This Town is a Joke: Our Comedy Renaissance (Vancouver Magazine)

This Town is a Joke

Our Comedy Renaissance

Vancouver Magazine, November 2005

It's Tuesday night in No Fun City. But you wouldn't know it from the crowd down at Yuk Yuk's. More than 200 people are crammed into the downtown comedy club to watch a competition to find the funniest comic in Vancouver; a fool's game, to be sure, in such a subjective art form, but a club owner's dream. Everyone loves a contest. This particular one is running over an eight-week period and the club has been consistently selling out.

But head south over the Burrard Bridge that very same night and a similar scene is playing out in another room, sans competition. The Urban Well in Kitsilano has been running a Tuesday standup night for over eight years. It's the place to be for comedy in the city, with lineups often down the street. Not only do all of Vancouver's top comics show up each week to do a set, hang out and talk shop with their peers, but superstars in the comedy world like Robin Williams, Sarah Silverman and Kevin Nealon drop by to perform whenever they're in town.

These midweek shows are no exception here. A Vancouver comic can work seven nights a week throughout the lower mainland if the desire and work ethic (not to mention skin thick enough to shake off the non-responsiveness from the notoriously reticent audiences) are there. There's definitely something happening here comedy-wise, although you wouldn't know it from the lack of press it receives compared to its arts brethren.

Standup comedy flourished throughout Canada and the U.S. from about the mid-1980s to the early-'90s. It was omnipresent. Not only were clubs popping up across the continent, but TV shows celebrating the movement filled the airwaves. Shows like A&E's Evening at the Improv,
Caroline's Comedy Hour, Comedy on the Road, and HBO's Comedy Showcase provided a more sanitized version of the live shows they could see on their hometown stages. 

Rich Elwood opened Punchlines underneath the restaurant at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in March of 1978. At the time, it was one of only a handful of comedy clubs in North America. By 1980, it had moved to Gastown where it would be home to some of the best and brightest standups in the country for another 15 years. Names like Ryan Stiles and Colin Campbell started – and ended – their standup careers there: Stiles found fame with improv, which requires a lot less preparation, and never looked back; Campbell's body was found washed ashore on Vancouver Island three months after going missing. A life of painkillers due to a bad back and excessive drinking led to a weakened heart, which ultimately did him in.

They weren't the only ones, though, to make an impact in comedy from that room. Patrick McKenna, Craig Campbell (no relation), Ian Bagg, Rick Ducommun, and Bonnie McFarlane have all done scads of TV work here, in the US and in Great Britain.

Pete Johansson started his career in comedy in Vancouver in 1989, nearing the end of the boom. He was, by his own admission, one of the worst comics to have come out of Vancouver, but counts himself as one of the best after he left. He moved to Montreal, where a six-minute set at the Just For Laughs festival landed him a development deal with Warner Brothers television, before moving to Los Angeles where he has been based ever since, regularly touring the U.S. as a headliner. 

Like now, Johansson says you could do comedy every night of the week back when he was an open-miker. The difference, though, was they were all paying gigs back then. You could actually make a little money, he says, before adding, "Well, I couldn't, but other comics were making money."

But those rooms, as well as Punchlines, eventually disappeared.

"It ran its cycle," says Elwood today. "A&E killed the comedy club. You didn't have to go out to the comedy clubs to catch what was going on. Essentially, you could sit at home and at least believe you saw what was going on, on television. It was too much. It kinda killed the art form." 

While Toronto is the centre of the universe and Montreal hosts the world's biggest comedy festival, Vancouver's scene pretty much went unnoticed in the last quarter century. Back when many national variety shows like The Alan Thicke Show, The Tom Jones Show, and The René Simard Show were all taped here, local comics were used both in front of and behind the cameras. "Sometimes the assumption is if you're not in Toronto, you're not really a comedian," says Elwood. "The opposite used to be the case back in the late '70s, early '80s, when the place to be was Vancouver."

Those days are long gone, however. Now comics like Peter Kelamis or Sam Easton are lucky to get supporting roles as actors on TV and film or leads in commercials. The powers-that-be for their comedy careers are all in the east or down south.

Still, standup is making a remarkable comeback in Vancouver. It's not quite at the level of the heyday, but it's getting there. And we're not just talking quantity of comics. The quality of the local acts is on par with, or better than, the best in any other city save New York.

The person most likely responsible for the renaissance is Brent Butt, the stocky star of CTV's Corner Gas. Butt moved to Vancouver five years into his standup career after falling in love with the place and hosted the Urban Well show for six years, providing a solid example to all the up-and-comers of what a professional comedian is. When the funniest and most respected comedian in the country lives and works in your community, you've got to keep sharp to impress the godfather.

"Brent had a great impact on everybody," says Johansson. "He raised the bar on a lot of levels so everybody would work harder to write. The guy wrote like crazy. I stayed with him for two weeks when my girlfriend kicked me out of my apartment and all we did every day was write. And it was the coolest thing ever because I'd never stayed with a comic who'd actually had a work ethic."

The modest Butt, who now lives in Saskatchewan six months of the year while working on his sitcom, believes western alienation is as much to credit for Vancouver's mini-resurgence as anything he did.

"I think the quality of comics in Vancouver is great because you're not under the thumb or the nose of any particular decision-making entity," he says. "As a result you have some freedom. And so you get really creative, experimental standups trying some stuff because they've got a bit of freedom to fall on their face."

And lately those decision-makers are starting to pay attention. Butt says he has taken an interest in trumpeting the abilities of Vancouver comics to Toronto and American talent scouts and producers. "They've always been really kinda blown away. They're seeing more really high quality comics than they expected they would," he says. "Maybe it was just because their expectations were shitty, I don't know."

Who knows why they've been blown away, but he's not speaking just out of civic pride. J.P. Buck is a freelance comedy producer from Los Angeles who booked talent on Star Search and It's Showtime at the Apollo before moving over to HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen to run its talent department. He estimates he's seen about 8000 comedians in his travels over the years."I'm looking for the next comic genius," he says.

In his initial scouting venture for Aspen, he had New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Atlanta and Toronto on his itinerary. Along the way, Will Davis, a Vancouver comic who now runs the CanWest Comedy Festival here, got word to him that there was a scene in Vancouver he should take a look at. Davis personally drove Buck up from Seattle and put on three showcases of 36 local comics for the American producer. "I was really, really impressed with the depth of talent there and just the variety of performers, of material, and how original a lot of the comics were," Buck said on the phone from his home in California. "Usually whenever I go to a city, I'll maybe, if I'm lucky, find two or three out of thirty that I'm impressed with. And when I came back from Vancouver, I probably had on my list at least eleven guys that I had no fear of recommending for the festival. And actually two of them got in, which is still a great rate."

Buck agrees with Butt about why Vancouver has suddenly nurtured this topnotch breed of comedian. He says the years Vancouver has been hidden from the mainstream media and international industry (agents, producers, et al) have been creatively beneficial: It fosters an environment where they can write their own material, think differently, work on their sets and their skills, and become much better comics for it, and not get overexposed too soon. 

Buck goes on to term Vancouver a comedy mecca, supplanting such famous locales as Boston and San Francisco. "I definitely think right now that there's such a wealth of comics the audiences are almost spoiled."

Zach Galifianakis is an American comic who may as well be a local for all the time he's spent here shooting various TV shows and films over the past five years. Unlike some of the bigger names, like Robin Williams, who show up at the Well, do a set, then leave, Galifianakis has integrated himself into the Vancouver community by also playing the smaller, more alternative rooms and sticking around to befriend many of the city's young comics. He's impressed with the scene here, seeing it as a place that produces a fresh and unique variety of comedian. "It could really be a standup town, known for standup much like Chicago is known for improv and Second City or how Seattle or Athens, Georgia, and now Montreal is known as the birthplace of a well known music scene," he writes from North Carolina where he's in the last stages of buying a farm to act as a writers' retreat. "I believe these are the early days of something taking root that may one day evolve into a particular brand that may be known down the road as 'Couve-like' humour."

But is there a particular style to Vancouver comedy? Ask around and you get different opinions. Some, like Yuk Yuk's founder Mark Breslin, say it is based in a kind of casual, slacker ethos ( "You'd never see a comic in Vancouver in a suit," he says, Butt, Irwin Barker and Graham Clark notwithstanding). The manager of the Vancouver franchise, distant relative Mike Breslin, calls it a beatnik quality, comics with really laid-back styles that lend themselves more to funny storytelling rather than bang-bang in-your-face comedy. Others, though, find a diversity of delivery. Buck calls it unapologetic, saying everybody is working so hard they've had time to form their own styles. Eddie Brill, the comedy talent booker for The Late Show Starring David Letterman, disagrees with the slacker tag, too. "What I've seen of the local comics, smart and quirky would be a good way to describe them." And Davis says there's a smorgasbord of comedy in Vancouver. It's a buffet of jokes. He correctly notes that if you were to put such local joke-tellers as Damonde Tschritter, Kevin Foxx, Simon King, Kelly Dixon, Sean Proudlove, Peter Kelamis, Jen Grant, J.P. Mass or Erica Sigurdson on the same stage, the only thing in common would be that they're all standing behind a mic being funny. 

If you haven't heard of any of these professional
funny people, it's no reflection on them. "There's an amazing amount of talent," says Johansson of his former home's comedy scene. "There really is. You look around at the uniqueness and the strength of some of the comics and you're like, 'Wow! Why aren't these guys famous?'" 

However you want to describe them, it's fair to say that we, the people, have helped shape who they are. It's a reciprocal arrangement, according to Mark Breslin. "The audience kind of creates the comedy and vice versa," he says. "If anything, it's the crowds that could be described as slackers. Not apathetic, though, because Vancouverites are showing up to all the comedy rooms throughout the city, which implies at the very least an interest. But our reserved nature can be unsettling on a comic's ego. Still, it serves a purpose: a standup really has to fine-tune a joke and edit out dumb material that would fly elsewhere in order to get any kind of reaction here." 

Buck noticed this on his first trip to our city: "Vancouver has possibly one of the most discerning, and also toughest, crowds I've ever seen," he says. And remember, this is a man who travels to every big city and one-horse town in North America to assess talent in their natural environment - on a stage in front of people. "You've got these amazing comics on stage. It's funny, if you saw these comics in other cities, I think you'd get audiences that are flocking to them. But the toughness of winning the crowds over makes the comics work even that much harder here. I definitely think right now that there's such a wealth of comics the audiences are almost spoiled."

Graham Clark, who embodies the beatnik, slacker qualities the Breslins talk about, with his scruffy goatee and lazy persona, also happens to be, oximoronically enough, one of the hardest-working comics in town, constantly writing and performing new material at as many shows as is humanly possible, and even wears a suit, albeit one from Value Village. He has a love-hate relationship with the crowds here. "That's always been the best thing about this city," says the 25-year-old winner of last year's competition. "Your bad material is going to be turfed. In a place like Calgary, you could get away with some stuff you wouldn't even get halfway through out here. It makes you tougher. It just makes you better. Smarter."

Johansson agrees. "You can get away with getting a laugh in Red Deer by being very general, but here if you try to develop that joke, you've got to now make a point. The point's got to hit and make sense. I think that's a great thing. It takes a little bit of the stupidity out of it. You can always dumb something down later. But here you gotta make it hit." 

Butt has the best analogy about working in front of laid-back west coast audiences: It's like swinging a heavy bat. Before his TV fame, Butt was working the rooms, doing two or three spots a week just to keep his craft up and try out new bits, often in front of a smattering of silent people. He never sabotaged his own act by abandoning material or commenting on the crowd; he always sensed them smiling even if there weren't many audible laughs. "It's like you're in the batter's box. And in the batter's box, it's always good to swing a heavy bat. So when you go on the road, you've been performing in front of tougher crowds than some other places."

Maybe we're to blame for the city's bad rep. It's not because there's nothing to do here; it's because we just look like we're having no fun when we do it. But if our reserved manner helps produce some of the best laugh-makers in the land, it's all for a good cause. We may not be laughing hysterically on the outside, but you can bet in Red Deer they're rolling in the aisles.

Top Ten Comics to Come Out of Vancouver

1. Brent Butt No one comes close. The funniest stand-up in all the land. Some consider him a prairie comic because of his Saskatchewan roots. Butt says he learned to be a comic in Toronto, but learned how to be himself as a comic in Vancouver. If there was a war and I had to side, he says, I would be on the Vancouver side. Butt now stars in, executive produces, and writes the hit Canadian sitcom Corner Gas.

2. Ryan Stiles The most successful of them all. The American-born but Vancouver-raised comic started his career at Punchlines as a standup comic with a knack for spritzing with the crowd. Somebody in the audience would say something to him and Ryan would go with it for ten or fifteen minutes and it was funny, says Punchlines founder Rich Elwood. He was funny from the first time he went onstage. Stiles decided he had more fun with improv and went on to find fame on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Drew Carey Show. 

3. Colin Campbell Ah, what might have been... Campbell was one of the best standups this city ever produced before booze and painkillers culminated in his death in 1991. "I would forget the 'Vancouver' part of it and put just one of the best standups to walk the planet," says Butt. "He had the perfect standup comic way to process information and at the same time be completely original. He could walk from the hotel to the corner and he would think of ten things along the way." Elwood remembers one night finding Campbell backstage between shows taking notes. Turns out he was writing 40 minutes of new material for the next show. "The guy was just an amazing writer," he says.

4. Irwin Barker Speaking of great writers, it's been said the professorial Barker is such a smart and effective writer, he doesn't need charisma. Has appeal right across the board, from frat boys to Christian crowds. The former Winnipegger writes forThis Hour Has 22 Minutes so spends the TV season in Halifax, but returns home to Vancouver as soon as hiatus hits. 

5. Rick Ducommun You know this plus-sized comic from his many supporting roles in films such as Scary Movie, Groundhog Day, and The 'Burbs. He was very influential ten, fifteen years ago, says Mark Breslin. Okay, fifteen, twenty years ago. Ducommun, too, got his start at Punchlines before moving south to work as announcer and performer on Alan Thicke's failed American talk show.

6. Bonnie McFarlane She may have been the first one eliminated on NBC's Last Comic Standing, but McFarlane's unapologetic Vancouver style isn't for everyone, let alone middle America. "She's a great example of subjective comedy," says Pete Johansson. "I will run into people that find her the funniest thing in the world, and right next to them, who just saw the same show, will hate her guts. There's a power to that. Divisiveness actually breeds marketing value. Bonnie's very skilled and I think she's going to become very high profile in the very short term, too." McFarlane got her start working the door at Punchlines before working up the nerve to try amateur night.

7. Patrick McKenna The big-toothed Harold Green from The Red Green Show started out as a sketch performer with Second City in Toronto, but when the touring company hit Vancouver for Expo 86, McKenna took the opportunity to give standup a try. With Punchlines going strong, the environment was here for him.

8. Colin Mochrie The Killarney High grad got his start at Vancouver TheatreSports League before moving on to star with good friend Stiles on Whose Line Is It Anyway? He's one of the busiest actors working in Canada as witnessed by his appearances in... every show ever made.

9. Will Sasso Started out in Vancouver as the quirky teen on the dramatic series Madison. Moved down to L.A. where he became known as one of the funniest sketch actors in the U.S. on Mad TV and has been seen in scores of film comedies, including Best In Show, Beverly Hills Ninja, and Happy Gilmore.

10. Craig Campbell You might know him as the co-host of Ed's Night Party hosted by the inimitable Ed the Sock. "I still think Craig Campbell is probably one of the best acts this country's seen," says Johansson. But he's chosen to focus his energies on England. Chortle, the U.K. comedy guide, says "His whimsical opinions are eloquently put... Hugely enjoyable stuff."

Game On! (TV Week magazine)

Game On!

In a season without hockey, NHL players lace up the blades to hit the ice alongside Vancouver entertainers and media personalities in the annual Sea to Sky Charity Challenge

TV Week magazine, February 19-25, 2005

Fret not, hockey fans; relief is on the way. NHL players are suiting up and coming to an ice rink near you – that is, if you’re within driving distance of Vancouver or Whistler. Sure, some of the players aren’t necessarily active anymore, but then again, who is? Plus, they’ll be skating alongside musicians and media folks. But hockey’s hockey, right?

So it’s game on at next weekend’s Re/Max Sea to Sky Hockey Challenge. The two-game celebrity hockey series, held at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver on February 26, and at the Meadow Park Sports Centre in Whistler the following day, will not only provide some much-needed action to hockey-starved fans, but also support a good cause: the development of Canada’s top amateur athletes.

Funds raised from the event will go towards the PacificSport PodiumFund, which assists our country’s Olympic medal hopefuls in being the best they can be as they enter the international arena, by providing financial support for such needs as special equipment, training and travel expenses – all of which will become increasingly important as we count down to our very own 2010 Winter Olympics.

The two Sea to Sky games sandwich what is billed as the Puck Bunny Charity Ball at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre on the night of February 26, where sports paraphernalia, vacations and dinners will be auctioned off and fans will get to mix with hockey legends to the soundtrack of a jam session featuring musicians such as Barney Bentall, Matt Johnson from 54-40, and Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy.

“There are going to be lots of reasons to come besides an entertaining hockey game,” says former Vancouver Canucks boss Brian Burke, who has selected a team that will take on a squad put together by current Canucks GM Dave Nonis.

With athletes like Jyrki Lumme, the Courtnall brothers, Darcy Rota and Ryan Walter, Nonis has assembled a potent roster to go up against Burke’s team of Cliff Ronning, Ray Ferraro, Kevin Lowe, Steve Tambellini, Doug Risebrough and Richard Brodeur. And at the coaching helm is NHL legend Howie Meeker. But Burke isn’t intimidated.

“It’s kind of unfair,” he says, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “Because it’s me against Dave Nonis – this guy’s never won a game as a general manager.”

(Nonis, of course, took over from Burke after last season, and given the NHL lockout, hasn’t had the opportunity to do much of anything except a lot of office work.)

So without the NHL with which to busy themselves, Nonis and Burke are relishing the chance to put together any kind of team. And they’re thankful they live in a city that places such a high premium on the sport they love.

“Living in Canada is a great thing, and living in Vancouver, I think it’s the best place to live in North America,” says Burke, who is still looking to get back in the NHL game. “The passion for hockey does allow you to do more stuff charitably than you could in other places. If I were GM now in some of the U.S. markets, I wouldn’t have any profile; I wouldn’t be able to raise any money. It’s different here.

As much as they both love the hockey side of the Sea to Sky Challenge, they both very much believe in the cause.

“People have to realize that for our elite athletes to improve and to be competitive that a lot of money and time goes into it,” says Nonis. “It’s important for our country that we continue to support those people.”

Some would debate whether it really is important, in the grand scheme of things, for jocks to get medals in the Olympics. What difference does it really make?

Says Burke: “There’s a stopwatch at every track meet for a reason. There’s a scoreboard at every hockey rink for a reason. So I think results are critically important.”

While this event features hockey players, Burke is quick to point out that they are not the recipients of the assistance.

“Obviously it’s different for NHL players and NBA players,” he says, “but for individual sports, if you’re a figure skater or a cross-country skier, you’re not properly subsidized by the government, in my opinion. And the goal of this group is to make sure that these athletes are properly funded. If the government’s not in the position to do it, or have the inclination to do it, then we’re going to try and help.”

It’s not only professional hockey players helping out in the cause. Nonis’s squad features such talent as JACK-FM’s Willy Percy, Jason Priestley, Jackson Davies, Craig Northey of The Odds and Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell, who will be between the pipes, facing legendary net minder King Richard Brodeur down at the other end. Hmm, who has the advantage in goal?

“Put it this way,” says Nonis. “I’m not going to say anything negative about [Campbell] because he’s our goaltender – but we’re going to have to play good team defence.”

Burke’s celebrities include country crooner Aaron Pritchett, former BC Lions hero Lui Passaglia, and Global personalities Jay Janower and Steve Darling, about whom the ever-diplomatic Burke says, “Well, they kind of made me take him because he’s instrumental in promoting this thing. He and Jay Janower have been terrific. They were wonderful last year promoting it and they played in it and they’re both very popular guys. So I kinda got stuck with them. I like his attitude, so I’m not totally disappointed. But his skill level leaves something to be desired.”

To top it all off, the two executives will be joining in the fun on ice. And more NHLers and celebrities will be announced in the days leading up to the event. But as entertaining a game as this will be, hockey fans are still chomping at the bit for their beloved Canucks to return to the ice. But even insiders like Nonis and Burke know no more than the rest of us as to when that might be.

“The media knows more about this than we do,” says Nonis. “We’re sitting here as a club waiting to play. We’re ready to play and hoping that the [Players Association] and the league can reach some type of agreement. There’s no information that I can provide, that’s for sure.”

The no-nonsense Burke doesn’t have any more information than Nonis, but he does know one thing: “They’re clearly running out of time. The flexibility has to enter into this on both sides. So far, neither side’s been flexible. They both have to move if they’re going to make a deal… they’ve both taken positions that they are ultimately not going to be able to prevail. Neither side is going to get what they want here. They’re both going to have to move. If I had to bet money one way or the other, I’d bet that we’re not going to play.”

Which makes the Sea to Sky Challenge about as close as you’re going to get to NHL action for a long time – while helping to increase the chances that an amateur athlete will hear “O Canada” being played at the medal ceremony of the next Olympic Games.

No Joke (BCBusiness magazine)

No Joke

Comedian Vic Lippucci has five days to polish his act for the finale of the Montreal Comedy Festival, the biggest, most influential in the world. Five days to make the kind of impression that might launch him into the big time.

BCBusiness magazine, December 2003

“Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from Vancouver, please welcome to the stage Vic Lippucci!”

It’s showtime. Lippucci, a bundle of raw energy, has completed his pre-show push-ups and closed-eye visualization in the wings. This is not a high-profile show, but the casually-dressed comic treats each performance seriously. Hearing his name, he sprints to the microphone, zig-zagging through tables along the way.

He is feeling awesome. Prowling the stage like a mountain cat, Lippucci bends over at the waist and makes direct eye contact with as many people as he can, dying to tell everyone how his day went. He paces frantically, talking with his arms (he is Italian after all) and throwing his head around like his neck were made of rubber. He’s definitely excited.

“What’s up, Montreal?!”

A few mumbles, but mostly the audience just sits there. They’re waiting for the first punchline, which is coming in due course. In the meantime, Luppucci is trying to pump them up.

“Yeah! I’m feeling awesome!”

Still nothing.

“I’m feeling good because I got a wake-up call in my hotel today.”

He screeches a telephone ring into the microphone. “Front desk calling,” he mimics in a sing-song voice. “That’s right, giving you a wake-up call. Just for you. We’re here for you.”

The audience isn’t biting. But the joke’s coming. They’re just have to be patient.

“I’m not used to that. Yeah, because I grew up in an Italian family. My dad was in charge of wake-up calls in my house. My dad didn’t talk; my dad yelled everything. Imagine if my dad was working in a hotel. That would be so cool.”

And here it comes, folks. Right down the pipe: Affecting his best Italian father impersonation, he screams, “Wake up, you bum! Go to work lazy bum!” First major laugh. Relief.

Fast forward five minutes in the scenario. His dad is standing outside the door, banging. Lippucci knocks into the mic 19 times. The sheer number of knocks and the time they take is absurd, but serve to drive the big payoff home: “You tink dis is some kinda hotel?!” Another big laugh.

Now he’s rolling.

He moves on to assorted funny bits about his mother’s obsession with keeping all the good food for guests, his family’s Smithsonian-model wooden TV set, ColecoVision TV games like Pong, and the duties and functions of a first base coach in baseball.

His 10 minutes up, Lippucci tells the crowd they’ve been awesome and exits to a decent ovation, slapping hands with some audience members on his way back to the greenroom.

Vic Lippucci is in Montreal for the world’s biggest and most influential comedy festival, Just For Laughs. Now in its 20th season, the festival has become the comedic Mecca to anyone associated with show business. But worshippers can’t just show up on its doorstep; they must be invited. Festival organizers hold showcases throughout the world to look at the best new talent to invite, while more seasoned or more famous acts get the nod by reputation.

Once, a single shot on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show could launch the career of a young comic, but the hundreds-of-channels universe has changed all that. Not enough eyes are concentrated in that one spot anymore. Now, for two weeks every July anyway, Montreal is the centre of the entertainment world. Comedians, agents, managers, producers, TV executives and bookers converge on the city’s Delta Hotel to wheel and deal. A good seven-minute set can be enough to turn a no-name into a household name.

So Lippucci, or Pooch as he is known to his buddies, is fine-tuning his shot at stardom this evening at the Comedy Nest on Ste. Catherine Street West in a show called Comedy Night in Canada, one of 18 live comedy shows at various rooms and clubs around the city on this Wednesday night. He is gearing up for what his manager, Dale J. Manton of Integra Entertainment, calls his most prestigious show yet – a televised gala performance this Sunday at the St. Denis Theatre hosted by the legendary American comedian/writer/director/author Carl Reiner.

As a professional standup comedian, it’s Lippucci’s job, as he sees it, to convey energy to his audience, to channel his excitement over to them, culminating with hearty laughter and – if all goes well during this momentous week in his career – a deal.

But in the greenroom after this his first of eight performances at the festival, Lippucci worries about the crowd’s slow reaction. Before the show he had commented that the room didn’t seem very cozy. “There’s something missing,” he had told BCBusiness. But now he’s put his finger on it.

“They just didn’t give it up when I went up there,” he says, blaming it on the distance from the holding area to the stage. “It took too long to walk all the way from the back of the room to the front. Four or five seconds is good. But 20 seconds to walk on stage, the crowd dies. Now it’s, ‘Hurry up and be funny. Right now!’ It’s more pressure. I wasn’t really happy with the set. I didn’t feel bang-on. Also, the whole stage isn’t lit. I’m very physical and I was very aware that I was in the dark.”

Lippucci is always analyzing the ins and outs of the business. Some comics concentrate solely on their material, but this Vancouver-born and –raised funnyman has a keen eye and a savvy business sense about his act and the self-promotion that goes with it.

As the act stands now, it’s about 10 seconds, by his clock, to the set’s first punchline. That’s a little long, especially factoring in a long sprint from the back of the room to the stage. This, though, is a peculiar problem of the Comedy Nest, one he need not worry about at any of the festival’s other venues. Still, Lippucci discusses with Manton and one of Manton’s other clients, magician Sean Watson, who is along for the ride, a way to move into that first joke more quickly. Instead of the usual “What’s up? I’m feeling awesome! How are you guys?!”, Vic decides to go with a simple “Yes!” Yes is positive. Yes is short. Yes is still not funny, but it will allow him to get to the funny stuff in short order. He still wants to keep the excitement going.

“I do a lot of physical stuff,” he says. That’s not to say Lippucci is slipping on banana peels and throwing confetti to the crowd. Rather, he expresses each word with a movement of the hand, arm, neck or eyebrow.

Says Lippucci: “The key is to get their attention as soon as you can. Something that really makes them say, ‘Hey, let’s listen to this guy.’ When you’re excited about something, people can’t help but watch, right? My stage persona is a guy who totally just has to tell you guys this. ‘Oh listen to this! You wouldn’t believe what just happened.’”

Lippucci does 12 minutes this night, five longer than he’ll get at his gala. Each night until then, he’ll record and listen to his sets, constantly cutting and second-guessing himself. But he knows all too well the dangers that brings.

This is his third appearance at Just For Laughs. In 1999 he won the BC Homegrown Comics Competition at Lafflines Comedy Club in New Westminster, sending him to Montreal for the national competition for young Canadian up-and-comers. The smart thing would have been to refine the set that got him there, but he was seeing stars and decided to make wholesale changes. “I thought he could have taken [the competition], but he messed around with the jokes he was going to do and made a last-minute decision as he walked up onto the stage,” says Brent Schiess, manager of development and alternative programming at the festival. “It was a dumb move.”

“I’ve been learning a lot,” says Lippucci. “I’ve been really concentrating on just enjoying everything. I used to be really down and out on myself. I changed my whole set with an hour until showtime. And I was told not to by industry people. And I was like, ‘But I want to make it better!’ I’m like a poet or a writer. When you’re an artist, it’s never good enough.”

This year he will heed the industry’s advice. Now it’s a matter of cutting little bits here, adding a touch there. He will lose the ColecoVision material and the bit about his father trying to act hip by calling women “chickens.” “I’m not having fun with it,” he says.

He heads over to Comedy Works on Bishop Street for the 11:15 show Best of the Fest, where he tries out his minor adjustments. Again, the crowd response in the very cramped, very hot attic room is not where it should be this close to his shining moment. The show was running long (it wouldn’t end until 2 a.m.), and everyone was perhaps comedied-out. But other comics did well.

“I’m just concentrating on my set, not really so much the audience response,” he reflects the next morning, “because I know the stuff’s gold as it stands right now. And the crowd was into it last night, but they just saw a lot of comedy.”

There’s a telling scene in the documentary Comedian in which a frustrated Orny Adams gets a poor response from an audience at the Montreal Festival. He flings open the stage door and screams to the world about the early time of the show, the lousy crowd – everything but his act.

Lippucci says a comic should always look within before lashing out at an audience. “These people aren’t going home thinking, ‘How can we be a better audience?’ It’s the comic’s job to go home and say, ‘Why did that not work?’”

Lippucci finished his second set of the evening and headed downstairs to the bar where he ran into a fellow from Fox Searchlight Pictures. “He said he was very interested in my set and my style,” Vic says later. “They liked the physical stuff in my set, the expression, the craziness.”

Who knows whether anything will come of this chance encounter. But these are precisely the situations that jump-start careers. Schiess points to young performers who have bombed in their showcases, yet have come away with deals. Why? Producers aren’t always looking for the ability to generate laughs with original material. They have their own writers. What they want is a look, perhaps, or a character. “The crowd may not go for it,” says Schiess, “but industry still flocks to them saying, ‘I want you because you’re fantastic. You’ve got acting skills. This audience didn’t get it, but I’ve seen through that.’” So the performers walk off the stage in tears, but it turns out to be the best night of their professional careers.

Lippucci, naturally, would love to ink a deal. His immediate goal is to do the cross-country fall tour with Just For Laughs, which plays virtually every major Canadian city. He wants to pitch his ideas for two TV shows. And he wants to perform on The Tonight Show, which has producers present in Montreal. The Tonight Show is huge, he says. “It’s a very serious, possible goal as of the last couple of weeks. I’ve been looking at the guys that I’ve worked with in New York that have done it, and I believe I’m very capable of attaining that here at the festival.”

This is where Manton comes in. It’s his job as Lippucci’s manager to make all the necessary connections and do the follow-ups. Manton, who worked in an insurance company for 12 years before deciding it wasn’t much fun, is a newcomer to the festival, which, in effect, doubles his workload.

Not only does he have to schmooze day and night, but he’s also going in cold. Nobody knows his face.

“The festival will never be more intense than it is for me this year because the learning curve is so large,” says Manton. “Every person you meet, virtually, is a brand new person. Once you have the relationships established, it’s much easier to go to conferences like this.”

This is the reason a festival like Just For Laughs is so crucial. Manton would have to fly all over the map to meet any of these people. Here, they’re all conveniently located in and around the Delta Hotel bar, which acts as the focal point for festival insiders. It’s one big party until the wee hours every single night.

“We check after a number of different markets while we’re looking for the large breaks that can possibly come our way,” says Manton, sitting in the hotel restaurant sticking Vic’s schedule onto promotional postcards. “You gotta have staying power in the industry to develop your act, to go on waiting for the right break, waiting for the right opportunity, being in the right place at the right time.”

Manton and Lippucci are at the right place at the right time, that’s for sure. The key now is to make the right connections. A lot of people think a comedian works for just the 10 or 20 minutes he’s on stage. As veteran comic Glen Foster, another of Manton’s clients, says, “Comedians get 7½ days a week off. ‘I gotta go to work. I’ll be back in 40 minutes.’” That may be true the other times of the year, but in Montreal they put in a long workday. The comic mentally prepares for his set during the day, wanting to make sure it’s his best in case there’s an industry dealmaker in the audience. He does his show, and then the real work begins.

“You are officially on the clock from the second you touch the mic to the second you go to bed,” says Lippucci. “You do your set, you rock it, you kick as much ass as you possibly can and make all these people bleed from their eyes because they’re having a good time, peeing their pants. Then you hang out and you grab a drink and you just mingle. And you work that room. You ooze with self-confidence and a happy smile that everything is awesome in life. If you’ve got a miserable-looking face and you’re not sending out that aura and that good energy and the vibe, nobody’s gonna want to talk to you.”

The festival’s Schiess advises a three-step process for maxing a comedian’s effectiveness: talk to everyone, gather business cards and follow up. If the industry happens to catch your set, all the better, but it’s not necessary. Just knowing you were booked at the festival shows them you have talent. Sometimes, having a good mouth is more than enough. “One young lady who was here years ago got a deal signed – not even a performer – just by hanging out at the Delta,” says Schiess. “Her look, persona and conversational skills got her signed to a deal.”

If conversational skills are enough, the very personable Lippucci should have no trouble. It’s just a matter of talking to the right person. But he’s still got to do his main job. If a deal doesn’t come about this year, he shouldn’t consider himself a failure. “You’ve got to concern yourself, as a performer, with, number one, having a good show,” says Schiess.

The 28-year-old Lippucci, while confident, is well aware that his time to ink a big deal might not be this year. It’s a crapshoot. He might be disappointed, even surprised, but not devastated. “Because as soon as you’re devastated,” he says, “You’re the guy who got devastated and ‘Let’s not do business with him ever again.’ So instead, you’re like, ‘I wonder why? What do I gotta do to get that?’ Realign the crosshairs and just go to it again.”

Just getting a much-coveted gala is more than many comics accomplish. Not every comedian at the festival gets invited to perform at the large downtown theatre. There are five galas with nine acts per night. That works out to 45 comics out of the total of 1,003 performers. The galas are held at the St. Denis Theatre and hosted by big celebrities, not necessarily standup comedians. Brad Garrett, Rick Mercer, Kelly Ripa, Tina Fey and Carl Reiner are this year’s hosts. Only those considered at the top of their field – or destined to get there soon – get booked as guests. It can be a nerve-wracking experience for a young comic who has never played a large theatre before. Couple this with the fact that the televised program will be seen in syndication for years and it’s a recipe for sleepless nights.

Still, Lippucci seems in his element. He’s more excited than nervous – at least on the outside. He’s not admitting to any nerves (to the media, anyway).

Months are spent doing your gala set over and over to the point where you hate it. At the halfway point of the festival for Lippucci, he finishes his set at a show called Bubbling with Laughter, basically a dress rehearsal for his gala. His parents are in the audience, on their way to a vacation in their native Italy.

Outside Club Soda on St. Laurent Blvd., a weary-sounding Lippucci tells his family he’s going to retire the set once the gala is over. He says he’s getting bored with it, and his father, Angelo, nods his head. “It shows,” he says.

“My dad’s bored of seeing it,” he says later. “Bored of hearing it. It’s like a newbord kid, right? You love your kids when they’re newborn. Then they start turning into adults and you’re like, ‘Okay, when are you going to move out?’ So the jokes have become adults and they keep asking to borrow the fucking car. And I can’t handle it anymore. I’m ready for some new ones.”

But he’s still got three more performances before the big night. And althought Lippucci may be getting tired of the act, Manton likes where his client is at this point.

“I think he’s really, really close,” he says in a buffet line at the hotel. “It’s a roll of the dice with the audience. The comics are up there baring their souls. They’ve been working for years on this material. This is the toughest business in the world. Can you imagine? Just place yourself on stage telling what you think is your best joke, or even the best story, in front of 250 people and all of a sudden everyone’s just sitting there looking at you.”

Later, in his hotel room the night before his moment of glory, Lippucci reflects on what made him and others get up on stage in the first place.

“Comics do comedy for acceptance,” he says. “If you look at any comic, many of them are sad, depressed, disappointed with their lives. So they go on stage and hog the stage and work their asses off just for acceptance. Because there’s nothing better than the feeling of people going nuts, clapping, applauding, saying, ‘Hey, man, really good show.’

“When I first started, I was like, ‘Man, you know what? I want some acceptance in life so let’s do this. Wanting all the attention is what standup comedy is. It’s you and you only, so when you rock, you rock, and it’s you that rocks. And when you suck real bad is when you go stick your head in the sand or go to the greenroom and you just cry for the next three hours. And you wait for the whole crowd to leave and then you leave.”

Vic Lippucci can’t worry about all of that now, though. The gala is tomorrow – “the biggest show in my career by far,” he says. A week of late-night schmoozing is starting to take its toll. Lippucci is starting to lose his voice. His penultimate performance tonight at the Comedy Nest is perhaps his best. Foster says there are so many factors that need to come together, from the performer to the audience to the room, that’s he’s amazed successful standup ever comes together. But tonight is one of those nights for Lippucci. So he’s peaking at the right time. In his hotel room, he wants to call it a night, but knows he’s got to put in an appearance downstairs.

“I gotta really sleep,” he says. “I gotta watch my voice. I can’t be in a crowded, loud, smoke-filled bar. I gotta de-stress because after a really good show, it’s my up. Instead of doing cocaine or drugs or anything like that, I just do standup comedy. So now I’m really high on myself. I’m really ecstatic and happy. So I’m up, but I’m gonna bonk.”

Manton reviews with Lippucci the advice that veteran comedians Mike MacDonald, the only comic to have performed at every Just For Laughs festival, and Glen Foster gave him. They said to start each bit before the crowd finishes laughing, unlike one would in a club. It may sound weird in the theatre, but on TV it sounds just perfect. “If you wait for the crowd to stop before you start your next bit, you set’s going to be 22 minutes long,” Lippucci explains.

Shaun Majumder, one of Canada’s most popular comedians and now a regular on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, talks about the bigger picture: “There’s so much business and bullshit that revolves around this festival. It’s crucial to not lose sight of the fun aspect of it all. Vic loves doing it. I love seeing him on stage. He’s so good, so giving to the audience, that as long as he doesn’t let the business part of it get into his brain and affect him, then you can’t help but win.”

The night finally arrives. Lippucci, a ball of energy at the best of times, seems to have relaxed a little for the big show. He’s in his element. The evening’s performers are backstage 90 minutes before the 7:30 show, sitting around talking about the previous day’s artist vs industry basketball game, trying to keep their minds occupied. Christopher Titus, who has starred in his own TV sitcom on Fox-TV, is on the biss. He tells Lippucci, “It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing it, on a show like this, you’re always nervous.” But Lippucci claims he isn’t. Just excited.

He’s dressed in a simple black shirt he paid $70 for on Ste. Catherine’s the previous day. He hits the floor in the wings for his pre-show push-ups, then does his pre-show visualizing. Manton is beside him.

The legendary Carl Reiner is onstage reading his intro from cue cards. He stops midway to put on his glasses, destroying the illusion that he knows anything about this Canadian kid. Lippucci gives a power punch to Manton.

“All right, bro, I’m outta here.” He runs towards the bright lights.

“Yes! I’m feeling great today! I got a wake-up call in my hotel today.”

The audience is slow to respond. With the time constraints, Lippucci loses some of the natural rhythm and hurries into his first bit. Still, just looking at him on stage, you wouldn’t know his big kick at the can was not going as dreamed. He looks comfortable and is having fun. He was so comfortable, in fact, that on his call-back he runs back out topless – a first in the history of the festival.

“Comedy is business,” the always-thinking Lippucci says after the show.

“What can I do so that it’ll be on the opening montage that they’ll re-air over and over again? What can I do that will set me apart?” With no time to unbutton his shirt, he simply ripped it open, completely ruining his new purchase. But as Schiess says to him after the show, “This of the heart you created. Is that worth $70? Yes it is, my friend.”

A contract for a TV series or a spot on The Tonight Show or even the fall Just For Laughs tour is worth a lot more than 70 bucks. But Lippucci was not on the 18-city November tour. Nor have Jay Leno’s people come calling. He says they are very interested in meeting him and Manton, though, and that he will do a show called Premium Blend on Comedy Central in the U.S. next season. “We’re planning meetings and heading down to L.A. to show them how eager we are to do business with them,” he says a month after his big show.

In assessing his performance in Montreal, Lippucci takes a deep breath and reflects on what got him there. “I did good,” he says. “I had a good time. It was fun. This was my gala. It’s over 10 years of anticipation. And it’s done.”

It may be done, but the hard work continues.

Call Me Buzzard Bait (Westworld magazine)

Call Me Buzzard Bait

Hold on to your horn, as our man in the saddle attempts Canada's longest cattle drive armed only with borrowed boots, a brand-new outback hat and zero experience behind the reins

Westworld magazine, summer 2003 (unedited version)

I am a cowboy. This surprises anyone who has known me for any length of time. This surprises, most of all, myself. You see, prior to my visit to the Kamloops Cattle Drive, I had never been on a horse. A real horse, that is. Now I have 90 kilometres of mountainous trails under my belt. I have ridden up to seven hours in a day. I have penned real live cattle. In fact, I am a champion (or sorts). I have listened (against my will) to country and western music 24/7. I have paraded through the streets of downtown Kamloops on my trusty steed. As I said, I am a cowboy.

How did this happen? I have never been what you would call at one with nature. Nature, I've always said, is nice to look at from the safety of your apartment window or a moving vehicle. I am a man who had previously slept in a tent once in his life but never set one up. And let's just say I don't even like using public washrooms, forget about port-o-potties. So what, you may ask, possessed me to borrow cowboy boots, purchase an Australian outback hat and saddle up for a week in the wilderness? I was asking myself this very question for my first couple of nights on the week-long drive, cowering alone in my nylon retreat frantically squishing insects who dared invade my personal space. The impetus was from an editor who either really liked me or, it occurred to me on day two, really hated me.

So I set off on my real-life western adventure unsure of what I am getting into. My only experience with horses so far involve 50-cent mechanical pony rides in the mall. And despite what you may believe, no amount of merry-go-rounds can prepare you for such an experience.

All I know of cattle drives is what I learned watching ‘City Slickers’. But I am a true city slicker; not some Hollywood version of one. I am not travelling with my own personal stuntman. And rather than a handful of riders, like in the 1991 film, B.C.’s annual Kamloops Cattle Drive has 190 participants. With wranglers, medics and vets, that's about a 300-horse convoy we're talking about, any of which could wig out at any given moment.

My goal is a simple one: To stay on.

After the first day, a sweltering 30 degrees, I’m not so sure even this is attainable. At a lull in our slate of "Pioneers Recognition" events, a time to meet our horses and attend information sessions, young Mandy from Seattle takes her new horse for a test walk. Said would-be stallion has other ideas: he takes off at full gallop, tossing Mandy to the dirt and breaking her ankle. Thanks for coming out. Later in the day, two burly young men are bucked from their steeds before even getting off the picket line.

I am neither burly nor young, and I begin to worry about the waiver I sign upon arriving at the Crater Valley Ranch in Westwold, a small cowboy community fed mostly by agriculture and forestry that’s our drive's starting point. I am assured they’ve lost nary a soul in ten years of moving some 100 head of cattle every summer. Rather than providing relief, I am convinced they are now due.

After signing away my life, I get the rundown on the night's events.

"There's a live band tonight," I am told, "and they play country music. I guess if you're here you like country music."

Oh, God, I hadn't even thought of that.

Still, along with the remainder of the ride's 10-to-82-year-old greenhorn cowpokes and seasoned veterans, I dutifully drag my one week’s supplies to the camping area in search of a suitable spot for my mauve (not pink) tent. I feel like I’ve been conscripted.

What a suitable area is I'm not exactly sure. But I find a spot, dump my equipment on the ground and start to set up my sleeping quarters. Only I have no idea what I'm doing. I figure if I 'Jerry Lewis' it enough, someone will come by and give me a hand. But we are all strangers today. I finally petition the woman next door, who comes over and assists (read: does it for me while I stand there watching). Once inside, I am dismayed to learn that tent walls aren't soundproof and I'm hearing 'Blue Mesa' for the first of about 15 times that week.

I arise early the following morning to a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call over the P.A. system, the smell of bacon and eggs wafting over from the mobile canteen — a much more pleasant aroma than I get the rest of the day out on the trail, with 300 riders on horseback. And the horses don’t smell so sweet, either.

Those of us who arrived sans steed are given one. Mine is a beautiful bay. The crusty wranglers who assign me this horse don't know her name, though. I was looking forward to going through the desert on this horse with no name for the kitsch value alone, but it is not to be. I call her '108', the number on her harness thingy (I'm not a good listener). But I don't call her that for long. Old 108 senses my greenness and decides to have some fun with me. On our short introductory walk, she won't do anything I want. This may have something to do with the fact I don't know what it is I want and wouldn't know how to get it if I did.

"I'm outta here," I say, and hop off about sixty feet from where we started.

Spooked from my one try, and the image of Mandy and the burly dudes being thrown from their horses, I am convinced I'll be riding the wagons all week, which is an option on the drive. I don't need to experience riding in order to write about it. I covered the NBA for six years without ever once checking into the game. But head wrangler, Brian Chase, will have none of that. He leads me to Gumby, a huge black animal with a slightly swayed back, an enormous gut and a giant ass -- not to be confused with the genuine giant ass, Emma, also in attendance (Emma may technically be a mule, but for the purposes of this joke, she's a giant ass). My spidey senses immediately tell me this horse is not for me when I see her jump up and boot the horse behind her. Then I'm told she's in heat. So adios, Gumby.

I'm finally introduced to Spike, part Appaloosa, part turtle. Spike is, without a doubt, the slowest horse in captivity. When I 'tsk tsk' or kick his hard belly, he speeds up for exactly the duration of the 'tsk' or the kick. I love this horse! I am set. Spike and I will be a team for the first leg, a 16-kilometre journey from Westwold to... er, 16 kilometres outside of Westwold.

But good-natured Spike is a love-struck little goof. He will not let anyone between him and his pal, Salty. There's a walking-only policy on the drive. This is a good policy. I endorse this policy. Unfortunately, Salty is ridden by John, a nine-year veteran of the drive. And after nine years, he wants to branch out. So John goes off the beaten path and explores while the rest of the posse trods on, per the rules and regulations. But not Spike. No, my enraptured, co-dependent horse follows Salty everywhere while I, the helpless bysitter, hold onto the saddle horn for dear life, identifying me as a tenderfoot to all who pass by. And they all pass by. Forget what Robert Redford says, whispering doesn't help any.

Along the way, I get a heapin' helpin' of advice. For example, I learn that when a horse is relieving itself you should sit forward in the saddle in order to keep the pressure off its kidneys. Which didn't exactly jibe with the next bit of advice: To get your horse moving, kick it hard in the stomach.

Day two turns out to be a resounding success because I am able to separate Spike from Salty by grabbing a tight hold of the reign and showing him who’s boss. Poor dumb Spike is crying out for his beloved, but eventually gets over it. It’s called tough love. I feel masterful and ready to take on another day. That is, until I get back to my tent and find I can't sit down. Tenderfoot? Tender tush, more like it. The human rump has more muscles in it than you might think. I head over to the medic tent to get some ice for my "knee", but I think they see through that.

At each campground, the cattle drive crew arrives early and sets up the beer tents, picket lines and port-o-potties. Once our own tents are assembled for the evening, we can rest (my specialty), socialize, booze it up, or attend demonstrations on two-step dancing or horse-training, to name but two. If a live band isn’t playing or a cowboy poet reciting his odes to the range, a sound system is playing music for our dancing and listening “pleasure.” I notice the deejay putting up a banner that reads: “We play the music *you* want to hear.” I ask him if it’s true. “Yep,” he drawls. So I request some jazz.

“I really shouldn’t put up that sign,” he sighs.

The days become a blur of jostling horses on narrow trails, stressed-out newbies, and saddle sores, but the scenery makes it all worthwhile: sagebrush hills, flatlands, babbling brooks. The clippety-clop is hypnotic as we take in black-billed magpies (I’m guessing), rabbits and more horse “exhaust” than is appreciated. Thankfully, the only cougars we encounter are riding horseback with us. As for the cattle, they've usually got two hours on us, having moved out enmasse at 5 a.m. each morning with the keeners. I've always felt more comfortable in the majority. Back in the big city, I'm a bit of a night owl. Although I find it's not that difficult to arise at 5 a.m. providing you hit the hay immediately after lunch.

On the fourth day, high above a breath-taking river valley, there's a cattle-penning competition. Although it’s a very welcome day-off from riding. I am encouraged to enter. It's a lot of fun, I'm told. I'm not so sure. I’m not confident enough yet for the added stress of having freakin’ cows running around my horse's feet, but being the sport I am, I enter. Three-member teams ride into a large pen filled with numbered cattle. The announcer reads out a number, and the team sets out to get the corresponding bovines into a smaller pen within 90 seconds. And these crafty critters will do anything to stick with the pack.

Looks like I’ll have to carry my squad. Just my luck, I’ve been teamed up with two women. But hold on there one gol-darn second, pardner. These aren’t just any womenfolk: one’s a champion cattle penner, and the other pens once a week — for fun, yet. After the first six teams fail to pen a single cow, team number seven corrals one in 28 seconds. Not to be out-done, the ladies and I corner one in in 27 seconds. Record time! This game is easy! Round two takes us 56 seconds. Not to blow my own horn or anything, but I had very little to do with either capture. We finish fourth out of 39 teams, earning me the respect and admiration of my newfound peers. Success is a huge boost to my manhood, giving me the will to carry on. I might even learn to ride with my hand off the horn.

With another day of hands-on experience, and a change of mount (a competitive sort determined to beat all comers to the finish line), it all comes together. By the last day, our four-hour descent into Kamloops, I am ready to confidently strut my stuff. I even begin to admire the spectacular scenery, although I learn a very valuable lesson: As soon as you take the opportunity to soak in the breathtaking view, your horse will routinely walk you straight into a branch. But what I saw was striking: grasslands, rocky slopes, forested mountains, and no sign of civilization anywhere for as far as the eye could see. I truly felt like I was home on the range.

My new horse and I make it to town without incident. I proudly ride through the streets, nodding my head to the adoring masses the way a cowboy nods. After all, I'm one of them. From novice to horseman to cattle penning champ (kind of) in one week. I can live with that. There’ll be no need to get back on that horse and repeat my triumphs. I'll go out exactly the way I wanted to – on top.

To Hell With Helmets (Monday Magazine)

To Hell With Helmets
 

Monday Magazine, September 5-11, 2002

I have been breaking the law daily for six years. As of September 1996, it has been illegal to crack your unhelmeted head open on the pavement while riding a bicycle without fear of penalty. In those six lawless years, I’ve been stopped by the constabulary a grand total of two times, each netting a warning. Every other time I’ve ridden past the police, they cheerfully ignore my wanton disregard of jurisprudence. If this is their idea of enforcement, is it any wonder there are growhouses on every block?

I must not be alone. A recent poll revealed that more than half of all Canadians don’t wear bicycle helmets. Not even when they’re on a bike.

I’m not saying I don’t like this particular law, just that I don’t like it for me. I’m of the belief I should be exempt from any number of them at any time as it suits me. Everyone else should wear a helmet while riding a bike. Helmets are sensible; I’m not. I know that. I’m tempting fate even writing about it. Potential irony is staring me in the face saying, “For God’s sake, don the lid.”

I really should. I didn’t like the seatbelt law either at first. Now, thanks to Big Brother, I buckle up each and every time I get into a car. Sure, it makes things awkward when I only want to vacuum the interior, but I just don’t feel safe otherwise.

These laws are passed for our safety, so opponents like me are in the minority. The federal government passes a law banning certain firearms and making registration of all other guns mandatory, though, and every Ted Nugent-wannabe out there takes it as a violation of his rights as neighbours of the shoot-em-up USA. Where are the conservatives on the helmet issue? In some U.S. states you can ride free as an uncaged helmetless bird on a motorbike, for Pete Fonda’s sake.

One interesting aspect to the bicycle helmet law is that people with giant melonheads are exempt. Mine is just under the wire, despite having the biggest head in my grade seven class, even bigger than Mr. Robbins, our teacher. I can’t imagine a bigger head but they must be out there. And they’re riding around sans helmet, guilt-free. Does the government value their mammoth craniums less than the rest of ours?

The very week the helmet law was announced, the feds instructed police to stop charging people with simple possession of drugs. The message being that citizens are permitted to mess their brains up with narcotics, but not with their bikes. Go figure.

Keep in mind I ride a bike like few others. Never in a hurry, I like riding slowly, carefully, defensively, with the wind blowing through me, er, scalp. I’ve been riding lidless for over 30 years with no harm to my person, save for a skinned knee as a pre-teen. But I’ve come a long way since then. I’ve even learned to ride one-handed.

I am aware of the dangers, though: a human skull can be shattered by an impact of seven to 10 kilometers per hour; helmets reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent and brain injury by 88 percent. That’s why I further break the law by riding on the sidewalk when there’s too much vehicular traffic on the streets. The odds of me getting scrunched by a road-raged bus driver are greater than me scrunching a pedestrian – and to much less severe effect.

Don’t get in a huff; I ride responsibly, sometimes even slower than the foot traffic, ceding all rights to the pedestrian. Similarly, I don’t exercise my rights on the road because, let’s face it, my rights don’t mean a heckuva lot to a driver paying more attention to his cell phone than the road.

In Europe and Asia bikes can go pretty much anywhere they choose. They can even fit as many people onto each bike as they like, and are not forced to wear helmets. Is there a higher percentage of head injuries overseas? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

They have the right attitude, which is that cyclists have no rights at all. Old people don’t cower and topple over when a cyclist approaches on the sidewalk. They walk straight ahead, knowing the cyclist will get out of the way.

And on the road, the cars are king. That’s the way it should be. Might makes right.

Of course, there’s the argument that the taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill when careless cyclists wind up with fractured skulls. No more, I suppose, than when a big fat guy who smokes and eats cholesterol straight out of the can winds up with a heart attack or develops lung cancer. I went to school with a kid who was fooling around with explosives in his basement and accidentally blew off his hand. Should we have to pay for that? Of course we should! The argument is ridiculous.

We obviously don’t live in such a puritanical society. People make mistakes, accidents happen, and we should help our fellow citizens when they screw up. Wearing helmets will not stop screw-ups. Defensive driving will go a lot further to preventing accidents and lessening brain damage than wearing helmets.

I would encourage everyone to wear a bike helmet. I choose not to. Just like I choose not to own guns, do drugs, smoke or eat right – all things the government implicitly condones.

If they really insist, the law should at least be grandfathered (with the possible exception of actual grandfathers, for whom I would add full body armour to the mandatory list). Children definitely should grow up wearing helmets, just as they are not permitted to smoke or drink. The smart ones will continue to wear them through adulthood. Then we can breed a society of helmet-heads that will live healthy and productive lives until they die naturally of drug overdoses.

Gannon credits Cellar with keeping jazz scene hot (Westender)

Gannon credits Cellar with keeping jazz scene hot

Westender, August 22-28, 2002

Oliver Gannon has never been in a hurry. Long considered one of the premier jazz guitarists in Canada, the long-time Lower Mainlander is only now, a year before his 60th birthday, putting out his first album as a leader.

Gannon has been the sideman of note on numerous recordings, however. He figures he’s been on at least 30 jazz albums since moving to Vancouver in 1969 from the Berklee School of Music in Boston, via Winnipeg. From the early days with the fusion group Pacific Salt to his numerous albums with long-time partner Fraser MacPherson, Gannon has proven to be the consummate sideman.

When you list the great guitarists in Canada, Gannon is right there along with Ed Bickert, Sonny Greenwich, Nelson Symonds and Lenny Breau. So, one naturally asks, what took him so long?

“It’s one of those things where I just never got off my ass to do it,” he says. “I’m just bloody lazy, I tell you.”

In the chapter devoted to him in Mark Miller’s 1987 book, Boogie, Pete & the Senator: Canadian Musicians in Jazz: The Eighties, Gannon is quoted as saying, “I’m not in a hurry. I feel things are happening, maybe at a snail’s pace. But I’m here now – right? – and doing my own thing.”

The past five years or so, his “own thing” has meant taking a sabbatical from performing and going legit. His brother is the programmer for the popular musical accompaniment software ‘Band in the Box’. Ollie has been working full-time for the company in charge of musical production.

But he’s back – and in a big way. Gannon credits the Cellar jazz club on Broadway for his re-emergence onto the jazz scene. His album was recorded live there on the club’s own record label, and owner Cory Weeds deserves the credit for making it happen.

“I’m getting out more and a lot of it has to do with the Cellar,” says Gannon. “It looks like a jazz club, and it’s got that feel. I just really like Cory and the staff down there and I like playing there. And we usually get good crowds. It’s nice when people are lining up to get in.”

For his part, Weeds couldn’t be more thrilled about having his “mentor” in his label: “It’s been a long time coming. I think it’s a good documentation of his playing, and I think it’s a very important documentation for the Vancouver jazz scene to have him recorded like that on a local label. I’m glad to be a part of it.”

Will this album get Ollie out of the house and back on the road? After all, he’s played most of the world’s most prestigious festivals, did three hugely successful tours of the former Soviet Union, and crossed our own country several times. Don’t count on it.

“I did a lot of that,” he says, “but after a while, it’s kind of like the Peggy Lee song, ‘Is That All There Is?’ I’m not really in love with travelling. I’m actually quite happy to stay at home, as boring as that sounds.”

One thing is almost certain, if there’s to be a tour in his future, somebody else better arrange it. Gannon recalls one such cross-country tour he did with Swiss saxophonist George Robert:

“He said it took him basically an entire year out of his life just to put that one Canadian tour together. That’s how many hoops you’ve got to jump through. And when you start hearing things like that, you start thinking, ‘Gee, do I really want to?’ I mean, that’s a perfect example of when it’s great to be a sideman. You don’t have any of the worries that the poor old leader has.”

But Gannon is not only happy leading this group, which includes pianist Miles Black, bassist Miles Hill and drummer Blaine Wickjord, he’s happy with the final product.

“I like it – and I tend to be, like all musicians, very self-critical,” he says. “But what I like about it is it swings, you know? And that’s the most important thing to me. I sure like being a leader when it’s a group like this.”

The leader and his sidemen will be swinging at the Cellar on Wednesday (Aug. 28) for the CD release party. And here’s hoping he’ll swing many times more in the future.

Writers With Balls (Vancouver Magazine)

Writers With Balls
 

Most players in the Twilight League are artists with a bat and glove. Literally. Meet the heavy hitters on their roster
 

Vancouver Magazine, May 2002

George Bowering has won two Governor General’s Awards for his writing. More impressively, the author and retired SFU prof has also taken two softballs in the face for his team, the Paperbacks, members of the city’s storied Twilight League.

“My reflexes aren’t as quick as they were, say, 50 years ago,” Bowering says of his second head-on encounter with a Pro Nine. “This really powerful 22-year-old guy hit a line drive that I never saw. Smashed my glasses to smithereens and blinded me for a few days. But I don’t care. Baseball’s important. More important than eyesight.”

The Twilighters started in 1985 as a softball league for artists and writers. Today, they number seven teams and some 70 players, supporting the theory that creative types really are just a bunch of jokes like the rest of us. Bowering, 66, is one of the most illustrious names to hobble the bases, though his career at the hot-corner was cut short five seasons ago when the old hand-eye coordination failed.

Even when he’s not in the field, Bowering participates in other ways. “He’s the biggest bench jockey in the world,” says league commissioner and Vancouver Sun movie critic Marke Andrews. “The thing about George is it’s like having a stand-up comic for the game. You get this cheap, live entertainment.”

Author George Bowering on heckling: "I see myself as an educator. So I see the young fellas out there who don't know quite as much about the game as I do – I like to inform them, give them a deeper bank of knowledge."

It’s not surprising some of the best entertainment happens off the diamond, given that many of the games are held at an East Van field affectionately dubbed Needle Park. When drunks are asleep in the outfield or the dugout, well, you just play around them. At the final one year, somebody stole writer David Beers’ shoes, which housed his wallet and keys. A posse eventually got everything back when they tracked down the thief at the beer and wine store.

International art star Stan Douglas spent some time in the league. “He wasn’t a bad hitter, but he wasn’t a great catcher or fielder,” says Vancouver Sun writer and original member John Mackie. “He was just like everyone else on the team, really. They had three really good players and then a bunch of artists.”

Other notable players over the years have included country/blues singer Suzie Ungerleider (better known as Oh Susanna), BCTV’s Keith Baldry, the Sun’s Katherine Monk, Western Living editor Jim Sutherland, the Province’s Jim Jamison and the Georgia Straight’s Kerry Banks. Victoria screenwriter Gerry Swallow (Black Knight and Say It Isn’t So) and controversial Los Angeles-based comedian Sarah Silverman (Seinfeld, There’s Something About Mary) have also made appearances – Silverman wearing a flowing scarf in the middle of July.

The Twilight League is showing its age. Andrews, 51, says, “I’m going to retire one of these days. And then somebody’s going to have to step up and take over if they want to keep it going. I’ve been hoping for a bloodless coup for years.”

But the real question is what will happen when Bowering retires completely.

“I think the league would just more or less disappear without me, to tell the truth,” he says. “It would be so ordinary.”

The Day the Taliban Came to Town (unpublished)

The Day the Taliban Came to Town

Unpublished, 2002

Abdolah remembers the day the Taliban came to town.

It was an unremarkable day. Just like all the rest. He arrived at the school where he taught around eight o'clock that August 11, 1998, morning. Most residents of Sar-e Pol didn't believe the Taliban would ever infiltrate their northern Afghanistan city. The Northern Alliance forces in neighbouring Mazar-e Shariff were strong. There was nothing to worry about.

Or so they thought. "It was absolute normally day," the new Vancouver resident recalled. From inside the school they heard the nearing gunfire and it was apparent to all what was happening. There was no other explanation. Everyone wanted to go home, naturally, so they piled out onto
the street. But the fighting was too close. It wouldn't be safe. Back inside they went. A few minutes passed before gunmen took over their school, shooting in the air. Two or three to a class. Staff and students were told to get on the floor. No talking.

"The children, they cry," he remembers. "They cry and the people from Taliban hit them. 'Don't cry! Quiet!' Hit the kids with the gun. I try to tell the kids to be quiet and he hit me. 'Don't speak!' The moment like a shock. Everybody shocked. Nobody says something."

After approximately twenty minutes, everyone was forced outside. It was from that vantage point that Abdolah saw fire and smoke coming from the principal's office. Some of the teachers and older students were marched off to prison. After a night in jail, Abdolah was interrogated.

"I went to some office with a bearded guy who start to ask me some question, but in Pashto language." Abdolah learned Pashto in high school the way we learn French. He understands bits and pieces, but speaks Dari (Afghan Persian) and German.

"He was too fast. I didn't understand," he says. "He cry, 'Why? You Afghan! You have to speak Pashto!'" And so the interrogation continued in Pashto.

"Who do you work for? For which group?"

"I work for nobody. I'm a teacher. I taught in the school, that's my job," he replied. In Afghanistan, in order to bypass military service, you can opt to teach for six years instead. So Abdolah, a math and physics major in university, taught math and phys ed at a local boys school.

"I know you taught Communist ideas. You are a Communist," he was accused.

"I'm not Communist. I'm teacher. I taught everything."

Abdolah, a clean-shaven non-practicing Muslim, was then questioned on his appearance.

"Why are you shaved?"

"I'm a teacher. I have to be shaved. You have to be clean."

"You are not Muslim because you don't have a beard!"

After some more questioning, Abdolah was sent back to prison. There he met two other teachers, some government workers, store owners, and not one knew why there were being held. Their families didn't even know where they were. Whenever someone would ask why they were there or what they did, they'd get smacked with a rifle. Abdolah was a quick study.

"I didn't ask, but I want to ask why I'm here," he said. "Know my family that I'm here? What happened on the outside? What's the government? We don't know. I see that the people have a question, nobody answer and they hit you. I think, okay, I don't need to ask because I ask and they hit me, too. And I didn't ask. Never."

Day turned into night. Over and over again. Everyday they got a little bit of food but never enough. And every morning it was early to rise for bathing and prayer. "Actually, I don't know how I prayed exactly," he said. "But I did the same how the other guy did, you know?"

Months passed. Four, five, six. After that length of time, prison life becomes your reality. You stop thinking about life on the outside and worry only about that night's sleep, your next meal.

"You think about sleep. How can I sleep a little better?,” he recalls. In a small cell with 15 or 20 other men, it's impossible to all sleep at the same time. “Or how's about tomorrow? Maybe good food? You think just that; not about [going] home. You forget it."

There were only five or six thin, filthy blankets. But so many people squeezed into such a small area had its advantages. Sort of.

"We are just happy to close the door and [with] all the people in the room, it is warm,” he says. “It is not air, but it's warm. It stink, too."

But these were just inconveniences compared to the other thoughts that wouldn't go away. "From beginning you think, 'They kill me, they kill me.' But after you see that everything was bad – no food, no sleep, and everything – and you think it's better if you are dead than this life here. I was scared. I was scared they kill me. But later I was not scared. I was not scared."

His mother, in fact, was convinced her youngest son had been killed, as had her oldest boy and her husband, a doctor, who heard the firing of guns the day Abdolah was arrested, grabbed his own firearm and headed outside to investigate. The Taliban saw him and shot him dead.

By chance, a local store owner who was briefly jailed with Abdolah, ran into Abdolah's uncle. They started talking, and the store owner mentioned being in prison with the nephew. This was joyous news to his family.

"The people don't know I'm in jail," he says. "The people think I'm dead. It was a surprise to my uncle to believe I'm still alive. And he told my mother and everybody's happy."

And then one night they came for him. After 22 months locked away, a guard came in, handcuffed him, and led him to a waiting car. "I thought hundred per cent they kill me today. But I was not too scared." Sitting amongst four guards, Abdolah, now with a beard down to his stomach, is blindfolded for the first two kilometres of a 24-km journey to the other side of the
city. Nobody says a word.

Nearing a small village, they stop the car. The guard up front orders Abdolah's handcuffs removed. This is it, he thinks. He is convinced he will die. Figuring he was as good as dead no matter what, he hatches a plan. "I think now to find a chance to take the guns from one guy. I try
to take the gun from him and shoot all of them. Really. In this moment, I'm not worried, I think just like this. It's a chance like this sometime takes in the movies. We have the chance, we can do that. Why not? If I do or not, they kill me."

But it doesn't come to that. The guard up front says he's free to go.

"Why I'm free?"

"Don't ask. Thank your uncle for that. You can go."

At first, he thought they'd let him walk five metres before shooting him in the back. But when he heard his uncle mentioned, he knew something was up. And it was. His uncle had bought his freedom.

The guards drive off. And for the first time in almost two years, he's a free man. Abdolah walks quickly to the village where people are waiting for him. He's told that if the Taliban attacks this village, and they find him, they'll kill him immediately. So after an hour's time, they walk to
another village in the mountains where the Taliban won't go. He is weak from his captivity, but was more than happy to walk. And walk. Which is a good thing, considering. He is told everything is arranged for him to go to Pakistan. On foot.

So off they go, six adults and two children. Thirty-three days later, through the snowy mountains of middle Afghanistan, they arrive and separate. It is in Pakistan where he meets his uncle, who sets him on his way to Canada.

He is met at the Toronto airport by two men and he can finally exhale.

"I'm in Canada," he remembers thinking. "Nothing can happen with me in Canada." They drive non-stop to Vancouver, where they deposit him at Immigration.

At Immigration, he finds out exactly how lucky he is to be alive. A United Nations team, he is told, found a gravesite containing the bodies of 188 teachers killed in one day by the Taliban.

As part of his personal philosophy, Abdolah immediately starts to integrate into Canadian society. He registers in English classes. Soon he gets work painting. A hobby magician, he hires himself out at children's parties. He eventually starts his own painting company.

"In each corner in the world where you are, be open-minded is very, very important," he says. "And accept the culture from the country."

While he loves his new city, there's no place like home. He wants to go back as soon as possible and help in Afghanistan's rebuilding process. With American bombs blasting away his homeland, it's somewhat surprising to hear his opinion on the war. He bristles at the suggestion by some that the Americans shouldn't be there.

"Yeah, but who care about Afghanistan since Taliban kill million people and the Russian military killed the people? Nobody has said that is good or bad." He believes now is Afghanistan's best chance in a long, long time. His opinion of war is strictly utilitarian. Innocents will be killed, but if their deaths provide a greater good for the greatest number, it's a sacrifice he's willing to make.

"Some Afghan people don't like [the war], too. For me, it's okay. Russia killed a lot of people. They bombed each cities in Afghanistan. After fight, after war, they did nothing. [Later], the Mujahadin and the Taliban did the same. They killed the people, too. They killed million people. But I think if America went there and kill the people now this time, it's different. A lot of the people from the Taliban, they are bad for Afghanistan; they are bad people. You have to kill them. If they kill some other people, children, woman, okay. That is war. That, to me, is war. If
they kill 20,000 civilians, that's 15 or 20 million Afghan have a nice way of life after. That's okay."

Of course, he, like most of us, can't understand why the Americans haven't found bin Laden yet. He reasons that the US has satellites that can see inside the earth and find oil and uranium, so how hard can it be to find a guy in a cave?

Sometimes cynicism gets the best of him. "I know where bin Laden is," he'll suck in a friend, before offering up the punchline: "I think sometimes he drink whiskey with the Bush together! Believe me!"

Abdolah figures he'll spend at least six more months here before moving back home. In six months, he predicts, the Afghan people will have fully comprehended that the Taliban is gone. The bombs from the US will have stopped. And companies from all over the world will come to help out.

"Then it is time to go and work with them together," he says. "And then if the people have a job, if the people busy, nobody think to fight or do something. Everybody is like before. You go to your job, come back home, your family. The young people, they live for 20 years in a war. They don't know without fighting. That is the problem in Afghanistan."

He's not sure yet what he will do, but he knows he must do something. And rather than his next meal, sleeping arrangements or his imminent death, Abdolah has other, more pleasant, thoughts these days.

"I think all the time, what is the best for me to do in Afghanistan?" His answer: "To help the people and to make money, too.

"Each country want to do something in Afghanistan," he says. "There's a lot of job now, a lot of hard work. You know, all the street is broken. And the bridge. The construction of Afghanistan need a lot of job."

You can't help but feel his excitement when he talks like the president of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce.

"Canada, America, Europe, Japan, Iran, all country, they want to help to Afghanistan. If they really give the money to work in Afghanistan, I give you guarantee that after five year, Afghanistan is nicer as Hong Kong. Believe me."

President of the Chamber of Commerce? How about president of Afghanistan?

"No, I don't want that. I want to be alive for a little longer, you know?!"

Fearless Flying (Going Places magazine)

Fearless Flying

Thirteen fearful flyers face their phobia

Going Places magazine, September 2001

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I morphed – from being your typical white knuckler to avoiding flying althogether. There wasn’t a terrifying near-crash experience. I have always just hated it, perhaps conditioned by a mother wanting to return to her homeland but completely unwilling to get there hurtling through space.

I’d flown without incidence for years. Still, weeks before a flight I’d imagine all that could go wrong: raging passenger, uncooperative Mother Nature, vengeful mechanic, narcoleptic and/or incompetent pilot. It would only get worse once I was on the aircraft. I’d actually feel my hair getting whiter. But my high anxiety over something thousands of people do safely every day has increased over the past few years, culminating with a flight to California this February. On our descent into LAX, the pilot dusted off one of his old war plane stunts. I’m not familiar with the terminology, but I’d call it a Quick Turn and Fall, accompanied by the screams and gasps of everyone on board.

I was flying with several seasoned travellers; they said it was the most terrifying experience of their lives. To me, it ranked right up there with every other flight of my life. Still, I decided to forgo the free flight home in exchange for a 36-hour bus ride – in itself almost enough to cure me of my phobia. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough. But it gave me ample time to think about my condition and vow to do something about it.

Eight weeks later, I was sitting around a boardroom table for Beyond the Fear of Flying, the Air Canada-endorsed, 5-week Avserve West program for phobic flyers, held at the Vancouver airport. I figured, if anything, it would make a good story. If they could cure me, they could cure anyone. Then there were my classmates. These would be people in need of serious help, I figured. Maybe so, but they were a cool group of people from all walks of life. Some flew regularly for their work but were growing extremely uncomfortable with it; others had phobias that prevented them from flying at all (one woman hadn’t flown in two decades).

Our flight terrors were immediately attacked on two fronts: technical and mental. On the tech side was the eminently calm and rational Lidnsay Paxton, a pilot with Air Canada since 1972. Taking care of our fragile mental states was Ruth Shell, a registered clinical counselor. The duo was a potent one-two punch to our psychoses. We were told right off the bat that our particular fear was irrational. Mine wasn’t: Planes crash all the time; for every stat I was given, I had a “yes, but.”

Among the facts I found particularly helpful: If a plane loses both engines, it can still glide safely to the ground (though I’d hate to be on that silent descent); turbulence cannot damage a plane; an airplane is inherently stable (which means that even without a pilot, the plane will right itself); there is no such thing as an air pocket; and every second of every day an aircraft is taking off or landing somewhere in the world. Turns out planes do not, in fact, crash all the time. (You would have to board a commercial airliner every day for 26,000 years to be involved in a major accident, and even then it might not be fatal.)

While the ever-steady Paxton was reassuring us with the facts, Shell was teaching us relaxation exercises and cognitive therapies such as thought stopping. (I preferred the technical aspects. I want to know a plane is safe before boarding; I can do without being comfortable if it’s going down.) An air traffic controller and aircraft maintenance engineer also worked with us. And since we were at the airport, each class ended with a visit to an aircraft where we practiced those warm and fuzzy relaxation techniques.

By the time week five rolled around, every member of the class was ready for our graduation flight to Calgary. This in itself was a major step: several of us were still waffling when the course started. I figured a delicious irony would be the next morning’s headlines: Fearful Flyers Crash Over the Rockies. Even my friends wouldn’t be able to refrain from laughing over that one. I wouldn’t blame them.

One classmate, who had to fly for work before the rest of us took our graduation flight, returned to class raving: “It works, it really works!” I immediately pegged her as a plant. That is, until the rest of us were strapped in, ready to take off for Calgary. I found comfort in simple left-right rhythmic finger tapping and breathing exercises. It was surprising: The technical information had got me on board, but it was the relaxation techniques that were keeping me there.

The bottom line is we made it back in one piece. And most of my classmates were giddy with their new-found drug- and alcohol-free success. Still, even though Paxton likes to say flying is safer than life, I don’t know; I’m not totally convinced. But I do know one thing. It beats the hell out of busing.

What's So Funny (Vancouver Magazine)

Backwords:

What’s So Funny

How does comedy work? Five headlining comics deconstruct the jokes that make them laugh

Vancouver Magazine, Summer 2001

In time for the Vancouver International Comedy Festival (starting July 20), we thought we’d get some professionally funny people to tell us what tickles them, and why. Jack Herbert once said that a comedian is “a fellow who finds other comedians too humorous to mention.” Not our yuksters. They all generously cited a fave from another comic’s work, then supplied us with one of their own.

Comedian:

Brent Butt, Vancouver-based headliner, 2001 winner of Best Male Standup Comic in Canada.

That’s a Good One
“Jack Benny is jumped by a robber who points a gun at him and demands, ‘Your money or your life!’ There is a loooooong pause, and when the robber repeats, ‘Your money or your life!’ Jack says, ‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking.’”

Because
“It is fundamentally hilarious, and I also admire the joke because in one phrase it tells you everything you need to know about Jack Benny’s character. In my mind, it’s a perfect joke.”

Now Try One of Mine
“Police have it easier in a small town. ‘Can you describe the man who robbed you?’ ‘Yeah, he was Dwayne.’”

Comedian:

Gerry Swallow, Victoria-based screenwriter of Say It Isn’t So and the upcoming Black Knight.

That’s a Good One
“’Hitler was right!’ (Pause here, long enough to evoke a murmur from the crowd, then…) ‘Moustaches should be small an unobtrusive.’” – told to me second-hand, though I believe it belongs to a comic from Minnesota

 Because
“There’s nothing like bringing a crowd to the edge of hostility, then reeling them back in. Of course, some people would never recover from the setup. But then those people should avoid comedy altogether.”

Now Try One of Mine
“My friend Steve just got married. Before he got married, he sat down and he typed out a list of household chores and duties for his wife. Can you believe that? Come on, typing’s women’s work.”

Comedian:

Sarah Silverman, comedian/actress, Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld

That’s a Good One
“I didn’t start masturbating until I was 11. Because before that I was getting laid.” – Garry Shandling

Because
“No need to dissect its structure. It makes me laugh!”

Now Try One of Mine
“I really wanted to get a dog. I was looking around for one but then I realized that I travel around so much that it’s just not fair. So I think I’m going to have a baby.”

Comedian:

A. Whitney Brown, formerly of Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show

That’s a Good One
“We’ve all been surprised by the success of Star Trek. It’s been shown in 73 different countries, although not always by the same name. In Japan, for example, it’s called Sulu: Master of Navigation.” – written for William Shatner on SNL

Because
“It’s about the most basic human failing – everything’s about us. From ancient China calling itself the centre of the world, to the outrage at Galileo’s claim that the heavens don’t revolve around the earth… it’s a very, very old story, succinctly told.”

Now Try One of Mine
“There’s a billion people in China. That’s hard to imagine. That means that even if you are a one-in-a-million kind of person, there’s still a thousand exactly like you.”

Comedian:

Irwin Barker, national headliner and Vancouver-based comic

That’s a Good One
“I saw an ad in the paper for a job as an estimator. On the application form, when they asked my age, I said, ‘Oh, about 30.’” – Toronto comic Derek Edwards

Because
“I like it because the punch line is so simple yet you don’t see it coming. The essence of any good joke is surprise, an unexpected response that puts a new meaning on the setup.”

Now Try One of Mine
“I have an aunt who is a perfect combination of fatalist and optimist. Last week she fell down the stairs and broke her leg. She just laid there saying, ‘Am I ever glad that’s over with.’”

Swinging Kenny Colman keeps on hustling for gigs (Georgia Straight)

Swinging Kenny Colman keeps on hustling for gigs

The Georgia Straight, June 21, 2001

At times Kenny Colman feels like Rodney Dangerfield. The Vancouver singer has done it all and still can’t get no respect. At least not in his hometown.

Colman’s biography reads like a who’s who of show business: discovered by Sarah Vaughan; first gigged in Las Vegas on a bill with Lionel Hampton and Della Reese; sang for all the talk-show hosts, from Steve Allen to Johnny Carson to Merv Griffin; recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra; befriended Frank Sinatra; opened for the likes of Redd Foxx and Lenny Bruce; and played such hot spots as Monte Carlo, New York, and Cancun.

So why does this man have to hustle for gigs just like the next guy?

“I’ve done all these shows and I’m still looking for work in my hometown,” Colman says, on the line from his False Creek home.

The veteran jazz singer will be splitting the bill at the Vogue with Dee Daniels next Monday (June 25) in a show that promises to be a bit different for his Vancouver fans.

“Most people, when they see me in a club, it’s more intimate,” he says. “They’re drinking and having a good time, where in a concert, you can focus in more on a ballad and the attention is there. It’ll be a different thing for people to see me in a concert setting. I think they’ll enjoy it. I’ll be able to tell stories about my past and all that.”

Colman says part of the reason that he doesn’t get more work is a lack of venues in town. The Cellar is an excellent jazz club with a great feel, but doesn’t often book singers. So Colman continues to play casinos and lounges around the world while sitting in on the gigs of friends around town just to keep his chops up.

“Getting a continuous roll is always the hardest thing,” he says. “Getting that back-to-back continuation, you know? Always looking for gigs is a hardship. It’s hard on the wife, but you have to go with your work.”

Colman, while not in the vein of a scat-singing singer like Mark Murphy or Kurt Elling, considers himself a jazz stylist whose motto is Less Is More.

“I think the word jazz sometimes scares people off,” he says. “I surround myself always with jazz players because they’re the best players. And I always deviate from the melody and create melody, which is improvisation. I consider myself a very swinging, jazz-oriented-type singer. I can swing. And you can’t teach somebody to swing, you know? I mean, Vic Damone can’t swing. There are very few singers who can swing.”

Still, that and a buck fifty will get you a cup of coffee. But as long as the 60-something crooner can still swing, he’ll continue knocking on doors.

“I still feel very strong and still driven,” he says. “If there was going to be a book about me, Driven would be the word. I still have the same energy and drive as when I was 28 walking up and down Second Avenue in the Village looking for gigs.”

Bass Legend Takes a Late Lead (Georgia Straight)

Bass Legend Takes a Late Lead

Just don’t ask Ray Brown to play favourites

The Georgia Straight, June 21-28, 2001

Los Angeles-based Ray Brown is considered one of the best bassists in jazz history, but that doesn’t mean he was expecting an invitation to the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. Although the 74-year-old is heading to Vancouver for a three-night stint at Rossini’s, Monday to Wednesday (June 25 to 27), he assumed the shows would be no different from the ones he usually does at the Gastown eatery.

“They didn’t say anything about the festival, they just said my regular visit up there,” Brown says from an Emerald City tour stop. “Whenever I’m in Seattle, I just come up there the next week usually.”

Name a jazz master, and chances are the bassist has played with him. But don’t ask him to play favourites.

“I’m not going to touch that,” he says. “You think I’m going to stand up here and say that Count Basie was better than Duke Ellington, or Duke Ellington was better than Art Tatum, or Art Tatum was better than Dizzy Gillespie, or Dizzy Gillespie was better than Charlie Parker, and so forth? And then Louis Armstrong and then Coleman Hawkins and then Lester Young? You want me to tell you one person? You’re outta your fuckin’ mind. You gotta be crazy! I mean, you don’t ask anybody that’s played with those many people who’s the best. There’s no such thing.”

Okay, a bad call on my part, but in my defense, had he chosen one I would have had a scoop.

Brown, who was married to Ella Fitzgerald from 1948 until 1952, isn’t one of those old-timers who thinks everything was better back in the day. His comments on the younger generation will shock those who think nothing good has been recorded since 1959.

“There’s a whole bunch of good young musicians around now,” he says, “and they’re playing better at a younger age than we did when I was young.”

He says the reason for that is simple: “There’s more stuff available. Duke Ellington made maybe four records a year when I was a kid. Four 78s. That’s, like, two minutes of music on each side, so that’s 16 minutes. That ain’t even a CD. And that’s what we had to study from and practice with.”

Brown started out on the piano but switched to the bass in high school. Why? “It looked easier. It only had one line to read instead of two.” Was it easier? “Hell, no.”

It’s not common for bass players to be leaders, but after 50 years of being a sideman, Brown has had enough. Now it’s his turn, although just because he’s in charge doesn’t mean he’ll be taking endless solos all night.

“Solos are great, but I don’t think you serve any purpose playing on every tune,” he says. “I think you’re better served playing one really good substantial solo. I play maybe 10, 12 minutes solo. And I think you impress people maybe a little better than just taking some choruses on every tune that goes by. After it’s been exhausted by the saxophone player playing 40 choruses and the piano player playing 25 and the other horns, then they always turn it over to you last.”

"Universality of music" informs Fraser's tunes (Georgia Straight)

“Universality of music” informs Fraser’s tunes

The Georgia Straight, June 14-21, 2001

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival has been criticized for booking country stars like Emmylou Harris and rockers like Wide Mouth Mason, but no one has any cause to complain about the Legends of the Bandstand show at the Vogue next Friday (June 22).

“It’s definitely one of the most jazz-oriented shows, I guess,” Hugh Fraser says, on the line from his home in Victoria.

The Juno Award-winning pianist and trombonist’s quintet opens the Legends show and then plays a longer gig at the Cellar on Saturday (June 23). In the meantime, Fraser is happy to weigh in on the controversy about what kind of acts the festival should be booking.

“It’s kind of a misnomer that they are called jazz festivals,” he offers. “I think they’d be better served to call them music festivals. But we’re talking about a week a year. It is disappointing the treatment a lot of the festivals give Canadian artists, but that’s not just a festival thing, it’s a Canadian thing in general. When I lived in New York, and people had to phone my Manhattan number, I could instantly negotiate twice the fee that I do now that I live out here. It’s just bullshit.”

Having lived in New York, then in London for four years, where he taught at the Royal Academy of Music, Fraser recently returned to his hometown of Victoria. There he oversees his record label, publishing company, and educational commitments. (He is starting up a two-year, diploma-granting jazz program at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.)

Besides being an educator and musician, Fraser is most comfortable identifying himself as a composer. He has written close to 200 compositions. And unlike those of many of his contemporaries, his tunes are at once modern, challenging, accessible, and swinging in a hard-bop context. That’s not surprising, given his philosophy of composition.

“I think a lot of jazz musicians, especially nowadays with so much jazz education around – and I’m guilty of helping contribute to that with all the teaching I do – sometimes have almost too much information,” he says.

He composes with what he terms the “universality of music” always in mind. “It means that someone 200 years from now on a bunch of electronic instruments can play ‘Take the A Train’ or ‘Perdido’ or something and it’ll still have enough of the essentials of solid organization that it’ll be really appealing. And that’s basically melody, harmony, and rhythm.

“Like, who remembers any UZEB tunes or Jeff Lorber fusion tunes?” he continues. “I remember hearing them live and being really impressed, but it’s like fast food or sugar. After the initial impact, it burns away, because there isn’t enough substance where it can be played by other people.”

And for Fraser, composing is not a matter of rehashing the same old stuff, either. “Everyone thinks that evolution is this progressive thing but I view it as keeping good energy alive,” he says. “Water and air are ancient and they’re the most important things to us. It’s the same with certain melodic and harmonic and rhythmic patterns. Instead of trying to throw them out to find something new, you have to build on them.”

California Screamin' (Westworld magazine)

California Screamin'

Becoming a man in the wilds of La La Land

Westworld magazine, June 2001

It’s 1 p.m. and I’m waiting on the pier for friends. We’re setting out to discover California. We’ll stroll the boardwalk, take in the attractions, head over to the mountains, do some whitewater rafting, check out the vintners in wine country, go hang-gliding over the Golden Gate Bridge and Mission Bay in San Diego, stop by Hollywood, take in a show. We’re on foot so we figure we won’t get back to the hotel until dinnertime.

Oh, did I mention this is Disney’s California Adventure theme park? The good folks at Disney came up with the idea to celebrate the wonders of the Golden State -- all in one convenient 22-hectare location beside the original Disneyland. The park is divided into three sections: Paradise Pier, Golden State and the Hollywood Pictures Backlot. Because really, what else to the state is there?

My friends Jon and Chris come bounding off California Screamin’, a giant roller coaster that takes its helpless victims from 0 to 90 kilometres an hour in four seconds, beaming. The ride includes a loop-de-loop, which sounds so innocent and fun. This is brilliant marketing -- loop-de-loop is much more inviting than, say, the Upside Down Circle of Death. Which is what it looks like to me.

You see, I’m not what you’d call a “ride” guy. Not only that, I don’t know enough about centrifugal force to even contemplate going on that puppy. But my pals insist. They’ve been on it twice already and want more.

I insist right back that I can gain just as much enjoyment from watching and listening to their chilling screams while standing safely on the ground, right-side-up. Jon tells me he’s terrified of rides, but this one’s “a hoot”. He, like I, went on the old wooden coaster at the PNE once and vowed never again, so I believe him. Reluctantly, I proceed ashen-faced to the front of the line. How bad can it be? I reassure myself.

There I am, locked into my fate as we shoot off for our mile-long, 3.5-minute thrill ride, grabbing on for dear life, eyes clamped shut. At the first turn I remember to open them. Once I can see where I’m heading, I’m fine. Jon is laughing and screaming beside me. But I play it cool. On our ascent to 120 feet (sounds so much more menacing than 36 metres), I engage in small talk.

“So Jonathan, how’s work going?” Apparently not well, judging from his blood-curdling scream as gravity takes over and we hurl straight down. Part of the thrill of these kinds of rides is surviving them. You step off and feel like you’ve cheated death.

“Let’s do it again!” I scream. And we did. Suddenly, I’m a “ride” person. At least when Disney’s involved. I think I trust Disney rides because they’re run not by carnies but by shiny, happy people. Sure, their wide-eyed, smiling faces remind me of infomercial audience members, but I definitely feel safer on Disney rides. And certainly cleaner.

We try them all now, including Soarin’ Over California (Californians apparently are too laid back to pronounce “ing”). This simulated hang-gliding (make that glidin’) ride is amazing. I keep looking to the side of the 80-foot bowl-shaped screen for reassurance that I’m not actually hundreds of feet in the air floating over rivers, valleys, mountains and ocean. We feel the wind on our face and somehow smell the smells. Unless that was Jon.

We manage to see most of “California” in an afternoon but come back for more that night and again the next day. It’s easy to be cynical of Disney and all it represents (wholesome family values and litigation against anyone who dares copy those wholesome family values). Still, I defy anyone not to have fun at the “Happiest Place On Earth” (TM, just in case, lest we be hit with our own lawsuit). What can I say? Disney knows how to build a theme park.

Plus they know how to build character. I’m proud of myself for turning into a “ride” guy, though I think I could have enjoyed the place while maintaining my previous chicken status. There are enough shows and games and kiddie rides to keep a coward like me occupied.

And thankfully, no earthquakes, floods or riots.
*
Guy MacPherson is a Vancouver freelance writer usually afraid of his own shadow. He has won no awards.

Give it up to the Grizz (Vancouver Sun)

Give it up to the Grizz

It’s too early to write an epitaph for a team that deserves a fighting chance to taste success

Vancouver Sun, February 16, 2001

I may be in denial, but I just don’t believe the Grizzlies are going anywhere, with the exception of their usual downward spiral to oblivion.

Last year, when Bill Laurie attempted to buy the Bears but wouldn’t commit to Vancouver, the local press started yawping about the end of NBA basketball in Vancouver. Reading the coverage, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind the team would wind up in St. Louis in a matter of months. It didn’t happen. I may have been the only one who didn’t believe they were moving then, and I still don’t believe it now.

Why should I? The NBA cannot be that naïve or gullible and owner Michael Heisley cannot be that duplicitous. Despite Heisley’s constant whining about losses, nothing has changed significantly since he bought the team from John McCaw less than one year ago. In any area.

And the NBA, ultimately, must realize this, too. Despite his perceived good intentions, Heisley would have to be a miracle worker to change the fortunes of this sad-sack franchise in less than a season.

According to the team’s 2000-01 media guide, Heisley’s Heico Acquisitions Inc. “acts as an investment firm, specializing in buying interests in under-performing companies and turning them around.” The Grizzlies fit this profile to a technical foul but where’s the turnaround? Obviously if they haven’t reversed their fortunes in half a season, they never will, right? And the altruistic Heisley has done all he could do.

The media guide tells us, after all, “… the Grizzles have significantly bolstered their roster this off-season, adding talent and depth to their bench through free agent signings and trades….” The crack management team assembled in the off-season was crafty enough to pick up two players who hadn’t played in the league (or elsewhere) for two seasons, so they should be well-rested.

But Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (4.5 points per game) and Kevin Edwards (4.1 ppg) seldom get off the bench. Ike Austin (4.7 ppg) was due for a rebound season after being a bust in Orlando and Washington the last two seasons while earning over $5 million a year. It’s not management’s fault they’re not performing. What more could it do?

I’m not a businessman, but I did pass Economics 100 at UVic with a D. This is my take on the situation. Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley is a reported billionaire. How many billions he has, I don’t know. But even if he has one billion, that’s one thousand million!

Think about it. For him to lose $50 million (a highly disputed figure, by the way) in a season is the equivalent of you or me taking a grand to Vegas and dropping 50 bucks.

What’s the problem, Mike? You’d still have $950 million left. And it’s not as if his other businesses aren’t making money to compensate, i.e. he ain’t going broke, folks.

I’m reminded of the line from Citizen Kane where Charles Foster Kane is being advised by his accountant to drop his newspaper enterprise because he’s losing a million dollars. I’m going from memory here, but Kane’s response is, “So I lose a million dollars? I’ll lose a million next year, too, and the year after that. And you know what? In 65 years I’ll be broke!”

Providing he has only one billion now and makes no more money from any other source for the rest of his life and loses $50 million for real a year, that would last 20 years. Have you seen the guy? Not exactly your picture of health. He needn’t worry.

As for that $50-million figure, the NBA should hire an objective forensic accountant so we can be sure this is not a case of fuzzy book keeping or money laundering.

NBA commissioner David Stern has given Heisley the go-ahead to seek other cities for relocation. Granted, it doesn’t sound encouraging. But under Stern’s 17-year reign, no franchise has changed locations, a fact he’s fiercely proud of. Teams have tried to relocate and he’s put the kibosh on it.

Stern says Vancouver’s business community implicitly agreed to support the Grizzlies and hasn’t come through. Again, I want to point out my lack of business acumen, but I would think savvy businessmen would want promises in the explicit category. One man’s implicit is another man’s “Huh?”

Businesses, like most fans, back a winner. And like Mr. Heisley, Vancouver business folk didn’t go into business to lose money. Put the Grizzlies with their pathetic 5.5-year record of 92-336 in any U.S. city and you’ll see apathy in action. Conversely, put Vince Carter and the Raptors here in Vancouver, and you’d see sell-outs and businesses hopping on board like they were giving out free corporate welfare.

Cities like Dallas and Orlando, with good teams, are experiencing low attendance: What makes the NBA think an Anaheim or New Orleans will show up in force to watch the Grizzlies blow it night after night, year after year?

Here’s why I’m saying the team stays: Any proposed move by a franchise has to be voted on by the NBA board of governors. How bad would it look for the association to move a failing franchise only to have it fail somewhere else? And with the management the Grizzlies have had over the years, including this one, there’s no reason to believe the team will get any better anywhere else.

It doesn’t help to have the local media acting as this is a foregone conclusion. The league just fined Grizzlies’ president Dick Versace for comments he made about the Toronto situation. They know that constant fear of failure can hurt the box office. What they fail to realize is that’s all we’ve had here from the beginning. “Is the team staying or going? It can’t possibly succeed,” etc. How can a business flourish in that climate?

The Grizzlies may very well leave, but it’s still conjecture at this point. My prediction is the league will do the honourable thing and give Vancouver a fighting chance, something we haven’t yet had.

If the city won’t support an exciting team with even an outside chance of making the playoffs, let alone a contender, then maybe a move would be understandable. But we’ve never been give than chance.

Guy MacPherson covers the Grizzlies for Associated Press.

Windshield Wiper (Vancouver Magazine)

Shop Talk: A Look at the People Who Keep This City Humming

Windshield Wiper

Traffic lights are his best friends: A squeegee kid comes clean

Vancouver magazine, December 2000

Justin, 18, works at the intersection of Thurlow and Davie, wearing a modified Mohawk, a spiky choke collar and tattered jeans. He is a squeegee kid, cleaning, or attempting to clean, car windshields in hopes of a little spare change. We went back to take a picture of Justin, but he’d gone, we were told. Split to Seattle.

Q: How did you get started in the squeegee business?
A: Panning sucks, so I just picked up a squeegee and started going.

Q: How long have you been at it?
A: Actually, just two weeks.

Q: You like it so far?
A: Yeah.

Q: How much can you earn?
A: It’s different every day. You can make up to, like, 80 bucks a day.

Q: Really! Wow. I guess it depends on the weather.
A: Well, yeah. You can’t squeegee in the rain, obviously. (Laughs.)

Q: What hours do you work?
A: Usually from two to, like, five.

Q: So three hours. And 80 bucks in three hours?!
A: No, no. Some people do that, but I only make 35, 40 bucks a day.

Q: What could you do panning?
A: Panning? Oh God, like 15 bucks a day. Fifteen, 20 dollars a day.

Q: What’s the biggest tip you’ve ever gotten?
A: A five.

Q: Is it illegal to squeegee?
A: Yeah, I think so. I guess so. I don’t know.

Q: What about people’s attitudes in cars?
A: Actually, I almost kicked a guy’s door in about 10 minutes ago. He let me soap up his whole car and when I went to take it off, he decided to turn on his windshield wipers. And that just pissed me off because you can rip the whole net right off your squeegee with a windshield wiper.

Q: Do you take pride in your work?
A: No, not really. (Laughs.)

Q: But you want to do a good job, don’t you?
A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I try my best to do a good job, or else I’ll suddenly just start getting a bad reputation.

Q: What advice would you give a young person interested in becoming a squeegee kid?
A: (Pause.) I don’t know.

Q: Have you ever done anything like it as a kid? Washing windows?
A: Nope.

Q: Where do you see yourself five years from now?
A: I don’t look that far ahead.

Papa was a Fuddy-Dud (Vancouver Sun)

Papa was a Fuddy-Dud

Vancouver Sun, July 22, 2000

I am a pop culture pariah. Having already come out on these pages as a wuss who’s never smoked pot, I can freely admit I don’t know anything about anything, although I do know this: I know even less about baggy panted people.

Armed with this ignorance, I recently engaged in debate with my 17-year-old nephew (he of the XXXL pants) on the merits of hip-hop. My position was that hip-hop isn’t music. It’s bad poetry with a beat. It has elements of music, I conceded, but most of that is sampled from other, real musicians. To drive my point home, I drolly noted that one need not spend years at Julliard studying to play the freakin’ turntable. Game, set and match to me, right?

When he informed me that hip-hop isn’t music, I thought I had won. But no. Hip-hop is the culture, I was told; rap is the music. Or something like that. I lose interest when I’m losing an argument, not to mention street cred, when I don’t even know the reference points I’m arguing.

A variety of factors have led to my current state, but the bulk of the blame must go to my father. Most of the culture I’ve got, I got from my pop. But it certainly wasn’t pop culture. I guess that’s what happens when your dad is a jazz musician whose cultural references ground to a halt some time in the 1940s. My own knowledge-gap mostly manifests itself in the musical realm, but is by no means confined to it. I’m hopelessly clueless in myriad areas.

I first noticed my disconnection to the masses in ’72: the big Canada-Russia hockey game – or was it a series? (You’d think I’d know these things, having written professionally about hockey in a major daily newspaper, albeit a paper with really big pictures.) The single event in my lifetime that brought Canadians of all political stripes together, and I was left out. No, not left out. That would imply I gave a rat’s ass about the game. I didn’t. Nor did my family. Over the years I have made giant strides to the point where I now know there was some sort of nation-defining sporting event that people my age still talk about. (My sister, however, didn’t find out about it until a few weeks ago when I brought it up in a vain effort to relate to them.)

It’s not that I want to be this ivory-towered pedant who is too good for such earthly concerns. It’s just that nature and nurture conspired to make me this way. I was raised not only by a European mother and grandparents, but, alternately, by a Canadian father, a man who knew less about popular culture than anyone I’ve ever met.

This is a man who didn’t own a TV for years. And years. And years. When he finally acquired one, it was a tiny black-and-white number that sat unused in a corner until I or my sisters came to stay. I remember once he regretted to inform me it wasn’t working. Being a musician, he had no idea why. I’ve never been a handyman but I thought I’d go over and take a look.

Unplugged.

It’s possible, now that I think back on it, that he was disappointed his only son didn’t show enough interest in reading (except for books with really big pictures, which perhaps led to me writing for newspapers with really big pictures) and he was using the old unplugged TV trick to get me up and out.

You had to know my dad, though, to know that he likely believed it was broken. He was not the most mechanical of men. I never once saw him use a tool or do a chore, other than to load the dishwasher. He was above all that. Once, as a child, I was sent over without a change of socks (an oversight, I’m almost certain). I wore the same pair for days until they crusted over and retained the shape of my foot even when off, as if I had an invisible sock-wearing friend. No laundry for those stinkers, though. Not on dad’s watch. They went straight into the garbage and he bought me new lifeless ones. 

Once I forced him to sit down and watch Cheers, at the time my favourite show and widely thought to be the best-written one on television. But this was a man who was proud to claim that Andy Hardy Joins the Army was the last movie he’d ever seen, so it was an uphill battle. He watched five minutes of it before harrumphing “Dumb” and leaving, all the while muttering “Dumb, dumb, dumb” as he walked away.

Pop’s place was not child-friendly. He had no toys. He had no yard. There was not much for a kid to do. So we made do. On our visits pre-TV, we had but three options:

1. We could read from his vast collection of books, consisting of jazz biographies and histories, Russian literature, classic humourists like S.J. Perelman and P.G. Wodehouse, philosophy, essays, curmudgeonly tomes on the English language, or a smattering of books from the entertainment world, most of which were written by old-time comics he worked with at the Cave Supper Club, and to which I gravitated, leaving me with a lifelong admiration (bordering on obsession, friends tell me) for Steve Allen.

2. We could listen to his vast record collection: classical or jazz, that was it. I got enough of that long-haired music (I’ve always loved that anachronistic phrase) at piano lessons so I opted for the jazz (Jelly Roll Morton and Lance Harrison were my faves as a pre-teen), which also ensured I’d always miss the pop culture parade. A 15-year-old kid should not be attempting to play Bix Beiderbecke’s solo from “I’m Coming Virginia” on his trumpet. He probably shouldn’t even know who Bix Beiderbecke is. Or, if he does, he should also know at least one song from Pink Floyd. (I kid you not – I http://time.com/3639655/serial-innocence-project-deirdre-enright/spent 10 minutes searching through a reference book just to find the name “Pink Floyd.” Someone like me should have grown up on that stuff! Friends give me that you-can’t-be-serious look when some vaguely familiar (to me) rock anthem is playing and I ask who sings it and it turns out to be The Who or The Stones or The Led Zeppelin.)

Or 3., and this was the best option, we could throw grapes off his 16th floor balcony while he was inside practicing scales or doing the cryptic crossword.

All that jazz education I absorbed from my dad was endearing when I was younger. It was cute when I was pulled out of school for a day in 1969 so I could meet Duke Ellington and all the cats in the band at the Cave. Whether it was Count Basie at the Queen E, Harry “Sweets” Edison winking and me and my sister, the only kids at his show, or Chet Baker at a local club, I soaked it up. Even the Stephane Grappelli concert I attended alone amongst the blue-hairs and no hairs. Now I’m a no-hair (thanks again, Pops) and I know I’m perceived by the kids today as just an out-of-touch guy who likes old-guy music. But what can I expect when I find myself dropping phrases like “The kids today”?

Truth is, I was an out-of-touch young guy who liked old-guy music, too. Over the years, I’ve made some concessions to today’s music with an expanding pop CD collection, but none of it is considered very “popular”. I do know this: no matter how tasteful and musical I may think a particular pop group is, my Dad would have none of it. I’m relieved in a way that rap and hip-hop culture had the decency to wait for him to die before it took hold on society. I don’t know what I’d do if some rap group were to sample one of his many recordings. I’d probably become catatonic.

Is it any wonder I feel lost in this world of pop culture? I’m not saying I’m giving an inch on the rap/hip-hop debate. Or any other debate in which I’m ill-suited to participate. I’m just saying, that’s all.

No, Thank You (Vancouver Sun)

Confessions of a Straight Man

No, Thank You

Guy MacPherson doesn't smoke pot – and he's not afraid to admit it
 

Vancouver Sun, July 1, 2000

Today, while the rest of the country is busy celebrating the Maple Leaf, many a Vancouverite will be worshipping their own leaf, rolling it up and toking it to Cannabis Day. Aren’t we a patriotic bunch? I myself will mark the occasion just as I have the rest of the 13,817 days I’ve spent on the cold side of the womb – by not smoking pot.

Here in Lotus Land, we have some of the best marijuana in the world. Or so I keep reading in the papers. In our own city of Vansterdam, where cannabis cafes and hemp shops give new meaning to the word “drugstore,” hardly a day goes by without a newspaper running some pro- or anti-stoner article. Yet here I am, drug-free for close to 38 years. What went wrong?

Born and reared in British Columbia, I’ve spent all but one year of my life here. I’ve even visited the real Amsterdam. And I’m still a drug virgin. What can I say? I’m a maverick. I remember with absolute clarity and precision the first time I never tried pot. I was in the back seat of a car while two of my classmates from my Grade 11 law class were up front. Recognizing that timing is everything, my friends pulled out a big fatty on the way to the courthouse for our field trip. That’s some major league cajones, my friends. But what did you expect? It was the ‘70s, after all. Smoking up before the law was almost expected. My friends made the perfunctory offer my way, more out of courtesy, I’m guessing, than their desire to share. “No, thanks,” I stammered, trying to maintain my cool, stumbling on to what should be the Canadian version of the U.S. national drug campaign (“Just Say No, Thanks!”).

My buddies had caught me off guard in the car and I just wasn’t ready. Twenty-one years later I can’t really use that excuse anymore. Thank goodness I’m at an age where I don’t need excuses – and I get more and more offers to indulge. I can only guess why I’ve turned out the way I have. My personal credo is never look too deeply, so my best guess is that children naturally rebel against their parents. (We’ll leave it at that.)

Thanks to my high-school buddies’ easy-going attitude to their squaresville friend, I’ve never felt uncomfortable again in turning down the evil weed. Still, pot almost got me thrown out of the Greater Vancouver Open golf tournament. Sports Illustrated, that radical journal, had asked me to get some quotes from golfers about our “sin city” and the cannabis cafes for which we are so famous. At the mere mention of marijuana, Paul Stankowski grabbed the credentials hanging around my neck and held them up to his face. “Who are you writing for?” he demanded. “That’s kind of a weird question. Why are you asking me that?” I decided it probably wasn’t wise to continue. Like almost everyone else who knows I’m from Vancouver, he probably wouldn’t have believed I didn’t smoke pot. And I never found out if he did.

You may think I’m making this all up, perhaps to throw the heat off my trail. But I’m here to say it’s all true and I’m not alone. There are five more that I know personally who are in the same boat. Count ‘em. There may be more out there in the general populace who have never tired marijuana but as of press time, this rumour was unconfirmed. There’s no reason to fear us. We’re just like you, only without the constant case of the munchies. But the stigma attached to our sobriety is so strong here in B.C. that I won’t use the fringe five’s real names for fear of getting them shoved into the locker of life. As “Mary Jane,” a 28-year-old from Calgary says, “I don’t want to be labeled a nerdy, born-again right winger or something like that.”

As it turns out, none of us is born again, or even religious, so there is no churchly excuse for us not to smoke weed. My pal “Rocky” can’t even answer why he’s never tried it. After all, he did smoke half a cigarette – once. And on the question of whether marijuana should be legalized, we split right down the middle. Mary Jane thinks it should be accessible to those who want it, safely and without persecution; she maintains that legalizing weed won’t increase or decrease the number of irresponsible users. It will just eliminate shady distribution and production. She was always the radical among us. On the other side, “Dirk,” 31, who works in retail, thinks there are more useful political debates, while my bud “Geraldo,” a 38-year-old in the entertainment industry, thinks we should keep pot illegal just to “piss off Woody Harrelson.”

The most common question posed to all of us who have preserved our drug chastity is, of course: “How do you know you don’t like it if you’ve never tried it?”

For me, it’s not a case of liking it, but not wanting to like it. Monkey brain or cow tongue may indeed be delicious, but I’m not particularly anxious to try them, either. It’s kind of like religious zealots who challenge you to ask Jesus into your life: If you ask Jesus into your life, you’ve pretty well accepted Him already. In other words, if you’re willing to try it, you’re probably predisposed to liking it.

My friend Dirk cherishes presence of mind, a reliable memory, responsibility and motivation. Would one toke change this for any of us? Probably not. But it also means we’re completely unmotivated to try it. For Geraldo, the temporary high would not be worth losing the right to say, “I’ve never smoked pot.” As the years go by, I feel the same perverse sense of pride at this Ripken-like iron-man streak. It’s not easy, either. We’re a prime target for pot smokers. They all want to be the first to pop our drug cherry.

And living in Vancouver, we can’t get away from the stuff. Whether we’re at a party, a concert or just walking down the street, the stench of pot is as prevalent as skunk in the West End. Hell, the new Marijuana Party of Canada plans on running 50 candidates in the next federal election. It’s everywhere we look.

Still, I can’t see myself ever succumbing. Not the most motivated at the best of times, I can’t imagine how I’d be under the influence. I barely get off the couch as it is.

Sweat Not Enough to Redeem Bogus Sports (Georgia Straight)

Sweat Not Enough to Redeem Bogus Sports
 

The Georgia Straight, September 16-23, 1999
 

The weekend of bogus sports is over and it’s on to the real thing.

Goodbye, you funky-knickered golfers and alcohol- and cigarette-sponsored race-car drivers. It’s time for the real athletes to take over: baseball’s pennant race is in full swing, as are Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, who continue to swing for the fence every time up to bat; ice-hockey training camps open throughout the land (I qualify hockey with ice for those stubbornly holding onto hope that field hockey will ever make it into print); and it’s only weeks before the NBA starts bouncing back into our consciousness. Kinda makes the impending darkness of autumn easier to take.

The beauty of this time of year for Vancouver (motto: City of Losers) is that both the hockey and basketball teams are tied for first. The Canucks (motto: We Can’t Get Any Worse!), without the distractions of Pavel Bure and Mike Keenan, hope to rebound from a very forgettable season. The Grizzlies (motto: The Canucks Stole Our Motto) are going with a new look since general manager Stu Jackson learned that his title enables him to make trades. So it’s encouraging.

It always amazes me that the dailies are expected to criticize some professional sports organizations but treat others like family. Attach a corporate sponsorship to your event and you’re guaranteed puff pieces and your very own supplement. Don’t insult the golfers or they’ll get their knickers in a knot and stay away. Half the racers don’t even speak our English or read our papers, so I don’t see why they get treated with kid gloves in the local press.

I realize there are those who will strongly disagree with my assessment of golf and car-racing as bogus sports. I’m willing to take the heat. Some of my closest friends are bogus-sports enthusiasts, so I’m used to it. In fact, I’ll anger a few more by lumping figure skating and virtually every other Olympic sport into that category. When ballroom dancing qualifies, you know there’s trouble. You want more? Just tune in to TSN at any time and flip a coin. Aerobics, darts, pro wrestling, fishing, bowling, on and on.

This is a topic near and dear to my heart, as I have been forced, through threat of nonpayment, to cover such events for various other “sports” sections and publications. Indeed my rants against what are considered sports by the masses have appeared elsewhere almost biennially for years. It may be getting old, but on the off chance you’re not a regular reader of the Hicksville Weekly Swill, I humbly offer the set of criteriums (that’s how we wrote it at the Swill) I came up with to separate the sporting wheat from the bogus chaff:

1. The event must require athleticism. Key word: require.
2. It must induce sweat from the activity itself rather than external forces such as the sun, engines, adrenaline, or being grossly out of shape.
3. It must provide a clear-cut winner.
4. Participants should accomplish the feat with their own feet (hands… what have you).

At the very minimum, a real sport should include all these. Extra points go to sports with numbered jerseys.

Baseball fails number 1 but still qualifies under the numbered-jersey clause. (Bogus sports, by the way, are not to be confused with make-work sports like roller hockey, indoor soccer, arena football, and beach volleyball, which adhere to the criteria but which under no circumstances should be taken seriously.)

By these criteria – and excellent set, I think you’ll agree – you’ll never need wonder again what’s what. Bowling? Not a sport. Korfball? Sport. Pétanque? Nope. Table tennis? Most definitely. Just follow the easy-to-use step-by-step guide. I’ll walk you through it.

Golf isn’t a sport because it fails numbers 1 and 2. Some golfers are athletic, but it is not a requirement of the game in order to excel at it. And, folks, please remember: I love golf. In fact, I recently placed sixth in a miniature-golf tournament. I even took home the Spirit Award, so don’t accuse me of being antigolf. It’s a great game. Kick the Can is a great game too, but it’s not a sport, either (see point 1).

Racing enthusiasts disagree, but there’s no denying motor “sports” fail numbers 1, 2 an 4. They’ll tell you ad nauseam about the physical strains drivers go through, the muscular effort required to brace their heads against the phenomenal g-forces that can, literally, take their breath away. Yeah, whatever.

Figure skating, rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized swimming, and the like fail number 3. These are subjective events. Granted, they require athleticism, but so does ballet. We go to the ballet (theoretically speaking, of course) for the beauty of it, not to declare a winner. I don’t think anyone is served by having Karen Kain competing against Victoria Bertram for the prima-ballerina belt. And these events are, admittedly, beautiful. Admire them for what they are: ballet on ice, hardwood, and underwater.

And don’t even get me started on curling.

To further prove my point – and I don’t believe for an instant I should have to by now – consider the following inane exchange:

Fan A: “Do you like sports?”

Fan B: “Oh, yeah, baby!”

Fan A: “Yeah? What are your favourite sports?”

Fan B: “Figure skating and ballroom dancing are my favourites, but I also like horse racing, the luge, and interpretative dance.”

Fan A: “Hey, interpretative dance isn’t a sport!”

Fan B: “It isn’t? Why not?”

Fan A: “Hmm. Good point.”

If we accept this dialogue (Plato, eat your heart out), my grandmother is the biggest sports fan on the planet.

McGwire tops special 10 (The Province)

’98: Fascinating Year
 

McGwire tops special 10
 

The Province, January 3, 1999

It was a strange and wonderful year in sports, from the ridiculous – Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of both the Los Angeles Dodgers and Kevin Brown – to the sublime – Mark McGwire’s record-breaking season. Here’s our list of, if not the 10 most fascinating then at least 10 fascinating athletes of 1998.

1. Mark McGwire: It really was his year. He was on People magazine’s 25 Most Intriguing People list; was the NL Player of the Year; and was a candidate for Time magazine’s Man of the Year.

The St. Louis slugger shattered Roger Maris’s “unbreakable” record of 61 homers in a season by slamming 70. There was controversy when it was discovered McGwire took androstenedione, an over-the-counter supplement that produces testosterone, but since the drug isn’t banned by major league baseball, his mark isn’t tainted.

McGwire, paid princely amounts, also turns out to be a prince off the field. He recently donated $175,000 US each to four charities helping abused kids.

And who’ll forget his perfect fielding percentage in the World Series? St. Louis wasn’t in the Series, but McGwire, sitting in a front-row box seat, reached over and one-handed a foul ball to the delight of the fans.

2. Doug Flutie: He’s not Canadian, but we still feel proud that our little Doug has proven he belongs in the NFL.

After leading the Toronto Argonauts to two straight Grey Cup wins, the 5-foot-10, 175-pounder signed a two-year, incentive-laden deal with the 6-10 Buffalo Bills.

Beginning as Rob Johnson’s backup, Flutie, 35, took little time to establish himself as the No. 1 man. The scrambling and improvisation CFL fans have grown to love ­– or hate – for eight seasons proved to be just as effective in the NFL.

With Flutie starting, the Bills finished 10-6 and faced Miami Saturday in the AFC East wild-card game. All this from the little miracle-maker who was released by New England in 1989 after four unspectacular seasons with the Patriots and the Bears.

His initiation back into the men’s club is complete with his selection to the Pro Bowl behind AFC starter John Elway.

3. Ross Rebagliati: His 15 minutes of fame are almost up, but boy, what a ride.

Who would have thought a snowboarder from Whistler would have become the poster boy for Roots, released his own CD, partied with Dan Aykroyd and Mark Wahlberg, gotten offers from film-makers and been a guest on The Tonight Show?

And all because of a little misunderstanding with the IOC. Rebagliati won the first-ever Olympic gold for snowboarding. It was taken away when marijuana was found in his system. Pleading second-hand smoke, Rebagliati’s medal was returned.

Canadian speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan said: “It makes me kind of cringe that our society supports that situation as hero. You see his face everywhere….”

In what’s been dubbed the Rebagliati Rule, the IOC has added marijuana and other “social drugs” to the list of banned substances, even though they’re not performance-enhancers.

4. Ronaldo: Hours before Brazil’s World Cup final against France, its star is in hospital and scratched from the lineup – and then put back in.

He plays like he’s in a coma and France upsets the world’s No. 1-ranked team 3-0. Ronaldo later says he had convulsions. But what really happened? No one knows.

Doctors thought it may have been epilepsy. Other possibilities ranged from poison to problems with his love life, to emotional stress.

Ronaldo discounted the epileptic convulsions theory, saying: “There was never something like that. The problem is that the whole team played badly and they found a reason for the defeat in me. I’m not taking any more tests because nothing is wrong with me.”

Despite the loss and the scrutiny of its top player, Brazil is ranked first for the fifth straight year. And the 22-year-old Ronaldo has been short-listed for FIFA’s world player-of-the-year honours again.

5. Sammy Sosa: The Yin to McGwire’s Yang, Sosa also broke Maris’s record. Unfortunately for Sosa, he fell four short of McGwire, the man to whom he’ll be forever linked.

It’s a testament to the Chicago Cubs outfielder’s season that he was named the NL MVP in a year when McGwire amazed the world.

Sosa hit 66 homers, had 158 RBIs (to McGwire’s 147), a .308 batting average (McGwire .299) and scored 134 runs (McGwire 130). Most importantly, this ex-Vancouver Canadian led his team to the playoffs.

With the exception of two writers from St. Louis, Sosa was a unanimous selection as MVP. “I would have voted for Mark,” he said.

This ex-shoeshine boy from the Dominican Republic showed class, sportsmanship, charity and humour all year long.

6. Michelle Smith: ’98 was the year of the drug scandal. There was the Tour de France, which was rocked by a series of reports indicating use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs; the doping suspensions of track and field stars Dennis Mitchell and Randy Barnes; and four Chinese swimmers getting two-year bans after testing positive for banned masking agents at the World Championships in Australia.

But Michelle Smith, whose coach and husband is ex-Dutch discus thrower Erik de Bruin who himself was banned four years after testing positive for high levels of testosterone, is one of the highest-profile athletes ever banned for a doping-relating offence.

Her four-year ban by the international swim federation came when she was found guilty of tampering with an out-of-competition urine sample taken at her home in Kilkenny, Ireland. The sample was spiked with whiskey.

Drug rumours surrounded Smith after she won three golds at the Atlanta Olympics, including edging Marianne Limpert of Fredericton in the 200-metre individual medley.

The ban effectively ends Smith’s career.

7. Michael Jordan: Just another ho-hum year for basketball’s greatest: All-star, league MVP and Finals MVP for a record sixth time.

Jordan led his Chicago Bulls to their sixth title in eight years, scoring the winning hoop and 45 points in the final game against Utah. It was the most-watched final ever.

All this in a season in which His Airness had to answer questions about his future at every single NBA stop. Jordan let it be known he was gone if Bulls coach Phil Jackson left. Jackson’s out, but Jordan’s being coy. Charles Barkley says Jordan is gone for good. But we may never know, as the NBA lockout continues.

8. Dominique Moceanu: At age 14 at the Games in Atlanta, American gymnast Dominique Moceanu won gold despite suffering a stress fracture.

In ’98, at the ripe age of 17 after running away from her Romanian immigrant parents, Moceanu went to court in a bid to become legally independent from them. She won and was declared a legal adult.

Moceanu claimed her parents bullied her, hit her and squandered most of her earnings since she was 10 years old. She claimed her dad threatened to have her Romanian coach deported, the same coach who helped her become the first non-Russian to win the all-round competition at the Goodwill Games in August.

Her parents haven’t worked since her gold in ’96.

“This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said.

9. Roger Clemens: Clemens did it all: He went 20-6 for the Jays, winning his second straight Cy Young and and unprecedented fifth total; won the triple crown for the second straight season, leading the league in wins, strikeouts (271) and ERA (2.65); went unbeaten in his final 22 starts, winning 15 times; was co-winner of the American Sportscasters Association’s AL player of the year award; and was the first winner since ’95 of the Joe Cronin award for significant achievement.

Toronto was in the playoff hunt up until the final weeks of the season. Clemens demanded a trade to a “contender” but later changed his mind.

10. Pete Sampras: One of the sporting world’s all0time dull guys gets on our list for precisely that reason.

In an age when hype makes right, the anti-personality that is Sampras finished the year s the top-ranked male tennis player for a record sixth straight year, breaking Jimmy Connors’ mark of five.

In an era in sport – and society – that places personality above talent, lesser players such as Andre Agassi are treated as gods while dull but dominant Sampras goes unnoticed.