As it seems de rigueur to mention one’s former musical dalliances in places like this, I would be remiss if I didn’t pay heed to my own brief musical career, which lasted only for one hot summer in Peterborough, Ontario, a decade ago this year.

I was living in a room about 8 foot square fashioned out of the attic of an older house on George Street, north of the downtown. One reached said room by entering the upstairs hall closet and climbing straight up 10 feet. It was all very much like Lucy’s experiences on the way to Narnia. Although in my case all that was through the closet was a cramped little room where I couldn’t stand up, not a magical world.

My roommates were the resilient Richard Hamilton, who went on to social work in Halifax, the sprightful Diane Gallagher and her now erstwhile husband the musical Tim Piper and their lovely daughter Cassia. We were an unlikely lot, but got along quite well nonetheless. My strongest memories of that house are of scraping endless reams of wallpaper from the livingroom wall, of sitting on the back porch drinking Richard’s homemade beer, and of meeting and falling in love with the girl next door, who is by my side to this day.

Aforementioned Tim was handy with a guitar, and I had been given a guitar by my parents for my birthday several years earlier and so made a go of tagging along behind Tim on the porch. Eventually I started writing “songs” (inverted commas to indicate approximation) and, although I am at a loss to understand how this happened, Tim and I eventually ended up on stage together several times over the summer at the once-famous Tuesday Night Acoustic Potluck at the old Red Dog Tavern.

These evenings were a folk music “open mic,” hosted by the Laurel and Hardy like duo of Dan Fewings and musical partner Chris Lackerdas. With our guitars blazing (meaning mostly Tim leading the way and me hammering away trying to keep up), we sang songs of our own composition. These nights were among the most thilling of my life.

The most infamous song to emerge from my musical collaboration with Tim was one I started off and Tim finished and polished called Michael Landon is Dead. [Warning: if you like Michael Landon, or feel a soft spot in your heart for him, stop reading here]. It went something like this:

When we were very young,
There was a Man
Who launched himself into our lives
with Carefree Abandon.

Who was this man?
You may well ask…
Well in this song
we’ll tell you that…

Michael Landon is dead
He won’t be around to bug us anymore
Michael Landon is dead [so dead]
He won’t be around to bug us anymore

We watched him on Bonanza
And on Little House
And even on Highway to Heaven

Little Joe Cartwright
and Pa Ingalls
and an Angel named Jonathan Smith.

…and on and on from there. More than once we ran afoul of rabid Michael Landon fans who accused us [justly] of sacrilege. Other favourites of those times were songs like Kitchen Utensil Love, George Street and The Parkway (which contained the classic line “Oh the Parkway is a beautiful spot / I’d rather be there, than not”).

And then the summer ended. Tim and Diane got divorced (but remained happy and amicable), Richard followed his lady love to Halifax, and Catherine and I moved into a lovely apartment downtown, only to pick up a year later and most east to Charlottetown.

It was quite a nice surprise to receive a clipping in the mail last fall from Tim from the Peterborough Examiner highlighting the fact that he was one of the headliners at the Peterborough Folk Festival. My guitar is in its case upstairs in our Situation Room. Soon I’ll take it out again.

Cry Cry Cry is an ad hoc musical collaboration of Dar Williams, Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky, all interesting artists in their own right, and even more interesting together. And it is also an album. Or the other way around. The second track on the album, Cold Missouri Waters, is by James Keelaghan, a strong Canadian artist I first saw at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and later at Mike Barker’s Folk Under the Clock concert series in Peterborough, Ontario.

You can year sound clips from the album at Barnes & Noble, Chapters and Amazon.com (Chapters has the most samples and the worst quality).

Kellaghan, who plays on PEI on occassion (next on August 6 as part of the Victoria Playhouse Concert Series, recorded the song on his 1995 album A Recent Future. You can read the lyrics on the Norman Maclean website, where we also learn:

Part mystery story, part investigative history, and part autobiography, Young Men and Fire was Norman Maclean’s last book. In it, Maclean examines the history of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in Montana, in which twelve of a fifteen-man crew of Smokejumpers died.

From an interview with Eric McCarthey, senior vice president of national sales an marketing for Coca-Cola in the August 2001 edition of QSR magazine:

QSR: At what age to you want a kid to know the Coke brand, to ask for a Coke by name?

McCarthey: Actually to request a Coke?

QSR: Yes, to know that Coke tastes like Coke, and Coke isn’t Pepsi. How young do today’s strong brands want kids to be when they make these brand preferences and begin brand loyalties?

McCarthey: Well, if you’re talking about it from a quick-service restaurant operator’s standpoint, it is probably more important to establish a brand connection at a young age. This whole explosion of kids’ marketing, kids’ meals, the branded alliances that a lot of customers are trying to do to make their kids’ meals relevant, that’s all about starting at a pretty young age. But if you’re asking the question from a soft-drink perspective, you’re talking about a different age: around twelve years or thirteen years old.

Here I am sitting in front of my computer in Charlottetown, writing an entry on my website while, at the same time, listening to my brother Steve hosting the CBC Saskatchewan afternoon show while, at the same time, using MSN Messenger to chat with our brother Johnny about how Steve is doing, and about the Code Red Worm, which I have to get up tommorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. (assuming, of course, the world still exists post-Code Red) to speak to CBC Prince Edward Island about. Perhaps I should rub my belly and chew gum. But I might explode.

I’m looking for a man who moved from New Mexico to somewhere in Ireland in 1998. I know his name, but little else. I went to the online version of the Irish Telephone Directory and was frustrated by the fact that I needed to know the county he lived in to be able to search. So I emailed the contact person for that website, and this is what I got in reply:

Further to your email, unfortunately I can not help you at this time, in Ireland by law you must know the full name and the approximate address to search for anyone’s telephone number. Sorry I can not be of more help at this time.

According to Coca-Cola’s trademark application, Coca-Cola, Diet Coke was introduced to Canada in 1983. Pop in non-refillable containers was prohibited in PEI from 1984 onwards. So it may be that Mr. Greenberg (see below) visited our Island in the winter of 1983 or spring of 1984.

My mysterious friend Gary brought to my attention an article in last weekend’s Ottawa Citizen that reviewed a book by Today Show travel correspondent Peter Greenberg. In the article, Greenberg relates a story about Prince Edward Island:

“It was the middle of winter and I was doing a story about seals,” says Greenberg… “We got back to the motel after a day on the ice floes, at about 9 o’clock at night. I went to the lounge and the only thing I wanted was a Diet Coke.

“I asked the waitress: ‘Do you have it in a bottle or can? I hate how it tastes out of the nozzle.’ The next thing I know, she’s dashed across a four-lane highway in a snowstorm to a 7-Eleven or something and comes back with a six-pack of Diet Coke in cans. Now that’s service. I don’t care how bad that motel was, I’d go back there in a second because of that waitress. I’d go back to Prince Edward Island because of that waitress.”

Two things seemed odd to Gary (and to me): first, you cannot buy pop in cans on Prince Edward Island, only in bottles. This is the law. Second, there are no four-land highways on Prince Edward Island.
So, with Gary’s prodding, I decided I had to investiage further. I sent an email to the Canadian Press Editor in Chief asking about this discrepancy. I received the following response:

Thank you for your query about the travel story by Ken Becker. The quote in question was accurate and is indeed an anecdote that was related by author Peter Greenburg to Ken. It’s possible that the anecdote may have been based on an incident that happened so long ago that Greenburg has become hazy on some details, or perhaps Diet Coke was sold in cans there many years ago.

Ken also notes that some Americans might call a four-lane road a “highway,” as they refer to their major expressways as Interstates and freeways down there.

I am intimidated by bike guys. Not biker guys but bike guys — the hyper-athletic cycle-riding guys with special pants and glasses and titanium water bottles and bicycles made of space-age alloys discovered on Mars.

It is in this climate of fear, or rather despite it, that last year I decided that I should buy a bicycle. Being mostly sedentary, I figured it was time that I got that 15 minutes a day of activity I’m supposed to get so as to avoid early death, etc. and cycling, because it’s the one physical activity I loved as a child, seemed like a fit.

It took me a year to go from that decision to the actual purchase.

My problem was that the logical place to purchase said bicycle was at Smooth Cycle. They are at 172 Prince Street. I am at 100 Prince Street. We are neighbours. They are a downtown business. I had a gut feeling that buying from them, in the end, would be a much better choice than the other prominent one, which was buying from Canadian Tire.

And this was a problem because Smooth Cycle, which I walk by almost every day, seems to positively ooze the bike guy ethos. Look at their website: “Why buy from us?” they ask, “Because we’re racers and riders and we know our stuff.” That’s a very bike guy kind of thing to say.

They website continues: “Smooth Cycle is run by a team which includes competing mountain bikers, triathletes, runners, canoeists, snow boarders, and X-Country skiers.” I wish that some of my best friends where triathletes, but alas this is not the case. I don’t even know what a “X-Country skier” is, but it sounds like it involves jumping off cliffs.

Finally, however, with a sedentary summer fully in swing, I had to act. Using wee Oliver as a diversionary tactic, I ambled in, trying to look bike guy, late last week. Much as I suspected, there were shadowy figures whispering through the store dripping with derailleurs. I almost bolted. Then one of them emerged. I stated my case. He showed me a bike — a GT Palomar — and told me that was the bike for me. $349.99. Fire-engine red. He talked about brakes and frames and studly tires. I told him I’d be back to take a test drive.

Nice as that one bike guy was, I almost didn’t return. But, somehow, I plucked up my courage, and on Saturday I set off from home for a test drive. Back into the derailleur breach I went. Different bike guy this time. Another nice guy. I told him I was there for a test drive. He handed me the bike, asked me if I wanted a helmet. And off I went. No need to leave the keys to my car, or my driver’s license, or a $700 cash bond. I just went. This was a good sign: the bike guys trusted me.

And so around I drove. I enjoyed myself. The bike felt good. I thought to myself “could I actually buy this?” Myself thought maybe I could. So I returned to my new trusting bike guy friend and simply said “I’ll take it.” This seemed to surprise him. Perhaps I was supposed to be more tentative? Perhaps I should have asked about the torque converter ratio or something. Then he said “that’s great.” And off we went. Bought the helmet (20% off - nice). Bought a lock (20% off - nice). Found that three years free service are included in the price (very nice). Bike Guy took the new bike into the back shop and worked some last minute tune-up magic on it.

And so now I own a bike. I am not a bike guy. I probably never will be (although after two casual jaunts around town in heavy jeans I understand about the special shorts). But I had a thoroughly enjoyable experience buying the bike, and would highly recommend Smooth Cycle to anyone who’s in the market.

At the beginning and end of any Paramount Pictures film from 1966 to 1989 you see the image here, with the text Paramount - A Gulf + Western Company. Indeed Andy Warhol imortalized the image in his work Paramount.

But what was Gulf + Western?

The Encyclopedia Britannica tells us the company was a corporation that was founded in 1958 by Charles Bluhdorn and became one of the most highly diversified conglomerates in the United States. Gulf + Western took control of the Paramount Pictures Corporation in 1966. Gulf + Western changed its name to Paramount Communications Inc. in 1989 and was acquired by the media conglomerate Viacom Inc. in 1994.

Amazingly, there seems to be almost no memory left of Charles Bluhdorn nor Gulf + Western. Do a Google search for Charles Bluhdorn and you get only 87 hits (Henry Ford returns 235,000).

Perhaps we are too embarassed to remember. In Michael Eisner’s autobiography Work in Progress we learn:

…Eisner’s boss was the irrepressible Charles Bluhdorn, the chief executive of Gulf and Western. During one afternoon of hot tub schmooze at Bluhdorn’s home in the Dominican Republic, Bluhdorn proposed a film “in which Sitting Bull meets Hitler. We ought to get Dustin Hoffman involved.” Then, Eisner reports, “he suggested a ‘Bad News Bears’ sequel set in Cuba, in which Castro hits the winning home run.” Ever the diplomat, Eisner made but one suggestion: the Americans ought to win.

In the few web pages where Bludhorn is mentioned, he is described with terms like manic and autocratic, the most rapacious and ruthless of conglomerateurs and a coarse boob with funny accent. There are no biographies of Charles Bluhdorn. Business case studies don’t seem to mention Gulf + Western. They have been erased from our collective memory.

From this page we learn the details of his death: Charles Bluhdorn… died of a heart attack on a corporate jet flying from the Dominican Republic to New York in February 1983…. Among those who attended the private funeral services at St. Mary’s Church was former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Think of Charles Bluhdorn every time you watch Heaven Can Wait or Chinatown or The Godfather and see Gulf + Western on the screen.

I learned this morning, by listening to CBC’s Off the Cuff, that Sharon, Lois and Bram have become Sharon, Bram and Friends (this page would suggest that and Friends is the weird elephant). According to an undated Sid Adilman article:

Lois is taking an indefinite leave of absence from Sharon, Lois & Bram, Canada’s most popular children’s music group, which she co-founded in 1978.

Grieving over the sudden death last year of her husband Ernest, a retired York University sociology professor, Lois Lillienstein no longer wants to tour or perform on a regular basis.

“Happiness always bubbled up naturally; it’s not any more,” she said yesterday.

There’s interesting video [RealVideo] of Noel moderating a panel at PopTech conference in Camden.