Monday, January 07, 2008


Pensó que en la hora de la muerte no habría acabado aún de clasificar todos los recuerdos de la niñez.

He thought that in the hour of his death he would not have finished classifying the rembembrances of his childhood.

Funes El Memorioso
Jorge Luís Borges



I took Rebecca to the Orpheum yesterday for Dal Richard's 90th birthday bash. The Orpheum was a full house. Rebecca and I noted that there were only two other little girls in the audience. All there wanted to experience memories of their past. We were there for a different reason. I was there to give our first Vancouver-born member (on our side of the family) memories for her future. I looked around and pointed out people who reside in my files. "That blonde woman (sitting in front of us), she used to be readhaired, almost became the premier of our province, "I told Rebecca. During the intermission we ran into others from my files. I placed Rebecca in front of a very serious and large (not fat, just large) man and told her, "He's a politician. Ask him who he is, Rebecca." The very serious man (perhaps with a smile that I was not able to discern) said, "Rebecca, I am Garde Gardom, and I was more than a politician, I was the Lieutenant-Governor of this province." "See that little lapel flower, Rebecca?" ask him what it is. "This is the Order of British Columbia, Rebecca."

I introduced Rebecca to Jennifer and Christopher Gaze. Jennifer told her, "Rebecca we know you well because of your grandfather's blog."

We then spotted pianist Robert Silverman and I introduced him to Rebecca. He seemed to be pleased that one of Rebecca's piano teachers had been Nikolai Maloff. I explained to Rebecca that Silverman was going to play with another UBC pianist a series of Happy Birthday variations in honour of Dal Richards. But when Jimmy Pattison blew Happy Birthday on his trumpet and I told her that he was the richest man in Canada she was impressed.

But if anything the high moment for me happened when boogie woogie pianist Michael Kaeshammer played a solo piece. Just a few notes into it Rebecca looked at me and said, "Hymn to Freedom, Oscar Peterson."

Rebecca wanted to know more about Jim Byrnes who sang an unusual St Louis Blues accompanied by Dal Richard's Orchestra. On the piano was Diane Lines (she also sang very well and played a mean electric piano) who wore two little dresses (one blue, one red, both tight, one for each half of the concert). My binoculars (even though we were on the 10th row) were trained on Miss Lines's legs, the finest I have ever seen under a Steinway.

Of Byrnes I said, "Rebecca, Byrnes met your mother and aunt some 15 years ago and whenever I run into him he always asks, "How are Ale and Hilary?"

It all made me think about memory and how little I remember of when I was 10. Last night Rosemary and I caught the last hour of the 1948 John Wayne film The Wake of the Red Witch with the beautiful and mysterious looking Gail Russell. I soon realized what the ending was going to be.

Memory of seeing it with my mother suddenly came to me. Perhaps then there is a faint hope that Rebecca will remember some of our good times together. As Rebecca kept her autographed program of the night's performance close to her she asked me, "Why did Dal have two lapel buttons?" "That's because he also has an Order of Canada," I explained. Rebecca who watched part of the show with one eye closed (she wanted to know what it was like to have only one eye) then asked, "Why is Dal's artificial eye larger?" "You'll have to ask him one day, "I replied. But mine were not the last words. "When I am 20 Dal will be 100," Rebecca said with the confidence of youth.

Sunday, January 06, 2008


On Friday morning I was having coffee with my pal Ian Bateson in one of my favourite places in Vancouver. It happens to be the Starbucks inside the north end of Sears on Georgia and Granville. We were lucky to sit in the plush sofas and from our vantage point we could see the whole world (at least the Vancouver part) pass through. The ceiling thanks to the inspired (perhaps in only this section of his building) design of Argentine architect Cesar Pelli seems to go on forever in the closest attempt we may have in Vancouver to the idea of a Gothic cathedral's dimensions as they (the cathedral's dimensions) soar in search of God. Coming down the ramp was one very healthy and fit man I had photographed several times in my past. That he was still around is ample proof that God exists. That he is not rich and famous is ample proof that God, perhaps, does not exist.



Paul Hyde has to be one of Vancouver's best composers and singers. As lyricist he is up there in my pantheon of Vancouver passionates (as I really like to call them) Art Bergman.

And coincidenally it seems that Paul Hyde and Ian Bateson both went to maternity/paternity classes together. Sadly I did not think to ask the name of Hyde's son (seen here some 25 years ago).



When I first photographed Paul Hyde and his band the Payola$ (yes that's $ and not an s) I was in my "I own this fantastic Pentax rectilinear 15mm wide angle lens. Little of the Payola$ shows in my photo which I took in 1980. At about that time they showed up at CBC variety show called Star Charts which we insiders (I was the stills man) called Star Farts. The producers, staff and, camera men including Mike Varga of the CBC where a bit on the sheltered side (particularly in the cavernous Studio 40)and were not prepared to see or listen to anything that was not mainstream rock and roll. When the Payola$ descended, accompanied by wives, hangers on and even babies (Paul Hyde told me, "They must have been Bob Rock's as he got started before we did,"). When the band left, the CBC crew looked shattered. I will never forget!

Later on, quite a few years later, I photographed a smoking Paul Hyde and this time I got closer and used George Hurrell type lighting including a deep green filter to show up that face.

But this last time, on Friday, Hyde was the very picture of slim health. He does not smoke anymore and the twinkle in his eyes might just tell me that he might soon prove me wrong and get very rich.

Saturday, January 05, 2008


This blog will have Saturday January 5, 2008 as the date but it is wrong as this is being written the evening of January 6 when my website and blog was up again. The plug was pulled by Net Nation on Friday evening. Net Nation is the company I pay around $16.00 a year to keep my web page name from being used by my doppelgänger.

On January 1, I was invited to a New Years day afternoon gathering at Tim Bray's and his wife. I meant to ask him something that had been on my mind for weeks. The question was in reference to what kept my web page and blog up and or prevented its extinction. A lot has been said that anything you write on the net is there forever. Was this true?

Before the Christmas holidays Marni McLeod, one of the principals of Skunkworks had sent me a friendly letter informing me that while Skunkworks had designed both my web page and blog and hosted me for two years it was time to push me off the nest and I would have to renew my domain name. This I did (in early January, alas). But I never noticed that when I wrote British Columbia in the registration renewal form there was a little flag that said that only two initials were allowed (BC). I pressed send and that was the end of that. On Friday evening when my domain name had expired the folks at Net Nation pulled the plug.

I never really had to ask Tim Bray in the end how wrong the idea is that anything one writes on the net is forever.

What it means really is that just like in a photography one is nobody without a support staff such as Horst Wenzel one's website is utterly dependent on something as simple and "cheap" as the folks at Net Nation.

But also something I cannot forget are the good folks of Skunkworks including lawyer/writer/designer Doug Jasinski (seen above with his typewriter) and Chris Botting, who without me knowing, gave me exactly what I wanted in this web page and blog.

If I had only heeded Marni MCleod's advice to get on with it in December I would perhaps have asked Tim Bray the question, "How tenuous is my presence on the net?" and not believed a word he would have said.

Friday, January 04, 2008

It was sometime in December, 1990, right after I photographed Jack Williams in a garage building a boat from scratch (he was the consumate craftsman) that I went to the Vancouver Magazine editor with the idea on a profile on Jack Williams. I was rebuffed with a terse, "He is a nobody. We are not interested." And that's how his negatives languished in my files until today as I read pages and pages of nobodies in today's Arts & Life section of my daily newspaper.

I felt a bit of rage reading (a glance, only a glance) about the latest trend in the top 10. This is, "Top 10 cool movies we're looking forward to in 2008". In defference to my literary friend and movie critic, I would give him a gun, before banishing every movie critic in town to a desert island. "And then there was one," John Lekich, I would hope.

For at least two decades my friends (including John Lekich) and I held a weekly (Thursdays) lunch at Vancouver's The Railwayman's Club (a.k.a. The Railway Club). Food was plain, almost inconsequential to compensate for the rich conversation. We conversed (now that chatting has that other dreadful meaning, converse will do wonderfully). Not being yet that famous (they), we conversed with William Gibson and Evelyn Lau. Buck Cherry was not quite John Armstrong and exotic dancers from the nearby Hotel St. Regis sometimes slummed at our table. My ritual was pouring a small glass of Tio Pepe into my soup. Most of us have scattered here and there and we sometimes meet at the club. The food is very much better but the conversation, dutifully nostalgic is not quite in the realm of conversation.

One man who would appear, every once in a while was Jack Williams. If there was some way of defining the man in a short sentence we would say, "He is the father of Vancouver starlet Barbara Williams." It was only around 1993 that we would have added, "and she is married to Tom Hayden."

But there was much more to Jack Williams. His face was a blend of Spencer Tracy, William Faulkner and Dashiell Hammett. His face was the kind of face you might see at the end of a steep climb on a mountain, you know, your cliché guru.

Williams fancied beer and tomato juice and on some days you might have suspected that he had breakfasted early with such a concoction. His voice was almost pure diction with only a hint of a slur. He would look at you with that permanent little smile of his eyes and would begin, "I read this thing in Harper's..."

Williams had been in logging camps and one of his many jobs was of cook on a tug boat and a logging barge. When he didn't cook he read or conversed with such friends as logging poet Peter Trower whom he called, "Pete."

My favourite Williams quality was his placidity. He made me relax. The world was just fine. And if it wasn't, it would soon be. Except for once.

We were visited one Thursday by sex crimes cop Steve Pranzl. Williams developed a instant liking for the handsome policeman. I could see the gleem in Williams's eyes and I could see what was coming. I didn't know what to do until Pranzl told us he had to make a call and got up. As soon as he was gone I whispered to Williams, "Don't offer him that special weed of yours, he's a cop."

Williams died sometime in the late 90s.

Thursday, January 03, 2008


History used to be taught in periods which stressed the salient civilizations of a particular time, in isolation from others that may have been around, in decline or in upward development. It is only recently that civilizations have been taught in relation to others.

In much the same way it is easy to fall into the trap of looking at Vancouver's own history in a didactic, "it started here and ended here" sort of way. We also look at history in a neat and mathematically comforting decimal system of centuries and decades. Occasionally there are some great personalities that thwart that system For example there is Graham Greene who spanned Edwardian times and yet flew at supersonic speeds on the Concorde. People such as Greene teach us to look at history in a not so neat but ever so much more interesting way. Such is the case of our very own Dal Richards who celebrates his 90th birthday with a big bash concert at the Orpheum on January 6.

Much like I have written here how one of our national flag designers, Patrick Reid can often be seen strolling in Kerrisdale, Dal Richards is a walking-history-lesson of what has happened (and is happening) in Vancouver while he has been around (and is around). This is specially true as Richards has a prodigious memory and an unwavering interest in the affairs of our city. Recently, while driving him (after having a chat in his apartment on Beatty Street) to a movie date with his wife Muriel, Richards pointed out buildings that had disappeared and noticed new ones and how they affected traffic. He told me he wanted to go on a long cruise and come back after the Canada Line was finished and the 2010 Olympics were over. "The traffic, downtown, might just be manageable then," he said.

Bob Mercer, the editor/art director of VLM (Vancouver Lifestyles Magazine) is keen on not only saluting our walking history lessons but also helping those who might not know about them to appreciate them through profiles in his magazine. A recent one featured my photograph and my short profile on Dal Richards. Here is the copy that accompanied the photograph above.



Dal's Place

Ral Richards, 89, is one very stylish Vancouver gentleman. His wife Muriel says, "Dal wears a tuxedo like a mechanic wears overalls. He looks comfortable in it. On cruise ships, others look like stuffed penguins." Richards says, "I dress the way a bandleader should dress."

Richards lost an eye when he was 8. His parents put him into the Kitsilano Boys Band as a recuperative therapy. He played a clarinet sold to them by George Leach, the bassoon player of the Vancouver Symphony. Leach also played in dance bands but had to sell the clarinet t support his family.

Richards, whose long-running Dal's Place airs on 600AM, Saturdays, 6 to 7 p.m., and Sundays, 9 to 10 p.m., has just released a new CD with his band. Of special note is Jim Byrnes singing "Blues in the Night," a tango version of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" with young Vancouver singer Bria Skonberg and a killer version of "As Time Goes By" sung by Richards himself.

© 2007 VLM/Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

Wednesday, January 02, 2008


In 1972 photographer Robert Frank temporarily retired his Leica to produce, direct and film a documentary of the Rollings Stones on tour called Cocksucker Blues. Scenes of the Stones shooting up in a hotel room assured that this film has rarely been seen by anybody as the Stones imposed restrictions on when and where Cocksucker Blues could be viewed. Unless you have been able to buy or see a bootleg version your only chances are to go to Robert Frank retrospective (it was one at Presentation House quite a few years ago where I saw the film for my first time). One of the groupies in the film is a relatively unknown eyeglass wearing Annie Leibovitz. Cocksucker Blues pioneered everything that is considered normal now in MTV. MTV was a phenomenon when it began to broadcast in 1980 and by then few remembered Frank's contribution. Even fewer would remember Vancouver's.



It all started with a couple of men, one short and one tall. The short one, J.B. Shayne had many monickers including the one important to our story, Raouel Casablanca. The tall one, "Long"John Tanner, managed to drive his wife's Mini in spite of his 6'4" frame.



These two attached themselves to a decidedly uncool (he played jazz drums on the side) but supportive producer, Don Fraser (a.k.a. Mr. Tasty, wearing a white hat in the photographs here). The three hired two beauts, one a blonde, Deborah Jarvi and the other a brunette, Susanne Tabata. Their program, Nite Dreems went on the air on Cable 10 (at the time Cable 10 was at the foot of Cambie and Marine Drive).



Nite Dreems featured very early music videos including the Modernette's Barbra which to this day looks and sounds as fresh as it did in 1980. While Barbra was done with no budget (free I have been told) the folks at Nite Dreems managed with a very low one helped by Don Fraser's frugal habits. Connoisseurs of the active punk movement in Vancouver, of the incoming New Wave and other music that was off the charts and not on AM or FM watched Nite Dreems. They also might have enjoyed the skits and the humour. My reasons for watching it were more mundane. For me it was all about the blonde and the brunette.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008


New Years is so much about time and clocks striking 12. This year Rosemary called me on her way home (last night) to tell me she was going to stop for grapes. Eating 12 grapes as the clock begins to strike midnight is supposed to be good luck in Spain and the custom has been in my family all these years. Safeway had no grapes and Rosemary did not think about trying a corner fruit store. Most Spaniards would say it is a lot easier to eat those 12 grapes in the form of brandy or Champagne. We did none of those things and retired for the night. Midnight found Rosemary asleep and me finishing Reginald Hill's Death Comes For The Fat Man. And, no, I will not reveal here if Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel (pronounced Deel) indeed dies.

I have written here about how Rebecca (when she stays for the night on Saturdays) is confused when I show her Sunday's (delivered at 9pm on Saturday night) New York Times. So I called her up last night at 9pm and told her that according to my New York Times it was Tuesday, January 1, 2008 at our home. It had to be the case, I insisted as it was clearly printed on the newspaper. I further confused her by telling her, "It's today here because tomorrow is today and your today was my yesterday." At that point my ever practical but still confused Rebecca said, "You should stop getting that silly paper."



The pictures here I took of Rosemary some 39 years ago in Mexico City. For anybody reading this I wish you a feliz y próspero año nuevo.