Cayle Cherin and ;Going down the Road

Going Down the Road.
When I was living at Hazelton Ave. in Toronto (we had a commune)  there was a premier or preview of 'Going Down the Road' at the New Yorker.
I went with Melinda, Carla and Helen, and Pauline. Pauline and i were going together at the time.
We were knocked out by the movie and afterward, we went to the Pilot and we all raved about it. we felt it was a big step for Canadian Movies. Pauline really liked it. anyway, they wanted to go back to Hazelton and i stayed on for a few more drinks.
so I am sitting there and who walks in but Paul Bradley. We hit it off we were friends from almost the first moment we met. We had a couple of hours of drinking and storytelling and somewhere in
this haze, i got a great idea. it was Pauline's birthday on Friday and we were having a party. So I talked Paul into coming and playing his character of Joey from the movie (this was not difficult). This was my idea of a crazy birthday present for Pauline.

Friday night Paul showed up with a friend (who kinda looked like McGrath) Introduced as Joey and acted like his movie character and just blew Pauline and the girls away.
Paul is a traveling roadshow by himself and after a couple of hours went into entertainment mode. we had lots of drugs and booze and food and he ended up staying for a couple of days and we were good friends forevermore. Over the years we would get together every once in a while and have a  good get together.

Cayle Cherin was Salina. She went off to Hollywood and Dennis Hopper etc. Anyway just after I opened my after-hours club about 5 years later. Cayle showed up on the scene I didn't recognize her to me she was this mysterious beautiful girl who started hanging around the 22 and Grossman's etc.
Then one night she shows up at my bar with some guy. Didn't like him much but ended up playing poker dice with him. I won about $300 off him. it was late and we all had a bunch of drinks into us. When he said he didn't have any money left. I said half-joking I will play you one more game. you win you get your $300 dollars back I win I get your girlfriend. He said ok and we rolled the dice as  Cayle looked askance. When I won Cayle went into a bit of a tirade about the whole sexist thing and told the guy to get lost who did he think he was etc. I guess she thought I was a better deal because we dated for a while but even better became really good close friends. For the rest of her life, we were really good buddies and enjoyed our friendship. I skyped her just a few days before she died. I really miss her. She was an extremely brilliant writer, actor, and producer.

Billy Joel

Billy Joel Cost me my Job!
I loved singing the Lobsterman with Maclean & Maclean. The lobster song is the 2nd oldest dirty song written down in English in the tenth century.
My last performance was at the El Mocambo. We were doing the last set and as I was getting ready to go up to the stage I saw the manager whisk Billy Joel and his band to a nearby reserved table. The Macleans of course couldn't see for the lights' there is a place in the song where you can throw in a name so I stuck Billy Joel's name into it. The Maclean's looked askance. So I told them after the song.

After the show, we all got together in the dressing room and found that Billy Joel was a big fan of dirty Humour . The management provided cases of Heineken's and we drank and partied late into the night.  He raved about the show. But all that he could really remember was me. He would point at me and say how blown away he was when I picked him off.
The verse goes
that is the end.
there isn't anymore,
there is an apple up my arsehole,
and Billy Joel can have the core.

As a guest performer, you should never upstage the act. The Macleans never asked me back to sing again.

Charles Bronson

I met him, I worked briefly on Death wish 5, My sister Gaille was the production secretary, I set up their computer with the accounting program. it wasn't easy first I had to download it on a 90 baud modem over the phone from L.A. it took hours.
My sister met Charles when she had to go to the Airport in the middle of the night and rescue
 Charles (who she called mister B) Charles had told the Pakistani Immigration agent to fuck off and he was about to be deported. Gaille had lots of experience with this and managed to get him in the country with some inside contacts. Charles took a liking to my sister and phoned our parents home a few times looking for her. Much to the delight of my mother.
Charles ruled that nobody could talk to him on set he didn't like small talk. My sister got a small part she got beat up in the movie.
 I got an old friend a job in accounting. He had been working for the government and wasn't ready for the movie biz. He phoned me one day said He couldn't believe this,that  he had a million dollar petty cash to deal with.

Harold Town

Harold Town (not Harry, its Harold)

I met Harold one night at the Pilot Tavern he was not a regular there. We got into some long hot discussion and he invited me back to his place. We go in to his den and he takes two bottles of Scotch out of the cupboard and  hands me one and a glass. We tour around the house looking at works of Art, Mostly his, and they are really impressive. We end up in the basement sitting on carousel horses which he collects. He also shows me an old x-ray machine he was experimenting with. (I think it might have killed him) And so we talked and argued until the scotch was gone. He got me some blankets and a couch to crash on. Not much to talk about next morning heavy hangovers just a coffee and I was gone.
"Toronto is a one Town Town".
I dropped in on Harold several times after midnight always welcomed with a bottle of Scotch. I remember some people being there the next morning like wife kids? I was never introduced.One night after the Pilot had closed I dropped in with Duke Redbird. He went ballistic. He said he told me not bring any friends. Then he took a look at Duke and said “Hey aren't you Redbird that guy trying to smarten up ACTRA. “ “I'd like to talk to you. ‘So I was forgiven. He gives Duke and I each a bottle of Scotch and we take the tour. Only after most of the Scotch. Harold is somehow become a native and is Duke's ally against the Whiteman and that would be me. Duke and I were quite bemused as he seemed become an Indian and I was guilty of all wrongs against them.
Harold described one of favorite moments paddling a canoe on a very foggy night in a friend's swimming pool in Claremont. “It was so foggy it was like being on a lake somewhere.
I liked Harold a lot he was creative and quite brilliant, but he was difficult to be friends with. He was slighted easily and always critical. One night he did a sketch of me (I wish I had it) so I grabbed his drawing stuff and did one of him. "Hey that isn't bad." he said which is about as close to a compliment as you got. I went his studio a few times it had been owned by AY Jackson at one time. It was full paintings everywhere he had bought an adjacent studio just for storage and that was full.
One night I was going to a party and I stopped by his place and asked if wanted to go. It was basically an Artist's party and they were usually pretty good back then. It took some prodding but he finally agreed. He was concerned that all Artists seemed to be taking verbal shots at him. He grabbed a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of Vodka and away we went. It was at a studio on Spadina. We got there about 11 and lasted an hour everybody was taking verbal shots at him and he wanted to go. I was driving so we grabbed the bottle of Vodka and took off up Spadina. 
He swore he would never go to another "artist" party. Then he said “Doesn't Iskowitz live around here?”
I pulled over,” sure right there,” I pointed up to a window. It was a hot summer night and Gershon's studio window was open and the light was on he always worked late and I stopped by for vodka once in a while. So there is Town and me at one in the morning screaming at the 3rd story window, GERSHON!  Gershon ISKOWITZ! Over and over. Gershon comes to the window and looks down at us and closes the window. We leave laughing.
I started doing a lot of sailing around then.
One night Harold said I could have his sailboat. He says it had been sitting at boatyard in Kingston for a couple of years, He couldn’t sail it himself and he was afraid it would rot away. He owned it with his dentist and Jack McClelland. He said they never really got together on it, he said I was always waiting for a ride to Kingston and never getting there.  He got their permission to give it to me.  I was excited
It was a beauty from the photos a 40 ft. yawl of a Stephen’s design. I gather some sailing buddies and went down to Kingston to see it.  From the road it looked beautiful but up close it waterlogged and full of rot with our finances it was beyond repair.  We found out at the yacht club it had sat outside uncovered for 3 years with the hatches open. It was a real shame.
About that time my marriage broke down and I went off sailing for 15 months in the Caribbean and sort of lost touch with Harold and he really never forgave me.
I ran into him at the 22 once a few months before he died of cancer. He kind of gave me a hard time. “Like some friend you are where the hell have you been.” I am not sure he believed me. He was as contemptuous of cancer as he was of anything but he wasn't the same it was wearing him down.  I think of Harold often especially when I am being too critical but he was one of a kind.

Jack Bush

 I met Jack Bush a couple of times a week over about 6 weeks before i knew who he was.

In 1965 I was rejected by the OCA, I knew I was an Artist so I read that Artists hung out at the Pilot so I went there and sat at the bar. (mostly too early in the day because of my shift.)So there is a dapper little man in a quiet suit with steel gray hair and neatly trimmed mustache sitting beside me drinking Martinis. We struck up a conversation which rose to a level I wasn't used to. this guy had amazing insights into art etc and I really enjoyed talking to him. I ran into him several times and always had an enjoyable conversation.

It took me a couple of weeks to find out that the artists hung out in the big dark back room and rarely came in before 5pm.

It took me a while to break into the Artist clique in the back. I became friends with Jerry Santbergen who was a bit of an outsider himself at that time.

Jerry and I went into the Pilot for lunch one day and I passed my friend on the bar stool. I said Hi and he said" I see you found some artists." We went up to the back and Jerry said"Wow you know Jack Bush" He is a pretty good artist.

I didn't even know. Anyway I became a good friend of Jacks and we often talked at the bar He always invited me to his openings and he always was a joy to talk to.

Berkeley Breathed

In 1993 I was a software buyer for Wiseguy computers (5 stores) I was in Los Vegas for the computer Show and I was invited to meet Berkeley Breathed at the opening party for his screensaver in Las Vegas in 1993. it was at a hotel cottage type thing. About 50 people all ad men, promoters and other 'suits' and a dozen or so gorgeous models. Berkeley had not much interest in any of them and either did I . I was there for the week at the computer show and was glitzed out. Anyhow Berkeley and I ended up ducking out of the main room and we chatted for an hour or so and quaffed a few nice cold beers. I remember him as sort of nicely outre type guy that would come across as standoffish but we had a pleasant conversation.it was not long after this he went into a self-imposed exile for a few years.

CLEMENT HAMBOURG

 I was always glad to run into the most eccentric Clem hambourg in my Yorkville days. always great conversation and I heard him play at many clubs. he was the real McCoy.

CLEMENT HAMBOURG

(b. London 1900 – d. Toronto 1973)

Clement Hambourg Affectionately known as the “black sheep” of the family, Clem grew up in the surroundings of the Hambourg Conservatory in London and Toronto. Trained by his father Michael, he made his concert debut in 1925 and collaborated with his brother Boris in many concerts throughout Canada. Clem was married in 1928 to Kathleen FitzGerald, a writer, with whom he had one son, Klemi, (Dr. Klement Hambourg).

His second marriage was to Ruth Hopkins, a singer and connoisseur of fine art, and together they founded in 1946 the House of Hambourg, one of the first after-hours jazz clubs in Toronto, Originally located at Bloor and Yonge Streets and later in the basement of the Ward Price Galleries, it became the musical home of many jazz artists such as Norman Amadio and Gordon Delamont who later became internationally famous as soloists and composers.
The American jazz composer/pianist Dave Brubeck also visited the House of Hambourg when he was in town for informal jam sessions.
Clem frequently performed with these musicians and in a solo capacity. He became a master of the art of improvisation, incorporating be-bop and other jazz rhythms into the works of such composers at Bach and Beethoven. Later in the career of his jazz mecca, he founded the House of Hambourg Off-Broadway style theatre, giving The Connection its premiere outside the U.S.A., Ben Hecht’s The Front Page, and other important plays. Clem and Ruth Hambourg were portrayed in, and the House of Hambourg was the setting for, Boom, Baby, Boom, by Banuta Rubess and (music by Nick Graham) premiered in 1988 in Harbourfront.

By 1965 the pioneer work of the House of Hambourg was over and Clem was featured in some of Toronto’s premiere hotels and lounges as solo variety pianist including Julie’s on Jarvis and Gloucester Streets, where many patrons came primarily for the music.Also Upstairs at the Park plaza on Avenue road. He also became well known on Trans-Canada Television. In 1971 he was struck by cancer, but through major surgery he made an amazing recovery and continued to perform. Between 1970 and 1972 he appeared as concert pianist for Burl Ives in The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever, and was a principal in Here Come the Seventies, illustrating how he surmounted age with achievement. This documentary was shown on both American and Canadian television networks.

Clement Hambourg and Norm Amadio: Rhapsody in Blue - George Gershwin,
arr. for two pianos by Norm Amadio | Listen | Read review (c. 1970)

Ihttp://www.hambourgconservatory.ca/bios/clement_article.html

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