PREAMBLE NOTE: WE WANT TO LET YOU KNOW, THAT THE RESPONSE TO OUR REQUEST, FOR CITIZEN SUPPORT, TO ENCOURAGE THE TOWN OF GRAVENHURST TO MAKE CHANGES IN POLICY, REGARDING USE OF THE OPERA HOUSE, FEEDBACK HAS BEEN SUBSTANTIAL....AND PROOF TO US, THAT IMPORTANT AND COMMUNITY-ORCHESTRATED CHANGE IS NOW IMMINENT. WHILE COUNCIL ISN'T LIKELY TO RECOGNIZE CITIZEN ACTION, UNLESS, BY DEMONSTRATION, EG. STUFFING THE COUNCIL CHAMBER TO OVERFLOWING, THE FACT THAT SO MANY PEOPLE ARE ON THE SAME PAGE, SO TO SPEAK, MEANS THAT OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WON'T BE ABLE TO FOB-OFF THE CONSTITUENTS' RIGHTS, TO DETERMINE THE FUTURE OF OUR ASSETS. BUT EXPECT LITTLE IF ANYTHING FROM THE PRESENT COUNCIL. THE MISSION, IN MY OPINION, REQUIRES AN ENTIRELY NEW COUNCIL, WILLING TO SEEK ELECTION, BASED ON MANY OF THE REFORMS CONSTITUENTS ARE MULLING OVER RIGHT NOW....RIGHT DOWN TO SNOW REMOVAL. WHILE IT IS EXPECTED THERE WILL BE ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES AT THE OPERA HOUSE, IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, AS PER RECENT JOB ADVERTISEMENT, IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE, IF ONE OF THE AGENDA ITEMS, HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH POLICY REFORM AND RENTAL FEE RE-STRUCTURING. OR WILL IT BE, NUFF SAID, A SHOW OF SOLIDARITY, TO GIVE US A SUMMER THEATRE PROJECT WE HAVE CLEARLY REJECTED, BY LAST YEAR'S POOR ATTENDANCE FIGURES. WHAT'S IT GOING TO BE? AN OPERA HOUSE FOR THE PEOPLE, OR ANOTHER MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO DO THE RIGHT THING?
SKOKIE - AS FOR OUR INTEREST IN PERFORMING THE SONG WE WROTE FOR THE GRAVENHURST WINTER CARNIVAL, AT THE OPERA HOUSE, WELL FOLKS, WE HAVEN'T HAD ANY RESPONSE FROM TOWN OFFICIALS. SURPRISED? I REPORTED THAT OUR LADS AND THEIR ASSOCIATE MUSICIANS, WOULD PERFORM THE "SKOKIE SONG" IN FRONT OF THE OPERA HOUSE, IF THE TOWN OPTED INSTEAD, TO BRING THE WINTER OTTER BACK UPTOWN.....TO THE OPERA HOUSE, WHERE THE OFFICIALS CEREMONIES SHOULD BE HELD, INSTEAD OF AT THE WHARF. THE OFFER IS STILL ON THE TABLE. BUT TIME IS RUNNING OUT.
MAINTAINING A REVERENCE, ALWAYS, FOR THOSE WHO GOT YOU TO WHERE.....YOU ARE TODAY - HOPEFULLY, NOT IN JAIL
WE ARE NOT SELF-MADE -WHETHER IN THE ANTIQUE PROFESSION, AUTHORDOM, MUSIC OR TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION - SOMETHING, SOMEONE CAME FIRST
"How are you dog-face," barks out one of our regular patrons, to son Andrew, who retorts in greeting, like a tightly coiled spring, "Pretty good you old fart." Just another day of commerce in the vintage music and antique trade, here in Gravenhurst....where for marginal excitement, on a winter's day, we call each other names. We wouldn't change a thing. I came in the other morning, covered in snow, and a friend, waiting inside, called me a "crusty old bastard." So I fake-punched him in the ribs. Good times. Always in good humor. Nothing taken seriously, no one getting offended, and never a single fake-punch hitting the mark. It is likely, that it is, at this time of the year, when we hear most of these, off-the-cuff, logging-camp-style introductions or farewells at the front door. Possibly it comes from months of staring out at a snowscape, that at times seems to wrap like a straight-jacket around our sensibilities. One of these visitors this morning, has left a trail of cookie crumbs, from the studio to the front door. Or he may still be in this cavernous antiquated building, because although we haven't seen him for awhile, it doesn't mean he actually left. Sometimes we find these same folks, slouching, pondering, or reading a book in our little library section, at the back, after we've locked the doors at closing. It makes it so much more endearing this way. I can't explain it, other than to say, we have arrived at a comfort level here, that just works.... but like trying to figure out the philosophy of Marshall McLuhan, without side-notes, we don't over analyze. By the way, just before I conclude this opening, I want to add, that the gentleman, who called Andrew "Dog Face," this morning, just now slapped him on the back, and said, 'I love you man....I love this place. You guys are great." This is all the testimonial, a business can ask for, no matter where it is in the big wide world. I can hardly wait for the next customer to cross the threshold. Here come three now. Apparently another travelling band has dropped in for a visit. Or possibly it's a group of undertakers headed to a funerary convention. There happy, so that's a positive sign.
We went on an antique hunt-and-gather yesterday, to Orillia, one of our favorite places for day-escapes, and the boys, as you may have noticed from their on-line page, found some great vintage records, and instruments to haul home. Suzanne got a bag of fabric remnants to play around with, as she now has her feather-light Singer sewing machine, set up at the store; and I got some art pieces and a few books....all of which are now in the shop. While this outing may not seem like a big deal, at first glance, we are notorious antique vagabonds, and having to stay off-the-road for so many past weekends, has given us that old fashioned, pioneer "cabin fever," that can lead to objectivity blindness and self loathing. In the antique and collectable trade, we need our trips, like the goldfish needs its infusion of oxygen. In the past few weeks, we've been looking a little "belly-up" by the end of the work week, especially when we hear the latest weather report, calling for more, and increased blowing, drifting, sculpting, blinding snow squalls. I love antique hunting, but I'm not going to risk our health and welfare, trying to sneak one past mother nature. So it was great to get away on Sunday to visit with Cindy and her parents, working the Sunday shift at Carousel Collectables, and visit with Mike, at Alley Cats Music and Art, (records), Ironside Electric Co., where Andrew and Robert picked up two vintage lapsteels with cases, and then have a nice lunch at Mariposa Market, where we have been retreating for "treats" since the boys were tucked into chest-worn snugglies. Orillia has always been our second home, and from the spring to the late autumn, we like to wander the town parks, in the history and culture of Stephen Leacock's "Sunshine Sketches." The reference to "snugglies" will probably embarrass the lads, but they don't read these blogs anyway. Gravenhurst should pay attention to the commercial successes going on in Orillia, as they are our most significant competitor these days. Saw quite a few of our neighbors doing the same as us. It was a busy day down there, and it was great to see. Honestly, made all of us a little envious. But wherever we are, we hate working Sundays, unless its antiquing time.
Twice each year, I get to the point of exhaustion, mesmerized by the constant flickering, of the white screen in front, (before this, it was the paper in the typewriter carriage) when Suzanne will turn to me, and with a devilish grin, ask "So, your writing career is finally over, eh Buster?" I will grumble something about there being too many damn distractions, for a writer to compose anything more than a last will and testament. Earlier today, I was sorting out my books, that I keep within arm's reach, and two books tumbled out of the alignment, and cartwheeled against my foot. Always being aware of psychic energy, I looked down and saw that Marshall McLuhan, had suffered a collision with Paul Rimstead. Gads, what a duo of achievers. McLuhan was a rock star philosopher, Rimstead a jazz drummer, columnist, who told it the way it was, for millions of readers across this country. At the very least, they reminded me of my corner posts, almost from the beginning, that have propped-up my spirits a thousand times, when I felt a tad less than inspired. This little cascade of books, made my day. Gave me my latest point of view. I became a writer, in large part, because of their work. They were at opposite ends, but then that's what I needed of them. To keep everything from sliding off the ends. So I turn to my dear wife and exclaim...."No, methinks I have a few tomes yet to pen!"
"In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. There is merely to say that the personal and social consequence of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - results from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. Thus with automation for example, the new patterns of human association tend to eliminate jobs, it is true. That is the negative result. Positively, automation creates roles for people, which is to say depth of involvement in their work and human association that our preceding mechanical technology had destroyed. Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message. In terms of the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one another and ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned out cornflakes or Cadillacs. The restructuring of human work and association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation that is the essence of machine technology. The essence of automation technology is the opposite. It is integral and decentralized in depth, just as the machine was fragmentary, and superficial in its patterning of human relationships."
My girlfriend Gail ran around the corner, from a hallway at University of Toronto, and pulled at my sweater sleeve, to get me to follow her. I dropped the book I was looking at, when she startled me, and said, "Get it later, don't worry about it.....there's someone I want you to meet," she said, tugging, to hurry me back around the corner ahead. "It's him, the man you're always talking about....right down the hall." I didn't have a clue what she was going-on about, but then, she never understood me either, in similar circumstances. When I rounded the corner, and got a clear view down the hall, she turned back and whispered....., trying not to look bedazzled, that it was the present era's rock star of media philosophy. Pacing back and forth, as a silhouette against the illumination, through a window, was Marshall McLuhan. Gail was kind of nudging me, at this point, obviously wanting me to introduce myself to the man who can be credited, for having written the profoundly insightful statement, "The medium is the message." The above passage was written by McLuhan in his ground breaking book, "Understanding Media: The Extension of Man." As a budding writer, his work was so boldly imprinted on my mind, that I could re-read the text by just closing my eyes. I'm not sure he would have felt this was the best use of his work, to be a manual for everyday writers, but many of us hungry students, needed something to hang on to, when we'd question whether we should shift our hoped-for professions, to something with less responsibility. McLuhan did put a burden of responsibility on us, that seemed far more scholarly than we could handle. We might have carried a copy of his book around the university, to look informed, but it was another thing to understand what it all meant.
When I approached Mr. McLuhan, and I'm sure you can appreciate this, (from your own experiences with those of considerable accomplishment) I felt so far beneath him, in academic stature, I honestly felt as if wishing the man good afternoon, would have been insulting to him. When he turned to walk back up the hall, he stared right at me, and as I tried to wrap my lips and tongue around even one word, he stopped me in my tracks, by saying, in a very clear voice, "Hello!" Marshalll McLuhan had spoken to me, and all I could muster, as a response, was a trace smile, and wild eyes of envy. He walked right on by, and round the corner, and disappeared, as it turned out, forever. At least for me. In those retrospectives ever since, of which I have about three nagging at me each week, I fantasize about the "what ifs," of that chance meeting. Even then, I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask him. I wasn't going to get him as a mentor, and I never once saw him in the halls of York University, where I attended classes. I felt instantly jealous of my girlfriend, for being in this place with such a man of accomplishment. "I told you it was Marshall McLuhan," was all she said, as jealousy raged in my soul. But then I wondered, if, in fact, I had been afforded an opportunity to chat, I would have made a fool of myself, asking something ridiculous; fumbling the words, and forcing him to write another chapter, for a revised edition, about the shortfalls of modern-day students, in understanding sentences having more than ten words.
As for another of my writing favorites, I was able to become a little more familiar. He even wore my Herald-Gazette Rink Rat sweater, when he called the play by play, from the Bracebridge arena gondola, during a benefit hockey game against the CKVR No-Stars of Barrie. When I had to help free Rimmer from the sweater, which was strangling him by the end of three periods, I peppered him with questions about his writing career. He only answered one of ten questions. "Where did you say the beer was?" Good enough. I feel, however brief our encounter, in person, it was long enough to be considered "a mentoring!"
"Life should have been perfect. It wasn't. Remember those swinging doors I mentioned earlier? I went through them one day and discovered the greatest little bar in the world. It was called 'La Cucaracha' (The Cockroach) and was known plainly as the 'Cuc,'(Kook). In no time at all, I was accepted by the inner circle and became a regular. I called it the Literary, Intellectual, Artistic, Reading Society, which, when shortened, was the "LIARS' Club.
"Club members were people like The Judge, Tony the Painter, Deathmarch Hal, The Midnight Cowboy, Torpedo Sam, Nursey, Racetrack Sandy - characters who were known by the uppity Americans and Canadians on the hill, as 'those horrid people at the Cucaracha.' But, they were the best conversationalists and most intriguing circle of friends I ever had. The bar was a tiny place with just a few wooden tables and chairs in the front room and a standup bar in the back where the Mexicans drank. Drinks were cheap and Chucho, the proprietor, was the guardian angel of the gringos, running bar tabs until money came from home.
"San Miguel was considered to be an artist's colony but, rather, it was a home for lost souls, widows, divorcees, and people who were trying to survive on small pensions. They pretended they were writing, pretended they were painting. They were drinking and laughing. Drinking and talking. The bar was famous enough to have been written about in feature stories in major magazines, including a long piece in Esquire. Norman Mailer drank there, so did the guy who wrote 'The Hustler.' Nobody got to know it better than me. I was a regular, arriving at noon each day, drinking until two or three in the afternoon, or until The Missus came in, leading Miss Wigglebum on a leash, and firing me one of her patented cold looks."
They were, to my writing needs, intimate "book ends," since the very early 1970's, which began with Marshall McLuhan, on one end, and Paul Rimstead, author of the paragraphs above, on the other. This was written when Rimstead retreated to Mexico, to see if he could write a novel. It didn't work, but not just because of the influences of The LIARS' Club, or his connection to the free-flow of booze at The Cucaracha. He didn't write his novel, but did continue writing his columns for the Toronto Sun. He found his groove, and it just wasn't in the realm of fiction writing. Of all the thousands of columns Paul Rimstead wrote, for our daily pleasure, there was one, very brief piece, published by the Toronto Sun, that wrapped up my questions about the "medium as the message;" and about the maximum impact possible, of any penned words, on the emotions of the reader. It is a column seeded by Rimstead's disappointment in himself, that the Mexican adventure hadn't worked out as was hoped....having the outcome to improve a marriage, strengthen a family, test the author's capabilities, and get a fresh start for that evasive new beginning. It was as honest, as it was devastating to his readers, who had followed his family exploits in the fledgling Toronto Sun. But it is the kind of humanistic, everyday-Joe writing, that reminds us of the soul behind the message. It reads as follows:
"San Miguel - Where have I been? I have been drunk. I have been drunk for three weeks. I would sit, staring at the typewriter, trying to write this column, and then, frustrated, stalk out to the Cucaracha Bar. My problem was how to write that the Missus Herself had left me. Because of the very personal nature of my column, I had to say something to explain why I would not be mentioning her anymore. But I do not want to embarrass her, by airing our problems in public.
"To set the record straight, however, I should explain that there was no great blow-up. We just decided, after 11 years of marriage, that we wanted different things out of life. We will always be very good friends. She was my foil. I wrote about her as a dowdy, crabby housewife. I owe it to the Missus to explain that she actually is a very sexy broad. I guess it would be impossible for anyone to put up with me indefinitely.
"We both feel very badly, especially about 10 year old Tracey Lee, who has gone back to Toronto with her. Drinking was not the answer. I did not eat enough. It just made me sick. I am working again. But this is as much as I feel like writing for today."
I wonder what Marshall McLuhan would have said, of Mr. Rimstead's work, after reading such a brief, poignant, personal piece, that jumped off the page, for the readers of The Sun, like a slap in the face....that actually made a lot of readers get misty-eyed. Maybe McLuhan wouldn't had much to say about it at all, and seeing as I never asked Rimstead his opinion about the scholar, well, we will never know. But then again, it's what writers, musicians and artists do all the time.....reference the influences others have had on their lives and work. As I have a well-read copy of Marshall McLuhan's work beside my chair, it cozies up to my two copies of "the works of Rimmer," being "Cocktails and Jockstraps," (where the column was quoted from), published by Prentice-Hall of Canada, back in 1980, and the later memorial edition, entitled "Rimmer Dammit; The Life and Times of a Canadian Legend," with an introduction by J. Douglas Creighton.
To some scholars, in both media and philosophy, it is nothing short of blasphemy, to put the names of Marshall McLuhan and Paul Rimstead in the same sentence. You know what, I like being the first to do things like this. From my own work habits, I need the work of both these Canadian chaps, to keep me on track and motivated. Honestly, I'd feel abandoned, if these books were to suddenly disappear. While I don't always quote from them, it doesn't mean I don't spend some time, each morning, coffee in hand, reading several pages at a time.....to find a spark on those otherwise uninspiring days; these snowy winter days come to mind. And I do think about The Cucaracha. A lot! Maybe it could have been the place where Marshall and Rimmer could have sat for awhile, and talked about the role of media and all its messages.
Thanks for joining me today, on this little retrospective, we writer / antique dealers need, after so many miles on the clock. A sort of tune-up for the coming spring enlightenment. Then the book of choice will be "Zen, and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," written by Robert Pirsig....my first year Humanities book of the year at good old York U.
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