At seven-thirty am on a crisp October morning in 1968, I took my leave of Montreal on CPR’s “The Canadian” bound for Vancouver. In those days, one could get a “roomette” for about $300.00 and, as was my wont, that was (and still is) the only way to travel – as close to First Class as I could get. Back then, all of one’s meals were included in the ticket price; sitting down in the dining car beside a big window is still a visceral memory. This glorious country sped by my window over a three day period and my new life in the West began without any fanfare or to-do as I stepped off the train into (then) Union Station on a Monday morning.

Thankfully, because of Buddy Doucette and Addy Wintermans, two wonderful people with whom I’d become friends in Nova Scotia and who were taking up residence in Vancouver, I had a place to live. And, also thankfully, Addy, a graduate Theatre Major, was directing a production of “No Trifling with Love” at the University of British Columbia and had asked me to choreograph the dance portions of the costume drama. That was how it ALL started. Remembering back, my existence became real at that point. Up to then, I was testing life, trying things out but not really committing. There was no turning back now. I was IN it and had to make my own way. And make it I did!

The first thing I became aware of was the air. Sea air is invigorating I found. For me, there is something fundamental about being close to open water. I think it’s probably a vestige of a previous existence. I felt more “at home” and comfortable being near the water (and still do) and all the years of being drawn to Hawaii for vacations feeds something inside my core. So that was Ground Zero and for the next thirteen years, I lived on the West Coast.

         Work came quickly and rather easily for me. While doing Addy’s show at UBC, I met a community of theatre craftspeople who would be a part of my life over the decades to follow, people I’m still in touch with today! It was there I came to know Richard Ouzounian, Lorne Kennedy, Goldie Semple, Michelle Fisk, Brent Carver, John Innes, Roger Baron, Roger Dunn, Nicola Lipman, Nicola Cavendish and the list goes on, all of them now Canadian Theatre Royalty. We did a spectacular production of “Much Ado About Nothing” under the meticulous guidance of the marvelously creative Richard Ouzounian (who would come back into my life in a major way years later in Winnipeg) using Stephen Sondheim’s songs to expand on the Shakespeare text (and what better choice?). From UBC, after a student production of “Glass Menagerie” (photo above)  I moved downtown, so to speak, and was cast as ‘Smitty’ (left) in a memorable production of “Fortune and Men’s Eyes directed by Patrick Horgan at the Vancouver Playhouse’s Second Stage on Seymour Street (which later became the Arts Club). There I met Tony Holland and Joy Coghill (who was running the Playhouse at that time) and Bill Millerd (in his first professional show as Stage Manager!!) and sailed into the heady world of Actors’ Equity.

I was of two minds about “going Equity”. There was a catch-22 involved as once “in”, I couldn’t do much of anything outside the professional realm. Fortunately, Vancouver offered a lot of stage opportunities and I took advantage of them when I could. I kept meeting people who guided me through the intricacies of auditions and choices and, amazingly, ended up in Company of the Western Dance Theatre run by the legendary Norbert Vesak!

Re-reading that last sentence at this point in time still amazes me. Being a contemporary dancer was not something I had ever envisioned for myself. I’d done a fair amount of dance training in my Banff years and in Montreal (with Sonia Chamberlain), but this was HARD!! The physical discipline and control pushed me to another level and a greater awareness of my capabilities. My first major foray into this world was in a production (in conjunction with, again, the Playhouse Theatre) called “Land Before Time”. It was a full-length ballet based on a series of Eskimo legends. We wore masks and white costumes and sweated a LOT as the masks covered our faces which made breathing a chore and the Eskimo costumes were made of wool! But I can still remember the magical effect of the electronic music, the stark white stage design and lighting and looking through the mask’s eyes and it all feeling other worldly. The Company’s next major production was an abstract piece called “Pierrot Lunaire” using the 12-tone music of Arnold Schoenberg. That really did it me in. It was beyond me, and while I did some of the initial studio performances, my “technique” was really not where it should have been. Norbert was demanding, rightfully so, asking more of his dancers than I could deliver and my next involvement with his creativity was as a writer. I look back and can scarce bring myself to believe that his critically acclaimed ballet called “Belong” was based on a poem I had written for Norbert as a thank-you for giving me the experiences of dance. The program for the premiere had a copy of the poem and thanks for the inspiration. I lost touch with Norbert as time went on but his influence on the Canadian dance world is still felt today and I’m proud to have been a small part of it … way back when.

And then there was Isy’s Supper Club! Oh, Lord!

Located on Georgia Street in Vancouver, it was the second major Showroom in Vancouver, the first being The Cave. Back in “the day” people went out to Nightclubs for drinks and entertainment. In the late sixties (and for years before) Nightclubs were where major musical acts appeared (long before stadiums and arenas). Isy’s was small, seating about 350 people. Dinner was served before the show and booze flowed during. It had a storied past mostly centered around Isy Walters, the carny old showman who owned and operated it. He was a cantankerous old guy who knew everything and everyone in that part of the business and took no guff from anyone.

An audition call had gone out from Isy’s for performers for a Cabaret they were putting on for a couple of weeks between headliners and, having nothing to lose, I went out for it. It was being directed and choreographed by a man named Jack Card. Guess I impressed enough and was cast. It wasn’t until we began rehearsals that I realized I was in a drag show (must have missed something in the audition announcement) and I was one of the featured singers amid performers wearing miles of feather boas and sequined costumes, and a lot of screaming and carryings-on. Well, it was only two weeks and I could weather it. The short story is that I ended up staying on at Isy’s for the next two years!!

The night the Cabaret closed, Jack called me into the old man’s office and they asked if I was interested in becoming the in-house warm-up act with a group of dancing girls backing me up. My heart skipped a beat. “Of course!” I said. We shook hands and that was it. “But we have a problem”, Isy said. “Your name is too long. ‘Richard Blackhurst’ won’t fit on the marquis out front. You have a choice; it’s either ‘Richard Black’ or ‘Richard Hurst’” and that’s how I changed my name. “Richard Hurst and the Debs” appeared on the marquis a couple of weeks later and my life changed … again!

Over the months that followed, Jack created a series of opening numbers for me and the girls and we opened for some heavy duty folks – Sarah Vaughn, Buddy Rich, Lionel Hampton – and some not so heavy duty performers – the “unique” Tiny Tim (for those of you born after 1970 Google the name to see who THAT was!), A-list stripper Tempest Storm, sex-change comedian Liz Lyons (once Lee Leonard on the Vegas circuit), the legendary Sally Rand (yeah, burlesque ran deep in Isy’s background – photo of Sally (Google her, too) above with me in the background; in reviewing this show, a newspaper critic took it upon himself to ask “What’s a nice boy like Richard Hurst doing in a place like this?” Really!), The Sons of the Pioneers (Roy Rogers back-up group), The Aliis (a Hawaiian group) – and I made friendships that lasted long after some of these folks left town. The band was led by Bobby Herriot and featured some of the best musicians on the West Coast – Ian MacDougall, Bobby Hales to name a couple – and they were incredibly supportive with musical arrangements and encouragement for a young performer who, at the start,  had no idea what he was doing, but learned fast … REAL fast!

One night warming up for Buddy Rich, my mic went down during “Didn’t We, Girl”. My Opera training (singing loud!) kicked in and I carried on acoustically. When Buddy finished his opening number, he spoke (which he didn’t do very often – he was a mean bastard, too) and said he wanted to “acknowledge that young “cat” who is a real professional and carried on with the song despite the technical difficulties. Let’s give the kid a hand, folks!” That felt good!

While we were in Burlesque mode, which happened from time to time, the strippers who were brought in schooled me in life on the road The girls had been through it all and landing a gig at Isy’s was, for them, hitting the “big time” compared to what they were used to. They would smoke pot in their dressing rooms before going on, just to “loosen up”, they said. “Want some?” I was asked one night just before going on. Couldn’t hurt, I thought, and took a few tokes. Felt pretty good. I was very relaxed as I walked into place on stage. The curtains opened, the lights hit me and the orchestra started. I began to sing a song I’d done a hundred times before and slowly realized that I didn’t remember whether or not I had actually sung the line before the one I was singing now! That thought began to spiral downward as it took control of my mind. What song was I doing? Had I sung this verse already? Had the dance break happened? Was that the right melody? Am I going crazy!!?? I think I scared myself into “sobering” up and I got through it only because muscle memory kicked in and instinct took over. I never went on any stage stoned again!

Jack Card took us on the road a few times. Fondly remembered is working at The Embers in Edmonton for a summer with, now, Senator Tommy Banks as our Musical Director. Touring was a blast, especially with the Debs. They were as innocent as I was but always up for adventures. Our lives were a mix of two-shows-a-night, partying with the headliners, sleeping in and shopping or going to movies during the day. Those days were the first (and close to last) time I tried LSD (again, Google time for the young). I was growing up fast! No ill effects from the drugs (except for those “seeing-God” moments that, strangely, I can still conjure up!) and I came through it mostly unscathed, eventually gaining an insight into how one should be a professional, act responsibly (because no one was going to make you responsible) and intelligently (as Mom would always remind me in her letters). But, in time, it all came to an end. Isy’s club wasn’t doing too well as the culture was changing and nightclubs weren’t doing the business they once had. The Supper Club format was changed and was renamed “Strip City” and there was no need for a warm-up act – at least not me.

Over the club years, I managed to keep a connection to the theatre folk I’d met in the various productions I’d done. I’d been asked to adjudicate some drama festivals from time to time and one of them took me to Creston, B.C. where I met a man named Ray Pomeroy. He was a Drama Teacher at Creston High School and while adjudicating his kids one spring, he asked me if I would be interested in joining him on an “Opportunities for Youth” project he was submitting to the Canadian Government. “Opportunities for Youth” was just what the name implied – a grant-giving scheme meant to give young people a meaningful experience to take part in and earn money at the same time. Ray thought that doing a Summer Theatre in the Kootenays would be a terrific idea and we were off to the races! This eventful chapter of my life would fill a book by itself (and perhaps I’ll write that one day) but, in the meantime, I’ll tantalize you with a promo for the full-length version:

“A young, inexperienced Director is suddenly abandoned by his Producer for fifty-three days in the wilderness of the British Columbia Interior, miles from any town, left to create a fully operational Theatre environment from scratch with 23 first-time-away-from-home, horny, minimum wage earning teenagers; a story of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, forced to build living quarters from borrowed army surplus tents and supplies, of garbage-marauding bears, of suffering through constant plagues of sparrow-sized mosquitoes, of reveling in illicit trysts, bound to indentured servitude in return for the use of a farmer’s land, hay baling, fruit picking , young lives lived on the edge; a tale of survival and triumph, of love and betrayal, of friendship and laughter. Coming soon!”

Having survived that summer – just – Jack Card came back into my life. He had worked in Las Vegas, choreographing shows and creating productions for years. A venerable old hotel in Portland, Oregon had a large and fabled show room and Jack was hired to create a massive Vegas-style production. I was hired as a production singer and Company Manager. The hotel was called The Hoyt and once more, my life changed in ways I would never have thought possible!

UP NEXT: PORTLAND!!

On the last Wednesday of each month, just after recess, the Third and Fourth Graders were gathered and settled in rows, cross-legged, on the floor of the gymnasium. A noisy anticipation echoed in the large space as the teachers moved to the sidelines and the School Principal stepped forward to introduce the familiar visitors standing behind him. There was a quick silence and applause as he stepped out of the way and the two ladies, one very tall and thin and one very short and stout, took their places. They were grey-haired, in their sixties. Both wore hats (all ladies wore hats in those days) and print dresses, and the very tall lady had a large accordion slung over her shoulders. Behind them a small table and a felt board on an easel had been set up. The stage was set.

The first full, loud accordion chords filled the space and the children, recognizing the introduction – for they had sung this many times before – began to sing at the top of their lungs, “Tell me the stories of Jesus! I long to hear things I would ask him to tell me if He were near!” The words, of course, were on the felt board and the stout lady used a small wooden pointer to guide the young eyes along and conduct them, but the words had been memorized long ago. There was something comfortable about knowing the words, something secure that could be hung on to and envelope a young mind in this elementary school sea of daily challenges.

The music ended and the story began. It was the lead-up to Easter Week and the felt board served as the stage on which the story of The Passion would play out, narrated by the very tall lady (who had now disposed of her instrument) and assisted by the stout lady moving the printed felt characters around the board and speaking their lines. Toward the end, two crosses were placed on opposite sides of the board leaving a space in the middle.

“Can anyone help us tell the rest of the story?” said the very tall lady.

Hands shot up before the request was finished and a boy at the front was chosen. He was placed in front of the felt board between the two crosses and his arm was raised in the air. The stout lady reached into her bag and brought out a fluffy white lamb. As the tall lady spoke, she stout lady began to place small black squares on the lamb.

“These are the sins of the world”, she said. “These are your sins and God has placed them on the lamb for you”.

With a long piece of yarn the stout lady lashed the lamb on to the boy’s raised arm and began to slowly remove the black squares. The tall lady took up her accordion and began to play as the children sang, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine”! The lamb was untied from the boy’s arm and placed in his hand, held high, as he was guided about the gymnasium by the stout lady in resurrected triumph, voices yelling “This is my story, this is my song”, reverberating off the walls and down the halls, a glorious culmination, the finale ultimo, all eyes on the boy, now the Lamb being sung to, entreating the huge supporting cast of children to become a part of the ritual, part of the great drama being played out in their midst.

I was that eight-year-old boy and that was how theatre came into my life.

It is still so vivid on every level – the polished yellow flooring, the climbing ropes just off to the left, the jumbles of clothing colours and me marching through the crowd. I wasn’t just entering objectively into the idea of the story. This was very subjective. Without preparation, without words, I was the center of the ceremony, controlling the ritual. Without truly understanding, it was incredibly ego-centric and self-serving. It was personal validation and oh, so wonderful! To have that kind of attention and being acknowledged as the sole focus filled me with a personal power like nothing ever had before. There was no turning back.

But it wasn’t until years later that I experienced that feeling again. In those days, there were no Drama Clubs, no after-school activities to foster a young creative mind. Cub Scouts was the conduit of our energies. “A-kay-la, we’ll do our best; we’ll dib, dib, dib”. Skits in the living room at home and singing in the Children’s Choir at church were the only outlets and church was where I discovered my voice. Choir Soprano, Bertha Taylor, an imperious, big-bosomed thrush (to quote Dylan Thomas) was my biggest fan. She encouraged me, applauded me and pushed me forward. I sang to please her and myself and a wink from Bertha behind her horn-rimmed glasses, was a wonderful gift. But I left Bertha behind when I started high school, searching to re-capture those feelings of validation and acceptance.

My next foray onto the stage was a lot more “formal”. My recollections are more atmospheric rather than detailed. In the Eighth Grade I was cast (somehow – I don’t remember auditioning) as Bob Cratchit in a production of “A Christmas Carol” at Montreal High School. I recall nothing of the process, performances, the cast or the Director. What I do remember, so clearly, is that the performances were during the first period for the school assembled in the Auditorium (a picture of which is to the left here and was taken in the “old” days, long before the Planetarium was added at the back in the space behind the seats). What I do remember was getting off the St. Catherine Street bus at seven in the morning and trudging up University Street, the city still quiet and dark, hearing my boots crunch on the new snow silently falling, then going through the school’s main doors and into the still dark auditorium. I remember the smell of the wooden seats and the slight aroma of adolescence in the air, and walking down the side aisle, up the stairs into the backstage area and another smell, this time, grease paint, sticks in gold wrapping, Leichner, to be specific, welcoming me into the magic and mystical world which, little did I know at the time, would become my life. The other indelible memory was Bob Cratchit’s costume: a wrinkled linen shirt, waistcoat, top coat and unlined wool pants. Unlined! The sensation is still with me, akin to the cub scouts green scratchy wool sweaters we wore to pack meetings!

There are always basics in the Theatre, elements of production that help to bring together a character, sometimes thought-out, sometimes not. This was one of the “not” times. I guess it was during a time when the actor’s comfort wasn’t really thought about all that much in the Theatre. You wore what was given to you. But it has stuck with me all these years. “A Christmas Carol” became, over a very long period of time, a play that I would return to over and over again in so many incarnations, but always, at the root of the those later experiences, was the memory of the smell of the greasepaint and the feel of those pants.

Okay, I’m not going to go through a microscopic breakdown of all the roles I’ve played, so you can relax … a bit. In thinking this out, I’ve realized that there are some big lessons I learned in those formative years and the next major signpost were the four summers I spent at the Banff School of Fine Arts. Initially, I enrolled in the Singing and Opera Department. I could sing after all and this was a great opportunity to find out if I was really any good. Well, I sort of was, but after two summers of really heavy duty vocal work and appearing in the Choruses of “Tosca” and “Marriage of Figaro”, I thought perhaps there were other options to check out. I had become the youngest member of the Montreal Opera Company in 1963, working “with” Irving Guttman and Zubin Mehta (yeah, some name dropping there – they were the bosses, I was yet again a lowly Chorus member) and appeared in four pretty huge productions. Between the Banff School and the Opera Company I was consumed by singing but this Opera thing was too hard! In hindsight (I was only 19 at the time), perhaps I shouldn’t have given up so easily and that was the lesson.

Discipline is hard! Perseverance is hard. I have nothing but total admiration for and am awed by people who can sing Opera. Maintaining focus and following through is hard, and when it comes easily and one isn’t being challenged, the passion wanes. I admit now that I didn’t have the voice or, more specifically, the stamina for Opera, although I can produce a “legit” sound when needed. In future years I was cast in some small Opera roles, found a niche in the Character Roles in Gilbert and Sullivan, sang on some pretty big stages (Edmonton Opera, Calgary Opera, Manitoba Opera) and was cast in some wonderful non-singing roles (‘Frosch’ in “Fledermaus”, ‘Hortensius’ in “Daughter of the Regiment”).  But fortunately, in my third summer at Banff, the Musical Theatre Department was started and I’ve really never looked back. The accessibility of the music, the naturalism of the stories and characters, the excitement and energy of dancing and singing at the same time got me sold pretty fast.

In the summer of ’66 following Banff, I was cast as part of the Company at the Acadia Summer Playhouse in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Putting on eleven shows in twelve weeks sums up that experience. This was Nirvana, baptism by fire and overwhelming all at the same time. Sadly, there are few venues for young people to experience that kind of intensity these days. We did EVERYTHING, from building the sets to creating the big roadside signs each week advertising the shows. We rehearsed during the day and performed at night. The shows only lasted a week and you were lucky if you were completely off book by closing. It was INTENSE!! But I can remember the sense of Company that set in very quickly. We had to depend on each other, trust each other and care about each other. And what is Theatre without that kind of Community. I devoured those days! They were thick and full and crowded and wonderfully all-encompassing! They were my standard for the years to come. Above are old photos of me as ‘Cable’ in “South Pacific” and ‘Lun Tha’ in “King and I”. That first year (I returned in 1968) I also did ‘Bumble’, ‘Mute’, ‘Tranio’, ‘Jimmy’, ‘Will’ and ‘Enoch’. One never had a week off. If you weren’t in a show, you were still working, either backstage or in the box office. I’m breathless thinking about it.

The following year was very different. I was in my second year in the Theatre Department at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) and completely immersed in performing. I was cast as ‘Baby Boy’ (left), an aging movie star’s “boy toy” (can you believe that!!) in a new play called “Bird in the Box” by Maxine Fleischman for the Dominion Drama Festival. And this was another “bite” by the bug, one that propelled me into the outside world. Up to now my life had been protected by a Company or school. Now I was in the real world, working with creative people who were making a living doing this. Their passion and energy was working inside me. While I was still at SGW doing everything from “Twelfth Night” to “Oh What A Lovely War”, I was getting closer to a big change. Expo ’67 had set up shop in the middle of the St. Lawrence River and I was working as an On-Site Co-coordinator for the World Festival of Entertainment. This world of Performing Arts was my life blood now. Meeting and talking to famous and not so famous professionals from around the world about their experiences opened up a channel in my head that got bigger and bigger over the six months of that summer.

Back at Sir George I was sent off to Calgary as Quebec representative to an International Theatre Conference for University Students. The Theme of the Conference was “Antonin Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty Movement”.  Heady stuff!! The title of the Conference should have given me an idea about who would be attending, but I wasn’t thinking about that! I had written a paper about the avant-garde Director and presented it along with many other students during the sessions over a long weekend. I can still remember sitting in the hallway of the hotel with all these other kids talking about analysis and cerebral approaches to the “thee-a-tuh” and, over the course of that weekend, decided I didn’t fit in to this mindset. The place to learn theatre was IN the Theatre, I thought. At the end of my third year at SGW, I wrote a letter to my folks and told them I was quitting school.  I don’t think they were too happy with that (I still have a copy of the letter I wrote in one of my diaries) but I desperately had to be IN that world I had been experiencing over the past three years. There was no alternative. This was now all-consuming. I spent another glorious summer in Wolfville, more roles, more singing, more growing and learning the “craft” and more decisions. Returning to Montreal, I wrote an angry-young-man Letter to the Editor of the Montreal Star (the FLQ was putting bombs in mailboxes in Westmount!), packed my bags and took a train to Vancouver (I had met some theatre folks in Wolfville who lived there). I was wide-eyed, fresh-faced and excited to be careening head first into a new and unknown world!

UP NEXT: West Coast Strippers and Modern Dance …

I guess one could say I’m a wee bit set in my ways. (Cue the eye-rolling and sniggers from my friends). Okay, I’m VERY set in my ways. That comes from years of practice and a tightfisted grasp on order and tidiness in my life. I like it that way. Sure, spontaneity doesn’t figure too heavily in my existence, but I do go off the deep end from time to time (more laughs). Nothing extreme, but occasionally I do go outside my comfort zone. My day is structured and routine, mostly dictated by Morgan, my dog. He’s almost 15, pretty well deaf,
on prednisone, has trouble walking and is my accomplice in the ordering of the day due to his need to pee every couple of hours. I don’t mind this. In fact, I look forward to it because it gets me out of the recliner and into the outside world if only for a moment. These forays, combined with strict smoking-on-the-balcony times, are what get me from a 7:10 rising to an 11:30 bedtime. But it’s those balcony sojourns that provide me with blank time during which my mind wanders down all kinds of paths, some of which have resulted in other posts in this Blog. One of those little byways took me to the thought of being marooned on a deserted island with an unlimited supply of batteries for a Discman (yeah, old school but the only practical alternative for a deserted island) and the entire oeuvre of a single composer. I decided to contemplate which composer’s music I would choose. My results in a moment.

Parallel to my considerations, I began to wonder why I like the music I do, mostly what is termed as “Classical” or “Symphonic” music. I knew that our musical taste influences are obvious – social environment, peers, family (the “exposure effect”), childhood memories – but also that one can be hardwired to respond to sounds on a purely emotional level. How a progression of notes can deeply affect one person emotionally but not another baffled me. My comparison was my brother who, of course, I grew up with. He was “into” Rock and Roll and some Jazz. I was always into Classical, although I did feign an interest in Jazz to gain access to a small circle of the cooler kids in high school (Peter Leitch (now a highly regarded jazz guitarist in New York), Robert (Bobby) Walker (now a renowned photographer working out of Montreal and New York and Warsaw … yeah, a little bit of name dropping there) – they were into John Coltrane and Thelonius Monk, but I found a way in through Milt Jackson and the Modern Jazz Quartet who were musically based in Classical style and structure). My parents didn’t listen to Rock and Roll. My Uncle Jimmy had an incredible record collection of great music (mostly Classical and Jazz) and my Mom would borrow albums to bring home to play on the big console record player in the living room. I remember Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto (Piano Concerto No. 5) and I also remember The Jackie Gleason Orchestra with Harry James playing the trumpet on standards of the day. I know now that the music was for my folks to listen to, but it clearly influenced my brother and me. But why the divergent paths? All the music was going in both our ears.

“Music is the art of thinking with sound”, says French scholar, Jacques Combarieux. Both Jazz and Classical music are considered “high art music” and an affinity for them identifies someone who has a reactive brain, someone who has a “conversation” with the music. At least, that’s the connection our brains create. Sort of makes sense to me. Being engaged in the listening (rather than “using” music as merely background noise) can be passive or active, but is rarely inconsequential. There is a subliminal empathy to emotions deeply buried in us via music. Certain note sequences or harmonic progressions affect us in an indefinable way. They “pluck at our heartstrings” or prompt memories or feelings that are somehow comforting or familiar, visceral recollections. So, essentially, the paths of me and my brother weren’t really all that divergent. We were experiencing what the music prompted in us and if we didn’t experience “something” with one kind of music, we found another with which we could experience that “something” that comforted us.

What perplexes and astounds me even more is the ability of those human beings who put those notes and harmonies in a particular order to affect me. We all have access to the same notes (or words, or colours), but to be someone who hears “something” in the mind that has not been there, that hasn’t existed before and that resonates in the soul of that creator and then, somehow in us, is, to me, a miraculous thing. I’ve written music and words and put colour on a piece of paper, but to produce something that becomes Universal in its profundity and effect has and will always challenge my understanding of what it is to be human. How someone’s internal hearing and seeing is externalized in such a way as to bring together “heaven” and earth in our hearing and seeing can only be termed as divine. From all the choices I have, there are two composers who, for me, completely encapsulate that genius.

When I was 15 or 16, I joined The Record Center of Montreal, a record lending library. It was located on Metcalfe Street and run by a tall, bespectacled man who played the oboe or the French Horn (I can’t remember which) for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. This shop was incredible to me. The walls were lined with shelves of SO many records to choose from! I had a small collection of my own, mostly made up of Steinberg’s Supermarket’s “Great Music of the World” LP’s, a new one on sale weekly and eagerly anticipated because I never knew what was going to be on the record. I think that’s how I developed my tastes – accidentally and spontaneously. But this Library was heaven on earth. Saturday mornings I would trek downtown and browse for hours. There wasn’t any place to listen to the records. You just had to read the liner notes and take a chance on something new. And that was how I discovered the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

By now, symphonic music was pretty much a part of me. I was my High School’s rep on the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s Young People’s Concerts Student Council (wow, that’s a mouthful!) and eventually became President of that “august body”, involving myself in every aspect of selling tickets in schools across the city (6 Concerts for $12.00!!!), developing promotional approaches to get kids interested in Classical Music. The highlight of the Council’s year was when Sir Wilfred Pelletier, the great MSO Conductor and Conductor of our Student Concerts would come into our meeting and talk to us about the up-coming season and what we would like to hear. Those memories are indelible and, in my mind, accompanied by the Overture to “Russlan and Ludmilla” by Glinka, which I can still “see” the Orchestra playing in the wood paneled Montreal High School Auditorium. Rushing home from the Library, I’d put the newly acquired (for a week) music on the player in my room, close the door and disappear into it.

The first Vaughan Williams piece I listened to was called “The Wasps”, an Overture written for a play by Aristophanes. SOLD! The rhythms and the luxurious evocative melodies dove into my heart and I couldn’t wait to hear more. The “Greensleeves” Fantasia, the Thomas Tallis Fantasia, and “The Lark Ascending”. Oh, my God!! That last one! Totally beyond anything I had aurally experienced before! I didn’t care why it affected me; I just know that it did, to my very core. In the summer of 1983, I walked from London to Canterbury along The Pilgrims Way. It took me eight days (that’s another story) and my accompaniment on my Walkman was, among others, “Lark”.  Combined with the landscape I was in, the vistas I was seeing, well, it brought me to tears any number of times. I expanded my Vaughn Williams collection to include just about everything he wrote, from the complex and intense Symphonies to the Concertos, the Church Music, two small operas, the songs, Ballet Music and the Chamber Music. I’ve never been disappointed. In fact “Serenade To Music” is playing as I write this.

Those grocery store collections introduced me to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and Mozart. I listened with my ears, but sometimes with my mind, asking myself how it was possible for a human being to choose from just the twelve notes of the scale and put them into such an order that I would be touched, provoked, cajoled into feeling this way or that, one note following another or on top of another or through, above and below its neighbour. I had heard Handel’s “Messiah” on records for a time. Over the years, I have sung it many times. I’ve even created theatre pieces out of it a couple of times. But I will never forget the first time I experienced it live. I was 16 in Montreal and the MSO was giving a performance of it at Notre Dame Cathedral. The Cathedral is immense! It seats over 2,500 people. It is a riot of colour, the overall impression, at least to me, is of a hummingbird – iridescent gold and orange and green and blue and red. The orchestra is seated in the vast alter space, with the towering gold façade of the saints as the backdrop. The basilica is darkened at the start of the performance. The slow, almost languid opening notes of the Overture bring a sober focus to the purpose of the music. Handel is directing us into a worshipful mindset, gradually pulling us into the mystery. Then, suddenly, in an incredibly theatrical surprise, the spritely Fugue begins. As those first notes stab the momentary silence, the lights of the vivid blue alter background flicker to full power setting off the gold and red of the façade, like eyelids fluttering after a night of sleep, moving from the dark into the light. The effect overpowers you for a moment as in “Did that really just happen?” and takes your breath away.

The organization of Handel’s music, the order of the Baroque harmonies touch my sense of structure and I am calm, open, accepting of the path down which I’m being led. It is sensory bliss. More Handel found its way into my life over the years through my involvement with the Montreal Elgar Choir and Gifford Mitchell, its conductor. Heady days, those; all the Oratorios, Maureen Forrester singing in most of them (what a voice!). Then seeking out any performance of the Orchestral works and then the Operas. I discovered the magic of the Countertenor voice with Handel. I came to understand the predictable progressions of his harmonies in the Baroque style and could hum along the first time I heard the music, not the actual melody but a harmony to it because I knew what the next chord would be. That was incredibly satisfying, to understand Handel’s music in that way.

Musical signposts that have accompanied times and events in my life: listening to Elizabeth Schwarzkopf sing Richard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs” and the effervescence of the Jean Podromides film score for “Le Voyage En Ballon” on dear friend Michael Sinelnikoff’s magnificent sound system in the early sixties in Montreal; hearing “Days of Future Past” by the Moody Blues (very Vaughan Williams in fact) right inside my head via my new-fangled Walkman as I walked down Tottenham Court Road in London; my Pilgrim Way walk, in the Kentish countryside, again with the magic of the Walkman, tears streaming down my face as I listened to Peter Allen singing “I Could Have Been A Sailor” and “Tenterfield Saddler” over and over again. Oh Lands!! Just thinking about those moments now fills me with joy and melancholy all at the same time! Maybe I provoke myself at times like these, wanting to feel big feelings in big ways, expanding the emotion to be all encompassing in the moment … and how gratifying that can be!

So, back to the deserted island and lots of batteries. What’s it to be? It comes down to all that the above entails, really. Allowing oneself to bask in memory for a time (and perhaps this really is just a thing about getting old) and the need to recapture feelings from the past and force away the jangle of the present. So, I would have to chose (and I really am taking a moment here to decide … well, actually, I’ve taken a few days but I have to set the name down now) … Handel! No! Wait! Vaughan Williams!! No, uh, Handel. Oh, Geez! BOTH!! I have unlimited batteries for the player, so why not? The personal satisfaction that results from the music of these two composers can’t be diminished on either side. I have to have them both. It’s my game and I can make the rules however I want.

Okay, your turn. What’s YOUR choice to get you through extended time on a deserted island and, more importantly, why the choice? Never thought about that, have you? Well, maybe you did as you were reading this. Go for it! Let the notes take you to some place, some time, some event, some feeling, and relive it all over again. Or just simply marvel at the genius of Creation.

I’ll be back!

(It has taken a while to get to here. This posting started out with the exact opposite title and went down a road that, I eventually realized, had no conclusion. In a previous posting I wrote about living life vertically, being in the moment, and that each choice one makes affects the next choice which affects the next and so on. The more interesting thinking came when I asked myself about when there aren’t choices. I came up with three examples for myself, all of which, surprisingly, have their own rewards.)

From time to time, not frequently, but occasionally, from time to time, I have these memories. The memories are provoked by various external elements. Now, I know what “sense memories” are. Digging up and using sense memory is a part of theatre training. I think of one thing to remind me of another. Hearing Robert Russell Bennett’s original orchestrations for the dance break in “I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy” from “South Pacific” with the soaring trumpet section playing the melody always reminds me of travelling in the old Buick with my parents on our way to Florida and reaching a crest in the highway and looking through the windshield seeing the great expanse before us, a Howard Johnson’s restaurant just ahead on the left there, the road leading on for miles before us and railway tracks behind a fence beside us on the right. That’s a pretty deep and concise sense memory because I remember that music was on the radio when I saw that particular scene. These memories aren’t those. These are something different. These memories come for only a second or two, little waves washing up on a shore, pausing like an intake of breath and retreating, leaving me in awe of what their shape was, in awe of what the feeling was that had just suddenly and completely overwhelmed me. These memories are spontaneous and unbidden, provoked by the most unexpected things, maybe the image of a hand reaching for a door, a series of numbers, a combination of colours or the tilt of someone’s head, a mixture of an aroma and a very precise temperature, all abstract cues for the memory experience to begin. These memories, if that is indeed what they are, evaporate almost as soon as they form and there is nothing I can do to get them back. When they come, it isn’t gradual. They arrive instantaneously, fully-formed, active and all consuming. They are a couple of frames from a reality that I try to grasp, to hold on to because it is so comfortable, warm, mysteriously familiar but, at the same time, not, and just as I think I have it in my grasp to luxuriate in, it is gone. The image or combination of elements that brought the memory to life is irretrievable, try as I might to recreate it. It is a confluence of things that can’t be duplicated, recreated, forced. It is a singularity. One “memory” that has happened more than once and is never prompted by the same thing, is of a very broad skyscraper-lined boulevard in a huge city, devoid of cars, maybe a person or two walking by on the distant sidewalk opposite. It isn’t the visual that is important, but rather the sensation that accompanies what I somehow “see”. I feel at total peace, at ease, comfortable actually, as if this is where I’m supposed to be. These feelings don’t fade-in or evolve but are instantaneous as the memory washes over me. I know it is all going to pass very fast and I try to hang on to it, but it goes as quickly as it came. The oddest thing about these experiences is that I have no recollection of the memory I’m experiencing. They didn’t actually happen to me. I don’t remember them happening in real life. I don’t know if they are subliminal, a purposeful product of my imagination or, weirdest of all, someone else’s memories. And the memories aren’t always of places. They might be just a sense of that comfort I mentioned before, a feeling of arms enfolding me but not literally, an awareness of relief and safety. The fleeting-ness of these sensations leaves me momentarily saddened and desperate to hold on to them, but I have no choice in the matter. They arrive and leave in the twinkling of an eye. I have no control over any aspect of them. They come unprompted and leave the same way. But those few seconds are, simply, a blissful gift.

And then there’s this.

I cannot begin to imagine what my Mom experienced the last years of her life. Her slow descent into the chaos of dementia was, for me, knowingly, an extended farewell and, from this vantage point, I cherish every moment of it. I think I cherished it all even as it was happening. She looked across at me from her chaise beside the hotel pool in Hawaii one vacation morning and said, “I know I repeat things”. And it began. That was ten years before she passed. For me, at times, the journey was fraught with impatience, frustration, irritability. But for her, it was a straight road, unknowingly losing the essential mental connections along the way and intuitively finding another path to travel if only out of self-preservation. The saving grace was that she didn’t remember that she didn’t remember. Oh so slowly the newer-minted neurons stopped firing. But deep below the surface there were ingrained behaviours that, right to the end, never disappeared, too firmly embedded in her essence not to bubble up and give observers a sense of normalcy. For all her years she had schooled herself to be dignified, elegant, polite, affable, engaging, to greet people with a smile, and even as the “now” disappeared, always at her core were those traits that belied what was in fact happening. There was no retreating from the physical truth, that, eventually, the disintegration would take its total toll and stop her life. Medication helped to slow the progression and gave me a much too small portion of the Gift of Time. But I knew there was no controlling agent that would halt that inexorable march to the end. So I accepted the lack of choice … for both of us … and reveled in it. Initially, when I moved to Victoria, we lived in side-by-side condos until that became unviable and I moved her into a care residence, chosen by her while still aware and based on comfort, beautiful décor and potential friends. Over time that awareness diminished and with the help of the wonderful caretakers, she was guided through each day. When she decided that she wanted to move back to Toronto and get an apartment, I was thankful that she forgot things. I would tell her that I would look into making those arrangements knowing full well that the next day she wouldn’t remember that she wanted to move. For the moment, I was giving her the satisfaction of the move and we went on to other things. Looking through old photo albums spurred memories, although most of the reminding was done by me, and I could see how happy whatever memories she was having made her. This went on for four years, each day a new adventure and challenge for both of us. As things wound down and she became less and less mobile, usually spending the days napping in the common living room, then in her own room on the couch and, eventually, in the hospital bed brought in to help the care staff, my choices within the lack of choice got fewer and fewer. She stopped speaking and kept her eyes closed most of the time. But every now and then would open them and acknowledge my presence with a small smile. I would sing to her … “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you” … and tell her of what happened during my day and in the world, holding her hand. There was nothing sad about any of this although a mental image may indicate otherwise. It was just fact borne out of the inevitable for all of us. The privilege of being a part of that inevitability was, for me, beyond measure. One day, finally, after six years, I forced myself to say out loud what I had been actively thinking for weeks. I had resisted it, having only seen it on television, not knowing how it would feel speaking those words. “Mom, it’s alright if you want to let go”. There was no response but I think she heard me. Actually, I know she heard me. Over the next month, from time to time, I would say it again. One afternoon, as I was leaving, I leaned over her, kissed her forehead, and whispered it one more time. There was a small movement of her head and she said, coherently, as if the last years had all been a joke, clearly, quietly, almost belligerently, “I’m trying. I’m trying”. Those were the last words she spoke. She passed two weeks later. Because of the time we spent together, its quality, its duration, I have no regrets about her passing. Inside that lack of choice, we left nothing unspoken. We grew ever closer. We experienced each other’s humanness. And the purity of our Mother-Son bond, one that had expanded over our lives, left nothing to be desired. And that was the Blessing.

And this.

There are moments that are life-altering. Then there are moments that are life-defining. The first changes things from one something to another something. The second changes nothing but fundamentally clarifies and identifies at the same time. The second comes immediately. It confirms and provides, without analysis or assessment or theorizing, the Fact of who you are. Perhaps it comes with lightening and a sonic boom, an “a-ha moment”. Perhaps it comes quietly and gently with no fanfare or preamble. Mine was the second kind. It was choice-less. It was a realization. It presented no alternatives and happened inside a moment. It was the late spring of 1966. My twenty year old life, while not confused, was, in hindsight (and for want of a better word), undefined. I was in the Theatre Department at Sir George Williams University in Montreal and had just been hired to spend the summer performing at Acadia Summer Playhouse in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. I was happy and excited about that. Was this how I was to spend my life … in the Theatre? But that wasn’t an urgent question. That would play out in time. There were a few other things niggling at me, little threads that weren’t important, but would eventually need some explanation as to why they were even in my mind. But that didn’t matter just then. It was a beautiful day. I was walking down Stanley Street, just walking (and this is still and forever all so incredibly clear), and was passing a below-street-level bistro called L’Enfer (ironically, French for “Hell”) on my left and the thought came into my head, fully formed and complete, “I’m gay!” Nothing more. Just those two words. I didn’t consider the implications, the complications, the profundity of that newly-minted thought. There was no emotional upheaval or confusion about it. It was simply, purely, instantaneously and for all time, I’m gay. That was it. And I kept walking, but now with an identity that somehow, miraculously, had been given me and which I laid over myself, not with any out loud proclamation or attention-getting or even any adjustment, but just a total unquestioning acceptance that this was who I was and always would be. My identity as a human being had been, after those twenty years, established in the world. It was the Me I was supposed to be, fundamentally and without choice. I don’t think it always happens that way. In fact, I know it doesn’t. One’s Personhood is sometimes too slowly revealed and agonized over for long periods of time. Some people are backed into corners and cowed into being someone they’re not. They happen too often, those influences. “It gets better” is a phrase that has become a mantra for gay youth, one that is sometimes very difficult to buy into because of the pain being experienced in the moment. Going back to my realization, I must say that, up to that point in time, I had been “active”, if you get my drift, and had discovered myself in that regard. But “it” never had a name. I think I was lucky. There were no influences on me, no pressures, and somewhere, viscerally, deep inside, I gave myself permission to acknowledge the fact. It’s easier to arrive at the destination when you’re not being directed, or, indeed, forced down a path this is not your own. I wish it was that easy for everyone. I really do. That moment of passage for me, without upheaval or chaos, that walking through the door, that “coming out” was not a choice. It was my Truth.

And so I drift on now, waiting for the next vision, accepting our inevitabilities and never being totally defined by that long ago discovery of myself, but rather still identifying all those threads that must be put into place to complete the fabric of the Me I am still to become. The journey continues.

I’ve decided to get a few things off my mind/chest in this posting. And don’t worry. I’ve not gone too far of the deep end. I’ll try not to be too polarizing. “Try” is the important word in that last sentence. Going through life harbouring things that piss one off can be debilitating and give rise to a cynicism that’s hard to control at times. Divesting oneself of such feelings (in other words, ranting) can also be very hard to control but feels mighty good once you’ve done it.

So, just to warn you, there are some rants ahead but nothing too serious … or, at least, nothing to get too bent out of shape about. Let me be your guide for a few minutes and I’ll expose all that crappy stuff you’ve been secretly thinking about for a long time. ‘Kay?

Number Six: BABY DIVAS

Jesus!  WHEN did this start? I guess it was with the talent shows. A seven-year-old girl comes on and sings “O Mio Babbino Caro” in an “operatic” voice and everyone goes nuts. In fact, a couple of them even became “stars” (for a while) doing it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for kids singing, but what we’re dealing with here is nothing more than mimicry, aping sounds heard on a recording. Ask a two-year-old what a cow “says”. “Moo”, comes the answer. It’s not the real sound, but an imitation of a cow and gets applause and laughter from Friends and Family. It’s an early form of acceptance and approval for a) understanding the question and b) giving the “right” answer. Let’s get down to brass tacks here. As Glen Winters put it, “opera is to singing as neurosurgery is to medicine”. There’s a Mama Rose standing in the wings watching little Gloria impress folks with her “wonderful sound”! Have them try “Casta Diva” or “Sempre Libera” if you want to test a kid. Sorry, it doesn’t work. But what gets me more than anything else are the faces of the “judges” registering awe and disbelief as this “sound” comes out of the kid’s mouth and the rushing to gush about what a great voice she has. This admiration and flattery just validates a parent’s encouragement and propels the child into a downward spiral in the real musical world and, worse, only serves to confirm how musically ignorant the people sitting behind the table are. (Strangely, why don’t we see young boys doing the same thing? Simply put … they can’t!). Put the kid into a school choir or into some basic voice lessons and let them develop normally. I’ve found myself in trouble at some Kiwanis Musical Festivals for saying all of the above to music teachers and competitors (God, I hate that word when it comes to young singers) and have even been forced by the Festival Committee on one occasion to apologize to the audience for my comments. But I stand by my view. “Don’t put your daughter on (that) stage, Mrs. Worthington”!

Number Five: SO HELP ME GOSH!

It would seem that the Christian Right continues to subtly dictate the content on some television stations. Well, actually, that’s nothing new. Ricky and Lucy never did sleep in the same bed. The requirements for registering disbelief (think renovation shows or antique appraisal shows) must not include the “name of the deity”, so the exclamation of surprise must now be “Oh my gosh!” OH! MY! GOD! There! Get over it! It seems the. Smith Family sitting in their plaid recliners in middle-somewhere doesn’t hear or utter that phrase themselves daily in real life! The word “gosh” has its origin in the 18th century and was used as a euphemism for “God” because, of course, at that point in time, the Church was in everyone’s nooks and crannies. Is that really still the case? I understand some folk’s aversion to “taking the deity’s name in vain”, so would “Holy Shit” be better? The spontaneous language we use to express the range of our emotions is being gagged by a return to the two-bed-syndrome. We are dictated to by corporations fearful of offense and its affect on their bottom line! There is nothing wrong with maintaining a sense of decorum and civility in our discourse (to wit: the American Election!) but to pretend that saying “Oh My God!” as an emotional response to something is going to signal the decline of civilization (that’s already happened) is disingenuous at least and hypocritical at best. Gosh help us all!

Number Four: APATHY, PEOPLE!

You’ve seen them on Facebook. Those arithmetic memes with a snowflake, a candy cane and Santa Claus adding up to “30” with a caption proclaiming that “98% of you will get this wrong”. An eight year old could figure it out!! Good Dog! (See what I did there?) And then there are the requests to name a fish that doesn’t have an “a” in it. Only one is sixty thousand can figure out a right answer to that one! I think there’s a Grade Three teacher sitting in a cubbyhole somewhere coming up with these ridiculous “challenges”. And the baffling thing is that thousands of people respond in the “comments” section!! I wonder how many have to use a calculator to figure out the “math” question! There was a time when there were no calculators and problems had to be figured out with paper and pencil. Anybody remember those days? The dumbing-down of our society is just plain sad. When the lowest common denominator is our highest standard, what does that bode for the future? A rationale that gives us permission to quit is very easy to come up with and grants us a justification for not questioning or challenging our own motives (and anyone else’s, for that matter). It’s called “apathy”. So, here’s a real question: If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take two chickens to lay 32 eggs? Don’t even want to try, huh? Come on. Work it! Use your brain! How much mental energy do you actually have to exert before giving up? The answer is 28 days. But then, really, who cares? And that’s where we are!

Number Three: REALLY?

I was doing a television interview for a show I was directing. The videographer wanted some footage to insert during a voice-over in the interview and asked me to come outside and he’d film me walking down the street toward the theatre. I said “No. Can we come up with something more original? Everyone does that and it looks phony and staged”. The camera guy was confused, but they ended up using some footage from the rehearsal. Have you ever noticed that? Watch. When someone is being interviewed, invariable, you see them walking down a street toward their place of work trying their best to look natural and normal while the announcer is saying something over the “visual”. We buy into things so easily (as per the above). While directing a production of “The Sound of Music” I was being interviewed by a nice young lady with a notebook and pen. “Okay, Richard, tell us what the play is about?” She put her head down to write. Silence. She looked up. I tilted my head and said “Seriously??” She looked baffled. (The wonks always look baffled and confused when you don’t follow their script.) Perhaps it was rather pompous of me but I said “Are you really asking me that question?”  We get cowed by the Media, especially television. We unquestioningly accept what is presented to us, both as consumers and suppliers. (And how relevant has that become of late!) Have you ever noticed, in answer to an interview question, a person will respond with another question, a vocal lift at the end of a sentence, as in “So why are you here today?” (yet another inane interviewer question with a backdrop of the hundreds of people walking around carrying signs declaring “Save Our Forests”). “I’ve come to protest the destruction our forests?” as if some kind of validation is required of the interviewer. People don’t talk to each other like that in real life, do they? Why does a camera or a microphone alter our reality to the point that we are no longer ourselves, where we are manipulated by our own perception of what others want to hear or see? Alternate Facts? Fake news? (Those phrases have only come into common use in the past MONTH!!) I guess one gets to a point in life when you can say “Fuck it, I’m not going to buy into that fabricated reality, neither as a spectator nor a participant”. I’m at that point!

Number Two: WORDS

If you Google “Mariam Margolyes like” you’ll be presented with a video segment from The Graham Norton Show in which the great British character actress schools Will I Am on the use of the word “like”. It’s just the first few minutes of the video clip (the rest is very funny by not pertinent to my thoughts here) and challenges the weird interjection of that word into everyday speech. Our ears like have like become very like conditioned to like hearing  the word “like” in like normal conver-like-sation.  (Say that last sentence out loud!) When, and more to the point, HOW did this happen? I think maybe the advent of the “Surfer Dude/Valley Girl” in late eighties movies had something to do with it, using a vernacular that has been normalized by millennials over time and now actually sounds normal. But that’s really no justification for its persistent use. Just like the word (and I use the term very loosely) “nother”, as in “that’s a whole nother story”. There is no such word!!! It is either “another” or “other”. But I hear broadcasters and commentators using it all the time, people who should know better and who I thought were, like, better educated. I think it’s just laziness. We (they) have simply accepted the wrong word and moved on with no thought given as to what the right word might be. “Nuclear” is now pronounced “nucular”. “February” is now pronounced “Febuary”. And it’s not much better in the written word. “Their”, “there” and “they’re” are interchangeable it seems. I feel so old pointing out these errors to my younger friends, but they don’t seem to care. Being aware is a step toward correction and I persist, perhaps to no immediate avail, but like maybe someday it will like sink in that like one can be like clearer if like one takes the time to like think about what they’re like saying … like.

Number One: POLARIZATION!

Okay. I said I wasn’t going to go there, but I lied. I had this in mind all the time. I knew it was going to end here and I make no apologies! So here goes.

Over the past while, all of us have come to respond to one name that has provoked (to put it very mildly) outrage on one side and praise on the other. It has divided friends and family and split us into walled camps. The shouting and hurled insults have caused incredible personal pain and utter dismay. There are no shades of gray. It is either one side or the other and never shall the twain meet! I’m referring, of course, to Cilantro! It is the most polarizing spice/herb/condiment (whatever you want to call it) in the world. It used to be called Coriander (and in some places still is) or Chinese parsley, but in North America it is now known by its Spanish name, “seel-aahn-troh”. Ugh!!! Cilantro smells and tastes like soap!! At least to me. The name itself makes my skin crawl and I’m not alone. The great Italian American chef, Fabio Viviani, will not have it in his kitchen, grown on his property or be anywhere physically near it. This extreme response is simply due to a gene that many of us carry. That gene is called OR6A2 and lies within a cluster of olfactory-receptor genes involved in sensing smells. (Yeah, I’ve done a bit of research on this and, as a sidebar, did you know there’s a biological enzyme that allows some people to detect a distinctive odor in their, ahem, urine after eating asparagus? I’m one of them.) So it’s all biological and I can’t be held responsible for my aversion. I simply hate it and will send back any plate of food that has cilantro in or on it. That’s why restaurants should include ingredient lists in their menu offerings. Why would I order or should I pay for something that is so distasteful to me but hasn’t been disclosed? But, as the old saying goes, “Chaqu’un a son gout”, right?

Whew! And that’s about it … for now. I’ve run out of steam (and I’m sure you have too). My friend, Chris Sigurdson, once referred to me as “old nippy cheese” and as time goes on, my curmudgeonly-ness only serves to provoke people and satisfy me. And that’s just the way I like it. Till next time … keep up the good work!

It is said that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Well, maybe. Sometimes. I think that, often, the words are actually worth the words. They excavate deep feeling and understanding. They create impossible images in our mind. They force us to remember.

When I was small, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I don’t know why. Why does any youngster decide at such an early age what they want to be when they grow up? I had a lot of books about dinosaurs, books about old temples and buildings that had been unearthed by archaeologists, books about the Egyptians and the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. It was with endless fascination that I looked at the pictures of old civilizations and tried to imagine what it must have been like to live so long ago, to look at those long-gone animals with wonder at how big they were. I have always been amazed at how many youngsters are still also fascinated by dinosaurs, how a three- year old can so easily say those complicated names and know what they ate and when they lived. Is it, perhaps, a molecular memory that we all possess, buried deep inside us, that our past lives are still so close to the surface when we are very young? Ask a small child of three or four “What do you remember?” Don’t prompt them and listen to what they say. I’ve done it a number of times and am always confounded by the clarity and assuredness of the response. As time goes on, we lose that connection to the “past”, to what we remember.

In 1966, I began my Journals. Don’t know what prompted me to do
that, but I did (actually I do know but that’s another story). A few days ago, I decided to go through some old boxes in the storage at my house. On my computer, I have about 500 pages dating back to June of 2005, but I wanted to look back at what I had written over the years. It took a while to dig out all the Journals. They were scattered through dozens of boxes and that is what brought the title of this entry to mind – I was unearthing the past and having to work for it. My back can attest to that! Above is a photo of the result of my digging, thousands of pages, some handwritten, some in dot matrix (when was the last time you used that term?) written on and printed from my Commodore 64 (!!) and the rest from my laser printer.

As you can see here, the early Journals, the first ones from 1966-67, are much the worse for wear. They have been through a lot in the half century since the entries were made – a flood or two, multiple cross-country moves- and they now reside in a Ziploc bag so they won’t deteriorate any further. Opening them a few days ago was like handling the Dead Sea Scrolls. The pages were brittle and broken and partially disintegrating, but then I began to read – from the beginning. None of the entries were dated back then, but I knew the time frames from the events I had referenced.

I honestly don’t know how to describe the feeling that began  to well up inside me. It was a combination of embarrassment, humility, humiliation, surprise, compassion, curiosity, anger and, above everything else, oddly, fear. I found myself, with great trepidation,  gingerly turning pages to learn what happened next. While I remember most of what I read, I didn’t remember the order in which events had happened. I was reliving a part of my foggy past, some parts of which I didn’t want to relive, but I read on anyway and that’s where some of the embarrassment kicked in. I have long since forgiven myself for ever being 21 but, from this chronological  distance, I got pissed off at my naivete,  at my lack of perspective and process. Of course, all those reactions were from the “me” now and I had to realize that these words were the words of an honest, young and inexperienced me in those long-ago moments. They were important words then. That was the humbling part, to realize that I have come a very long way since.

There were the crazy, heady days of Expo ’67 in the middle of the St. Lawrence River one glorious summer. The remnants of that event still stand in the middle of Ile St. Helene. Nostalgia wells up inside me whenever I think of that time. I wonder what happened to all the close friends I made then. I know some of them are gone now, sadly. But we move on. After Expo, the Corporation sent us, free of charge, to anywhere Air France flew. We started in Paris and spent a month darting about the continent! More nostalgia.

Then to the West Coast and a new life in Vancouver after the FLQ began putting bombs in mailboxes in Westmount. Years of performing in Burlesque at Isy’s Supper Club on Georgia Street followed (bet a lot of folks didn’t know that about me!). Then to Portland Oregon and the incredible years at Portland Civic Theatre. Then to New York and Lincoln Center … as a Tour Guide, not a performer, unfortunately. Then Winnipeg (for 27 years) and finally, now, to this beautiful city. Squeezing 50 years into a couple of paragraphs makes one aware of how small we are in the great expanse of time that surrounds us. But those are just a few sign posts. It is the myriad of details, large and small, secret and public, that give dimension to a life. What is our mark? What impression have we make and who have we affected by our existence? I’m glad I have saved this record of my little time here. The question now is what becomes of my words? Who really cares to know all the details of my life? What does it matter? Should I burn the Journals or should I give them to someone? But to what end?

I think I’ve become cynical as time has gone on. I have found myself beaten at times by my own impatience, my own dishonesty and by ageism (and that’s a hard one to get my head around). I have misplaced the enthusiasm and vitality of the long-ago-me, and mourn that loss. But the unearthing of the past in those Journals brings a perspective on the present. The luxury of remembering lessons recorded along the way is something we don’t always have. Merely blundering through an existence can’t be all that rewarding, I would think. Having tangible connections to remind us who we were and how we have changed is, I can report hundreds of thousands of my own words later, deeply rewarding. “I am what I am”, ‘Zaza’ says in “La Cage Aux Folles” and I am grateful to myself for keeping the Journals. Whether long ago or yesterday, I’m all there for the reading!

So, bear with me here for a bit.

We’re back at the Banff School and I’m in my second summer there (1963 now), this time in the newly formed Musical Theatre Division, headed by Theatre Giant Brian MacDonald, with Billy Solly and John Stanzl (all still an amazing memory). There were about twenty of us sitting on the floor in a studio one day. I had been asked a question by Brian and started to answer. He said, “Stop!” I stopped mid-sentence and my heart stopped beating. “Do you hear your ess’s?” “Yes”, I said, becoming very aware of my sibilance. “Well, STOP IT!!” he shouted at me and continued on with the class.

Flash forward to Sir George Williams University in Montreal and my second year in the Theatre Department. The University had just moved into the new Building on Maisonneuve Boulevarde and we were in the brand new Douglas Burns Theatre (there’s nothing like a new Theatre!). Canadian Theatre Legend, Norma Springford (and she WAS legendary!) was our teacher, a tiny, oh-so-elegant lady with her hair always pulled back in a tight bun and with huge glasses perched at the end of her nose. The class was preparing for some scene work and moving furniture around the room. A loud screech from a table being dragged across the floor pierced the air. “Hold on!” yelled Norma (as much as Norma ever “yelled”), shedding her elegance for a moment! Everyone froze. She slowly folded her arms looked around the room and then looked down at the floor. Words of wisdom were now to follow. She looked up at us and quietly stated, “We always LIFT in the Theatre”. (Pause) Continue”. The scene change took place in silence.

There was Mr. Harding, my high school English Teacher, a disheveled, highly enthusiastic Welshman who never did a great job shaving and always had dried blood on his neck and chin from razor nicks but masterfully made us aware of the detail and luxury of the words of Charles Dickens. There was Mr. Scott, my high school Music Teacher, a fiery Presbyterian Scotsman, bald, with a moustache, and gnarled hands that would slam into a desktop if the all-boy chorus was not singing “Guide Me, Oh Thou Great Jehovah” loud enough to make the fixtures in the Choir Room rattle and for the entire school beyond to hear us. There was Professor O’Brian who taught English 101 in my first year of University, a very dapper Englishman who read us Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” in Middle English and urged us to learn it that way. (I can still recite the opening lines – “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote/The droghte of March hath pierced to the roote” – in Middle English). They all left their impressions indelibly upon me.

Years later, I accidentally fell into teaching myself. I had acquired a modicum of success as an actor on stages in Portland, Oregon, and was constantly being asked if I was teaching any classes. Thanks to a lifelong friend, Isabella Chappell, who was the GM of Portland Civic Theatre at the time, I began some workshops at the Theatre. (I eventually became Head of the revitalized School and ended up with an incredible Staff and almost a thousand people a year going through all kinds of Performing Arts classes). Suddenly thrown into the deep end, I had to come up with some kind of approach to “teaching” acting, and I began to think about my school experiences. Why had those particular teachers stuck with me for so many years? Rather slowly, I came to the realization that it was not WHAT they had taught me, but rather HOW they had taught me. Their approaches stay with me even now, viscerally, even after a half-century. Their passion for what they did was certainly a foundation for their careers, but it seemed to me that connecting directly with a student and making them “aware” was the answer, making the experience of learning come to life by somehow, mystically, focusing our minds. It was never a case of them telling someone what to think, but rather of provoking someone to think.

Focus and awareness are difficult challenges to the learning experience. Actually, they are difficult challenges in everyday life. Just think of a group of high school or college students these days … one word – “iphone”! So I began to develop exercises that would address, if only for the moments in the class, those two challenges. One exercise that I still use today is a “Chaos Exercise”. The class arranges itself in an inward facing circle. The first of the continuous instructions is to simply breathe, regularly, quietly. Now, of course, I can hear the minds thinking, “What is this nonsense?”, “Geez, we’ve done all this before!”, “What is this jerk making us do this for?” The next instruction asks them to let sound of the breath be heard. Next, make a quiet vocal sound on the breath. The focus starts to shift a bit now because there are specifics being required. They’re relaxing, but there are still wandering minds – “Where should I go for lunch?”, “What’s on TV tonight?” The next instruction asks the individuals to quietly sing a musical note on the breath, any note. The final instruction goes like this: “Now, on “three”, I want you all to sing the SAME note. One …Two … STOP!”  In the space between “one” and “two” the temperature in the room rises as I hear the mental collective yell “Wait, WHAT?”, and between “two” and “STOP”, a palpable tension (“What? How? Huh  …?”) becomes very apparent. There is suspended moment after “STOP” and the room suddenly lets out its tension and breaks into chatter. For a moment, a communal awareness and pinpoint focus was achieved. It is like the Hadron Collider of Theatre where everything coincides, all thoughts are the same and energies are defined and specific toward a singular goal. Yes, the path toward the achievement was through some chicanery and manipulative. But the focus was real. The awareness was real, if only for those few seconds. The engagement of the group was profound.

We always talk following that particular exercise. The expressions of the mental upheaval, chaos, surprise and apprehension in the lead up to being told to “stop” always have laughter associated with them, a laughter that comes from the realization that one has created a momentary reality out of something artificial and seemingly inconsequential.

There are constant moments in everyday life when we are suspended, moments that last for only a nano-second when you must decide, when you have to choose between stay or go, turn right or turn left, accept or reject. Those are the moments when we’re most engaged, when living becomes vital and full, when we decide to “Stop!”, “Lift!” and “Sing Louder!” We reach our best in those moments because we think and feel inside our personal Chaos and, amazingly, create Order.

(And just so you know, the exercise is repeated twice more during the class. The second time, they are told, again, to “Stop” before reaching the sung note. The atmosphere leading to that moment is very different from the first time because they now know what the objective is. The third time, they are given the “Three”. What happens then is … well, try it and see!)

More later.

(Okay, it took some time to technically get to this point, but I’m sort of there now and can begin. I’ll probably tweak some formatting things as time
goes on, but we’ll see.)

Now, you can consider all of the above as static like you’re trying to dial in to a particular station on a radio. Now my voice is clear(figuratively) but we’ll be going into some vagaries and ramblings from time to time so it might get foggy and blurred. But the best place to start is at the beginning.

My name is Richard Hurst  I was born in Montreal just over seven decades ago and I’ve lived in Vancouver, Portland, OR., New York, Winnipeg and am now in Victoria, BC. Perhaps that’s enough “history” for the moment. More will come out as time goes on.

(And just a wee disclaimer: I’m definitely NOT “nearly dead”. There’s a phrase said to apply to where I live “Victoria: Home to the Newly Wed and Nearly Dead”. Certainly I’m closer to my end now than when I began this sentence, but I think I might have a bit more to go. Just sayin’.)

It took a while to decide to do this and then I had to decide what to write about. Getting some things down in this format seemed like a good idea. I’ve learned a bunch of stuff over the years, done a bunch of thinking, and even come to a few of conclusions. I promise not to be pretentious (or at least, I’ll try not to be) and maybe, along the way, amuse you a little.

When I was 17 (in 1962) I took a train from Montreal to Banff, Alberta for the first of four summers at the Banff School of Fine Arts. I was in the Opera Division and the School was MUCH different than it is today. The students lived in “chalets” scattered about the grounds. We all ate our meals at the same time at long tables (picture meal time at Hogwarts) and Donald Cameron, the School Director, said grace before food was passed from the end of the tables. I met some incredible people in these years, many of whom are gone now. It was Eden in every way. The physical environment, the mountains, the classes, the faculty, everything so focused on a creative and, dare I say, a spiritual experience. But there were times when I was homesick. I would write letters home and my Mother would write back. At the end of every letter, Mom would write “Be a good boy and act intelligently”, just a sign-off then but, in time, words that became so meaningful. Looking back and realizing that she was only in her late thirties at that point, I’ve come to understand how incredibly generous and considerate a woman she was for one so young, being mindful enough to caution a young son a thousand miles away to think about what he was doing and why he was doing it. Those words were at the end of every letter I ever received from her – and there were a lot of them.  And they are the foundation of how I have tried to live my life. “Good” and “intelligent” are easy words to say but are much harder to put into action.

As the years went by, Mom rose mightily in her career, getting a PhD in Organizational Theory and breaking some, but not all, glass ceilings in the corporate world. I, too, rose in my life in the Theatre. I became the National Vice-President of Canadian Actors Equity Association and our worlds converged because we were both now dealing with organizational structures and dynamics. We had many conversations and, connected to the sign-off in her letters, she often talked about Core Values and Core Beliefs as they related to the people in our careers. When she passed a couple of years ago, all this came flooding back to me – how creating an environment for positive things to happen have their basis in “good” and “intelligent” and in Core Values and Core Beliefs. I wish we had talked more about this. I’ve read a lot about these concepts over the years and  it seems to me that Core Values, the things we use to make decisions, like trust and compassion and maybe honesty, the WHO-we-are at our very center that we need to feel a sense of well-being, can be related to Core Beliefs or the results of what we have learned, what experiences we’ve had, the HOW-we-operate in our lives. The one conclusion I’ve reached is that Core Beliefs without Core Values as the foundation is nothing more than propaganda, commercials and, unfortunately, politics. The past year and a half has been jangling when juxtaposed against these concepts. I wonder what has become of our humanity. Its a quandary to which I can find no comfortable response. Its frustrating and maddening and I don’t like feeling that way. My trust has been eroded and my compassion compromised. I still feel badly when I see a defenseless  animal abused or people herded into camps because they come from somewhere else. But I don’t feel the same way when I hear and see people attacking each other verbally on television (and you all know what I’m talking about). Where are my Values then? What are my Beliefs and why aren’t they meshing with those of someone else? And, perhaps, therein lies the difference. My life experience has been based (as much as I can make it so) in “good” and “intelligence”.  My sensibilities are the difference, all of which have been guided by the Core Values that influence everything else. My Beliefs are BASED in my Values. Why can’t everyone be that way??!! The Community all those years ago at the Banff School and in various other Group involvements during my life has always been focused on the greater “good” and fed by considered “intelligent” discourse, and the chief desire I continue to have is that others may have that experience in theirs. I’m going to leave it there for the moment. I’ll probably come back to this in the time ahead if anything new springs to mind.

So, there it is, the first entry. I wish I had a crystal ball to see where all this is going. But for the moment, I’ll be satisfied that I’ve begun another trek. There’s a lot to write about. But I’ll keep you in suspense.

More later!!!