Gary'sGlimpses

  Myrna Lorrie frequented my afterhours in the seventies, She was a lot of fun and I caught a few of her shows and liked her music. One night she showed up on the arm of Jerry Reed. (I'm a lover, not a fighter) Rosanne Cash was with them and she was with one of the Eagles. (I can never remember which one) apparently, she had a fling with him They were there almost every night for a week or so.

Helen was a night person, She was intelligent and sexy. She came to my bar often and we enjoyed each others company. She invited me for dinner one night, And in her sensuous sultry voice recited one of her poems about losing her virginity to a sailor in my ear. I suffered instant arousal. Unfortunately it was not to be her sister dropped in and the situation never rose again so to speak. After she went to LA. We got together at a TO film festival. I introduced her to the MacLean Brothers and we had a great party. Ahh. . .Helen sigh

Elizabeth married Jimmy McCarthy an old friend as well as a friend of Murray McLauclan. She was in Toronto quite a bit shooting films. Somehow I became her Toronto buddy and we spent some good times. running around the city in her limos and dining and clubbing not to mention the times at my bar. There many rumours going around about us and I only wish they were true. But even after she split up with Jim we remained friends until her cocaine bust kept her out of Canada.

Mike was still at the Art college of Ontario when I met him. He somehow got into my afterhours club with somebody and soon became a regular. he was in his early twenties exhuberant, totally careless and very full of himsel and very much a pain in the ass. I had to take down my dartboard because he hit a bystander in the leg he was always too full of fun and too loud etc. etc. He won an award for a  student film he had made and one night and brought 30 film students from the awards and was very troubled when I wouldn't let them in. But I didn't really like him and he was mostly a pain in the ass. But after a few years of him hanging around my place and sleeping it off there more than a few times. We finally became friends. One night at my new bar at Queen and Bathurst was very crazy. We had a special bar made from some really old planks from a wrecking company and planed them and wanted to cover them in acyrlic. So my partner Greg got some crazy friend of his to do this. It was ...

Back in the day MM and Cathrine and I were good friends. We spent many nights chatting and laughing together in the 505 and later at my bar. One night at my bar I was a bit high and asked Mary Margret for a date. she gave me a kiss and a hug and said  "don't be silly Gary;" I do miss those days.

Marcus O'Hara did me one of those favours that just takes the cake . At the 2nd or third Toronto Film Festival one of the major parties was held at Toronto City Hall. The layout was a disaster. The bar was set up all wrong and it was impossible to get a drink. the place was just solid lineup. I was waiting in line with a bunch of friends when I got a tap on the back. It was Marcus he was a bartender or some such thing. He pulled me into the center of the room in the space between the facing elevators. here he had set up for me a large portable bar. several bottles of liquor with mix and ice. Soon I had my own private party with my friends and the festival VIPs. You cant buy that kind of favour.

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When I first opened there was a lot of nights when there would just be Danny, Mike MacDonald and Jim Jones and me listening to my fabulous juke box and drinking beer till dawn.

 Joe lived across the street.creative and on the fringe. Your Barbill is forgiven

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I I knew Jim from his days with The Dirty Shames and as a solo folkie too. A Pilot Tavern buddy and he married Elizabeth Ashely. Eliz and I were good friends too.

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Frenchie McFarlane (a.k.a. Jacques Le Strap) is an accomplished stand up, comedian, actor, writer, impressionist, dialectician and radio television personality. Famous for his role as the New York City Cabbie/ Montreal Goalie, his routine is energetic, hilarious and uses current events to split the sides of the people in his audience. Since moving to Toronto in 1973 from his native Montreal, Frenchie has been the headline comedy act in numerous clubs across the country. Equally at home at the El Mocambo or The Royal York Hotel, Frenchie can provide materials for a variety of audiences ranging from sports banquets, business luncheons, rock 'n roll events to family oriented shows. The relationship between politics and comedy being what they are Frenchie was ultimately drawn into the political arena. In 1982 Frenchie ran a "dramatically" close and humorous campaign for the office of Mayor of Toronto with the slogan, "If we're going to have comedians in City Hall, th...

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  David and I hung out for a bit. Mostly at the Pilot and parties, he was in between bands and drinking heavily. We went to a party at Footsies (Lightfoot) one night. It started with quaaludes and Mai-Tais. I never saw David after that party for some years. He would come to my After-Hours joint when he came to town. He had quit drinking and so he was the only one I allowed to smoke dope inside my bar. David Wiffen  (born 11 March 1942) is an English-Canadian  folk  singer-songwriter. Two of his songs, " Driving Wheel " and "More Often Than Not", have become cover standards.

he Smothers Brothers Dickie Smothers came to the bar one night with a young lady. We hit it off and talked to the early hours. He had just bought a vineyard in California and we had great converstion on wine. They were playing the Royal York Hotel the next night so I got a date and went. for twenty bucks to the Maitre De I got a front row table. The Smothers show was fantastic and Dickie saw me from the stage and after the show invited us upstairs to a private party they were hosting for the cast of Chorus Line. He introduced me to Tommy and in the course of the night they mentioned they were looking for some drugs. I laid some tranquelizers and grass on them from my personal stash to tide them over.

When I first opened there was a lot of nights when there would just be Danny, Mike MacDonald and Jim Jones and me listening to my fabulous juke box and drinking beer till dawn.

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 Bruce was here several time mostly looking for his wife

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 Bernadette was the Art Critic at theTelegram and Arts Canada. She was charming, witty and intelligent. We went together for a while. She died of a mysterious virus and is much missed. I ran into Bernadette in the club 22 a few weeks before she died. She gve me a big wet kiss. She was her healthy fun loving self and her almost sudden death was a shock and surprise to us all. Not long after that I was on a sailboat in the Bahamas with Murray MacLauchlan, We were miles from anywhere when I took extremly sick I had a high fever for over a week and lost 30 pounds. All I could think of was the wet kiss from Bernadette. It took days to get to a hospital which was a joke. Murray got me on a plane to Toronto wher I found out I had Infectious mononucleosis. A most serious case that lasted for months.

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Ann Chopik Dunn I went out with Ann for a while. We partied with the smother's Brothers at the Royal York and I attended her Daughter's wedding at the club. Great Ukrainian party. She was a classy lady The Matador Club  was a  country music  venue in  Toronto  opened by Ann Dunn in 1964. The exterior of the club, complete with marquee signage, still exists today, though the building itself is currently vacant. The after-hours dance venue was a hot spot among Torontonians and tourists alike, and was said to be frequented by country notables like  Johnny Cash  and  Loretta Lynn , as well as local celebrities like  Leonard Cohen  and  Catherine O'Hara . While originally a country music venue, by the 1980s the Matador featured a wider variety of music including rock 'n' roll, blues, and rockabilly. During this time the Matador was a busy and popular venue where local and itinerant headliners would regularly drop in to jam after their gi...

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 I knew Al from the early sixties. he was a talented folk singer. He got involved in scientology and seemed to lose it. He was mostly driving Cab when he hung out at my place in the seventies. He talked about a comeback but it never happened.

Alan McRae, Ont.: Born in the British Isles, the son of a highland piper, Alan was a gold miner and with ... was instrumental in organizing Canada's first folk club in Vancouver, BC. He moved to Toronto and became the resident singer at Toronto's first "folk bar" the Steeles' Tavern. he played the Horseshoe Tavern most of the summer of 1975.  He was a mentor and friend to many Toronto folk musicians through the 60s and 70s before he passed away. T.C. played the Horseshoe the summer of 75 and hung out at my bar. I admire his drive a real folkstar in spite of lack of natural talent.

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  Nick had a membership and often came to Toronto for the weekend. He came to the bar a half a dozen times.I guess I was his secret hideaway. I wish I had more to say but he was intelligent and engaging and I was always glad to see him and enjoyed talking to him. I was very surprised when I found out who he was and very sad when he died so young. Nick Auf der Maur  (April 10, 1942 – April 7, 1998) [1]  was a journalist, politician and "man about town" boulevardier in  Montreal ,  Quebec ,  Canada . He was also the father of rock musician  Melissa Auf der Maur , through his marriage to  Linda Gaboriau . The youngest of four children of  Swiss  immigrants J. Severn and Theresa Auf der Maur, he was a regular at various downtown Montreal bars, and often transacted official and unofficial business there, entertaining visitors to the city, telling stories, and meeting with a wide range of Montrealers from all walks of life. Mordecai Richler ...

 Arturo Famous for his bar in Ibetha. Art had an afterhours club for awhile. He had a great restaurant on Adalaide. Terrific Cook

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HANDSOME NED Video THE SECOND COMING OF THE KING OF QUEEN BY MICHAEL HOLLETT HANDSOME NED HAS AN UPCOMING MOVIE, A U.S. CD RELEASE AND NEW YOUNG FANS – BUT HE WON’T BE TOURING. Handsome Ned is the last one into a blood-red Dodge van already stuffed with band members, girlfriends and gear. His ever-present Stetson isn’t dislodged in the scramble out of the Cameron House, and neither is his grin as he and his rockabilly punks head uptown to play Larry’s Hideaway. It’ll be the second of at least three full gigs across a handful of Toronto blocks on a night that won’t end until lunchtime tomorrow. As guitar-playing driver Tony Kenny grinds the rusting ride into gear, Ned gathers his terrible teeth in a spectacular smile and beams out the van’s tiny side window like a Beatle looking out of a BOAC jet as it taxis toward the terminal across the JFK tarmac. For almost five years in the early 80s, Handsome Ned was the King of Queen West. The smooth-voiced scenester used his hillbilly hokiness ...

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