Small Town Journalists, Promotional Stunts

THE PROMOTIONAL STUNTS THAT NEARLY GOT US KILLED

SMALL TOWN JOURNALISTS - BIG CITY DEBACLES - I CAN LOOK BACK WITH A SHIVER, THAT I SURVIVED BAD BEHAVIOR

     I TOLD MY BOYS AT A YOUNG AGE, THAT THEY SHOULD NOT USE ME AS A ROLE MODEL. I CUSS TOO MUCH, I'VE GOT A SOCIAL PAST THAT STILL HAUNTS ME, AND I'M COMPLETELY UNORTHODOX IN MOST THINGS I DO. I'VE LONG SUGGESTED NEIGHBORS, FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES WOULD BE BETTER CHOICES, THAN FOLLOWING THE DARK AND WINDING PATH THROUGH LIFE, TAKEN BY DEAR OLD DAD. I'VE LIVED A WRITER'S LIFE, AND BLESS SUZANNE FOR STAYING WITH ME, FOR ALL THESE YEARS. EVERY NOW AND AGAIN, SOMEONE WILL COME UP TO SUZANNE, AND TELL HER……WITHOUT MY PREAMBLE, ABOUT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER, WHEN THE NEWS STAFF DID SOMETHING ELSE BAZERK. SHE'S HEARD MOST OF THE STORIES BY NOW, AND SHE'S STILL LIVING AT THIS ADDRESS. 

     WE WEREN'T SATISFIED WITH OUR WRITING JOBS. I MADE IT TO THE EDITOR'S DESK BUT AFTER AWHILE, I REALIZED THAT MY JOB WAS FAR MORE ROUTINE AND OFFICE-BOUND THAN WHEN I WAS A "FIRE TRUCK / AMBULANCE CHASING REPORTER." I SPENT MOST OF MY TIME EITHER ON THE PHONE, IN MEETINGS, OR EDITING SOMEONE ELSE'S NEWS OR FEATURE COPY. I LIKED THE TITLE, JUST NOT THE ROUTINE OF THE JOB. SO ASSOCIATE WRITER, BRANT SCOTT AND I, BOTH HUGE FANS OF COLUMNIST PAUL RIMSTEAD, OF THE TORONTO SUN, (AND FORMER BRACEBRIDGE KID, WHO MADE IT TO THE BIG TIME OF THE DAILY PRESS), STARTED, AS THEY SAY TODAY, THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX. WE'D GET THESE PROMOTIONAL IDEAS FOR THE NEWSPAPER, AND AS MANAGEMENT WAS EAGER TO BOOST ITS IMAGE, THEY USUALLY AGREED WITH OUR WILD PLANS, AND OFTEN COUGHED UP A FEW DOLLARS AS SEED MONEY.

     THE FIRST IDEA WAS A TEN KILOMETRE FUN RUN, FOR CHARITY, SPONSORED BY INN ON THE BAY, IN MILFORD BAY, AND WOULD HAVE SEVERAL CELEBRITY HOCKEY PLAYERS PARTICIPATING. IT WAS AT A TIME OF MY OWN HEAVY DRINKING, SO I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED THAT SUMMER DAY. BRANT PROBABLY DOES. I THINK WE KEPT RUNNING INTO THE BAR TO LOOSEN UP, BEFORE WE HAD TO RUN THE EVENT. IT WAS THE SECOND FUN RUN, I REMEMBER BEST, BECAUSE I WAS ONE OF THE RUNNERS. I'D BEEN ON A WEIGHT-LOSS AND HEAVY DRINKING KICK, AND I FIGURED FOR SOME EXTRA PUBLICITY, AND A GOOD STORY AT THE END, I'D JOIN WITH THE OTHER FIT RUNNERS FOR THE JOG FROM BRACEBRIDGE'S WILLIAM'S PARK, UP HIGHWAY 118 TO GOLDEN BEACH ROAD, AND AROUND SANTA'S VILLAGE, BACK TO THE PARK ON THE MUSKOKA RIVER. WE DID MASSIVE ADVERTISING, AND FOR THAT FUN RUN EVENT, WE HAD ABOUT FORTY-FIVE RUNNERS. THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA WAS ALL OVER IT, AND WE'D BENT OVER BACKWARDS TO BRING IN GAR LEWIS FROM CKCO, AS WE WERE ALL THE TIME TRADING FAVORS OF ONE SORT OR ANOTHER, FOR FREE PUBLICITY. I THINK GAR MUST HAVE OWED US ONE. 

     SO HERE'S THE PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL. THE MILFORD BAY RACE WAS EASY. WE ACTUALLY HAD SPORTS PEOPLE INVOLVED WITH THE RUN, AND THEY HAD AN ENTOURAGE WITH THEM WHO KNEW MORE THAN WE DID ABOUT ATHLETIC NEEDS, AND ACTUALLY RUNNING A RACE. WE COULD SIP OUR BEER AT THE FINISH LINE, AND TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE WINNERS, AND TAKE THE CREDIT FOR A SPONSORSHIP IN THE EVENT. THE HERALD-GAZETTE 10 KM FUN RUN WAS MINUS THE EXPERTISE ON THE START AND FINISH LINE. WE WERE ABOUT AS ILL PREPARED AS YOU COULD POSSIBLY GET, TO RUN SUCH AN EVENT IN THE HOT SUN. WE HAD NO MEDICS, ONLY SEVERAL WATER STATIONS, WHEN WE SHOULD HAVE HAD A DOZEN, AND ONE OF THE ORGANIZING VOLUNTEERS, "ME" WAS ACTUALLY IN THE RACE. SO WE WERE DOWN ONE BODY WHEN IT CAME TO JOB ALLOCATIONS. ARE YOU A RUNNER? HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A RUNNER, IN SUCH A COMPETITIVE VENTURE? SO HERE WAS OUR INITIAL PROBLEM. WE WERE BIG STUPIDS. REALLY BIG!

     WE HAD ARRANGED EVERYTHING FOR WILLIAMS PARK. GETTING THE GATE OPEN. THE PARK CARETAKER MADE A SPECIAL TRIP TO OPEN THE PARK AN HOUR EARLY, THIS SUNNY AND HUMID SUMMER MORNING. NOW I WAS NOT A COMPETITIVE RUNNER SO I DIDN'T KNOW A LOT OF THE HABITS OF VERY FIT, AND RACE SAVVY PARTICIPANTS, WHO REALLY LIKE TO PEE MINUTES BEFORE THEY DEPART. I DIDN'T KNOW THIS. BRANT DIDN'T CARE. IF HE'D CARED ABOUT THIS, HE WOULD HAVE MADE SURE TO ASK THE CARETAKER, TO NOT ONLY OPEN THE GATES OF THE PARK, BUT THE WASHROOM DOORS. WHAT A BUMMER. THERE WAS A LOT OF HOPPING AND RUNNING ALL OVER THE PLACE, AS IF WE WERE ACTUALLY RUNNING SOME SORT OF TREASURE HUNT.

     I MET GAR LEWIS AT THE COVERED PICNIC CANOPY, THAT WE WERE USING AS A STAGING AREA, AND I ASKED HIM IF HE WAS ABLE TO GET ANY PREAMBLE, WARM-UP SHOTS. HE STARTED LAUGHING. HE SAID, "I COULD HAVE GOT A LOT OF FOOTAGE TED, BUT WE COULDN'T HAVE USED ANY OF IT ON AIR." "WHAT DO YOU MEAN," I ASKED, WHILE DOING A LITTLE LEG STRETCH BEFORE THE RACE. ACTUALLY, IT WAS FOR SHOW, BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT A LEG STRETCH DID FOR ME ANYWAY. "LOOK OVER THERE," HE SAID POINTING. "AND THERE ARE MORE OVER IN THAT BUSH." "WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING," I ASKED HIM, TRYING TO SEE WHY THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE TUCKED INTO, UNDER AND BESIDE PARK SHRUBBERY. "THE WASHROOMS ARE LOCKED, AND THESE PEOPLE NEED TO PEE." GADS, THERE WERE MORE BARE BODY PARTS, AGAINST THE BORDER OF THE UNITED CHURCH CEMETERY, THAN YOU'D SEE IN A PORNO FLICK. BRANT JUST SHRUGGED HIS SHOULDERS. "THE GUY TOLD ME HE WOULD OPEN THE PARK GATE." HE SAID. "I DIDN'T KNOW HE NEEDED TO BE ASKED TO OPEN THE BATHROOMS." TALK ABOUT A PUBLICITY DISASTER. I WAS FLOODED WITH COMPLAINTS. MY PICTURE RAN WEEKLY WITH MY COLUMN, 'FROM THE BLEACHERS," SO THERE WAS NO WAY OF HIDING, AND I KNEW AT LEAST HALF THE RUNNERS FROM THE MILFORD BAY EVENT. THERE WERE ALSO A COUPLE OF FRIENDS OF THE HERALD-GAZETTE MANAGEMENT, AND THAT WAS GOING TO COST US BIG TIME. HERE WE ARE IN DR. WILLIAMS "MEMORIAL PARK," WHERE HIS FAMILY IS ACTUALLY BURIED, AND THERE ARE RUNNER PISSING EVERYWHERE.

     

THE KEEPER OF THE STOP-WATCH MIGHT HAVE BEEN SHOT

     I decided after the debacle of the locked washrooms, and complaints about a dozen more things we forgot to provide and accommodate, that I'd run at the very back of the race for promotional purposes only. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to beat the real athletes who didn't have a hangover. Just before I left the park, Brant went white in the face. Geez, I thought he was having a heart attack. "What the hell's wrong now," I asked. "Ah, well, Ted, I put the stop watch down on the table," he said. "And it really did stop!" I just stared at him for a moment or two, trying to fully appreciate the gravity of what he had just said. I knew enough about these races, from covering them for the paper, that locked washrooms are not nearly the problem, as having a time malfunction. These people know precisely how long it takes them to run 10 kilometres, and they'd know we screwed up, if we fudged the finishing time. We'd lost about three minutes calling each other "stupid head," "dork face," amongst other names I can't print here, until one of the mates of a runner in the race, told us she had timed the departure on her own watch, and could help us out. Thank God, because I think they might have torn us apart, to have run in the heat of that day, and then had an "Oops, we're sorry," at the finish line. "Hell if you can't take a joke." Brant invented that line, for some of the other foibles we got up to, in these promotional events.

     I finished dead last, had heat stroke, needed a beer, and a psychiatric evaluation. I didn't know whether I was going to be sick, die on the spot, or ever fully recover. I'm not kidding, but a sweet girl we had working for us, snuck me a beer inside a towel. I looked at her beautiful smile, her twinkling eyes, her soft, caressing hands, took the beer, and guzzled it like I'd just walked the Sahara, carrying a camel. You know, I may have had a near death experience, because after I finished the beer, and looked back to find the angel of mercy who had cracked the cap, all I saw was Brant's hairy legs and his mustachioed mug. "Where'd she go," I asked him. "Who," he asked. "Allison?" (She was our typesetter) "I gave you the beer stupid." I felt kind of weird about it, because I may have been caressing those knobby knees, in my hallucination. I don't think the medics, if we had actually hired any, would have recommended a pint of cold beer after a sun-related malady, but by golly it worked great. It brought me back to reality. Allison hadn't even been down to the races. It was a case of wishful thinking I suppose. Anyway, Gar got his film footage, of me half-dead on the park lawn, and the other runners who actually finished on their feet. We got some complaints after the event, from property owners in the vicinity, as a result of the number of visible bare behinds, poking through the border hedges; and a few other constructive complaints, from runners suggesting we never promote another fun run…..ever. I started drinking beer medicinally after this, and Brant and I moved on to other promotional events more in keeping with our interests, such as hockey and Chili cook-offs.

     I was asked, as editor of The Herald-Gazette, if I would join other celebrities, to help fundraise for the Muskoka Aquatic Swim Club, at a special race to be held at the Bracebridge Centennial Centre. Considering I never got further than "tadpole" class, at the Kirby's Beach swimming lessons, I took as a kid, I should have known better than to get involved. I always joined the Big Brothers' Bowl-a-thon, because I couldn't hurt myself. I was even a celebrity cook at McDonald's, for a fundraiser, and I was always sponsoring someone for something charity related. But swimming was a whole different thing for me. They never asked how well I could swim. I could swim. Just not well, or quickly. We had to do two laps. If you're physically fit, and have swimming prowess, and don't have essence of last night's bar travels, in your bloodstream, everything should be fine. There was a huge crowd to watch. I don't know who I was racing, but it was probably a reporter from the competition press. So of course, I needed to kick his ass. So when the starter's pistol snapped me to attention, I dove in like I knew the drill. I didn't. I scraped my belly across the bottom of the pool, took in a pint of water, started flailing at the water like Rocky Balboa hitting sides of meat, and strangely enough, found myself leading the dude in the next lane. I'm a "looker," you see. Not good looking. I just like to look and see where I'm at……instead of concentrating on my own race direction. Then I started to hit the bloody lane ropes, and this caused me to stop, tread, and lose time. I made it to the end of the first length, and was almost halfway to the finish of the relay, when I just got exhausted. My life passed before me….which was rather brief and uneventful, and I started to panic. I thought I saw Allison with a beer, holding it out to me at the end of the pool. I made it to her warm, outstretched hand, beer in the other. All I remember is having someone on each arm, hauling me out of the brine, and when I looked at my rescuers, neither had the huggable qualities of Allison the typesetter. They saved me from drowning and ruining their fundraiser. I was never invited back. Which suited me fine. I told Allison I was having hallucinations about her, offering me beer on the brink of death, and she said, 'Ted, you're creeping me out. You need to stop drinking."

     So here's one last little ditty for today. I turned up for work one Monday morning, after a staff party at the general manager's house. I was almost crippled. My knees were shot, my arms were aching, and I was hunched over, as if I'd been laying sod all weekend. I didn't remember much about the party, except arriving there. We had designated drivers, so there was no problem getting a little tipsy. Everyone in the office that morning, was complimenting me on my athletic capabilities. My apparent muscle-man stature. This was odd, as usually on a Monday morning, the yelling of insults at one another, began shortly after the editor entered the building. "How are you feeling old buddy," the manager asked me with a huge grin. "How's your back Ted," asked a layout technician, passing me in the hall. "Hey, look everybody, it's Charles Atlas," quipped the production manager. Have you ever been at one of these parties, and got remarks about conduct……and just nodded recognition, so they wouldn't think you were too drunk to appreciate whatever bad stuff you got up to?

     I took a handful of editorial copy to the typesetting room, and walked right into Allison. "You must be sore, Ted," she said with that beautiful smile. "What the hell did I do at the party, that's making everybody ask how I'm feeling?" "You don't remember," she laughed. "Not really," I answered. "Well, you decided at the lake, to carry me, on your shoulders, all the way up the cliff to the house." It was a big freaking cliff. She was small in stature, but without the booze, I probably wouldn't have been able to do what they say I performed……magnificently, by the way. Like one of the Flying Wallendas. There had to be five hundred stairs from the dock, to the top of the hill. Apparently, I was so enamored with this young lady, that I thought a death defying feat, to show my manliness, would impress her that I was the "best there ever was….or could be." I must have blacked-out, or had another near death experience, but apparently we made it safely up the cliffside, her on my shoulders. I was nauseous after hearing this. Not because of her riding on my shoulders, but because a fall on my part, would have taken two lives…..and left an ugly stain on the decking below. When I think back on my drinking stupidity, it had a lot to do with the newspaper industry, and the near-celebrities we were in the community back in those days. Whatever bar we went into, someone would buy us a round. Some times we'd have jugs of draft beer, lined-up on our table, from those who were honoring us,…….but really plying us, to do something in the paper to help them….their businesses, or service club. It was easy to get carried away, and start believing we were much bigger celebrities, on the free-beer-scale. So we started, as they say, believing our own bullshit. So having too much to drink, putting a pretty lady on my shoulders, and climbing the Muskoka parallel of the Eigor Sanction, was the result of delusion, about being Hemingway-esque. Feeling entitled to be wild, at the same time, as we were representing the newspaper in the community. I'm having flashbacks now, drinking this afternoon's budget of Perrier, wondering whether I should ever tell Suzanne about my adventure with Allison. I know she'll just stare at me, and say, "You've never carried me up a cliff." See I'm safe with this blog, because we've had a longstanding agreement, about keeping our professions separate. She'll only read my material as a proofreader, and not for content. Which is a good thing.

     We may have started our run of promotional events, in the spirit of Paul Rimstead, a master of promotional shenanigans, but we soon developed a made in Muskoka strategy for getting recognition for ourselves, and occasionally for the newspaper. Some good intentions backfired. We drank our way through the bad times. I've been dry long enough now, to re-visit those days thoughtfully, regretfully, and not feel compelled to visit the nearest watering hole, to drink and spin stories about the adventures I've had. I can do it from the safe quarters here at Birch Hollow, where my cats only judge me on the most current patting, and kind affection given.

     I can't possibly tell you about the stripper and the bullwhip! Maybe tomorrow.

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