Sorry it’s not the greatest photo. The funny thing, in my mind he has always looked like this. Ageless!
I’ve written a few pieces on here about mentors of mine. Here’s the story of an unlikely mentor who came to mind after a serendipitous meeting in Calgary the other evening. It harkens back to events of my life almost thirty years ago.
I was (as usual) minding my own business the other evening, having a beer at Ric’s Grill on 15th Avenue, when I looked up I couldn’t believe my eyes. There as large as life was Canadian theatre icon Paul Thompson walking in. It had been a long time since we’d seen each other and so we did some catching up.
Paul mentored me almost in accidental fashion in Toronto almost 30 years ago. Damn, that’s how long I’m been doing the theatre thing. More than 30 years ago! Where the hell did the time go?!
He mentored me in such a fashion to make me examine the word itself and the nature of the activity. We usually think of it as something sustained, the master passing down the wisdom of the ages and the secrets of the craft to the apprentice over time. Often enough this is the case.
But in other circumstances, it may be that the more experienced person comes along and through some act, or something he or she says, maybe even accidentally, confers some honour on the neophyte, providing a boost of confidence that allows the recipient of this largess to carry on.
You know, the art thing is lonely and we artists are often beset with insecurities and self-doubt. Sometimes a very simple, even random, act of kindness can lift us up and keep us going. That’s what Paul did for me. I have never forgotten. Here’s how it went down . . .
After graduating from the MFA Program in Theatre at York University way back when in 1984, some of my fellow grads and I put together a small, alternative, experimental, avant garde, like-nothing-you’ve-ever-seen-before-anywhere-ever theatre company called ACT IV. (We said is like the letters, not the number.) My partners in crime were actors Anthony Dunn and Sally Singal and the late and beautiful Larry Lewis, our director.
We formed the company around a small, alternative, experimental, avant garde, like-nothing-you’ve-ever-seen-before-anywhere-ever script of mine called The Family, which we produced at the back space at Theatre Passe Muraille.
One could argue about the merits of that script or the real artistic value of that production, but what fun we had putting it on! It was the magical time one can only dream of. Of course the first night all of our friends and classmates and family came and the place was full and everyone loved it and we thought to ourselves, “This isn’t so hard after all.”
The second night, 4 people. And we plumbed the depths of despair. And on through the run. What the hell? It’s the show we cut our teeth on. All good.
After the show had closed, months after, I received a phone call from Paul Thompson, which in Toronto at the time, if you were an aspiring theatre artist like myself, was rather like receiving a phone call from God. He had seen the play at Passe Muraille (a theatre which he helped to found, in the same way I suppose that I was helping to found ACT IV) and we had chatted after one of the performances and talked about getting together . . . but I never in my wildest dreams thought he would actually call me.
But he did. He invited me to go to a movie with him. “Sure, Paul,” I replied, nonchalantly, “I think I can make that.”
Of course, I had no money, but I did have a fat little leather wallet full of change, mostly quarters and dimes, for the laundry. I figured it would be enough to get me into the movie and so on the big day I shoved it into my pocket and went off to meet Paul at the University Theatre.
I did not decline his offer to buy the tickets. I don’t remember much about the movie other than constantly thinking to myself, “Why would a famous guy like Paul Thompson want to take me to a movie? Maybe he has me confused with someone else?!?!”
When the movie ended Paul suggested we go for a beer. I explained the situation with the little change purse and he said “Don’t worry it’s on me,” and so we were on our way for a beer together when he saw a man and woman he knew and said to me, “I just have to say hi to these people. Give me a minute.”
So I stood there while he talked to them, and then after a bit they looked over at me and Paul said, “Let me introduce you to Eugene Stickland. He’s a great young writer. Did you see his play at Passe Muraille? No? You missed it? Too bad. It was great. You’re going to be hearing a lot about this guy.”
And so these two people were lucky enough to be introduced to the great young writer.
And who were they? They were a couple of writers, too, as it turned out: Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood. And they were both so gracious.
I believe that my sense of my own identity, of seeing myself as a writer, and in believing that I could actually do it, came from that precise moment.
And so you can see why I have rather fond feelings for Paul Thompson. And you see what I mean about mentorship. There’s no finer example that I can think of.
The challenge, my friends, is to find such opportunities to make a difference in the lives and careers of the next generation.
As Paul did for me.
Thanks for reading.
By the way. I’ve been back on the ginkgo biloba the last month or so – not the drug store shit, you have to go to Chinatown and get the vials! – and I magically remembered that the movie we saw back in early 1985 was Ornette: Made in America. Here’s the trailer . . .
It’s hard to imagine but it’s almost a year and a half since I decided to live life in Calgary, a car-centric city if ever there was one, with no car. It seemed like a major decision at the time, and for a while I couldn’t help but remark on how things were different as a result of my decision, harder in some cases, surprisingly not harder in others.
I may have gone through a holier-than-thou phase when I felt myself to be morally superior to all drivers anywhere in the world, not unlike how many of my friends come off when they have managed to quit smoking. By and large, that has subsided and I don’t really even think about it much anymore.
I realized yesterday that there are subtle changes that I could not have imagined when I became a pedestrian and a cyclist and a rider of the C Train, and the most significant of these are the changes in my habits as a consumer.
There was a flurry of snazzy pimped-up sayings on my Facebook page around Christmas encouraging me and everyone else to shop locally and to support independent locally owned businesses. I don’t know if anyone really pays attention to those things, it seems to me we click “Like” on things we already believe anyway and then happily ignore the rest.
For my part, though, I have always tried to support local businesses.
Sandwiched between my two favourite playwrights at Shelf Life Books.
It’s no secret that I’m a bit of a fixture at Caffe Beano – in part because I like the coffee and the people there, but also because it isn’t a national or international chain. I have known all the owners over the years and I am happy to support them with my patronage.
On any account, yesterday (which was a Saturday) I found I had a few extra dollars in my pocket and felt like engaging in a bit of retail therapy. Back when I was a driver, at such times I would get into my car and drive out to West Hills (or some such) and relieve the retail itch in big box stores, almost always with the result of spending far more than I had intended on things that I didn’t really need.
The ink!!!
But yesterday, I did the same thing on foot, starting out at my favourite Calgary bookstore, Shelf Life Books. Recently, my brother, Tom, turned me onto the novels of Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I had read The Prisoner of Heaven and there at Shelf Life they had The Shadow of the Wind, and so now it’s mine.
When I bought it, they gave me my customary writer’s discount, and if you are a published writer and you tell them that at Shelf Life, you can get the writer’s discount as well. It only amounted to a few dollars, but it’s a nice touch and who doesn’t like saving money?
From Shelf Life I went to my favourite store on the planet, Reid’s Stationers. While I have had a fetish for fountain pens (and now mechanical pencils) almost since I could walk, I am now developing a serious ink problem. They have some Japanese stuff at Reid’s (pictured here) but it’s so expensive (even with my preferred customer discount) that I have been trying out several of them before I commit myself. I bought a plastic binder for $1.50, but I came away with a pen full of the precious Japanese ink.
There’s a clothing store I like a block west of Reid’s on 17th Avenue called Dick and Jane. Last time I was in they had a coat I liked, a Warrior Brand jacket from Great Britain with fabulous red tartan lining. I felt that I needed a little spring spruce up, something other than the drab black thing that I’ve been wearing for at least three years now. So in I went and out I came with a fabulous spring jacket. They even gave me a discount at Dick and Jane – “just for being who you are,” said the lady at the till – so it clearly doesn’t suck to be me.
I don’t begrudge the money I spend at the store of a local merchant. I somehow think it comes back to me. I paid less for all of these items than I would have, had I driven 5 miles in my car to a big box outlet mall. They all mean more to me, because of the process I went through in buying them.
Cars do nothing towards fostering community. Setting out on foot, supporting local merchants, interacting with one’s friends and neighbours is what community is all about. I encourage you to try it sometime, you just might like it.
Thanks for reading!
PS. I believe Divine is having their big annual sale next weekend and it’s time for a new pair of Chucks. (Please see my post from April 21 of last year.) Anyone want to join me in the afternoon of Saturday March 30 to go on a Chuck-hunting expedition? Leave a comment if you do and we’ll make it happen!
Certain events of my life last fall colluded and conspired to make me think it might be a good idea for a novel. and so since late November I have been trying to write 500 words a day or so to keep it going. Come hell or high water, I have taken my little notebooks to Caffe Beano in the late afternoon and written. This process has taken me into new and wonderful territory.
You don’t know what it will be, exactly, until you start writing it. You can plan and think about it till the cows come home, but it will do you no good. Only through actual writing does it begin to emerge.
It’s a question of voice, isn’t it? I heard my narrator’s voice truly emerge the other day (and diverge from my own voice) and I had that creeping sense of excitement that maybe I was actually getting somewhere. At this point, I believe I’m about 20,000 words in and I feel I’m a little more than half way through.
The novel is titled The Piano Teacher and it is told in the first person journal entries of an unnamed concert pianist. This selection is entry number 64.
64. November something . . .
I am happy for Pablo Cassals that into his 90’s he managed to find 3 hours a day to practice without interruption (remembering now that when someone asked him why he still did this well into his 90’s, he replied, “I think it’s starting to make a difference”) and there was a time in my own life not so very long ago when I lived a quiet and one might even say serene existence, almost monastic, in fact, which didn’t just happen, oh no, it was all part of a planned and resolute process of alienating friends, estranging lovers, pissing off colleagues and keeping family at bay, studiously developing a system of misanthropy, the end result being that I was able to go through long and glorious stretches of not having to deal with, and indeed for the most part not even having to encounter, the various agents and representatives of the human race who, from time to time, make it their dedicated business to insinuate themselves into my consciousness, disrupting the delicate rhythms of my existence. But those days of glorious and harmonious solitude would seem to be behind me now, and for all intents and purposes I may as well be a rough beast slouching in a cage at the zoo where the great teaming swell of the great unwashed can flow past me, pointing their fingers and taking photos with their little plastic boxes and making snotty observations in whiny reedy voices along the lines of “I didn’t realize he was a smoker” and “I wonder how man G and T’s he knocks back in an evening” and so on and so on etcetera etcetera ad nauseum.
Well, I liked that paragraph and thought I would share it.
I hope to be done with it by the end of summer. And that’s about all I know for sure.
Thanks for reading!
Leaving you with Horowitz making them cry in Moscow. I refer to this piece in the novel, I think it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed and I can actually play it! (Maybe not quite as well as Horowitz.) Enjoy . . . .
Years ago – decades ago now, actually, well back in the last century before this one – I worked for an organization in Toronto called Frontier College. Its mission was (and still is) to provide literacy opportunities for adult Canadians. Those of whom it can truly be said, “They slipped through the cracks.”
They slip through for a number of reasons. To make a very long story short, way back then when I was working there, the system slowly started to come around. Thanks to a number of important books (and their authors) that lent themselves to progressive new movements in education, we stopped blaming the victim and started to realize, or admit, even, that some people have special needs when it comes to learning.
As you can well imagine, this became a very political and charged revolution. One of the areas that I became involved in was working with people with physical disabilities, trying to get them access to the various school systems in Toronto. Honestly, it’s hard to believe it now, but 30 years ago, just getting a ramp built or a washroom door widened to accommodate a kid in a wheel chair was often seen as a major inconvenience.
Well, that was then and this is now, I guess. Late last year, a young man named Caylan Boyse came into my life. Caylan suffered a serious spinal cord injury in a car accident in Saskatchewan a few years ago. As a result, he is now in a wheel chair, and dealing with kinds of issues that surprisingly, to me at least, haven’t gone away, haven’t been taken care of in the time I’ve been away from the issue, in particular housing and transportation,
Caylan’s mother, Helen McPhaden, and I were working on another project (see my post Attention Must Be Paid, December, 2012) and she expressed her frustration about the many issues that arise regarding Caylan’s situation.
And so I listened first to Helen and then to Caylan with a stunned sense of disbelief. Although some thirty years have passed since I was involved with people with disabilities and their frustrations, I was astonished to discover that during that time, very little has changed. Housing is still an issue. Accessibility is still in issue. Beyond the dramatic impact of the injury and the difficult rehabilitation, the peripheral things, the day to day things, are still difficult, and those are the things that will grind you down and cause a mother to wring her hands: the van door that is never fixed properly, the insurance settlement that never covers the things you need it to cover, a million little things that most of us never have to think about that collectively create a barrier to any kind of easy experience for people in Caylan’s position.
I have written again and again that the measure of a society’s success can be gauged by its art, and how it values (or doesn’t value) its artists. But it must be at least as true that our success must also be seen in the care and compassion that we show for people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in difficult and extraordinary circumstances.
30 years have passed, and still so very little progress. It’s disheartening and frustrating and it makes you wonder just what has to happen for things to change in any significant manner.
I met Caylan on a warm winter’s evening at my favourite coffee shop in Calgary, Caffe Beano. I go there practically every day, and suddenly realized – for the first time – that there are steps leading up from the front counter, and back down again to the seating area at the back. For the first time, I actually paid attention and noticed that in my coffee shop, it’s impossible for Caylan or anyone else in a wheel chair to order their coffee and find a table, something the rest of us simply take for granted.
It’s those little things that we don’t notice that we need to start to notice if there’s ever going to be any meaningful change.
As a writer, knowing I wanted to write this piece, I could envision our discussion proceeding in an orderly fashion. In the tried and true journalistic style, I would ask the questions and Caylan would answer them, with me writing down some pithy quotes to reinforce my thesis. But our conversation turned out to be nothing like that. Nothing at all.
Caylan Boyse is a force to be reckoned with, make no mistake. He has a brilliant mind that runs fast and leaps high and you might as well put your little notebook away because you can’t write it down fast enough to keep up with him.
We talk about his billion dollar idea and his plans for his company, Live Entertainment Productions. (He’s not kidding.) If all goes according to plan, I just might have a job some day doing some writing for him. Before long we have touched upon his extended punk rock family across the country (it’s all about community!) not to mention his dream of going to India to seek treatment, to fly an airplane to the high arctic to really see the northern lights, to visit Machu Picchu. And on and on and on.
If you think a wheel chair is confining, you haven’t met Caylan Boyse who has one of the most unfettered minds you are likely to encounter.
But wait a minute, what about the Caylan Boyse Foundation? It’s hard to bring him down to talk about this foundation and what it hopes to accomplish. On one hand, the dream does exist to create a practical and even elegant living space for people in wheel chairs. On the other, there is the sincere desire to simply provide resources for people with spinal cord injuries. There is nothing very complicated about that, and it is so necessary, now as much as ever.
Calgary is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. If this can’t happen here, where else would we think it would happen?
And despite Caylan’s reluctance to talk much about the Foundation, it seems to me like an extremely important initiative, and with the well-meaning people behind it, one that could make a difference and enhance the quality of many people’s lives.
You can find out more and even show your support in the best way possible at caylanboysefoundation.ca.
Finally, after all these years, don’t you think it’s about time we did something? At least by now?
I’m leaving you with a cool rendition of one of my favourite songs that in some way seems to capture Caylan’s counter-culture vitality . . .
York Apartments, photo taken around 2005, I think.
When I was only five years old or so, back in the early 1960’s in Regina, Saskatchewan, my mother would help me pack a little plaid suitcase and walk with me up to Dewdney Avenue where we would wait for the #1 bus to take me to my grandma’s (mom’s mom) apartment for the weekend.
My mom would give the driver a nickel for my fare, tell him where to drop me off (and only if grandma was at the stop waiting for me) and I would be off on my great adventure.
The bus’s route took us through downtown, those gigantic buildings like the Hotel Saskatchewan that must be 10 stories high or so, and up towards the General Hospital. And there would be my grandma, waiting for me at the stop in front of her apartment building.
The photo above is what her apartment, The York Apartments, looked like I believe about ten years ago. While it looks quite charming, her apartment was not fancy. My grandma was in some ways a rather austere individual, a teetotaler who had survived the Great Depression in Saskatchewan raising a family of four. She was not given to frills or luxury.
But that was just how she lived. She had a very generous and vivacious spirit and an infectious laugh. She was an extremely kind individual, and kindness, I find, is often underrated. I looked forward to these excursions to her place with great anticipation.
Our first order of business always was to get me fish and chips and an Orange Crush from the Crescent Tea Room down the street, and then we were on for the weekend.
More than anything else that she did for me, she read to me. Not little children’s books, either. We read Longfellow, Shakespeare and I know it’s hard to believe, but also some Thackeray. She had a small library of leather-bound books which she would read to me from. I still have her Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
The inscription reads:
Wm. A. Hunter (my grandpa, who died before I was born)
Xmas 1914 with best wishes from Dad and Mother Arthur (my grandma’s maiden name).
Well, isn’t that something, that book is almost 100 years old.
We also played cribbage and canasta (a popular card game in the last century) and Go Fish and that memory game where you have to remember what the cards are to make pairs. Amazingly, I think I managed to win every game we ever played. I guess grandma wasn’t very good at cards.
Actually, come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever won a game of cribbage against her. Ever. Even when I was much older.
Simple as it may have been, her apartment was exotic to me, and those visits must have provided me with my first sense of independence from my own family.
There’s so much to say about grandma that I will come back to her story another time. I really just scanned in this photo to try out my new scanner. I posted it on Facebook and received a lot of comments and so here we are.
And then I found this little gem of me out front of the same building before its renovation. This photo was likely taken on one of my trips to her place. As you can see, I have always had interesting hair.
Same building with yours truly on the stairs, in the early 1960’s. As I don’t look very happy here, it was obviously time to go back home.
This is the door to my apartment. 507. Sometimes I wonder when I shut the door if another entity identical to myself takes over and lives his life in there. What if I open the door suddenly and see myself sitting at my table drinking a coffee and working on my computer? What then? Best to move on . . .
I take the elevator down to the ground floor although I often take the stairs. I have mild claustrophobia so I don’t love elevators. If there’s going to be a ghost in a building, that ghost won’t be a stranger to the elevator. Sometimes you might be on it and it will stop at a floor and the doors will open. What then? Well, any reasonable person would get off at that point and take the stairs. Now you know.
Caffe Beano, where I like to start my day. I write a daily journal or I work on the novel I am writing, usually in here. Sometimes I talk to friends. Today I talked to a few friends and got about 450 words written in my novel. I don’t know why I do that here anymore. It’s not like I’m waiting for anything to happen to me, like meeting a perfect stranger or whatever. Maybe it was about that at one point in time. Now I just find it’s a place I can create which is good enough for me.
I ought to quit smoking. I ought to do a lot of things.
Is this what I look like? Is this really me? When did I start looking like this? When did I grow so old and severe? Who is this man? He’s me but he’s not me. When I close my eyes at night and think of me, I don’t see this man.
Came home (507) to make sure my parallel persona was not trashing my place and to check on my blog stats. 18 for the day. 18?!?! It doesn’t matter because it’s not attached to anything, it’s not like some dripping rich oil company is paying me to write this blog, it’s pure, it’s just a number, and the number is 18. 18?! What’s with that??
The C Train. Because I don’t have a car. I don’t have a car because I can’t afford one, really. But now that I don’t have one, I realize it’s better for me personally and presumably for the planet not to have one, so even if I came into say $800,000,000.00 tomorrow I probably wouldn’t buy a car. I would buy all the readers of my blog a car, all 18 of you, but I’m OK on the C Train.
I worked out on machines similar to this. Ouch. Oooooo. Eeeee. Eeeek. Why? WTF? Actually it feels good. I lost 4 pounds this week! At this rate, in a few months I will have disappeared entirely! Will I think I look good then?
While I was working out, aliens as big as fir trees descended to the earth. Although they could crush us like ugly bugs, they choose instead to play and dance all day. They are here to remind us to be gentle and kind.
I looked up at this big beautiful building where the geniuses congregate to figure out how to get oil out of the ground and further poison the planet. They all drive nice cars. Something is wrong!!
I picked up my dry cleaning. The Indian woman in there, Shulli, comes from Tanzania. She was a school teacher but when she got married, she had to work for her husband’s company. They sold salt in a small village. Salt, in 100 pound bags. She had to keep track of the bags as they got loaded onto trucks. So dry cleaning doesn’t seem so bad to her. She thinks that teaching was the hardest job she has ever had which probably means she was a good teacher. I like her, and she likes me, although she thinks that I am a bit lax in attending to my dry cleaning. Now I have my favourite shirt to wear again. It is light blue and is made by a company in Amsterdam called Scotch and Soda. I got the shirt for $22.00 at Winners. Life is good.
I went for a quick beer and talked about everything under the sun with some friends for 44 minutes. I guess I’m an old school 50’s guy, I like that happy hour transition from day to evening. Sometimes you are sitting next to a thug, sometimes a saint. You never know, though you may often be deceived.
The entrance to my apartment building. Sometimes coming home depresses me, some nights I am extremely lonely. But other nights I am relieved to get back here to my own space and have some time to myself. You can’t have it both ways, I guess. For the most part, I can live with myself.
This is Hobbes waiting for me to come to bed. Got a problem with that?
This is the book I am currently reading. At first I wasn’t sure, but the more I read, the more I like it. It’s really very good. I’ll read for a bit then I’ll sleep, never enough, and then I’ll get up and have a another day quite like this one.
And so good night. Thanks for reading. Here’s that Van Morrison song I mentioned . . . .
A few months ago, I was sitting at home, as usual minding my own business, when I received an interesting email from Peter van Gestel inquiring about a monologue from a very early play of mine, the title stolen from one of my favourite albums of all time, Bruce Springstein’s darkness on the edge of town.
Dear god, where does the time go? I wrote that play 30 years ago. 30!! Somehow, Peter found a monologue from that play and used it as an audition piece. (A great compliment to playwrights, when actors use us in this manner.)
Peter veered and delved into academia and Shakespeare mostly as a director, but then he got the itch and wanted to act again but damned if he hadn’t gone and lost the monologue.
And so he came sucking up to me on Facebook asking if I could possibly send it to him. In so asking, he explained that he feels the monologue allows him to explore both his love of theatre and of football.
You know, gentle blog reader, I had almost forgotten that this piece does exactly the same for me. I hadn’t read it for years, and I have to admit I kinda like it.
So without further ado, in honour of the about to be played Super Bowl, here’s Tom’s monologue from my play darkness on the edge of town. With thanks to Peter for bringing it back for me.
TOM’S MONOLOGUE FROM DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN
TOM: (Takes off his hat and prepares himself.]
OK, Jason. It’s the last game of the regular season. You need to win to get into the play-offs. Your team is down by four points with two minutes left. You need a touchdown. Bad. Don’t panic. There’s plenty of time.
There’s not a lot of time, but there’s enough time.
Now. The fans are sitting in the stands, quiet, sullen. The cheerleaders are standing on the sidelines, their chins on their chests, and their pompoms hanging heavy at their sides. You, Jason, are a wide receiver. In the huddle, the quarterback tells you to run a hook pattern about ten yards out. Nothing too fancy. Nothing too glorious. Not a touchdown or anything. Just a simple first down to keep the drive alive. Are you with me so far, Jason? Good. The ball is snapped. You run down the field, you drive your man to the outside, and cut back into the middle. It’s been raining. The field’s slick. Your man slips and falls. You’re in the open. The qb sees you, sets, and fires the ball.
Here it comes. It’s coming in high. You’re going to have to reach for it, you’re going to have to extend yourself, if you want to keep the drive alive, if you want that simple first down. Your man is out of the play. But now that the ball’s in the air, you can bet there’ll be eleven other guys coming after you like mad dogs. Like pigs. Like mad pigs. The ball’s coming in. Where’s the safety? Here it comes. Where’s the middle linebacker? You reach up and put yourself into your most vulnerable position, stretched out, unprotected, the ball comes in, you squeeze it, you catch it, you got it.
And then you hear the footsteps. It’s the middle linebacker. He smashes into your left knee with his helmet. Your leg collapses backward. A searing pain shoots up through your body, so hot it takes your breath away. You want to cry. You want to puke. But you hold onto the ball. In that moment of truth, you give your all. Sure, you come down with ripped ligaments. True, you’re going to be meat on the table for some half-witted surgeon. Granted, you may never again know the simple pleasure of a stroll around the lake in the evening. But you hold onto the ball.
Eventually, as you limp off the field, head high, Jason, head high, you can look into the eyes of the other guys and the coaches, ’cause they know: There goes a guy who’s got it. And as you’re limping off the field, head high, you notice that the cheerleaders all have tears in their eyes because they understand, and their thighs itch because they see, limping before them, A MAN. A man. And it’s not always easy, being a man.
[Pause. TOM regains his composure, and shines his flashlight directly into Jason’s eyes.]
END OF MONOLOGUE
Here are my musical offerings in honour of the two teams in this year’s bowl.
The Royal Arrow circa 1941 as used by Hemingway and Ian Fleming.
What follows is the transcript of an actual dialogue I had recently on Facebook. I will call my correspondent MR. X, and I will call myself ME. This is exactly how it went. Bear in mind I was just at my computer, as usual minding my own business.
MR X: A few friends of mine and I are planning to host a “conference” on storytelling. Conference is not really the right word. More of a gathering. Listening to people tell stories. And telling a few of our own.
Would this be of interest to you? I would love to hear some of your stories – live. I have my own business and I would be happy to pay for your time. Maybe you could do the opening address or closing? Thoughts?
ME: That sounds very interesting. I would be happy to be involved and if you could pay me that would be great.
MR. X: Excellent. I’m glad you are interested. I thought you might be. What is your rate?
ME:How much time would you say is involved?
MR. X: A couple hours maybe 2.5 or less if you don’t want to stay but you will. No prep is needed just tell (or read) one of your stories or part of a script.
ME: Sounds simple enough but while it might not seem like it, there is some prep. This is prep!
MR. X: Agreed.
ME: Do you have a figure rolling around in the back of your brain?
MR. X: I’m not sure where to start . . .
ME: Well, say I was a plumber . . . or a hooker!
MR. X: OK. Well, we charge $150 per hour. How’s that? $300 for the night. Shit. That’s what a hooker costs. But we don’t need to . . . Touch.
ME: Ha ha. Indeed, we don’t have to. I was going to ask for $250 but didn’t want to be out of line so why don’t you just give me $250 and buy me a few drinks?
MR. X: Perfect
And that’s just how it went down. I guess Mr. X must be a plumber! Or maybe a gigolo? Maybe some kind of combination of the two? Who knows?
Well, now it seems I have a new standard for determining my worth as an artist: the hooker standard. Or, if that’s too much for your delicate sensibilities, the plumber standard. I don’t use either of them so it hardly matters to me.
I have to admit, it seems reasonable to think that as an artist, I am worth, to my client, or John, what a hooker is worth. I suppose in either case, one could argue that we’re not even worth that. Although, if it’s good, maybe we’re worth a whole lot more.
It’s hard to ascribe a price tag to what I do. When money isn’t the prime motivator of our endeavours, when we don’t really do what we do for the money, it really is hard to fix a monetary value to what we do. Lately I’ve been writing poems, and honestly, if you go into poetry for the money, then you really are a true and complete idiot.
But I do know something and all joking aside, I would have to say that the thing I have learned and now believe deeply is that what I do is worth something. Maybe not much, but something.
A number of years ago (long before the days of enlightenment) I was asked by someone at City Hall in Calgary to come in and speak to a group about what it’s like to be an artist, maybe read from a play or a few poems or whatever. We figured out just what I would do and the times and dates and then I asked, “So how much do you have to pay me for this?”
There was the proverbial awkward pause and then she told me she didn’t have anything to give me, I was expected to do this for free. I hadn’t thought of the hooker standard at that time, but I did ask, “So, if you need someone to come in and talk about your computer network, do you expect him or her to come in for nothing?”
Obviously a rhetorical question. She never did find any money in the whole City of Calgary budget to even offer me a measly $50 and I dug in my heels and the event never took place. I felt bad about that, but I was trying to make a point.
Many years ago, I decided that never again will I be the only person in the room not being paid at some level for being there. I still try to live by that, and I have to say that little by little, it’s getting better.
Now that I have stumbled on the hooker standard, who knows, it might actually be worth my while.
Thanks for reading!
Here’s a little clip that has nothing to do with anything, but beauty . . . .
I was taken back. Break? What the hell was she . . . ?
Ahhhhhh! Break! Christmas! New Years! That must be what she meant.
A lovely lady, don’t get me wrong. I know her through friends. From the look of things, part of her break was spent in a much sunnier clime than this one. I guess for her and her husband who presumably works and her kids who are at school (I believe they are studying something having to do with wealth) a break would be a real and tangible thing.
But I stumbled somewhat in my reply to her.
“I didn’t really get a break,” I think I said. “I mean,” I added, “I don’t really have a job at the moment to have a break from.”
But this made it sound like I’ve been sitting in a basement drinking Lucky for the last month and I didn’t want to give that impression, so I added: “But I did manage to write half a novel, or so.”
And it’s true, I did, that’s what I’ve been doing.
It started innocently enough. I didn’t mean to be writing a novel. It started, in fact, from a post I wrote on here about teaching piano lessons again after all these years. And then I read a novel that was written in the form of a journal. And then I wondered if I could marry these two things – a man thrust into a situation where he is teaching piano lessons after years and years, and a fictitious journal, and before I knew it, I had 10,000 words or so.
Just a little every day, that’s all it takes. 500 words or so. You take the odd day off, but now and then you surprise yourself and write 1,000. And soon they add up.
There comes a point when the writing starts to gather momentum and you achieve what I think of as critical mass – you know you have something there on paper that seems of a fine enough quality that it seems impossible stop, the only option is to keep going.
Once you have achieved critical mass, and you have some sense of where you’re going, then all you really need to do is keep at it with some sense of discipline, but at this point it feels more like note-taking than anything else.
You can see from my photos that this is all hand-written, some of it at my favourite table at Caffe Beano, some of it at my kitchen table.
It is written in a green-covered “Writer’s Block” graph paper notebook using a Pentel “Kerry” mechanical pencil loaded with Faber-Castell Super-Polymer 0.7 B leads. For this particular project, nothing else will do. If I lost the pencil I would probably give up and if something happened to the notebook, then the great Canadian novel would disappear like so much smoke and I would be very sad. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I am always aware of exactly where that notebook and pencil are.
The next steps are quite obvious. I need to stay patient, doing a little more every day, making discoveries about the characters and the story as I proceed. And then when I think I am finished, and not before (I have another notebook ready to go, volume 2 as it were) I will have to go through the labourious and somewhat clerical task of entering it into the old MacBook.
And from there, well, who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a good publisher and my little book will sell millions of copies and I’ll be rich and famous. Or maybe not.
And so that is the long and truthful answer as to how my break was. It just means different things to different people, I guess.
Any further questions?
Today (January 13) is the day James Joyce passed away in 1941. Here is a strange little animation with Joyce (at least his statue) reading an excerpt from Finnegans Wake. I chose this one because of the subtitles which make it easier to appreciate the tremendous word play and playfulness of the language . . .
Art shot of my accountant riffling through my return.
One week into the year and already I feel like I’m a month behind. I think I’ve said that for the last ten years or so. Good. Business as usual. Steady on, hold the course and damn the torpedoes, whatever that even means.
The new year began with a flu that seemed to attack the enthusiasm centre in my brain and everywhere else for that matter. That and a little further south, if you catch my drift. Finally I feel free from my chains and am able to go for a walk again. Small blessings! Tiny little victories! Happy new year!
In further breaking news, my rogue accountant finally overcame his arithmetic block or whatever the hell he was afflicted with and after 8 months completed my income tax return. 8 months! I kid you not, I gave him my stuff in May! It was warm and sunny out that day! It was spring!! How is that even possible?!
The only reason I stuck with him is that he’s from Regina. Which is a stupid reason to do anything, I have found out. Anyway. Deep breath, deep breath. He’s finally finished and the return has been sent to Winnipeg and I am in danger of being caught up with Canada Revenue or Revenue Canada or whatever they call themselves now for the first time in decades. Decades! Think of that!
8 months! As a writer who understands the agony of deadlines and the joy of procrastination, I can relate, but my accountant has obviously taken things to the next level and I will be hard-pressed to achieve such a lofty level of slackassedness in the future – although you be sure I’ll give it a good try.
And so now I am looking forward to a year of fear and terror brought on by the very number of the year which contains the dreaded number that I dare not say or even type – you know, the number that is one more than 12 and one less than 14. That number.
It’s true, I suffer from one of the lamest phobias going, triskaidekaphobia. (It’s so bad, I have even learned to spell it correctly!) Normally, I find I can keep this fear under control by stealthily avoiding the number whenever I can. For example, I won’t start or finish an activity or leave the house or many other things at that exact number of minutes before or after the hour.
Why? Because if I did, I’d just be asking for it. Asking for what? I have no idea. But it wouldn’t be pretty. That much I know.
They can’t fool me with that 14th floor business, either. I’m on to them. Anyone who would get off the elevator on the 14th floor is inviting whatever calamity would befall them up there. Just asking for it. No sir. You won’t catch me wandering around on the 14th floor.
One time, I was asked to teach a class in a room that was numbered 339. I refused to enter the room, let alone try to teach in there. The woman who was hosting me and paying for me to be there and slowly being given a nervous breakdown by me asked “Why the hell won’t you go in there? What the hell’s wrong with you??”
“Can’t you see?” I hissed: “It’s embedded! It’s right in there, lurking! Just do the damned math! Find me another room!”
39 is almost worse than the other number we’re talking about. Although one doesn’t expect to encounter it each and every day for a whole year.
Clearly, this promises to be an interesting year, with danger and major mayhem lurking around every corner but as usual I will bravely and stoically soldier on through.
As you can see, it’s not easy being me, on many levels.
Oh well. If nothing else, my taxes are done!
Thanks for reading!
Here’s a very funky song to brighten up even the darkest day . . . .
eugene stickland 