My Vagabonding Sitcom

1971

When I left New York flying Pan Am to Lisbon in June 1971 my plan was to meet a woman

in the first class cabin who would escort me around the continent for the next three months. 

I didn't have much money. So I needed help. The first step of my plan worked as expected.

I got bumped up to first class as I checked in. I'm lucky that way. 

I only had three months to travel. Business school was starting in September. This trip

was my swan song transition from childhood as a child to childhood with an MBA. 

But my plan fell apart. I left the plane a solo traveler. So plan B, backpacking and

hitchhiking. I had a book that said I could do it on a dollar a day. 

Here are some memorable events which could become episodes if someone wanted

to do a sitcom about my trip.

Outside the Lisbon terminal I was befriended by an American sailor looking for someone

to share a cab downtown. They were on a two day shore leave and knew Lisbon a bit

so we went to the same cheap hotel in the hilly district overlooking the downtown. An

episode where nothing happened. Seinfeldian. 

In Seville in Spain I met three French guys who introduced me to the idea of going to

Kathmandu, Nepal, a place I had never heard of. I saw them in a few places on the

road. Supporting actors in my sit com. 

Across the border in Perpignan, France I picked up a ride with a family in a crowded van

going all the way to Genoa, Italy. So my new plan to meet a rich woman in Monaco was

thwarted since we drove right through. A road trip episode.

Florence and Rome were artistically interesting but nothing out of the ordinary happened.

The three coins I threw in the fountain fell on deaf ears. 

On the ferry from Brindisi, Italy to Corfu, Greece I made a nuisance of myself. It was an

overnight ferry and I was still asleep when we docked. On my first attempt to disembark I

forgot to pick up my passport. A brouhaha ensued. Very funny.

Several days later I hitchhiked into Athens with a ride to the front door of the Acropolis.

After a 90 minute tour I walked over to the American Express office and met a young

woman who agreed to hitchhike to Istanbul with me. Around midnight we were arrested

for murder just outside the city of Lamia. This would make a good episode. 

Four days later in Istanbul, alone again, I boarded a bus for a four day ride to Tehran.

On the bus I met a young Brit on her way to visit school friends. On the last nite of the

trip we were canoodling when she suddenly became ill and had to leave the bus in a

rush . . . to vomit. A blow to my manhood based on the hysterical reaction of the Iranian

men travelling with us. A humbling episode.

In Tehran I went to an ancient bathhouse to clean up. I expected to see a pile of warm

towels when I got out of the bath. The owner expected me to have my own. A brouhaha

ensued. Very funny. 

In Kabul I met a man so down on his luck, economically and healthwise, that his only

way to get around was to crawl. A poignant episode. 

I crossed the border between Pakistan and India when they were at war. Thankfully not

where I was crossing. A border guard confiscated half of the rupees a German girl

ahead of me in line was trying to smuggle into India to circumvent currency controls. I

was trying to smuggle a hockey puck sized hunk of hash. Lost half to the guard. An

ironic episode.

At the Red Fort in New Delhi I was jumped by a playful child beggar who wouldn't let go.

A brouhaha ensued. I was saved by an embarrassed local businessman. I needed to

bathe again. 

At the airport leaving Kathmandu I discovered along with some border guards that I had

overstayed my visa. They let me go. If they hadn't we would have an episode filmed in a

prison cell. 

The flight from Kathmandu took me back to New Delhi which this time was just a stop over on my way home. I was back in Toronto a few days later where I started generating stories for a new sitcom. 

Costa Rica Holiday

2004

Margie and I had a bit of money left after our daughter's wedding in August 2004. So we decided to use it and our 113,000 Aeroplan points for a Christmas vacation treat. To go anywhere the points would take us. There wasn't much to choose from when we called Air Canada. But as usual I was lucky. They had return flights to San Jose, Costa Rica that fit our window. 

Most of our previous travel was fly and try. That is we'd fly in, rent a car and try to find a nice place to stay each night. It was a leftover idea from my Europe hitchhiking days when I could not know where I was going to sleep when I woke up. 

For Costa Rica we used the Rosedale strategy.  We booked an expensive all inclusive beach resort on the west coast for the first week and a hotel in the suburbs of San Jose and four rounds of golf for the second week. 

On the flight to San Jose we ran into an acquaintance on an ecotourism tour. Bed ‘n breakfasts. Birds. Jungles. Rivers. Volcanoes. Mosquitoes. 

To get to the resort we had to grab a puddle jumper for a forty minute flight to the west coast. It took us about an hour of chasing to find that the puddle jumper didn't fly out of the shiny concrete San Jose jet terminal but from an adjacent shack that looked like it belonged in a Humphrey Bogart movie. The jumper was a crowded 8 seater. It took us to another shack outside Tamarindo, a beach and surfing town. We caught a cab to the resort and discovered  the lousy back roads of Costa Rica. 

The resort's main gate and reception area was elevated so that the resort spread out below on a plain down to the coast. It was an extraordinary vista - ShangriLa, plunked down in the third world. 

That was the last notable thing about the resort. Everything was good but nothing was worth writing about. 

Our touristing from the resort included a volcano tour, a river tour, a coffee plantation tour and jungle zip lining. The zip line adventure was enlightening. It was advertised as edging on dangerous what with soaring for a quarter mile atop the jungle canopy. The ride to the zip lines was an hour over more bone crunching roads.

We could only howl with laughter as we arrived. The parking lot was filled with two tour buses  full of geriatrics, average age 80, who had arrived before us. No fear in their eyes. There was more chance of getting hurt by the safety harness than falling into the jungle and being eaten by a rabid leopard.

The trip back to San Jose included a visit to Tamarindo with lunch on the beach. The little town had the feel of spring break lurking under a veil of humidity. I sense the atmosphere had a faster pulse at night. 

During the San Jose portion of our holiday we met a nice retired couple on a golf course and made a connection strong enough to have dinner in their gated community home. They were from Dallas and had retired in San Jose for the half price expat life there. 

They were a catholic couple and the subject turned to the midnight mass they would attend Christmas eve. They invited us to join them. I agreed to go to my first ever mass. Their church was relatively small, not a cathedral. It was in the countryside away from the city.

The church held a few hundred souls. Everyone was dressed to the nines. The men in upscale cowboy gear or business suits. The ladies in their modest Sunday finest. We had terrific seats near the pastor. The solemn ceremony complemented by some outstanding music left me comforted at having witnessed one of the world's great rituals. 

The next evening at dinner our hostess revealed that she had been born jewish in Madrid, Spain. That was shocking. She told us her story of family upheaval and change that ended with her living in Dallas as a catholic.

It's a life lesson reminder that most people have an interesting story to tell if you can wring it out of them.

The climax of the trip came after golf on our penultimate day in San Jose. We went to the hotel bar for a beverage before dinner and were gobsmacked by the tsunami news on CNN. A stunning, sad story of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A riveting hour. 

So our holiday had nothing we had planned that was notable but delivered memories of people met, transcendent ritual experienced and history witnessed. 

November 2019

The Rhetoric of War

1991

The first time I was a guest expert on a TV news show the topic was the Rhetoric of War. The hiccup was I didn't know what the word rhetoric meant.

It was going to be a learning experience.

The invitation came early in 1991, days after the first gulf war started. That was the war to recapture Kuwait from Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army.

At the time my friend Edward Trapunski was the Executive Producer of a show called NEWS: Not Exactly What it Seems on the Vision TV station. Another friend David Schatzky was the usual host but Edward's wife, another friend, Ellen Roseman was the guest host for the show I was invited to.

My only previous TV exposure was in the late 1960s. A bunch of us from my fraternity were invited to do a stunt on an episode of Laugh In. It had something to do with with melting a block of ice with our body heat. We were paid with a new pool table for the frat house. Worth the trouble. 

I was not the least bit reluctant to do the NEWS show. The idea of being on TV was on my subconscious bucket list. Maybe someone would see it. A little notoriety. 

I was one of three invited guest commentators.

The first was a PhD student from York University studying semiotics. Another word I didn't know. I soon learned it was the study of the meaning of signs and words. So, for example, the phrase Collateral Damage was in the news. It was a short form way of saying that a lot of women and children were being killed and maimed without actually saying that.

He thought the USA was in the war for the oil. That was a new thought to me. He also said the media kept saying Collateral Damage to cover up the human cost of the war. And that was a good example of how the rhetoric, the spoken words, covered up what was really going on and that led to the war being more popular than it should have been.

The second guest was a University of Toronto  professor of Aristotelian thought. I think his role was to comment on the rhetoric of war with a nod to Aristotle's thinking about ethics. I never knew what this man was talking about or maybe I just didn't understand. 

Edward invited me on the show because he thought my advertising background, with its heavy reliance on words, would deliver an important perspective. A nice compliment.

At the time I was naive politically. I was in favour of the war. I saw it simply as good vs. evil just as CNN portrayed it. 

I had about a week to prepare for the show. The web was still in its infancy then so I went to the library to do my research. First I did a dictionary search to find out what rhetoric meant. That was only slightly helpful. I got a rough idea but needed to dig deeper to develop opinions. My advertising background was useless.

I asked the librarian to help me find some books which got me part of the way there. I learned rhetoric was very complicated as people could use words like statistics, that is, to shape the facts any way they preferred. 

I found this quote which helped me develop a point of view I could bring to the show. 

"It's good to keep wide-open ears and listen to what everybody else has to say, but when you come to make a decision, you have to weigh all of what you've heard on its own, and place it where it belongs, and come to a decision for yourself; you"ll never regret it. But if you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you"ll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies"

Think that sounds wise? Malcom X said that in an advice for children book. 

The show went off pretty well. I was totally surprised by the PhD student. I didn't know anyone who was against the war and the idea that the USA was involved to steal oil was beyond me. The U of T professor said nothing memorable. 

I acquitted myself reasonably well. The highlight, of course, was quoting Malcolm X on national tv.  One client let me know he saw the show. A little notoriety. 

My Bucket Lists So Far

The shooting spree at the gun range with my friend Dan was watershed inspirational. I began the day without a useful bucket list. By the end of the day a new one was under construction.

It would be a lie to say there was an original list. But I've given some thought to what should'a been there. 

Top of the list was travel in central Asia. The idea originated when I, when 12, read a book called The Asiatics by Frederic Prokash. It chronicled the journey of a young man across Asia in the 1920s. I said to myself "that sounds cool" and memory filed it. Nine years later in late June 1971 I was in Seville backpacking across Europe, I met a couple of French guys who were headed overland to Nepal. So guess what, when I got to Istanbul and saw a flyer promoting a four day bus ride to Tehran I jumped at the opportunity and traveled across Asia on my own. I saw Kabul, Kathmandu and the Taj Mahal from the bottom up. That is on a dollar a day. 

Another flyer got me a bucket list checkmark in 1973 when I was living in Ottawa and saw a flyer at work advertising skydiving for beginners. Within a couple of weeks I had my first and only two jumps under my belt.

One more flyer item. In 1990 Margie and I were in Lyford Key in the Bahamas getting certified to scuba dive. A checkmark on its own. A flyer on the wall of the dive shop promoting a shark dive caught my eye. I got turned on and the next day another bucket list checkmark in the bag. 

So far because I responded to flyer invites I see that I am more reactive than proactive. I suppose my brain has a bucket list lobe, that stores my list out of sight, but responds to opportunities put in front of me. I can say something appeared on my list when it was easy to say "yes I'll do that". This likely is related to issues I've had with impulse control. 

So what else was bucket list worthy in the first half of my life.

This one is really post hoc, esoteric and opportunistic. During my first trip to Israel while touring the Church of the Holy Sepulcher I found myself alone in the lowest crypt of the church. Closest to ground zero where Jesus was crucified and buried first. That's not bucket list for me but carving my initials in the centuries old wooden beams next to the tortured letters others had dug into the wood, some more than a thousand years old, well that's on the list. I'm glad I had a pen knife with me.

I've been a guest on TV discussion shows,  invited as an expert. Check.

I've had articles published in business publications. I was even paid once; my first article in the Report on Business. Check.

I was a judge at the CHIN Bikini contest for nine years. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. 

My second trip overseas in 1972 produced a checkmark. My intention was to spend the Christmas holiday hitchhiking around Spain but when I was offered a ride to Morocco I said "sure" and ended up in Goulimine a town at the western edge of the Sahara desert. 

I've been on eleven father son golf trips with my son Stephen. That's special because I don't remember even one time I was alone with my dad.

I've been studying Torah, albeit haphazardly, for the last couple of years. Sounds cool. Hard thinking. Check. 

And I suppose the gun range shooting spree  was an original list item that didn't get done early but spurred me to get back in the game.

So what's on the new list.

Already accomplished is a ride on the Yukon Stryker the newest dangerous roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland. That entered my list after I read about it in the paper. Check. 

Still to be done: Timbuktu, ride a motorcycle, jet ski, break 80, have dinner at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, enjoy a class about the teachings of C. S. Lewis, learn to play Heart 'n Soul on the piano. 

And, oh yeah, get one of these memoirs published. 

Dolores's Funeral Surprise

I didn't really get to know my sister Dolores until 1992 when I had more time on my hands.

My sole childhood memory of Dolores was after I was driven back to the city from summer camp without being told why. At home Dolores sat me down, clasped my hands and explained why everyone in the house was crying. My dad had died.

I was nine. She was already married. While we lived close by for the next six years, there was no relationship across our 15 year age gap.  Then I moved to LA with my mom.

I arrived back in Toronto seven enjoyable years later. For the first year I worked for my brother selling wigs retail followed by two years in the UofT MBA program. Infrequent Friday night dinners meant some visiting. But no connection with Dolores.

For the next 20 years there was some but not much contact. She ran a small dry cleaning outlet in The Path. When nearby I visited to talk and take advantage of free dry cleaning. Those visits were nice but we were interrupted by customers. So brief. Our families saw some but not much of each other. And there could be no alone time even if we were in the same room.

It was after 1992 that I really got to know Dolores. I started working from home then, in charge of my own time. 

Many of my clients were downtown so I was still able to drop in on Dolores at work to say hi. More lengthy visits materialized when she stopped working and was home during the day. Since I wasn't anchored I was able to visit her at home for long conversations for the first time. Her children were grown and there were grandchildren in the picture. Lots to talk about there. Our mum was in a Toronto nursing home so details to review on that file. But mostly we talked the talk of people getting older; aches, pains, family dynamics, politics, regrets, complaints, bucket lists. She edging toward seventy and me fifty-five. No shortage of topics. 

Then a massive stroke killed her in April 2001. She had been overweight and smoked. No surprise that she passed relatively young. Sad for me. I really liked her and knew I would miss our time together. It was nice to have made friends with her. 

Her burial was at the small Lambton cemetery on Royal York Road. 

As the long procession walked the casket from the hearse we passed gravestones going back dozens of years.

One caught my eye. Someone who had died November 25, 1947. 

That's the day I was born. 

My first instinct was to consider whether his soul became my soul when he died. I rejected that notion immediately. He could have died later the same day so someone else would have got his soul.

Then I was pulled back to the funeral and forgot about my discovery for the moment.

But I never forgot entirely. About three months ago I took a break from my busy schedule and went to the cemetery to pay respects to Dolores and find my soulmate's grave.

His name was Joseph Baker. Born April 13, 1886.

A week later I went to the Metro Research Library to look up obituaries and see if I could learn about Joseph Baker. No luck. Nothing in the Star, Telegram or Globe and Mail microfiche files. 

I did discover that a few other people died in Toronto the day I was born. Eeery. Maybe one of them was the previous owner of my gently used soul.

Later I was able to research Joseph Baker on Ancestry.com. I discovered he arrived as an immigrant from Poland in 1907. In Toronto he worked as a tailor and lived on Chestnut St. His eldest son Max would be 100 years old if he's still alive. 

I have relationships with Dolores's children, a nice legacy. And the discovery of my birthday partner adds to that legacy.

Brooke's Leadership Lesson

2019

The suspense built as I struggled up the three foot high steps to the peak of the water slide dominating the Deerhurst Resort waterfront. Family on shore were watching and speculating if I would have the nerve to drop down the speedy, steep 20 foot slide and plough into the unseasonably cold water. 

As I sat on the ledge at the top, Brooke, my seven year old granddaughter, sidled up to me. She had already been up and down many times. It was easy for her to get up the slide. She only had to pull 40 pounds up and over each step  I had to pull 200 pounds. Not so easy. I was happy just to get to the top. I couldn't have done it two years ago but have been working out to build my strength. For golf. Not for water slides. 

I wasn't ready to take off. Let's say I have a fear of heights. I don't mind being there. I've done my share of ledge walking over the years. It's the crash landing I fear. Elevators are no problem. Open air below the top of the water slide was intimidating.

Brooke sensed my anxiety. I had always supported her risk taking. We had a bit of a gym set up in our basement where I encouraged her tumbling. Now it was her turn to get me down from the ledge and into the water.

"You can do hard and scary things". I wonder where she had heard that. "Just grab my hand and we'll go together". I felt her impatience with my fear. Inherited from my wife. And her supportive nature. Inherited from me. 

Off we went. Crash. Bang. Boom. I was ready to go again.

About an hour later it was time for me to say goodbye to Brooke. She was off to overnight camp for the first time, for a month. 

Me: "It's time to say goodbye honey. Do you want a simple goodbye or a lecture?" 

Brooke: "Uh. Okay, I'll take the lecture". 

Me: I was really impressed with the leadership qualities you showed up on the waterslide. You knew I was scared. You encouraged me. You held my hand. You helped me go outside of my comfort zone to achieve something really cool. You did what leaders do. You've probably seen your teachers do it. And now at camp your counsellors will want to lead you to try new things and to get good at them, like canoeing. I hope you'll see their leadership and grow from it just as I grew from yours."

I was on a roll but I stopped there because she looked a little bored and was itching to get on with her life. We hugged and off she went.

Brooke taught me that the combination of leadership skills and subject matter expertise is a potent formulation. Anyone can do hard and scary things if they're willing to listen to someone with 'know how'. No matter who that person is. 

July 29, 2019

Best Pizza Ever

1992

When the stretch limo pulled up to the nondescript pizza parlour in the other half of Ottawa, no place I’d ever be able to find again, I was skeptical that lunch would overcome my nagging anxiety. 

The people of Canada owned the limo but on this day it was outfitted for the exclusive use of Jean-Pierre Kingsley who at the time, spring 1992, was the CEO of Elections Canada. Kingsley had recommended the restaurant and offered the ride.

The pizza lunch my colleagues and I enjoyed for lunch that day was delicious. Tasty crust. Great toppings. Made you think about the optimal marriage of deep dish and thin crust. I usually am down on bureaucrats but Kingsley knew his pizza. 

But, awesome as the pizza was it paled in comparison to the uniqueness of the day. 

My team was in Ottawa to compete in two beauty contests that day. One before lunch and one after lunch. 

I was in the advertising agency business at the time and the beauty contests were actually separate new business pitches to Elections Canada tailored to win their advertising account leading up to the the 1993 election, the one that ended Kim Campbell's 4 months as Prime Minister. Beauty contest is a cynical way to describe the whimsy that often is the ad agency selection process. 

A win would have been huge for our small agency. 

We were up against Cossette Advertising which at the time was one of Canada's biggest agencies having ridden a rocket from its founding in Quebec City in 1974 by six well connected French Canadians. They had already won a lot of government contracts. Well connected begets more well connected and competitive advantage.

I was the CEO of Kert Advertising reporting to Norm Kert, the owner. Most of our billings came from one client, Shoppers Drug Mart, with the Bay supplying another dollop. 

Typically a new business pitch included three components. There would be some creative ideas. This might be ideas for TV, radio and print advertising. It was important to show edgy ideas that didn't make the client's palms sweat too much. Mostly they wanted to see things that would earn them the admiration of their contemporaries. 

There would also be a draft media plan showing how the advertising would be visible to the masses. It was important to demonstrate how the agency would be efficient, effective and careful while spending the client's money. We didn't mention all the wining and dining we had to suffer from media salespeople. 

The third segment would be strategy. This would combine some ideas for market research combined with a demonstration of business acumen. We wanted to show a lot of professional ability in this time slot. 

What was remarkable about this day, aside from the tasty pizza lunch, was that my agency was engaged to show creative and strategy ideas only. We were teamed with one specialized media buying service for the morning presentation and with a second specialized media buying agency in the afternoon. So in addition to competing against Cossette we were competing against ourselves since each of our presentations required different strategy and creative ideas. It was a very odd circumstance. Our creative team had be impressive in the earlier rounds, not so much our media folks, so Elections Canada asked if we'd pitch separately with the two media buying services they liked.

Cossette was doing a normal pitch; strategy, creative, media.

New business pitches are single warrior combat. Us against them. Euphoric victories or expensive devastating losses. The victors celebrate while the losers point fingers.  

Our two partners, MBS, Media Buying Services and HYPN, Harrison, Young, Pesonen and Newell were behemoths. They had many clients taking advantage of their superior buying power. 

MBS was run by Peter Swain who had more or less built his agency and was a sole owner. HYPN was shared equally by three owners. Tatu Pesonen, one of the founders, had died a few years back. Harrison, Young and Newell had superior acumen and excellent people skills. Harrison is still a friend.

Swain was cut throat. During the morning presentation with us he not so smoothly interjected that if the Elections Canada decision makers liked his team but not my team he could easily replace us. I think he was looking right at me when he offered up my scalp.

Well, well connected is as well connected does and Cossette was the victor in this beauty contest and was crowned Miss Elections Canada 1992.

My solace was a couple of very good pizza slices in the shadow of parliament hill or somewhere near there.