Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Coming back yesterday from a two-day visit with our daughter Ale in Lillooet, Rosemary, Rebecca, Lauren and I stopped for a rest and some food at the Charles Hotel in Boston Bar. I wasn't going to tell anybody about my previous experience there except Rebecca suddenly said to me,"Doesn't that man that just came in look like Ian Bateson?" The man did and I had to tell Rebecca about it all.

It was in June 1982 that I first went to Boston Bar. Through the years I have passed it many times and even spent nights at the Charles Hotel. When I worked on contract for CP Limited I often went to Boston Bar, Lytton and other nearby places to photograph scaling (the controlled avalanching of mountain sides to prevent big ones from destroying valuable track, railroad equipment and lives) or the building of train bridges. These photographic expeditions usually happened in those summer days when temperatures in nearby Lytton would soar near 40.

Not far from Boston Bar I once stopped a train four times. CP asked me to locate a place where I could photograph Nissans, Mazdas and Toyotas on CP Rail cars so that photographs could be sent to Japan as gifts to Japanese car executives. I chose a place not far from Boston Bar where CN and CP changed sides on the Fraser River. One bridge took the CP tracks from one bank to the other and a CN bridge did the same in the opposite direction. In this place there was river, forest, mountains and briges, a suitable iconic Canadian site for a photograph. With a walkie talkie in hand I stopped the train and then slowly I made it advance to the rail car with the Nissans. I would then take my photograph. Then I did the same for the Toyotas and the Mazdas. It was thrilling to be able to stop and start a near mile-long train.

But it was the first time I went to Boston Bar, that biker ball in June of 1982, that has firmly left an impression on me. I noticed that the Cog Pub has been re-named. But the restaurant is much the same as the one where Les Wiseman, Ian Bateson and I nursed a terrible hangover the next day after our biker bash experience. I pointed out to Rebecca the very booth where we sat (very close to where the waitresses dropped the soiled dishes, back then, we thought they were throwing them) that morning. Every time the dishes were dropped our lives would come to a crashing and painful end.

We had convinced the Province to send us to cover the biker ball. Wiseman was to write it, I was to photograph it and Bateson was to serve as a possible illustrator. Tarren at the Drake Hotel had given us the name of our contact, Blackie. Afraid that bikers might trash our personal cars we rented a metallic orange Toyota Tercel. Our afternoon and evening at the biker ball faded away from our memory by the next day when the combination of biker beer and biker chicken had done all of its damage. But we did stop in Spuzzum, on our way back to Vancouver for the snap here. That's Wiseman on the left and Bateson on the right. Wiseman told me he never finished the story. Perhaps the reason could have been that one of the bikers, as we left the proceedings, told me, "Tell your writer friend, not to fuck up."

But when I looked for pictures in my photo files last night I found Wiseman's unfinished story. He must have given it to me. So here it is.





Bikers
By Les Wiseman


We were sitting in the Canyon Inn Pub a few yards off of Trans-Canada 1 in uptown Yale. Our nerves were jangling as we drew nearer to Boston Bar, site of the June 20 1982, Biker’s Ball, so we had stopped for a tranquilizing frosty. Our conversation had one central theme: We were probably going to get the living bejeezus beat out of us by liquor-crazed bikers who could and more than likely would crush our skulls like American beer cans. Doomed. A strange feeling took hold; we knew this weekend would not be boring. Our senses became keen like any sort of prey. Through our heightened hearing the rumble made us twitchy before we could identify it. Then the cold blue flame that runs from your throat, through your stomach and pans out into the genitals ran its course as we recognized the sound of motorcycles. Big ones; a lot of them.

We had not seen any bikes on the way from Vancouver and suddenly there were a dozen hogs, Harley Davidson 1200s with teardrop gas tanks and extended chrome forks filling the parking lot, revving their engines. Their riders, with their shades, short helmets, ragged beards and hair, sleeveless leather and blue denim jackets were coming into the bar, and we were just leaving. Looking decidedly working-class and sheepish we sulked back to the Toyota Tercel. We were out of our league; but committed to experiencing the whole affair, regardless – well, within limits.



More choppers passed us, singly and in pairs, winding around the turns and echoing through the tunnels. A fluid streak of motion zipped by, cut in front of us and pulled over. Through the rear window we could see the rider stumble off his bike, hurl his taped helmet to the gravel, stagger to the cliff face rising a hundred feet above him, leaning his forehead to the stone he fumblingly relieved himself, weaved back to his bike, and at the Hell’s Gate Tram he soared past us again, poetry on wheels, complete and competent in chain-drive movement.

A mile or so further, we noticed a large yellow field irregularly mosaiqued with small dark figures and lines of glittering bikes- the site. But first, a trip into the village of Boston Bar to weigh the sentiments of the locals. And to buy beer, a generally accepted form of life insurance. The folk seemed non-plussed, excited even. Sure, they were all going to go down to the site for a while, everyone who had talked to a biker had been cordially invited. Kids hung around gas stations leaning on bicycles equipped with ape-hanger handlebars, mouths catching flies as they watched the celebrants fuelling and polishing their Harleys. In the Prince Charles Hotel bar, The Cog Pub, baseball-capped good ole boys wandered up to tables of bikers and struck conversations regarding horsepower and mags versus spoke wheels.



At the gateway to the field we were stopped by some guys drinking in the back of a pick-up. They asked for a donation to aid the cause of publicizing and defending the protest against the helmet laws. We gave them a couple of bucks apiece and got our hands stamped. Unthinking, I asked for a receipt. They all looked at me with loathing. One of them spat very near to the Tercel’s fender.

Looking like blatant narcs, we cracked a couple of beer and wandered over to the bonfire. We stood, trying to appear cool, yet looking out of place as F.B.I. agents at Woodstock. The photographer pressed his contact. “You know Blackie?” he asked a nearby biker. The guy looked him up and down, for an intimidatingly long moment. He nodded. “Oh, well could you point him out to me?” The biker shook his head. “Who should I say is looking for him, if I see him?” he asked. The photographer told him. The biker nodded and walked off.

We stood some more. Parallel to the drop-off to the Fraser River was a stand of two-by-four studs clad with walls and roofs of plywood where they sold T-shirts and cans of Molson’s Canadian and highballs. Beside that there was a similar structure for feeding. Beside that, there was a cooking area where chicken halves were being barbequed. A make-do bandstand was a few yards away across the sawdust laid in the heavy traffic area. Off to one side, like Dracula’s castle in a Hammer film loomed the latrines. Choppers, inert without their masters, metal steeds at graze, punctuated the landscape like slalom obstacles. The clear canyon air vibrated on the upper level highway as a duo of bikes torqued into the town site making a joyful noise passing their brothers in the field below. A lot of the guys raised their beer cans and pointed, “There goes so-and-so!”



We had been told that our contact was the biggest, meanest looking Indian guy wearing a cowboy hat, you’d ever seen. Profits from the beer sold at the concession were going to the anti-helmet law cause, so we had stopped drinking our beer and had been buying from the stand. Only polite. The clear, lucid, crystalline fear of a few hours before was losing its edge. So when a man vaguely matching the description strolled over, we were feeling more in sync with the ambience. He told us he had known who we were from the moment we had walked in. Indeed we had stuck out like pimples on a sore derriere. We talked. Wondering what was going on, a few more guys came over to listen in. They were Satan’s Angels, a big bike club with members from all over B.C. Most of the participants at the ball were Angels. They wore their colours, crests consisting of a red horned black bearded devil-head with golden halo on the back of a sleeveless black leather jacket. They were like normal people: fat, skinny, tall, short, muscular, wimpy, short-haired, long-haired, mostly bearded, a larger than normal percentage had limps, evidence of going over the edge on a bike. Some used canes; they had to kick-start their bikes while in unusual bodily configurations. All decidedly tough, though. Yet, the thing that struck me the most was the fact that there seemed and unwritten custom, that when dealing with outsiders, it was considered proper to be as quiet-spoken, and articulate as possible. They did not give us any flack. They simply told us that it was up to each individual member as to whether or not he would allow photographs or conversation. To be reproduced in print. Our admiration grew. They told us that they had, almost invariably received bad press. We told them that we were serious professional journalists and told only the truth. They told us that they knew our phone numbers and names should we be lying. We told them that we admired them. That was the truth. Fear had transformed itself into understanding. We were happy to be there, to escape the mundane aspects of working-class life. We were not bored.



"Show us your bike," we asked one fellow.

Lou Reed in Boston Bar

Monday, November 12, 2007



Fashion and I have never really gotten together much, as I wrote here. But there was another occasion. It involved finding a horse and a bunch of grapes in an Abbotsford farm. John Lekich had written and essay on female elegance and I had an idea on how to illustrate it. Unfortunately shooting for a family publication, in this case the Georgia Straight somewhat thwarted my total vision. I thought that a couple of sisters dressed to kill and riding bareback would somehow convey the ideal of the elegant woman being elegant, no matter what the circumstances. At the time I had written a story for the Vancouver Sun on the role of women cello players in music. This was quite restricted until women were allowed to play full-frontal cello in the beginning of the 20th century. Until then, since putting your legs around a cello was deemed immoral, women were forced to play musical side-saddle with the instrument. The same idea of a woman riding a horse like a man was anathema well into the 20th.



I am not sure if Miki and Nicole Ruso were wearing anything underneath for this picture of them on the horse. I was too busy trying to take the picture of the untrained horse who would not stand still to think much about it. But in the end we took our pictures and had our Straight cover and everything was back to normal.

As cliche, as the concept is, that was the first and last time I ever approached the idea of a woman and a horse. I had previously photographed a woman, quite bare, on a dressage saddle, on a saw horse in the middle of her living room, but that's another story.

Sunday, November 11, 2007



I took this photograph in 1982 of Modern English members Gary McDowell and Robbie Gray. They were of a British wave of musical groups called New Romantics. They were pleasant and the very opposite of the Vancouver punk bands that I really liked. But I do remember this photograph which had a particular look I could not possibly replicate today even though I still have a few rolls of the film I used. It was Kodak Technical Pan 2415 film which was the only film that matched the resolving power of the best lenses at over 200 lines per millimeter. It was extremely sharp film and when used in 35mm cameras it had the look of photographs taken with much larger formats such as 4x5 inch cameras. The film had an extended red sensitivity which tended to make skin shine and blemishes disappeared.

Today's blog is a kind of holiday. Rosemary, Rebecca, Lauren and I drove to Lillooet yesterday to visit our daughter Ale. We will return Monday. For breakfast we are having thick bacon, toast and a Yorkshire blend (very strong) tea from Granville Island Tea Company.

Saturday, November 10, 2007


Ashtray Heart (From Doc At The Radar Station 1980)

You used me like an ashtray heart
Case of the punks
Right from the start
I feel like a glass shrimp in a pink panty
With a saccharine chaperone
Make invalids out of supermen
Call in a "shrink"
And pick you up in a girdle
You used me like an ashtray heart
Right from the start
Case of the punks
Another day, another way
Somebody's had too much to think
Open up another case of the punks
Each pillow is touted like a rock
The mother / father figure
Somebody's had too much to think
Send your mother home your navel
Case of the punks
New hearts to the dining rooms
Violet heart cake
Dissolve in new cards, boards, throats, underwear
Ashtray heart
You picked me out, brushed me off
Crushed me while I was burning out
Then you picked me out
Like an ashtray heart
Hid behind the curtain
Waited for me to go out
A man on a porcupine fence
Used me for an ashtray heart
Hit me where the lover hangs out
Stood behind the curtain
While they crushed me out
You used me for an ashtray heart
You looked in the window when I went out
You used me like an ashtray heart.

I took these pictures of Captain Beefheart sometime in 1980 at the Hotel Plaza on Burrard the day he appeared with the Magic Band at the Commodore (third photograph). This was one of my earlier collaborations with writer Les Wiseman for his In One Ear column in Vancouver Magazine. Wiseman had told me that if he had to go to a desert island with one record (there were no CDs yet) it would be Beefheart's 1969 Trout Mask Replica . Such was the complexity of this record's music that it would take years to figure it out and one would never tire of it.



In the hotel Wiseman gave Beefheart a pack of Gitanes to smoke. All three of us were wearing Harris Tweed jackets. Beefheart impressed us with his knowledge of how many dyes were involved in their making. We also discussed the horsemanship of rejoneador Don Álvaro Domecq who fought bulls from beautiful white horses. I had seen Don Álvaro in Mexico City and Beefheart wanted to know more.


What remains most in my memory of that day was listening to Beefheart sing the line: Somebody's had too much to think and then he stopped and stared at the young man in the picture.

Ashtray Heart

Friday, November 09, 2007



I wrote about the above photograph here and in the last few days I have been able to locate all but one of the young men.

The breakthrough ocurred when I remembered Remigio Martinez's (last on the right) maternal name Mueller. With his complete name I found him as Vice President, Exploration of Southern Copper Corporation. He replied to my email:


Alex,

I received your communication. How are you? As you can see I am continuing the family tradition working for what used to be ASARCO. I now live in Hermosillo, Sonora in Northwestern Mexico. If you ever come this way let me know so we con meet. I have especially fond memories of your mother. Is she still with you? Both my parents passed away about 4 years ago. I still keep in touch with some of the guy and gals we went to school with,. Do you? Anyway let me know how you are doing. I do get to Vancouver every once in a while, I´ll look you up next time I go there.

Saludos,
Remigio

That's me on the left. Next is Steve Frazier (I am not sure if that is Frazier or Frasier). He lived in a large ranch near Sabinas, Coahuila with his genteel mother and lovely sister Cornelia. After we "graduated" from the 8th grade Steve's mother took me as far as San Antonio to the Greyhound Bus Station several times after a Christmas holiday from my boarding school at St Ed's in Austin. In the car I would be with the remote and extremely lovely Cornelia who we would dropp off in Uvalde, Texas. Steve taught me to shoot with German elephant rifle and took me for rides in his US Army Surplus Jeep in the Coahuila scrub. When I talked to Sammy Simpson yesterday (next guy and below) he told me, "Steve is my cousin. The last I heard he married a girl in Muzquiz, Coahuila and went to Mexico City where he disappeared."

I found out from Remigio Martinez Mueller (last on the right) that Sammy was living in San Antonio and was not in good shape. So I Googled Sam Simpson, San Antonio and called him up. Sammy was a bit cautious at first but I then immediately recognized his voice with its Texan drawl. He told me, "My wife is in hospital and I am here in the living room with my dog watching the news. I had a boring life." I asked him that seeing he was Texan, was he by any chance a right wing Republican? His answer was short, "I am nothing." I reminded him that it was from him that learned of things I had no idea. One day, October 9, 1956, he arrived at school and gave us a blow by blow description of Don Larsen's perfect game against the Dodgers in the World Series the day before. I had no idea what baseball was much less a perfect game. On another day he arrived singing Blue Swade Shoes. I had never heard this song or did I know who Elvis Presley was. Sammy did not remember this nor did he remember that he drove a 1957 Ford which to my disappointment was the short one and not the long Fairlane 500. Sammy has no email but thanked me for calling me. While Remigio Martinez Mueller had told me that Enrique Serna, second from right had died last year I did not know how to locate Dicky Forns, third from right. It was Sammy who corrected me , "Dicky Juvé Forns." With that I located Dicky and here he is.

HAI Announces Recipient of the 2005 Outstanding CFI Award
Alexandria, Va., December 8, 2005 – Richard “Ric” Juve Forns, Senior Flight Instructor, Bell Helicopter, Fort Worth, Texas, is the recipient of HAI’s 2005 Outstanding Certified Flight Instructor Award, which will be presented at the 2005 “Salute to Excellence” awards banquet. This award recognizes superlative contributions by a helicopter flight instructor in upholding high standards of excellence. Forns has been a flight instructor for 35 years, with 10,000 hours of flight instruction, and over 3,000 students. He has amassed more than 22,000 accident- and violation-free flight hours. His flying career began in the U.S. Army at Fort Wolters, Texas, and continued with advanced training at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and service with the 114th Assault Helicopter Company in Vietnam. Forns has instructed at the Bell Helicopter Training Facility for the past 15 years. He speaks fluent Spanish, and has hundreds of flight instruction hours with Spanish-speaking pilots. Forns has worked as a flight instructor in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan, Philippines, Iran, Greece, Spain, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Netherlands, and Belgium.



He is an FAA Aviation Safety Counselor, and has conducted safety seminars on various human factors and flying topics for many audiences.

In addition to the Outstanding CFI award, Forns has earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, and the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal.

For seven years, Forns conducted recurrent training with members of the Tucson Police Air Support Unit, in Tucson, Arizona. Forn’s teaching style works well with both beginners and experienced pilots. He is able to stimulate the students’ thinking, allowing his students to assimilate information, and apply it to their flying skills. He is a successful instructor because he can communicate with his students and make the lessons relevant to them.

Somehow, soon I will locate Steve and when that happens I will be able to close a little box and tie it up with a neat ribbon. I will be closing another period of my life. When I sent my friend Howard Houston (he piloted a KC-135 re-fueling fighters in Vietnam) Rich's war record he commented:

I have known several of these helicopter jocks who served in Vietnam. Without exception, they were "good guys" who had a somewhat loose definition of what was too dangerous to do on a regular basis.

You don't get a DFC or a Bronze Star for being careful.

As an instructor pilot for Bell, he gets to deliver their equipment and train the receipients all across the world. A most interesting job, I would think.

HH

Thursday, November 08, 2007


I have written about our guest bathroom before here but I need to do so again. It all has to do with the difference between women and men, in so far as to our approach to bathroom use. If Rosemary were writing here about our guest bathroom she would be writing from an altogether different perspective. She would be sitting down and she would gaze at many family photographs that hang on the opposite wall. But since I stand up (for half of my evacuation chores) I get to stare at a different wall. On that wall hang three of my grandmother Lolita's pastels which she finished not long after her first communion sometime in the late 1880s.


They have had many different frames. The latest ones (the framed pictures are much too big for my scanner) are nice wooden frames done in Veracruz sometime in the late 1960s. I had them re-matted in Burnaby around 1980.

I cannot use the bathroom on any given day without being hit by waves of nostalgia for my abuelita . If I ever acted in some odd way in my chilhood or when I was older it was explained that I was much like my grandmother. It was she who urged my mother to get me a guitar teacher (and abue bought me a beautiful Argentine guitar that was wasted on my meager musical talent) and an art teacher.



I know that she would, of all the members of my family, understand Rosemary's and my urging that Rebecca's obvious artistic talent should not be ignored at the expense of a purely scholastic approach to her education.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007


Amidst all the attention given to the sciences as to how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered "useless," will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously. The arts are the science of enjoying life.

John Maeda
Muriel Cooper professor of media arts and sciences at the Media Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Last night I was one of the happiest of men. I attended a warm and exquisite concert by Early Music Vancouver that featured Andrew Manze and Richard Egarr. I was happy because I was there with my friends Abraham Rogatnick and Graham Walker. I was happier still because I had lured my wife Rosemary who was enthralled by the down home virtuosity of Andrew Manze ("Aw shucks I play the violin better than just about anybody in the world but I am not going to tell you this.") and Richard Egarr ("Aw shucks this classical fortepiano that looks like a glorified music box is so easy to play that anybody could do what I do.") The 20 minute pre-concert talk by the pair was part stand-up comedy and a spirited apology as to why they play music and (thank God) did not choose a career in plumbing.

We were asked for questions so I asked Egarr why he was not wearing his usually loud ties. He seriously(I think) told us that we were lucky to see them in clothes as the airline had lost their luggage.

From the atmosphere of an intimate concert in a neighbourhood church (in this case Shaughnessy Heights United Church) complete with coffee, juices and home-made cookies at the interval I cannot fathom why flocks of people will converge on a concert at the Orpheum featuring, perhaps a Schubert Symphony when for less money they might enjoy as I did (and from about three metres away) a Schubert violin and piano sonata.

In the concerts of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra (all held in churches) and in the majority of the concerts of Early Music Vancouver I never feel a barrier between the musicians and myself. We are welcomed to talk to them back stage or sometimes they mingle during the interval. I have seen my friend Paul Luchkow, a violinist with the PBO almost lose that infectuous smile of his when he plays sitting down in his other gig as a violinist for the VSO.

The exception to this difference between the warm congeniality of the former with the colder and more serious latter seems to be the Artistic Director of the VSO, Bramwell Tovey whose banter and easy to understand explanations of the musical goings on I appreciate. Another exception is VSO violinist, Robin Braun (above, left) who understands that if her career in her profession is going to evolve and prosper she has to promote it from the side. And she has an unusual web site if you realize that most symphony players don't have one. Braun is an accessible musician who shares a bit of that disarming ("What I do isn't as impossible as you might think," attitude of Manze, Eggar and Luchkow).

As I discussed with Luchkow last night the less than good attendance of the concert I wonder why there has to be that barrier between the audience of a symphony orchestra and the musicians and a barrier between those who attend the Orpheum concerts and those who opt for neighbourhood church concerts.

The virtuosity of Manze and Egarr is no less than those of the super musicians lured to play in Vancouver for the larger musical organizations. After listening to Manze and Egarr explain (with on the spot examples with their instruments) how an 18 year-old Schubert was influenced by Mozart I could now attend a Schubert symphony at the Orpheum and get that much more. But would I mingle with the musicians and bite on homemade cookies? I think that our city's musical companies should get together and compare notes.