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On to the Grey Cup, one more time

The first Grey Cup game was played in 1909.  The University of Toronto team defeated Parkdale Toronto, 26-6.  The now traditional East-West contest didn't begin until 1921, when the Edmonton Eskimos played, and lost to, the Toronto Argonauts, 23-0.  The first western team to win Earl Grey's cup was the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, in 1939.  A very tight game: Winnipeg 8, Ottawa 7.

The big turnaround for the west came in 1948, when Les Lear took the Calgary Stampeders to Toronto.  He also took, or was followed by, hordes of white-Stetsoned Calgary fans, who cooked pancakes on the steps of Toronto's city hall and rode horses into the Royal York Hotel.

The Stamps won that game 12-0 and established the Western Division of the CFL as a contender to be respected and feared.  It was a great team, including Normie Kwong, "the China clipper," later Alberta's Lieutenant-Governor, and Woody Strode, later the King of Ethiopia in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments."

And the man for whom the trophy was named?  Albert Henry George, fourth Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada 1904-11.

Which is the reason, of course, that the coach of the winning team is always doused at the end of the game with a pot of Earl Grey tea.

Cream or lemon?

The Greening of Calgary

Good afternoon, football fans!  This is Phil Wolochuk, broadcasting from Calgary, scene of this Sunday's Grey Cup showdown.  As expected, Cowtown is full of Melonheads.  That's what they're calling Saskatchewan Roughriders fans, who, to demonstrate their allegiance to the Big Green Machine hollow out watermelons and wear the shells as helmets.  You might say "they're shell-shocking."  Ha ha--a little humor there, sports fans. 

There have been times when cities have run out of watermelons, which, to a diehard Roughie fan is on a par with running out of Number One Hard Rye.  But to prevent such a catastrophe on the eve of Canada's gridiron classic, Canada Safeway has pulled watermelons from produce bins all over the country and sent them to Calgary.  Here's one fan who's cheering that move--Bert Fuldheimer of Slow Leak, Saskatchewan. 

"That's right, Phil.  I remember one time the Roughriders were playing the Argos, and you couldn't find a watermelon anywhere.  I was frantic."  

So what did you do, Bert?

"I hollowed out a lime, and wore that instead.  Fortunately, I have a very small head."

Quick thinking, Bert.  Now let's talk to this lovely lady beside you.  Tell us about your costume, miss."

"I made it myself, Phil.  It's a body suit constructed of thirty-thousand green Smarties."

Very chic!  And delicious, too.  Yum!  Of course, it wouldn't be football if there weren't lots of fans packing Thermos bottles.  What do you have in yours, big fella?

"I call it my Sack the Quarterback Cocktail, Phil.  It's a blend of Creme de Menthe and spinach juice."

I bet it packs a punch.  Well, football fans, that's it for now.  I just want to make one personal comment:  after Sunday's game, Montreal fans are going to be green with envy.  

Going to turn the mike over now to my Montreal colleague Jacques Blancmange.  Did you get that one, Jacques?  Green with envy.

"Ah yes, mon ami.  But may I remind you of the wisdom of Kermit the Frog?"

Uh--what's that, Jacques?

"It's not easy being green."

The Real Bach

This week a CBC Radio 2 host asked listeners to spot the fake Bach--one not among JSB's platoon of kinder--in this group:  Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Christian Bach, and Oscar Meyer Bach.  

A trick question, of course, as there are two impostors in this trio.  The real Bach, heir to his father's genius, was Oscar Meyer Bach.

Oscar Meyer Bach, best known for his Hot Dog Cantata (with the famous aria "Will You Have Onions or Sauerkraut With That?") was for several years kapellmeister in the Court of Friedrich the Fat and his consort, Griselda the Gross, in Frankfurt. Oscar Meyer soon became the world's most renowned Frankfurter.  

When Friedrich and Griselda were overthrown in the great Vegan Revolt and forced to go on a grapefruit and quinoa diet, Oscar fled to Nashville, Tennessee, where he composed the rock 'n' roll classic "You Ain't Nothin' but a Hot Dog."

Ultimately, Oscar Meyer Bach retired, having become too old to cut the mustard.  But his music lives on, and you may hear it hummed by curbside vendors everywhere.

I'll have Sauerkraut.  And a Lowenbrau.

So Long, Tom

One afternoon, in the offices of Young & Ross Advertising, I noticed that Tom Huntley was wearing mismatched cufflinks.  "Tom," I said, "you have a different cufflink on each sleeve." "That's right," he said, "and I have another pair at home just like them."

By this time we had known each other for a dozen years, since meeting in the studios of radio station CKNW.  Tom was a salesman, I was a writer, and I had written a series of commercials in which Tom and Jim Mantell played a Wodehousian pair dubbed Cholmondoley and Smythe.

We often made client calls together, and one of Tom's remarkable tricks was to sketch while talking.  He would have a pad in his lap, and while he looked straight ahead at the prospective client, the pencil in his hand would keep moving.  At the end of his pitch, Tom would say "And the design for the campaign might look something like this," and hold up whatever he had been drawing.

One of the campaigns we worked on was a radio series for a pepper grinder.  Tom said to me, "Malkin's Table Pepper Shaker--cha cha cha!"  The commercial, based on that line, won an International Broadcasting Award, presented by the Hollywood Advertising Club.  Another product to get Tom's touch was jam--Malkin's Fresh-Packed Strawberry Jam.  "Oh, what a jam to be in!" chorused Tom.  The wonderful Eleanor Collins and her then young children sang the commercial's lyrics.

Tom was a remarkably facile artist, but he had other enthusiasms, primarily the church and golf, the order depending on the day.  He also had a flair with a Martini shaker.  Unafraid of challenges--in fact, invigorated by them--he took on the task of carving from wood a life-size statue of Jesus as Christ the King,  for a parish of that name.  It was Tom's first foray into wood carving, but the result was majestic and overwhelming.  (After some decades, the wall behind the altar where the 300-pound carving was mounted began to sway, and the rector worried that she would become known as "the priest who was squashed by Jesus.")  

Walking to Tom's memorial service--held, appropriately, at a golf club--I reflected that I have almost as many friends in the great hereafter as I have still functioning on this planet.  (Two of those friends made their exit in the midst of telling a joke.  To their credit, the people around didn't bend down and cry, "Quick!  Give us the punch line!")

Well, I thought, at least when I arrive, they'll have the Martini glasses chilled.  And Tom will be wearing his mismatched cufflinks. 

Then and Now

The high school from which I did not graduate will celebrate its centennial next summer, and alumni and alumnae from places as distant as Trinidad-Tobago and Tuktoyaktuk are expected to dig their scarlet and gold sweaters out of trunks and attics and attend.  It is not known how many of the first graduating class will be present.

The school has developed a website which includes many "Then and Now" photographs of graduates.  Possibly the less said about these the better.

There are also notes from many graduates, summarizing the decades that have passed since they departed what are invariably termed "the hallowed halls of learning."  I, too, have fond memories of those days, particularly of the teacher who raced wildly around the room to demonstrate infinity, the student who brought a billiard ball to class and presented it as a petrified orange, and the entire male class of 4B who arrived one morning munching cloves of garlic.  The memory lingered on for a very long time. 

One would think that a school reunion might make a great story, and it would,  but it has been done too often.  One of the first accounts, and still probably the best, is by Merle Miller in his book "Only You, Dick Daring."  Ask for it at the out-of-print desk at your neighborhood library.

And now, I must get my "Then and Now" photos ready to send.  For "Then" I am using Ron Howard as Opie; for "Now" I am using Brad Pitt.

 

When West is East

Much football excitement this Sunday, in the Eastern and Western Division finals of the Canadian Football League (CFL).  Calgary Stampeders will meet Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Western Final at Regina's Mosaic Stadium, braving the high-decibel hoots of watermelon-wearing Roughrider fans, while in the Eastern Final, in Montreal, the Alouettes will be challenged by the BC Lions.

British Columbia is about as far from the east as it is possible to get, but a relatively recent CFL wrinkle allows the last-place team from the west to cross to the East Division playoffs, if it has more points than the last-place eastern team.  The irony in this is that the BC Lions replaced the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the eastern playoffs--Winnipeg (which, as far as I know, still qualifies as a western Canadian city) having been moved to the Eastern Division after the Ottawa team folded.  

Should the Lions win their game against the Alouettes, it would mean that, for the first time, two teams from the west would meet in the Grey Cup.  

"Only," says my 6' 5" tackle son, "in the CFL."

Get the vat of chili simmering.  We have a full day of football Sunday.

Buckley, Pere et Fils

Your correspondent did not endure the double whammy of Oprah and Sarah (not to mention the hysterical audience, all of whom have been given do-it-yourself electrolysis kits and handbags filled with Ecstasy).  To steal a line from Terry Garner, I have a closet full of ten-foot poles to avoid touching shows like this.  Instead, I read, with a certain hesitation, Christopher Buckley's "Losing Mum and Pup."  

I wasn't entirely comfortable picking up a book about the demise of Buckley fils' parents, but I remembered with pleasure his laugh-out-loud "Thank You for Smoking" (movie's okay, book is terrific) and his classic imaginary debate between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton over Martinis (right up there with Andy Borowitz's imagined exchange between Alan Greenspan and O.J. Simpson).

Buckley begins his book with a kind of apology for writing it, but says, "when the universe hands you material like this, not writing about it amounts either to waste or a conscious act of evasion."  He is aware, as are most people who push words around for a living, that (in Louis Auchincloss's felicitous phrase), "a writer's experience is his capital."

One wouldn't imagine a book with death as its subject could be funny, but this often is.  And what it finally amounts to is a lovely, intimate family portrait.  Do not be frightened by it.

Closing note:  Buckley pere, working to the end, has had three books published posthumously, leading his son to observe that WFB produced more books dead than many people alive.  In this corner we especially admire the final book, a collection of items from the author's decades as founder of the influential periodical National Review.  Buckley pere's title for this last work: "Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription."

Radio 2 Island

Some CBC listeners (and former listeners, those who fled following the switch to songs that have only one line in the chorus; e.g., "Oh yeah, babe, my heart is weepin'," repeated 412 times in Radio Two's version of the Chinese water torture) may wonder what has happened to familiar voices no longer heard, the vanished hosts of canceled programs. 

The answer, provided by our team of investigative reporters, is that they have been ferried to a small island in the Gulf of Georgia, secured by the CBC expressly for this purpose.  There, on the Island of Dead Air, they continue to produce their programs, unaware that their mellow tones and flawless pronunciation are not transmitted through conch and scallop shells.

Delbert Willingham, spokesperson for the Corporation, says, "All the Island folk are happy and serene, delivering their once famous programs to a nonexistent audience.  They no longer have worries regarding listener ratings or executive interference."

Meanwhile, there is talk of a band known as the Cultural Renegades seizing a ship and sailing to the island to release the hostage hosts.  "They are," declared one Renegade, "an endangered species."  The Cultural Renegades are awaiting a response to their application for a government grant. 

Mocha Dick

Mocha Dick is not something you might get from a barista at Starbucks, but there is a connection: Mocha Dick was an eighty-foot sperm whale which, in the early 19th century, was said to have up-ended twenty-seven crafts in the Pacific and sent thirty men to Davy Jones's Locker.  Herman Melville was led by the account to write "Moby-Dick," published on this date in 1851.  And Starbuck, of course, was first mate to Captain Ahab on the Pequod.  

Starbucks' founders, "Moby-Dick" buffs, wanted a name out of Melville's novel for their coffee shop venture.  One that narrowly missed being chosen:  Queequeg, name of the elaborately tattooed cannibal harpooner.  How does this sound:  "Let's go down to Queequeg's and get a latte."  

John Huston's 1956 film of "Moby-Dick" may not be all that Melville readers would wish, but one memorable scene is Father Mapple's sermon on Jonah and the whale, delivered magnificently from the prow-shaped pulpit of Nantucket's Whaleman's Chapel by Orson Welles, fiery as an ancient Hebrew prophet.  

Footnote:  Ray Bradbury wrote the screenplayfor "Moby-Dick."  When he had completed it, Huston called him and said, "That's pretty good, Ray, but it needs a love interest."  The director let Bradbury fret about this for two days before telling him he was kidding.

Communications Pandemic

Some years ago, employees of Canada Post went on strike, and mail ceased to be delivered. Terry Garner, with whom I then shared an office, sighed wistfully and said, "Now if only the phones would go out, too."

A few years later, they did, but by that time, it was too late; communications technology had spread like an invincible electronic virus.  First came the fax machine.  Fellow word arranger Ian Alexander lamented, "We used to be able to say 'I'm about to put the copy in the mail,' and that would give us two or three more days to begin writing it.  Now people say 'Just fax it right now.'"

And the fax machine, soon to be as forgotten as the typewriter, was only the beginning.  E-mail followed, and now we have Facebook and Twitter and Tweet.  

Further to this, we are told (warned) that electronic communications never vanish, they are out there forever.  Gone are the days when one could say "Burn all my letters!"  This is good news only for biographers and people tracking possible lawsuits.  The CBC's Tom Allen, commenting on this unsuspected technological phenomenon, said it should give pause to anyone who, at some hour past midnight, having consumed a cask or two of wine, decides it would be a swell idea to e-mail an old flame.

I would be among the first to say that e-mail is a marvelously enabling development in the history of communication, much advanced from clay tablets and papyrus scrolls.  But, at the same time, one must recognize that chipping out cuneiform letters on stone does provide time for sober second thoughts.   

CHEK mate

Excellent news, perhaps unprecedented in Canadian broadcasting, is the successful acquisition of CHEK-TV in Victoria by its employees.  Supported by private investors, the CHEK group saved the station, and their jobs, from dissolution by CanWest Media, its financially beleaguered former owner.  Now, to add one more triumph, CHEK has been granted a seven-year renewal of license by the CRTC.

This is in sharp contrast to the fate of CKX Brandon, which has fallen into the black hole of broadcasting.  And CKCK Regina, which went to dead air some years ago.  

As a longtime toiler in broadcasting, I found it incomprehensible that a radio or television station could drop out of existence.  My business naivete, I suppose, and lack of attention to the winds of change. 

But for now, congratulations and huzzahs to John Pollard and his crew at CHEK-TV for having won the day in the always tough arena of broadcasting.  I'm tuning in Channel 6.  

Tippin' In (old Erskine Hawkins number)

A reader writes:  "Is it ever permissible to leave a restaurant without leaving a tip?"

Short answer:  "No."

Reader persists:  "What if you're leaving on a stretcher, suffering ptomaine poisoning?"

Answer:  "Is that the waiter's fault?"

There are situations that test one's willingness to be generous.  A friend of mine once had a pot of steaming tea poured down his back in a Chinese restaurant.  "Was it all right in that case," he asked, "not to leave a tip?"  Certainly trying to rip the  shirt off your scalded back in a crowd of dim sum diners could distract you from calculating the 15 percent gratuity.  

(Interjection from waiter: "We prefer 17.5 percent, and in some circumstances--if, for example, you become engaged, or successfully break up, 20.")

Another friend--and I was on hand to see this--once poked around on his plate and found something that looked like calamari, but turned out to be a band-aid.  A used band-aid.  My friend paled and lunched only on his Martini.  (Which I have always found to be a nourishing meal.)

A woman friend asks:  "What if the waiter tries to pick you up?  If you leave a tip, will that simply encourage him?  If you don't leave a tip, will it reflect badly on women diners in general?"

Tough questions, I know.

Then there are those legendary tippers who score a major business deal and give the valet parking attendant fifty dollars or offer to buy bicycles for all the waiter's children.  I don't know if there are any of those left.  They may have vanished with the three-Martini, two-Remy lunch and the drop in tax credits for business entertaining.

Is it ever okay to leave a restaurant without leaving a tip?

Only if you can get to your car in a hurry.

Medal Contender Wines

You may have heard, at your neighborhood Nerve Tonic outlet, that a number of wines have been produced especially for the 2010 Winter Olympics.  Here are some sampled by our resident sommelier, Biathlon Bob:  

De Luge:  Recommended for those wishing to go downhill in a hurry.  (Attempts to acquire rights to "I could drink a case of Luge and still be on my feet" unfortunately have failed.)  

'Sno-border:  Bouquet of hockey equipment bag, hints of ski wax and Zamboni fumes, finish of muscle liniment. 

Bob-slay:  Party beverage of choice for team drinkers. 

Skeleton:  Named for the Olympic event that requires athletes to lie prone, nose down, on toboggans.  This wine is an ideal preparation  for this position. 

Watch for these medal contender wines at a store near you.  All personally recommended by Gold Medal vintner Jacques Corque (now in rehab). 

Rickety-rickety-ree!

As the CFL season rolls toward its Grey Cup conclusion in Calgary, this aging onetime sports reporter feels called upon to relate a football story.  A good year, in many ways--with the brilliant Anthony Calvillo out-performing even himself, the renaissance of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats under Marcel Bellefeuille, the return to the BC Lions line-up of Casey Printers, and the boom in watermelon sales through Saskatchewan Roughriders fans' use of them as helmets.

But I am thinking of older stories--the Grey Cup played in fog at Vancouver's Empire Stadium;

the bone-crunching crack as Saskatchewan's Bobby Marlowe hit Lions back Al Pollard, a sound heard clearly in the upper bleachers; the tales told by the legendary Annis Stukus; the astonishing play of Jackie Parker (dubbed "spaghetti legs"), and his billiard parlor partner Eagle Keys playing with a broken foot; Eskimo QB Tom Wilkinson reading his Bible in a hot tub; sportscaster Bob Pickell referring to Lions head coach Clem Crowe as "Head Crowe Clem Coach;" and the cheer improvised by running back Jack Hutchinson (Lions, Roughriders): "Rickety rickety ree, kick him in the knee; Rickety rickety rass, kick him in the other knee." 

The story for today is of the broadcast of a game by Bill Good, Senior, the sportscaster with the Vaughan Monroe pipes, and the impeccable CFL statistician Moe Simovitch.  

On game day, Moe turned up at Bill's hotel room complaining of a splitting headache.  "Bill," he said, "do you have any pills?"

Bill did have pills, but not necessarily what Moe had in mind.  He had a vial of diuretic pills, prescribed to reduce blood pressure and which, among other things, but primarily, and I quote from The American Pocket Medical Dictionary, "increases the flow of water from the kidneys."

"Why yes, Moe," said Bill.  "I do have some pills.  Have one."

"Thanks, Bill,  It's really bad."

"In that case, you should take two."

The broadcast began, and at some break in the play-by-play action, Bill turned to Moe and said, "Looks as though Reed is going to set a new rushing record today.  What are the stats on that, Moe?"

"Well, Bill--uh--excuse me."  Moe fled from the press box.

This happened with regularity throughout the game.  Every time Moe was called on for information, he would feel an uncontrollable need to rush away.  

In fact, on that afternoon, Moe set some rushing records himself.

Rickety-rickety-ree!

The Dream's on Him

By happy accident, your correspondent stumbled on "Johnny Mercer:  The Dream's on Me," a film biography of the great lyricist produced by Clint Eastwood, probably the world's most active 79-year-old.  

The film was shown on TCM--Turner Classic Movies--and it is just fine, filled with great clips of Hoagy Carmichael, Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Harold Arlen, Lena Horne, and a dozen others, with narration (and very tasty piano) by Bill Charlap, and learned commentary from Jonathan Schwartz, Andre Previn and Stephen Holden, among others.  I am pleased to report that the film will be released on DVD, with a companion CD of Mercer songs. 

There is a choice collection of Merceriana recorded by Rosemary Clooney with her usual mob (Scott Hamilton, Warren Vache, Ed Bickert, John Oddo, et al.), but still the most fun is in "An Evening with Johnny Mercer," in which he tells many stories of his Hollywood and Broadway days.  A favorite:  he and Henry Mancini were asked to write a song for Audrey Hepburn to sing in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."  When early rushes of the scene were screened for studio executives, one said, "Well, one thing for certain:  that damned song has to go."  The song was "Moon River." 

If there are old movie buffs out there, they will be pleased to learn that TCM is screening twenty-one films with Mercer songs over the next two weeks.  

And have you heard Clint Eastwood sing Mercer's lyrics for "Accentuate the Positive"?  He does, on the sound track for "In the Midnight Garden of Good and Evil." 

The Paranoid GPS

Boarding a cab the other evening (no longer being trusted behind the wheel of anything but a shopping cart) I found I was in a taxi guided by GPS.  These initials are said to stand for Global Positioning System, but in this instance they signified Grossly Paranoid Screw-up.

As we neared my destination, I attempted to give the driver directions, but he was tuned only to the GPS.  "Oh no, sir.  GPS says go 150 metres, turn right."  "In which case," I said, "you will go down a steep slope and into Burrard Inlet."

We continued on, GPS giving us directions that led down a cul de sac, across railway tracks in front of an angry locomotive, and finally onto the 18th green of a golf course.  "Wonderful invention, the GPS," said the driver.

I, meanwhile, thought of Hal 2000, the paranoid computer in Kubrick's "2001:  A Space Odyssey" (easily the most interesting character in the film) and the evil sheep dog in "Far from the Madding Crowd" that led its trusting, wooly flock off a cliff.

I am told that GPS voices now come in various languages and sometimes even in celebrated tones.  Think what it might have been like to hear Gielgud or Olivier giving directions.  And how about Bogart?  Or Brando?  You might end up in some dangerous situations, but it would be fun.

I thought also of the pilots whose airplane drifted 150 miles off target.  Perhaps they should have blamed the error on a demon-possessed GPS. 

Ultimately, the cab arrived at my destination.  "Wonderful GPS, sir," said the driver.  "See?  We are here, safe and sound.  Sir, you can get up from the floor where you are cowering.

"The fare, sir:  seventy-five dollars and fifty cents.  

"And did I tell you that my wife, our thirteen children, and my aged mother-in-law depend on the generosity of tips?"

Mercer's Autumn

The song we know as "Autumn Leaves" was originally "Les feuilles mortes."  Its familiar English lyrics ("...those sunburned hands I loved to hold") were written by Johnny Mercer; written, it's said, while Mercer was in a cab on his way to the Los Angeles airport.

Johnny Mercer knew a lot about autumn, as shown in many lyrics, including "Early Autumn" ("there's a dance pavilion in the rain, all shuttered down" to "The Summer Wind" ("...softer than a piper man, one day it called to you") and there is a sense of loss in these songs. 

But Mercer was much more than that.  Dubbed "The Colonel" by Harold Arlen, because of his Savannah, Georgia accent, he wrote an extraordinary number of lyrics, from the elegant "Skylark" and haunting "Laura" to the rowdy "G.I. Jive" and "Jubilation T. Cornpone;"from the silken "Emily" and "Dearly Beloved" to the barroom classics "Blues in the Night" and "One For My Baby."

He composed some of the songs ("Dream, "Something's Gotta Give") and he sang, charmingly and quirkily.  Hard to find many of his recordings now (including "Two of a Kind," a romp with Bobby Darin) but one treasure on CD is "An Evening with Johnny Mercer," a live performance in which he runs through dozens of his songs, including "The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish" and "Poor Miriam, Neglected Using Irium" (his one singing commercial, for Bob Hope's radio show).   

One of his last lyrics was "When October Goes."  When Mercer went, he left it behind, and Barry Manilow set it to music.  It's an aging man's song.  There are recordings by Rosemary Clooney and Nancy Wilson.

"And when October goes,

 the same old dream appears,

 and you are in my arms,

    to share the happy years.

"I hate to see October go."