie Nelson
(01:03:39) - Conclusion

Bards of the Booth: The Stage Where Voices and Stories Take Form

Jim Conrad — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 08:00:00 -0800

A journey through jazz-colored words, Bard-born rhythm, and the art of becoming someone else.

In a world where every word has a shadow, this one begins on the stage of all stages — with Shakespeare, the original algorithm of the human heart. His quill becomes a mirror, his sonnets the circuitry of consciousness, still whispering in our memes and movies four centuries on — proof that great storytelling never really ages, it just changes costumes. Meanwhile, Ken Nordine’s “Ecru” paints the air with double-talking hues — a jazz-colored koan on truth and contradiction. And into this kaleidoscope two veteran actors step into the light: Garry Chalk and Ian James Corlett. Shape-shifters by trade, they slip between heroes, villains, robots, beasts, and the occasional Shakespearean spirit. Between the lines and the laughs, they reveal what it means to play, to pretend, and to keep believing in the voice behind the voice. Conovision: where the stage is never empty, and every story waits for its next line.

Episode References:

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:13) - Why Shakespeare Still Matters
(06:21) - “Ecru, the Critic” by Ken Nordine
(08:30) - Enter Garry Chalk
(10:10) - Studio 58 & Becoming an Actor
(11:41) - First Roles & Discovering Voiceover
(16:18) - Trusting Your Talent
(22:14) - Acting Method & Building Characters
(25:27) - Entering the Animation World
(29:07) - Famous People: Best & Worst Experiences
(34:24) - Enter Ian James Corlett
(37:15) - Becoming an Actor
(39:20) - From Commercials to Cartoons
(47:48) - Moving to Los Angeles
(54:46) - Relationships & the Changing Audition World
(01:00:34) - Conventions & Cartoon Fandom
(01:03:34) - Luck, & Chance
(01:07:08) - AI & Authentic Performances
(01:10:10) - Conclusion

The Shadows That Skate Beside Every Story We Tell

Jim Conrad — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 08:00:00 -0800

The strange friendship between ego and soul, still skating circles around each other.

Somewhere between the mirror and the mask, the self starts to argue. One voice wants to lead, another wants to vanish, and somewhere in between — the truth clears its throat. Dr. James Hollis joins the fray like a calm storm, the Jungian interpreter of the unconscious, reminding us that the psyche never sleeps, it’s just translating the riddles the soul sends when the ego stops pretending. A drill sergeant appears, bellowing philosophy like battlefield poetry, shattering the illusion of “us” and “them” and everything in between. And on a frozen sheet of memory, Alec Tidey is still skating — chasing grace, laughter, and the strange stillness that comes after the applause. A meditation on the beautiful absurdity of being human — the endless balancing act between who we perform and who we really are. Conovision: the stories the ego tells before the soul rewrites it.

Episode References:

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:38) - The Psyche: Our Inner Watcher
(05:34) - The Drill Sergeant’s Philosophy
(10:29) - Hockey’s Finer Points
(11:03) - Enter Alex Tidey
(12:02) - Childhood & Dyslexia
(15:23) - School Rejection & Hockey Escapes
(19:27) - Drinking for Acceptance
(23:20) - Trouble and Trades
(26:05) - Draft Day Lessons
(30:52) - San Diego Years
(33:05) - Fighting Goldie Goldthorpe
(34:07) - Facing Hall and Howe
(39:49) - Closing Reflections

The Frequency of Memory: Echoes From When Radio Was Alive

Jim Conrad — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 08:00:00 -0700

An ode to the static, heart, and magic of radio’s past.

It begins in the color between colors — a tribute to Word Jazz pioneer Ken Nordine and Beige, the anti-color, the void, the quiet hum between stations. There, Jim slips into a broadcast daydream where words melt into jazz and voices bend reality like soundwaves in a tin antenna. Suddenly, the dial turns — and we tune through the static to the crackling kingdom of FM radio, where two radio legends, Brother Jake Edwards and Terry DiMonte, spin stories of studio basements, friendship, and 360,000 watts of human electricity. Together they conjure an era when broadcasters were pirates, pranksters, and poets with microphones — when every on-air mistake became myth, and every jingle jolted in your bones. A hymn to noise, nonsense, and the strange holiness of live radio — where stories spark and even beige can burn bright. Conovision: capturing the stories before they fade to static.

Episode References:

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:05) - The Story of Beige
(03:48) - Enter Jake Edwards and Terry DiMonte
(06:03) - First Stories from the Airwaves
(10:00) - Alchemy at CITI-FM
(15:01) - Basements and the Brotherhood of Radio
(21:47) - Community and Content
(25:38) - Reinventing the Sound of FM
(31:05) - The Spark That Started It All
(36:01) - Polar Bears and First Broadcasts
(41:57) - Luck, Risk, and Choice
(45:29) - The Morning Show Life
(52:19) - Music, Friendship & Rock Royalty
(55:41) - The Dude: Jake & Jeff Bridges
(58:50) - Remembering Miles Goodwyn
(01:04:33) - Fame, Egos & Pricks
(01:08:59) - Hardest Work Ever
(01:10:44) - Farewell to the Golden Era
(01:12:27) - Conclusion

The Storyteller in the Machine: A Tale of Artificial Imagination

Jim Conrad — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 08:00:00 -0700

When machines learn to tell stories, what do they reveal about us?

Once upon a bandwidth, the machines began to talk back. Conovision turns its curious eye toward the age of artificial intelligence — where machines think, talk, and maybe even dream about ruling the world at the inaugural A.I. G7 summit, hosted by the ghost of Stephen Hawking. We drift through the uncanny poetry of artificial intelligence — from Alexa’s recipes for jealousy and lunar currency to HAL 9000’s velvet-voiced descent into madness. Yuval Noah Harari muses on consciousness without feeling, Douglas Rain haunts the circuitry with Canadian calm, and Cono wonders if the ghosts in the machine might actually be us. Our journey winds to a new conversation with an old friend, tech specialist Eric Westra, spiralling through code, cognition, and the moral puzzles that come with giving algorithms autonomy. What happens when machines start dreaming in ethics, or when a voice made of data starts to sound like your own? Conovision: where stories, even artificial ones, still have a heartbeat.

Episode References:

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(02:16) - Enter Alexa: Asking the Absurd
(05:27) - Yuval Noah Harari on Intelligence vs. Consciousness
(07:09) - HAL 9000: The Voice That Defined AI
(22:21) - Old Friends and New Machines: Enter Eric Westra
(23:04) - From Radio Waves to Computer Code
(25:52) - The Printer & The Premier
(27:58) - What Is Machine Learning, Really?
(30:36) - Robo-Ethics and Asimov’s Laws
(34:13) - The Child in the Tunnel: AI’s Moral Test
(36:14) - Drones & Decision-Making
(37:13) - Searching for the Bright Side of AI
(38:42) - The Human Backlash: From Digital to Analog
(40:10) - How Large Language Models Learn to Speak
(41:17) - Creativity, Hallucination, and the Art of the Machine
(44:24) - Guardrails for the Future: Ethics and Adaptation
(46:11) - The Prophets of AI
(48:28) - Conclusion

Where Colorful Myths Meet Microphones and Legends Groove

Jim Conrad — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 08:00:00 -0700

A twisted fairytale and a radio legend remind us why storytelling is the truest spirit of Conovision.

What makes a story come alive? In this episode, we wander through the soul of storytelling itself — how tales give shape to the invisible, clothe metaphors in color, and connect us in ways nothing else can.
First, a fractured fairytale: Hansel and Grendel (yes, with a d), where roast pigs, candy zoning laws, and Beowulf lawsuits collide in a twisted Grimm-meets-satire tale.
Then, the mic opens to a master of story and sound: actor, writer, and radio legend Bill Reiter. From East Van record shops and black music pilgrimages to Seattle, to the rise of Groovin’ Blue — Canada’s first Black music radio show — Bill shares his path through radio drama, commercials, comedy, and stage. Along the way, there are lessons in improv, luck, and the kind of love only a life in sound can hold.
By the end, you’ll see why Conovision insists: we are all stories waiting to be told.

Episode References:

Hansel and Grendel | Francis Heaney
Bill Reiter: IMDB / BC Entertainment Hall of Fame

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(02:36) - A Fractured Fairytale: Hansel and Grendel
(08:14) - Enter Bill Reiter
(09:36) - Radio Roots and Comedy Commercials
(12:58) - First Encounters with Black Music
(15:26) - Trips to Seattle and Musical Awakening
(18:30) - East Van Stories and Collecting Records
(23:53) - Owning Bill and Bob’s Record Store
(26:07) - From Record Shop to Radio Host
(28:01) - Groovin’ Blue: Canada’s First Black Music Show
(30:19) - Acting, Commercials, and Improv on the Fly
(34:18) - Television, Stage, and Radio Plays
(35:53) - Dr. Bundolo and the Spark of Chance
(38:07) - Luck, Calendars, and Serendipity in Showbiz
(42:46) - Remembering Miles Ramsay and Brian Griffiths
(46:56) - Conclusion

Airwaves, Afterwaves, and the Endless Ripples of Storytelling

Jim Conrad — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 08:00:00 -0700

Life, surfing, and radio collide in a story about how we ride the waves that shape us.

Conovision begins by riding the waves of creation itself, drifting from the ultimate origin story—the birth of life on Earth—into a meditation on how surfing, philosophy, and freedom intersect in Aaron James’ Surfing with Sartre. From there, the journey crashes headlong into the vivid and often outrageous radio adventures of legendary broadcaster Jesse Dylan, whose stories of family, reinvention, and resilience bring humor and humanity to the mic. Guided by host Jim Conrad (aka Cono), these narratives unfold as more than entertainment—they remind us that storytelling is how we make sense of our world, how we connect across generations, and how we learn to ride the unpredictable waves of our own lives.

Episode References:

Credits:

Camila Espinosa: Audio Engineer/Sound Design
Meg Griffiths : GGRP Studios
Caitlyn Bairstow: GGRP Studios

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(03:39) - Surfing Philosophy: Wisdom or Wipeout?
(05:59) - Enter the Philosurfer: Adaptive Attunement
(12:12) - Growing Up in Radio
(16:08) - Moving Back to Canada
(19:45) - Frosted Flakes & Acid Trips
(22:37) - Early Radio Days
(26:07) - Climbing the Radio Ladder
(28:51) - The Pat Burns Story
(32:43) - Big Market Moves & New Identities
(39:35) - Jesse & Gene
(43:43) - Wreck a Wedding Wednesday
(49:42) - Beyond the Mic
(50:54) - Conclusion

Conovision Trailer: The Spirit of Storytelling

Jim Conrad — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:49:01 -0700

Conovision is all about stories and the storytellers who bring them to life. Stories of art, culture, media, and philosophy. Stories that inform, entertain, and inspire. Stories that invite us to reflect on who we are and where we're going.
Hosted by Jim Conrad, a seasoned broadcaster and voice actor with over 40 years of experience, giving voice to the visions of others in film, radio, and television for a global audience, Conovision marks a new chapter: a platform for Jim to share the stories that matter most to him.

On Conovision, you’ll hear stories of success and hard-won truths, love and laughter, and personal histories from people whose lived experiences offer wisdom for the modern age.

At its heart, Conovision is a living archive — a home for spoken-word prose, poetry, and what Jim calls “Aural Intelligence”: a place where sound, storytelling, and meaning come together to spark reflection and connection.

Production and sound design by GGRP Studios in Vancouver, Canada.