Gildiner's Gospel

ARRESTED YET AGAIN

2011-12-29T12:19:00.000-08:00

I really don't get why I am arrested wherever I go? Last week I was stopped for speeding. I was going forty miles over the speed limit. ( Ok I guess I do actually knowwhy I was arrested.) It was off on some country road where the speed suddenly dropped from 80 to 35 for the distance of one general store. I was told by the polite Canadian policeman that if I get another ticket I could lose my license. OH MY GOD! That made me rattle in my Roots boots. My husband, who was travelling with me, didn't say one word. (But you know what they're thinking, right?)

I travel all around the Untied States and Canada in my trusty Subaru Outback on a publicity tour for my memoir TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS and AFTER THE FALLS. The very next day after I got my ticket in Yuppitsville, Ontario, I was travelling in the United States near Niagara Falls, New York. I saw a policeman on the side of the road issuing a ticket to some poor schmuck. Thank God, for once, I was going under the speed limit.

As I putted along in self satisfied contentment , I heard a police siren behind me roaring up my tailpipe. I ignored it since I have been properly chastened on the previous day and was now going under the speed limit. Then I saw two police cars behind me blaring their sirens as though they were rehearsing a scene from Mean Streets. Well whoever the police is looking for is really in trouble. I continued on past the New York Power Project overlooking the Niagara River just above the Falls.

Suddenly a police car cuts in front of me forces me off the road. I was literally the title of my Book, TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS. With pounding heart and a Tim Horton's in my hand, I rolled down the window. The robust police man ( I was sure he had another miniature policeman-in- training tucked in his bulging navy police shirt, said,

'Listen lady I have been trying to get you go to pull over for about 20 miles. I had to call for back up. You have been resisting arrest.

I looked behind me at the parade of whirling red lights.

'Well you found me. What's the problem? For the record, I going under the speed limit.'

Here comes the Kafkaesque part. He then said:

'Well I suggest that you just sit there, Missy, until you realize what you have done wrong. You clearly need some time to think of it.'

I looked behind me and he had pulled over two other cars with me. One was a custom made suit in a Lexus and the other was a man in a rusted truck with a mullet hairdo who looked like Clint Eastwood without the tan. I looked in the rearview mirror and the man in the Lexus made a gesture to me with his hands in the air indicating that he also had no idea why we'd been pulled over. I returned the gesture. The guy in the pickup truck hit his head on his steering wheel and screamed out of his window that he was late for work.

Apparently we all had to wait until we realized what we had done wrong. Hopefully it would be a quick revelation. It is amazing what comes to mind when you are told to sit by the side of the road and conjure up your sins-- be they present or past ---But let's not go there.

Finally after about 25 minutes the man in the pickup truck started screaming 'Fuck' out of his window and telling anyone who would listen that he was going to lose his job if he didn't get to work. Then after a half hour of our curb-side act of contrition, the mullet man got out and banged on the hood of the police car yelling what we were all feeling: "What the hell did I do wrong. Just give me the ticket.' ( Do you how long a half hour feels when you are pulled over to the side of the road?) At this point two policemen get out of their cars and pin the mullet head to the hood of the car and spread eagle him. Then they immediately throw him in a police car and speed away. The guy in the Lexus and I exchange raised eyebrow glances in the rear view mirror.

Finally the Policeman returned to my car and with arms folded in front of him he rocks back on his heels and asks , 'Know what law you broke?'

When I looked blankly at him, he continued:

'Did you see me giving a ticket on the side of the road back about twenty miles?'

'Yeah'

'Well you pret' near too off my backside, lady.'

'I could have clipped a lot and he still would have had an ample backside in my opinion-- but having been arrested two days in a row , I decided to keep my opinions on police proportions to myself.

'Well it is the law in New York State that you have to change lanes when you see an officer of the law giving a ticket. It is your responsibility to leave a lane between you and the arresting officer. You did not comply with that law.'

'I never learned that is drivers education in high school when I lived and grew up in New York State.'

'Yeah well maybe New York wasn't even a state when you were in high school. Laws change and it is up to you to learn them.'

'I am from Canada and this is a new law. Can you cut me a bit of slack?'

'Never travel without knowing the law in another country. Ever see Midnight Express ? He didn't know the laws of the land now did he?'

He then issues me a whopping ticket. ( I now have two tickets within a few days amounting to almost $700.) As I am driving away , the suit in the Lexus motions me to pull over at the next fast food exit. In the Wendy's parking lot, he approaches my car and asks: "Did you know that Law?"

'No'. I was now completely befuddled by this entire misadventure.

'Well it's new. I had just heard about it on Eyewitness News. However, I couldn't pull over because it was on a curve and there were two transport trailers in the lane and I couldn't squeeze between them. That cop wouldn't listen to me. We should fight this. I mean this is God Damn America!"

Three weeks from today we have our day in a New York State court.

Delusions in Cleveland

2011-11-18T06:46:00.001-08:00

I was just on a publicity tour in the U.S for the paperback release of the second volume of my memoirs titled, AFTER THE FALLS. One of my first stops was Cleveland. Now for most people Cleveland has very little meaning, but it is packed with meaning for me.

Forty five years ago I was a teacher at a ghetto high school in the late 60’s when The Hough area of the city was burning during the riots after the murder of Martin Luther King. In the third volume of my memoir which will come out next year, tentatively titled, ROUND-TRIP, I recount my student teaching experience and how I was nearly fired not only by my supervising teacher, not just by the principal, but by the superintendent of the Cleveland school system.

It is never easy for a tall blond of twenty-one years of age to return to the scene of the crime as a faded blond. let’s be honest I was now a white haired sixty- four year old. (The Beatles have that one right. ‘Will you still need me’, etc.) After my fatally flawed student teaching experience, I went on to do a PhD. in psychology on DARWIN’S INFLUENCE ON FREUD. Then I was a psychologist for twenty-five years.

I decided that even though I left Cleveland nearly under armed guard, I was not going to return bowed and slink into the city. I wanted the inhabitants to know I could still rock with the best of them. I attempted to make the following fashion statement: I am no longer a teacher or a conservatively dressed psychologist. At Fifty I broke out and became a writer. I don’t have to wear the solid black of the aging – as in ‘black hides all.’ I didn’t have to wear a suit since I am no longer a staid psychologist. I can have edge since that is what writers are supposed to possess. Therefore, I wore blue jeans and a really unique brown suede jackets that is covered with multicolored beads and fringe. I had pink Japanese paper book shaped earrings dangling with insouciance from my ears, and my feet were shod in purple pointed cowboy boots with yellow top stitching. I was convinced I had created the perfect writerly image. As far as Cleveland was concerned I was saying to any teachers from my old faculty who were going to attend my talk, I was not the prodigal teacher.

I left the airport and climbed into the cab. Believe it or not the cab driver was named Cleveland. He said his parents wanted to be sure he felt at home. As I got in the back seat he said, “You goin’ to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame?” This museum is Cleveland’s only claim to tourist development in the last quarter century. Even the hotel keys are in the shape of a guitar. The airport walkway is full of large rock and roll photos.

I informed him that I was in town to read from my book. He said that he surprised because I looked exactly like a Dolly Parton fan coming to pay tribute at the Rock and Roll hall of fame. He said he’d seen dozens of them over the years and I exactly fit the bill.

There is such a far cry between fantasy and reality and it took Cleveland in Cleveland to let me know I had to ‘mind the gap.’

publicity tour in the United States and Canada

2011-11-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

Well I've gone from New York City to Sundance, Utah, with many desultory and sometimes interesting stops in between, flogging the paperback edition of my second memoir AFTER THE FALLS.

When on these tours the publisher pays for the hotel, and expenses and they usually provide a handler, a person who picks you up at the airport and takes you to different box bookstores where they can't find your book. Then they take you to your various speaking venues in the evening. I found that the handler was often a microcosm of the city I was visiting.

Handler in New York
When she picked me up at LaGuardia, we were not out of the airport before she told me that handling was not her full time gig. She is, in fact, a performance artist. When I asked her if she would be coming to my event in the evening she said that she was ‘run off her feet’ and I should take a cab. As I got out of her car she said, "Remember Kate, this is New York City. Don't expect a big audience. There is a lot going on.”

Handler in Sundance, Utah
When I arrived at the Airport in Utah, there was a man holding up a sign that read Golddink instead of Gildiner. (He was really handsome so I figured Golddink was close enough.) I knew I was out of New York when he gave me a bear hug while I was still gripping my carry-on luggage. He said, “ I hope more than anything that I can get to your talk tonight. We are all so excited that you’re here.” There are many drivers or 'handlers' at Sundance because everyone stays in a cabin in the Mountains and you have to be picked up for every meal. Each one said they were thrilled that I was there and one said, “Wild horses couldn’t keep me from that talk. Plus I can't wait to read your book.” It always makes me feel good when young people, thirty and under, are excited about my book. I was, therefore, surprised when not one of the eight handlers came to my talk or bought the book.

Handler in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Then I went to Red Deer, Alberta. When I landed at the airport I asked the handler if she was going to be at my talk she said, “Of course it’s my job”, as though it was a tough slog but she was getting paid for it. She was there with her entire book club of thirty people and each one bought a book.

You are your own geography

New York
When I was in New York the first morning my handler said she would meet me at Starbucks ‘around the corner’. I went there and she wasn’t there. I went back to my hotel and was informed by the doorman that there were ‘nine Starbucks within the one large block. Yikes. Finally after my Starbucks excursions, I gave up on the handler and decided to sit down and have a coffee and let her find me. Every single person had a computer, as it is free Wi-Fi at Starbucks. There were no seats available. Finally when a man left and there was only a lone man at a table for two I said , “Mind if I join you”. He said ‘Well this is my office and I am just about to have a meeting.” At that moment a man in a suit arrived and the lone man in the chair greeted him and welcomed him as though he had a corner office in Rockefeller Plaza. I guess with high rents and such little space, you take space where you can get it. Starbucks coffee may be expensive but it is cheaper than an hour of New York rents.
After giving up on my handler and a seat at Starbucks, I crawled back to my hotel. This was a really high-end hotel, even by New York Standards, so I was shocked to find out that they were charging over $12.00 a day for Wi-Fi. I said to the clerk at the front desk that they should just add the price to the room instead of nickel and diming people. (I wasn’t paying for it, but the principal bothered me.) I informed him that even at the Super Eight motels the Wi-Fi is free. He never looked up from sorting his mail and said in a thick Brooklyn accent, ‘Well honey, so are the bedbugs.’

Sundance
At Sundance all of the waiters were handsome and friendly. They knew my name after the first day and sometimes even sat down to join me. In the deli they had what is called in New York City a tip box. However, at Sundance it is called a Karma jar. They even call Robert Redford 'Bob'.

One of the great things about Utah was the space. The restaurants at Sundance are huge and you have ten feet between your table and the next one. The Rockies give you feeling of space. The people are also expansive just like the terrain. They are happy to meet you. They reach out. I made the mistake of thinking that all of their warmth meant they were interested in my work. It didn't. It was just cordiality.

Red Deer, Alberta
There are certain spots in my presentation where the audience ususally laughs --in the United States. No one broke a smile in Red Deer, Alberta or in Calgary. Once my talk was over I didn't expect to sell many books, but we sold so many we ran out. Each person in the audience bought at least one. One man approached me poker faced and said in the most laconic of tones, "You're a riot. I never heard such a funny talk." He never once cracked a smile as I signed his book.

Conclusion
The great thing about North America is the diversity. Once you know what the cues are it is great to travel around. New York City competes with you, but I love how out front they are about it. Once you know the rules for how this tiny island that is crammed with people operates, you can function quite easily.

The space and friendliness in Utah was so calming after New York. Yet I had to be careful not to interpret their expansiveness as interest in me per se. Once I got that down I was fine. When they all said good-bye and said they were so excited for my third volume, I knew it was just best to just wave and smile instead of giving them the publication date.

Good ol' Canada --my home--not all that friendly, or welcoming. It is bitterly cold in Alberta; you have to count on one another or you could blow away or freeze. So what they say is what you get. There is comfort in that.

book tour - strip searched in Oakland airport

2010-11-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

I am in a rush. I have just given a talk in Oakland, California and I have to dash to the airport to fly all night so that I can arrive and give a talk in Niagara Falls, New York. I only have 38 minutes to get from venue to the plane. I am in a panic because I am sure there will be hundreds at my talk in Niagara Falls since my first book Too Close To the Falls takes place there. It is my home town. That always draws a crowd.What if I don't make the plane and the audience are all left looking at a blank podium. It will give new meaning to Thomas Wolfe's line You can't go home again. (Little did I know at the time,I actually had nothing to worry about. I had fewer people in Niagara Falls than I had in Oakland where I didn't know anyone.)

Breathless I arrived at the gate and threw my bag on the security belt. There were two pretty young girls in their early twenties in front of me and the security guard said, "have a nice trip girls" and smiled. I am next and the smile faded from his face and now he has gone from looking jovial, if a bit lecherous, to looking like he is doing a Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry imitation and he says, "Do you have any metal parts?" I say, as a joke, "Like that metal plate in your head?" as I walk into the frame where they check you over with the magic wand. Suddenly all of the machinery stops whirring. The conveyor belt is no longer running. The guard, a white haired male in his 60's like I am a white haired female in my 60's, glare at one another. He says "Come with me." I realize I have been, as my mother used to say to me, 'digging my own grave' I decide it is best to explain my 'humor'. I ask how come he didn't ask the girls in front of me if they had metal parts? If you can't do racial profiling how come you can do ageist profiling?"

He no longer looks at me or listens to me. I am now only a talking metal part to him. He motions to two very large black women and says only two words, Strip search. I am taken into a small room and as the woman pulls on her robin's egg blue gloves, she shakes her head and says "Who did you piss off?"

I emerge from the room assured that I will never feel the same way about robin's egg blue rubber gloves, and there is the bad Dirty Harry imitator. Now he calls me to the side of the conveyor belt and he has decided to go through my suitcase. He finds a number of copies of my book in the suitcase and asks in an accusatory tone "So you like to read I see? This was said as though we were in Turkey and he'd just found a kilo of hash. I nod in the affirmative. (Once you've had the blue glove treatment you learn humility.) He has a trainee with him and I can see he is showing off for him. He says, "How come you keep reading the same book?" ( further evidence he has a medal plate in his head) I explain that I wrote it and when he looks dubious, I show him my picture in the back of the book. He takes about five minutes to check out each detail.( There are so many Catherine Gildiner impersonators out there you can't be too careful.) Then he asks what the book is about and I say it is a memoir. Then he says "Who's it about?" When I say 'me' he laughs as though the idea of anyone reading about me is unfathomable. He shakes his head and says to the trainee, "It takes all kinds."

After all of this I have of course missed my plane. I run to the gate anyhow and lo and behold they are late loading so I get on. I am so late that everyone is all belted in. They think the plane waited for me. I say to the woman next to me "I was strip searched at security.". She just looks at me and says "TMI" and does not utter another word for the flight and the other people give me a stare that said 'what is wrong with you? You are not even a Muslim and you held up the plane.

A Great Good Place to Buy Books-- book tour

2010-11-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

On my book tour for my memoir that just came out in the States called AFTER THE FALLS I went to Oakland, California. The day I got there everyone in Oakland was told to stay home and the police closed the Bart subway system. I was bewildered since I had flown thousands of miles from Toronto to give to talk to people who were not allowed out. Bad Karma.

When I asked the doorman of my hotel why there were police on every corner and the streets were empty, I was told that Oakland expected a race riot. A Black Man had been shot and killed by a white officer. A trial ensued and the judgment, which was a light sentence for the white cop was handed down on this day of November 5, 2010-- the same day as my talk. The doorman said "Everybody knows that policeman deserved more time than he got and the community is going to rise up and tell the world about it." I said "I came out here to give a talk and now no one will come since they have been told to stay home." The doorman yelled, "Sorry honey. I guess it is not all about you today!" He had a point.

So as the evening approached, I packed my speech to give to an empty room in my bag and headed on the vacated police lined streets to my venue. As I drove down the huge forlorn highway a policeman pulled me over and asked where I was going. When I told him, he suggested I turn around and go back to my hotel and stay in until morning. I told him in no uncertain terms that I had flown thousands of miles to give this talk and I planned to make it to the book store no matter what and if no one was there, I would talk to myself. He nodded and said to another approaching policeman, 'No point talking to her. She thinks she some bell of the ball at some book store."

It was probably the only night in years that there was no traffic. I pulled onto a narrow side street and saw the small independent bookstore in the Montclair district of Oakland. It was bigger than a shoe box and smaller than a real room. I'd say it approached the size of a box car. When I walked in people screamed and shouted my name. There before me were a gaggle of girls that I'd gone to high school with at good ol' Amherst high over 40 years ago. They had 'gone out west in the 60's. There were also many others who came from hours away and all congregated at the small store. They had braved the ominous atmosphere and made it to the store.

Then the owner introduced me and told the following story. The previous owner of the store had loved my first book called TOO Close to the Falls and had actually managed to hand sell 500 copies. For those of you not familiar with book sales that is an amazing amount. She kept asking an employee to read the book. However the employee, who was also a stubborn Irish Catholic, refused to read it saying things like "just because you liked a book doesn't mean I will." Then the owner got cancer and the employee read the book as a tribute to her and loved it. When the owner died, the employee bought the store and continued to push the book, just as the previous owner had. They are now up to 700 copies sold.

I just loved this store and the people who ran it. I don't think there is any store in the nation who has sold 700 copies of my book and that includes my home town. It was such a joy to walk into a shop off a desolate street and see such warm hearts. Thank God for the independent book store and this one in particular. At first I though the title of the store called A GREAT GOOD PLACE TO BUY BOOKS was hokey but by the time I left I thought the name was inspired.

book tour first stop Seattle

2010-11-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

Ok so my first stop on my hard cover AFTER THE FALLS book tour was Seattle. Naturally it was a gorgeous city-- everyone knows that from Sleepless in Seattle. If you didn't see that movie then you are from another planet. Speaking of another planet, it is the home of Microsoft and Starbucks. Everyone's clothes smell like a bitter roast venti.

What I noticed about the city was how natural women looked. I had just left New York and Toronto where almost everyone my age ( I am almost a national institution) dyes their hair. No one my age has gray hair in Toronto except for me. People often comment on it--saying how nice it is, etc. Really they are thinking --why oh why does this woman not dye her hair!

Once when I was a psychologist I had a patient from Iran. On the last day of her therapy she wanted to thank me so she gave me a package of hair dye from L'oreal. She was completely sincere when she said that she figured I had no idea that I could dye my hair at home and she assumed I had no idea about the hair dye products available in the drug store. As she said, 'otherwise why would you have white hair?" She just had the nerve to say what most people thinking.

It was great to be in Seattle. Even at smart restaurants women had natural gray hair and very little makeup. They were not burned-out-hippies in tie-dye shirts and stone washed jeans, but really stylish women who decided to look their age and not pile carcinogens on their head every six weeks. They also wore comfortable loose clothing and flat shoes. Many of the shoe stores didn't even have high heels. (not kidding)

All of this time I thought that I was odd in Toronto marching around with my white hair looking like Mrs. Claus. Once in Toronto I lost my cell phone and someone got on a loud speaker in a large theater and said "Will the woman with white hair come to the counter. We have your cell phone." If I lived in Seattle they would never have gotten away with that message.

It was also strange to see no one with a face lift. Everyone over 50 looked just like they were over 50 and not like tired stretched 35 year olds. It was great to be with others who were not trying to look younger. Shockingly they only wanted to look good, comfortable, relaxed and their real age.

Radiologist

2010-09-27T19:19:00.000-07:00

My husband is a radiologist. He goes to work every day and wears a lead apron and tells me how hard his job is. When I ask him what happens at work ( just to make dinner conversation) he says in a certain taciturn tone "Nothing happened-- I took exrays and blew up some occluded arteries--then I got in a traffic jam and came home."

However I beg to differ. My son went with him to take you kid to work day and he took the following video. Never believe that your husband has a boring day at work. He just wants you to think that so you will make him supper.

Anormal from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

fish need a bicycle.

2010-09-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

Wodek Szemberg,a director of ideas segments on TVO television, has suggested a topic for me to discuss on the program. He asks "Is the bumper sticker slogan A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle more then just snarky expression of feminist hostility towards but an early apprehension of the diminishing importance of men to women." Wodek then suggested I read an article in Newsweek called 'Why we need to re-imagine masculinity' (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/20/why-we-need-to-reimagine-masculinity.html)

First of all just a point of clarification. Many people think that Gloria Steinem originated that phrase but Steinem says she got it from an anonymous author who painted the slogan on a wall at University of Wisconsin in 1969. The slogan was a twist on the philosophical text 'A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle'.

It is interesting how it has caught on from graffiti and the phrase is used today as though it is new. However, it was coined over forty years ago. If you haven't heard it you are probably from another planet.

Why does the phrase say so much to so many women? It is having a renaissance in the last year or two since the topic of males falling behind in education and in so many other categories has been discussed in the press.

You can talk about the 'feminization' of the school system' and the other injustices to males all you want, but the fact remains that females have made major changes since the sixties and males have not. If men don't want to make changes then of course, they are going to get left behind in a changing world.

I don't blame men for not wanting to make changes. After all they held all the power since the beginning of civilization and now they are digging in their heels rather than give it up. It may take a century or more for the change to happen. ( It may take even longer given the fact that so little change has happened in the last half century.)

When you look at the rise in male alcoholism, depression, and joblessness, in psychological terms, you can see that males are conflicted about making the necessary changes and may in fact be at a loss on how to make those changes. All they conscioulsy feel is that they don't fit in the world as they used to. To be fair we give males a double message and as we all know double messages always make you slightly crazy. First we say we want more nurturing males. Yet when a male says he is a nurse, as in the film Meet the Parents we silently snicker and think to ourselves, 'Hey isn't that a girl's job'.

Women have headed into the workforce. I often give talks on my new memoir After the Falls about what it was like to be a teenager in the 60's. When I talk to girls in high school, they are shocked to find out that it was not politic if you wanted to date in the early 60's to be smart. You were supposed to hide that. They are also shocked to learn that the term assertive was not used in connection with females until 1966. So what were you called if you were assertive before 1966? How about bitch, mouthy,or bossy. Anyone over 50 knows what I mean. There was no positive word to use. As these high school girls listen to this incredulously they say the opposite is true now.

Gradually over the last forty years the expectations for girls have changed. Law and Medicine now have more females than males in their programs. Women had to make changes. They had to stop being passive and looking at getting their Mrs. as their goal in university. Women actually said that proudly in the 1950's and 60s when I went to university. Women had to learn how to negotiate, head into the boardroom, be assertive and make it stick. Still they had families in the hope that their husbands would make changes as well and do as much work as they did on the home front.

Guess what? They didn't. Most males act like their father's acted. They do less than a third of the child care, less than 20 percent of the housework, and in terms of personality traits they have not changed one iota.( That's why Monday Night Football was invented.) Of course there are exceptions. However,I am talking statistically.

They have actually fallen behind as fathers since there are more single mothers than ever before and more dead beat dads hit the pavement every day and they are not going to the employment centre. How are they getting away with it? Of course they are not. They are lost and often depressed, refuse to communicate, and act out.

As one of my patients said to me-- I can get sperm in a bottle and then I never have to plead with any man to change a diaper.

It is naive to think that when women change as much as they have over the last four decades and men stay the same-- there will not be conflict. I find it interesting that as the decades go by the gender gap in terms of males' behaviour does not narrow.

Girls in high school today say that they don't know what the slogan I went to university to get my Mrs. means? How long will it take before girls and women don't know what is meant by the phrase A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle?

Managing Creative Expectations

2010-09-27T12:20:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading Lit, the new memoir by Mary Karr. Her fist memoir The Liar's Club was her breakthrough childhood memoir. It was about a tough hard scrabble childhood in Texas where she lived with an alcoholic, among other things, mother and father. Her second volume Cherry about her wayward teenage years was also compelling. It had the added feature of making my teenage years seem tame by comparison. Although, wait a minute I just remembered she didn't have a murder trial or the FBI to deal with. Lit is about her own adult fight with alcoholism and her desperate attempt not to be the mother to her son that her mother had been to her. I really enjoyed Lit as well and finished it in one all night sitting. All three volumes are packed with Karr's amazing use of language and her ability to be really funny in a tragic situation.

The truth according to me ( that is why this blog is called GILDINER'S GOSPEL) is that the first volume,The Liar's Club, is the best of the three and I believe the sales will substantiate what I am saying. The same was true of Jill Kerr Conway's three volume biography. Her first The Road to Corrain was by far the best.

I am now facing the same issue with my three volume set of memoirs. My first is a childhood memoir called Too Close to the Falls. It was an international success and was on the best seller's list for years. The sequel, After the Falls my life as a teenager in the 60's has just come and the third, The Long Way Home, is close to finished.

I guess what you have to do is manage your expectations. It is hard to top a really successful book. It is also difficult to admit to yourself that your 'best work' may behind you. In the end all you can do is get up every day and write what your life was actually like. If you worry about outcome you are not a creative writer but you become a marketer. You can't pander to the public and that gets harder as you unconsciously want the second book to be as successful as the first.

Elizabeth Gilbert , the author of Eat,Pray,Love is facing the same situation. (Although her book was way more successful than mine. She had a sales phenomenon.) She has given the issue of creative expectations some interesting thought which she has shared in this video. it was serendipitous that I came upon it exactly when I was pondering the issue.

Elizabeth Gilbert: A new way to think about creativity
- Watch more Tech Videos at Vodpod.

American vesus Canadian

2010-05-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

The second volume of my autobiography called AFTER THE FALLS has just rolled off the presses in Canada. It will be out in America in November of 2011. Despite being born in America and spending my first twenty years there, I have lived my last 40 years in Canada. (There are three unaccounted for years-- maybe I was on another planet—oh wait it was weirder, I was in England!) Despite having lived the majority of my life in Canada, the book is about my life in America as a teenager in the happenin’ 1960’s. Therefore, I am glad that Penguin has seen fit to release it with some fanfare in the States in the fall.

I just received the American book cover in the mail and am surprised at how different it is from the Canadian cover. When you compare the two you can really see the difference between Canada and The States.

As you can see the Canadian cover has a small picture of me on the top half of the book and the bottom half is a much larger crowd of peace demonstrators. My image is a minor part of the cover. The majority of the cover is about demonstrating for the social good. In Canada it is considered to be gauche to put yourself forward. It is acceptable to write about yourself as long as it benefits society. I was part of a movement (civil rights and the peace movement) so my exhibitionism is socially sanctioned. It is acceptable to put yourself forward if it is for a worthy cause. The idea is that your ‘fame’ is a mere byproduct of your good works.

While the Canadian cover is white and demure, The American cover is black and edgy. It is covered with pictures of me and more me at various ages. It is supposed to be a page from my photo album. (Whether that works or not is up to you to decide. I'd be interested in your opinion.)The American version has ignored the social context of the memoir and focused on me growing up. Americans really think it is perfectly fine to say ‘It is all about me’.

The two covers are representative of what was stated in the two constitutions. In the American constitution you have the ‘right to happiness’. In Canada you have the right to ‘peace, order and good government’." You can see those two goals reflected in each cover.

In the U.S. It is acceptable to pursue your own happiness. If you want to ‘toot your own horn’ – so be it. In Canada whenever you leave the ‘pack’ you are suspect. In fact the phrases that each country uses to express individualism are the same. The tone however is different. In America you might say ‘She puts herself forward.’ That could be a compliment or a neutral statement. However, in Canada the phrase would have that English cutting edge and would be said as ‘She puts Herself forward’ and would be negative in tone. In America you would say ‘She hides her light under a bushel’ as in – what is that about? Why doesn’t she let people know what she can do? In Canada the same phrase would be a compliment. It could never be neutral or negative. You would be praised for your modesty. In Canada when someone asks 'what is new?'—they don’t mean new with you. It took me a few years to get on to that one. The flip side of that trait is that you will never see personal advertisements such as car stickers letting you know where their child goes to college ( Called University in Canada) or a bumper sticker with their personal slogan. You don’t see ‘support our troops’ since they would not presume to tell you whom to support.

When I first began to write I said to my Canadian friend that I was doing my own publicity. She said, ‘Really. You needn’t toot your own horn.' When I told a friend in the U.S. that I was doing some of my own publicity she said, ‘Oh great. Everyone works hardest for themselves.Go for it’

Of course each of these national traits has their pros and cons. In terms of making things happen and being a mover and shaker, the Stars and stripes has it all over Canada. If you want something done or a new idea put forward ask an American. However, if you want a door held open for you, no one to cut in line, and people who obey traffic laws, welcome immigrants and commit very little crime-- not even road rage—then you want a country who values working together – The mighty maple leaf.

Since I was born an American, all of you Americans will see me next fall blazing my way through the colorful leaves pushing my own book and giving whistle stop tours to whomever will listen. However, I have been in Canada long enough to never cut in line, have no flags on my car. Of course I will always hold the door for the next American behind me.

It takes two to tango

2010-02-01T07:31:00.000-08:00

I am now in Buenos Aires--home for 16 million people-- 15 million of them Tango-- the others aren't worth mentioning. Before we came here my husband and I had some tango lessons in our home town of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

When we first got here we immediately read all the dozens of tango magazines. I chose the free lessons as it turned out so did everyone else. When we went to our first lesson there were dozens of people there. The class was going to be divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced. When the instructors asked us what group we would fit into I said 'advanced' just as my husband said 'beginner'. Since I have the bigger mouth we were placed in the advanced class and were immediately demoted to the intermediate and were then unceremoniously kicked out and thrown into the beginners. While my husband shot daggers at me, I said with North American English officiousness, "but we know the steps." The teacher looked at me and said, " A giraffe can learn steps." My six foot six inch husband then said "let me dance with her, I'm tall." Ignoring him, the teacher said, "You cannot even walk across the floor as one. Until you have one heartbeat you cannot proceed."

One heartbeat? Like Siamese twins? Ok now I get it.

We were at square one. We had several problems. One, Tango and everything else starts after midnight and goes until dawn. That is the life in Buenos Aires. I have no idea when people go to work. Our tango brochure said things like Milango ( which means tango dancing halls) starts at midnight and lessons immediately preceding. We are Canadian. We go to bed at 10:00 unless we are having a wild weekend and then, if we can sleep in we stay up until 10:30 watching Silver screen. We couldn't stay up that late no matter how much we tried, We didn't speak the language,and we had no idea how to 'walk as one'. So we hired an English speaking teacher, took private lessons in the early evening, and broke our backs walking with our hearts together ( girl goes backwards in high heels). You have to wear high heels so that you can lean into the man. Clearly I had to jettison my Teva sandals.

I had to go to a special street in Buenos Aires which has only tango shoe stores one after another and tango clothes. After tangoing with the store clerk, I bought stardust sparkle high heeled tango shoes and even my husband bought a pair. I tried to get him to buy the matching glitter shoeslike the local tango stars wear. However, he suggested that I must be on crack. He said he found it disappointing that even after getting kicked out the advance class I still had the chutzpah to even suggest matching his and her shoes. Ok, ok, so I'm a slow learner.

I had no idea that the steps are the least of it. We had to spend hours making a tent with our two bodies. Our chests had to be glued to one another with our feet about one foot apart. Get this-- When a man asks you to tango, you have to lean your entire chest on him and then put up your hands for him to hold. This is not easy for a woman who cringes when people kiss hello--even if I only see it on Jay Leno. Even my unflappable husband was shocked when the male Tango teacher kissed him good bye.

No wonder Buenos Aires is the plastic surgery capital of the world. If you have to bang your chest on strangers you better have some ammunition. You can get full breast implants, no scars all in with aftercare for three grand. I know this because I was in the washroom of a Burger King in Buenos Aires (My husbands Idea of a cafe) when a woman who had just had surgery showed me her implants and told me that when you tango you need something to press against or you can't breathe because your nose it too close to the man's chest. Now there is an anatomical problem I hadn't thought of.

I am quite athletic and have high arches and danced as a kid so I asked one of my teachers in a private lesson why we couldn't move on to intermediate. I know the steps and I think I am following. I said I am paying for a private lesson so I want an honest answer with no saccharine. Picture the following said by a gorgeous south American male who looks deep into your eyes and says with a heavy accent. "Cathy you are like so many women I have met from the northern latitudes." Then he sighs audibly at the tragic mess standing before him teetering in her glitter high heels. ( see picture above) "You are anticipating the movement of our partner. That is your problem. Plus you must learn to trust the man. He is in charge. He is the wall that you lean against. He does what he wants with you. You must learn to surrender."

Oh that is a problem.

Publicity tour moves west

2009-11-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

Well I have traveled out west to promote my new memoir After the Falls. It is only October, but in Edmonton they had to de- ice the plane wings. This city is the only place where "ice fishing" is a redundant term. When I blew (literally) into town I went to all of the big box book stores where I signed books. Naturally I tried to make conversation with the twenty-somethings at the desk. Asking what type of book they liked to read, one male responded, "I work with books all day so I take a break and don't read anything at home." Ignoring this I forged on pretending that everyone had actually been enthusiastic and say to this gaggle of idle employees that my first memoir was about the 50's and my new memoir is a sequel about the 60's. They looked at me as though I have been writing about the crusades. They asked if my book should be placed into the history section. One clerk looked askance at the book saying "I really try and stay current." When I asked if anyone in the store had been here ten years ago when Too Close to the Falls first came out and was on the best sellers list for two years, and they all looked at me blankly and said, "No. Those people would be retired now."

Ok. So let's move on to Calgary. My publicity agent changed my hotel to one that looked closer to my TV station for an early morning interview. I had to be at the station at 6:00 a.m. This interview was the highlight of my trip as it was nation wide. The hotel turned out to actually be suites and the handler who dropped me off suggested that the area was dangerous and then quickly hightailed it out leaving me in the microscopic lobby. I was told that the suite wouldn't be ready for two hours. I was stuck watching the comings and going in the doll house sized lobby that had a sign that read We do not cash any welfare or personal cheques, ever, ever, ever. It was nearly a week before Halloween; however the clerk was dressed in a full on witches outfit complete with pointed black hat. She had howling noises coming out of the loud speakers and the elevator was full of cobwebs. She told me Halloween was the highlight of her year so I should expect some Hijinks and then she cackled.

I finally got into my suite that had no bedspread, tiny Dixie paper cups and smelled like a bear had just awakened from hibernation. The kitchen had pots and pans and even a pressure cooker in case I wanted to whip up a cauldron of stew. Actually after a day of tying to interest pubescent store clerks in my book, I was glad to just flop into my lumpy bed and pull up my cigarette burned blanket. The following morning I was up at 5:00 a.m to get dressed and made-up for my interview. I was all ready and then realized the hair dryer on the wall was broken. I called the desk. The witch was still on duty and said that she had no hair dryer and they were all hooked to the wall. When I asked for an empty room key she said that all the suites were filled and some people actually lived there for weeks. Then she added, "Well honey did you expect people to be checking out at 5:00 in the morning. Are you on crack?" ( I'd love to attend her hospitality school.) I faced my situation square on in the mirror. My hair was disgusting. It had dried at odd angles. If I went to the TV show I would be a total frump. At the age of 62 TV is already unforgiving. I had no choice. I walked next door and quietly knocked. Finally I hammered. A burly man in jockey shorts answered the door. I explained that I needed to use his dryer. He said, "Brother now I've heard it all." He had a resigned tone and said, "Feel free. This is worse than being at home." He then lit a cigarette and sat on his bed. As I was locating the dryer on his bathroom wall, I reminded him that smoking was forbidden in the hotel. He said, "You are some stranger who thinks she is on TV in an hour invading my place in the middle of the night and telling me not to smoke. That's rich. really rich." He had a point. I changed my tactics as I dried my hair and asked him about himself. He was a long haul truck driver who was waiting for a load to arrive. He said, "Listen Miss TV star, make sure there are no blond hairs on any of my things. I've gotten in trouble from that kind of thing before --if you know what I mean. Not many wives would buy the dryer story." When I finished he deadpanned, "Have a good day at the office, honey" and I bustled with perfect hair to my interview.

The next day I was thrilled to arrive in Winnipeg. First of all there were trees and old buildings. Winnipeg has always been a reading town and so many great writers and entertainers have hailed from there. The great Rand-McNally independent book store seemed thrilled to have me as a speaker. There was a big crowd to greet me, hear my spiel,and they were excited to buy the two memoirs. Naturally they wanted to buy the volume one first. They were looking forward to getting the 10th year anniversary edition. The person that was in charge of the signing had to say to the snaking lineup before me that they were out of Too Close to the Falls. It had been on order since September ( two months ago) but for some reason they never received the book. Many people didn't buy the second book which was in stock because they wanted to start with the first non existent book. This was a bit like doing business in Leningrad. No product and freezing temperatures.

The book industry is a really amazing business and different from all others. Companies have to push out new products all the time. There is no standard book like there are standard jeans. You have new books five times a year. It is a limited segment of the market and you really can't advertise since advertising doesn't seem to sell books. It is reviews and word of mouth. Instead they have to schlep authors from one end of the country to another and you have to interest book store clerks in your particular genre if you can interest them at all. It is the only business that has a rule that if the books don't sell in the bookstores then the publisher has to take them back. Can you imagine sending back dresses or shoes or computers that don't sell?

Finally when I got to the airport I saw a whole table covered with my new book. I asked the manager how it was doing and he replied, "I don't know. Truthfully only vampire sells."

2009-09-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

Wow !!! yesterday I ran a contest to see which CD cover people liked for my book and I got 67 replies. The whipped Cream won. However in the responses there was buried a work of genius. Robert Boorman, send me his own version of a cd cover. Check out how it incorporates the 60's with Paul McCarthy and the theme from the book which is entitled AFTER THE FALLS. I think this is amazing!

CD cover contest

2009-09-28T12:33:00.001-07:00

I have made the following four CD covers for the CD I am giving away free to those how come to my book launch either in Toronto or in Creemore. The book AFTER THE FALLS is about the 1960's. All the songs on the CD were mentioned in the books. Those of us on the committee have had huge fights trying to decide what cover to use. Therefore I am running a contest. Let me know which one you prefer. Thanks,
Cathy

resisting arrest

2009-09-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was driving down county road 124 up near Creemore after going to look at Amish furniture in the country, when I saw one police car and then two zipping along the road with their lights and sirens on. I used to work at a donut shop in the U.S. so I know that cops can turn on the sirens when they want to make it quickly for a hot cinnamon twister so I paid no attention. As cars pulled over to the side of the road I wondered why they were all moving to the shoulder. I decided to dismiss it as I listened to my early 60's CD of Chuck Berry. Just as I was singing along to DRIVIN' ALONG IN MY AUTOMOBILE' I was cut off by a cop who did a fancy 360 in front of me leaving a fishtail mark in rubber on the road. He then dashed out of his car and rushed to my car window with a side kick who was just learning how to be a cop. (Like does it take more than a day?)

Deciding to be friendly , as my father said, being friendly is as easy as not, and besides it puts everything on a good footing, I said, "Wow the weirdest thing just happened. I was listening to 'Ridin' along in my automobile' just as I was actually riding along in my automobile listening to the line 'My curiosity runnin' wild' when I saw you as I was riding along and was curious about what was going on." The cop just stared at me as though I was speaking in tongues, so I explained, "You know I was doing exactly what the song said, exactly as the song said it. Weird-no?"

The older cop said, "Listen lady I don't know what your rambling on about and I don't care. However we have been on a chase for you for over twenty minutes.

"Wow!" I said, "Well You've got me. What did you want?-- to come to my book launch?"

"We have had to call out other cars when you wouldn't stop your vehicle." ( He pronounced Vehicle with the accent on the middle of the word- as in veHICle. "We have cleared the road and cut you off." I piped in at this point, "I noticed that. I thought for policemen that was rather rude."

"You have been resisting arrest for almost a half hour."
"That's hilarious." I responded. I wondered what all the kerfuffle was about."

The older policeman turned to the younger one and said, "This is not typical." and then he continued, "There is a $500 dollar fine for not pulling off the road when a policeman signals with his siren and lights." Then he looked at my ownership and said I hadn't signed the ownership and my insurance paper in the glove compartment was over a year old. "Each of those infractons is $100. You were speeding going 115 in an 80kph zone. That is $220. All together your little joy ride with Chuck Berry will cost you 3 points on your license and about a grand."

"Well what if you were to receive an invitation to my book launch?" I asked warmly, holding a yellow and green invitation out the window with a picture of me at the age of 18 planted in the bulls eye of a peace sign."

The younger policeman started to take the invitation to look at it. The older one said, "Don't engage" to him. The younger one immediately withdrew his hand and placed it on the top of his gun. I guess he figured if you show your launch invitation then who knows what violence could be next.

The older policeman had had the biscuit by now and said, "Stop talking about this launch. I don't care about it. I am concerned about the very big problem at hand."

"What if it's a launch of a book about the 1960's when you were a frisky lad," I asked. Now that might peak your interest.

"I don't care" he screamed. "You don't seem to know the trouble you're in." Then he added as an aside."Besides there is nothing of any value in the 1960's other than the Beatles."

I then pointed to the launch invitation which is a cover of my new book about the 60's where I am wearing a sort of St. Pepper navy outfit with red bands across the chest with gold buttons at each end. I said, "See that girl in that outfit. This 62 year old woman you are now screaming at was that teenage girl. John Lennon saw that picture of me in 1966 and wrote St. Pepper Lonely hearts club band based on the photo. That's why it is on the cover of the book."

"That's nuts" he said.

"Then you tell me why it is on the cover of a book on the 60's?" I responded.
" The junior cop, clearly buying in, said "It is on the cover."

They both retired to the squad car for a long while taking the invitation with them. What were they going to do-- call it in the department of Motor Vehicles.

They both emerged again, swaggered over to my car and said, "Well we are keeping this invitation so I hope there is no funny business here. We are dropping the resisting arrest charge, the ownerhip and the insurance infractions. As he handed me a ticket for speeding he said, "You can go to court and fight the speeding ticket if you don't want any points."

I smiled, waved and said "See you at the launch" and sped away.

publicity trip

2009-09-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

Ok so I had the flu and I was supposed to fly from Toronto to Montreal for the day and do a full day's work being interviewed by all the media and give a talk to 100 Chapter's book store employees. We are gearing up for my new book which is coming out on Oct.7th. (Don't forget you are coming to my launch. See my website for details.) However, there is a rub. I have the flu. So I call my publicity agent and tell her I'm as sick as a dog and have a temperature. She says suck it up and get on the plane. ( I would have done the same thing.)

So my 'handler' greets me in Montreal, then rushes me at breakneck speed to the wrong place for the Montreal Gazette interview. The reporter is at another location. Finally he figures it out and we are late. Once the interview starts he interrupts and says sorry we are late for our next appointment at the Holiday Inn where I am to give a promotional talk about my new book. We get there and no one is there. Not one person is in the 200 chairs. Why? Because the publisher has sent me on the wrong day. It was the next day. I am only in Montreal for the day. I have no overnight stuff--not even a lipstick. Ok so I suck that up along with my flu, buy a toothbrush and go to a hotel.

I should have mentioned earlier that I bought an enormously expensive outfit for the launch-- totally unaffordable. My friend gave me a big lecture on how a designer pantsuit would hide 'all of my sins'. That was such a terrible thing to say to a over 60 ex-catholic school girl that I rushed to stretch my plastic and buy this plain black boring pantsuit that was designed by someone named Sara Pucini who I have never heard of.

I wore it to Montreal-- as a dry run for my upcoming launch. I should have known there would be trouble when I had to get my husband up at 4:00 a.m when I was leaving Toronto to try and figure out how the belt of the pants snapped on. It was like an Escher drawing. After twenty minutes of fuss, my husband said it was impossible to figure out, and ugly to boot and then went back to bed.

I got to the hotel and tried to unzip the complex jacket that had one of those zippers that unzip from either end. ( Those are always trouble.) Well I had a major wardrobe malfunction. The zipper was stuck. I was all alone in a hotel room, with no suitcase and I couldn't get the jacket off. Finally I had no choice but to sleep in the black wool jacket. The next morning it was wrinkled, and had small white pills all over it from the cheap Holiday Inn sheets. Of course I had no deodorant, and if I did have some couldn't have put it on since I couldn't get my jacket off. I couldn't shower or do my hair in my jacket either.

I had to show up for the hundreds of book employees in my wrinkled, lint covered outfit and stringy hair. Beating them to the punch I had to say, "If you are going to whisper to the person next to you--'she looks like she slept in that outfit'-- you are right I did."

From that talk I had to go to a TV show where they put new makeup on top of yesterday's cracked tired sunken eyes. This image was then sent all over Canada to promote my my book called After The Falls. It was in some ways totally appropriate since I looked like I had just been thrown over The Falls, most likely by Sara Pucini, then somehow floated down the St. Lawrence Seaway and washed up in Montreal. It was a true representation of me, the protagonist --After the Falls.

The good part- The flu was nothing.
lesson learned- Never believe in publicists or designer clothes.

Country Etiquette

2009-06-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why people in the country are so polite, or as we folks from the city call it-- timid? I found out today the hard way, the way I learn everything. In Toronto if you go to a restaurant, then it is totally socially permissible to ask the waitress after 45 minutes of waiting for your burger, "Where is my food? I ordered a burger which isn't rocket science?" The waitress, who after all is hired to get the food to the table, and is no relation to the cook and does not feel in any way responsible for him, might say, "I have no idea. Those bozos in the kitchen must be on crack. I'll check for you right away." Job done.

This is not the case in Creemore, the small town where we own a farm up in the hills. I went to the only local pub for the Tuesday-night-half-price-burger-night, that stopped being half price about a year ago. For the last year people in Creemore now refer to it as Tuesday-half-price-burger-night-that-is-now-full-priced. Or some call it The- old-half-price-burger-night. It is a big social event to get out of your farm house, and drive into town especially in the winter when the snow is up to your hips. It's like on the TV show Bonanza when Hoss and Joe slicked down their hair and wore clean vests to go to market.

I was at the pub on a Tuesday with some other townspeople and after 45 minutes after ordering I asked where my burger was. It was croweded and I said, "What is happening with my burger? Is the chef still alive?" The waitress blushed and acted as though I was calling her out on some grave misdeed. The other people at my table were horrified and said to the flummoxed waitress that she shouldn't worry--that I was 'from Toronto' and that as they said, "was enough said". Then everyone at the table of eight assured the waitress that she was indeed doing a great job and I should be ignored.

When she left I said I didn't get it. Why was the waitress upset? What did she have to do with the cook? Is it a crime for a customer to ask for prompt service? They explained that they all knew the waitress who had three jobs and three children under four years of age and that her husband had lost his job. The cook was a man that thay all knew who was doing the best he could given what was going on in his life. When you know everyone personally who works in the restaurant and the stories of their lives then it is callous to act as though they are there to serve you and you do not have the right to make any complaints. Everyone has their issues and it is best to lay low if you don't know what they are. I was also informed that the waitress and the chef would never look at me the same way again. Complaining and expecting perfection was a big city feature that was not acceptable here. When I asked Sara, who writes for the Creemore Echo newspaper what one does when there food is 45 minutes late, and is served with a frozen roll that is only partly thawed, she looked at me with her big blue eyes and waited until there was silence at the table and said, "Suck it up."

a talking car

2009-06-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

When I was at a Canadian writers's festival it was my job to pick up a young German poet at the airport who was being flown into read at the festival. I was given the wrong flight information by the poet's publisher and the poor fellow had been wandering around the airport for hours. I finally found him in one of the huge multileveled parking lots aimlessly searching for a woman his publisher had described as "tall with pale blond hair who would be holding a sign that said VOLKERT". He was looking for Uma Thurman, but found me instead-- a woman old enough to be his mother whose 'pale blond hair' was really white. He was disgruntled thinking that not only was I not Uma Thurman, but I had been hours late. I introduced myself by saying "Well, I guess I am the first Canadian to greet you." He immediately snapped in a thick German accent, "No you are not. A car has already spoken to me. In fact it spoke in English and German to me." He said this in a tone that indicated that he was thrilled to find a bilingual car since I spoke no German at all. Figuring the guy had the equivalent of airport rage that had now gone into psychosis in an unfamiliar land, I humoured him by saying, "Well how hospitable of that bilingual car." Since he didn't smile I said, "I guess with all that is happening at General Motors even the cars have had to learn how to be more accommodating."

He looked at me with a superior smirk and said, "I realize that you think I am unhinged. I believe that is the English word." I didn't answer that it really doesn't take that much to 'unhinge' a poet in any country, but said instead that I simply hadn't been chosen by any car, let alone a bilingual one, to converse with.

At this point the man dragged me up two flights in the dead of winter to the top of the parking lot and stood very close to the front of a black Mercedes. Suddenly the car said in a unitone "You-are-perilously-close-to-my car". Then the voice went up an octive and said the same sentence again in English and in German and then the unitone said "Back-off".I smiled and said that I was pleased that he could have been greeted first by a countryman.

Bull

2009-06-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

I live on a farm for the weekends and I love to sit on my 150 year old front porch and rock in my white wicker rocker and look at the cows in the next field. I often try to read a book on the porch, but soon become distracted by the one bull in the field. He is so ridiculous that he makes me laugh. When the barn door opens he prances into the field and makes a God awful screech and tears toward the dozens of cows who amble over to the opposite fence to get away from him. The cows hover together as though the bull is a nuisance and it is best to simply get away from him and not make eye contact. Sometimes, for absolutely no reason, he begins kicking his back legs in the air and bellowing. Then he charges into the middle of the huddled kine and they all scatter to be as far away from the bull as possible.

All the cows recognize the sound of the farmer's truck as he comes over to milk them and put them in their stalls for the night. They all amble toward the barn as he drives up the long driveway. The bull butts in front of them and never lets them in first and turns around and screams enraged epithets at them. None of the cows argue-- they just look the other way as you would if someone was a perpetual bully that you had to live with. Sometimes he tries to mount them and they always do a little two step to get away from him the second he starts any mating behaviour. They try not to hurt his feelings. They just pretend that there is a patch of grass on the other side of the field that they urgently have to investigate. He may go on to pester them and then they get mad and jump away and shake their heads as in 'No means no'.

I was telling the farmer how funny I thought it was that the bull has such bad mating habits and how he has no idea how to be charming. The farmer said, "Oh I know he is always making a fuss about something and pounding his chest in front of the ladies." I indicated that the cows think he is royal bombastic pain. The farmer started laughing and said, "I know he is such a show off. His name is Arnold, after Arnold Schwarzenegger who comes out guns blazing. The funny thing is that I have never had to buy that expensive sperm in a bottle like many of the other farmers have to resort to because, believe it or not, every one of these dozens of cows will be pregnant by good ol' Arnold come the spring." He said that they pretend to hate him "but they don't hate him that much."

I was shocked, but like the farmer, not that shocked because I thought of a scene in graduate school when I was in the psychology department thirty years ago that reminded me exactly of this field of cows. There was a single ( as in twice divorced) randy older (back then old meant 35-40) male professor who used to 'come on to' most of the female graduate students at various symposia and parties. I'll call him Professor Gold. He would use pathetic ploys like singing slow songs, albeit off key, in your ear when he asked you to dance. All of the female grad students used to huddle in the ladies washroom at the Christmas party and say that they would rather have sex with a lab rat than Professor Gold.

The neuropsychology department had several hard core feminists who wore blue work shirts and farmers jeans with bibs. Remember this was thirty years ago and there were not that many females in graduate school. We were a distinct minority. One day I went into the mail room where all graduate students went daily to pick up their mail and there was a huge sign with an empty sign-up-sheet below it that read: I SLEPT WITH DR. GOLD AT B.F SINNER'S ANNUAL BIRTHDAY PARTY AND HE GAVE ME HERPES. PLEASE SIGN IF THIS HAPPENED TO YOU. The graduate student was one of the aforementioned no nonsense girls from Neuropsychology. She signed her name. We all gathered around the sign and I said , But she thought Dr. Gold was a buffoon. I don't get it!" Someone said, "Well I guess she didn't hate him that much." This was.of course, before there were any laws about teachers having personal relationships with students. The words 'sexual harassment' had not been invented.

The drama did not end there. Within a week many other female graduate students had appended their names to the list and said that they too had herpes. Finally there were so many women that the list had to have another paper stapled on to the end of the sign-up-sheet so the other girls who had slept with Professor Gold could add their names. There was a comment section as well.( After all psychologists in the making knew how to write questionnaires.) The comments read 'What a scum bag' and 'It's all about numbers isn't it professor liar'. My favorite was "Fortunately I didn't get herpes, all I did was waste an evening or should I say one and a half minutes' Then she signed her name.

Clearly Professor Gold did not count on someone telling on him. His assumption 30 years ago was that no one would do that. Clearly he'd been infecting people for years and counting on their shame to work as a silencer. He would have been right if it had been 40 years ago but lots had happened to women's psyches in the 60's and 70's that he hadn't counted on. Every week when I went into the mail room new women had added their names. It was like in the move, Spartacus, when each of the men stands up and says 'I am Spartacus' Then another says 'No I am Spartacus.' This was the modern equivalent. 'I slept with Professor Gold' 'No, I slept with professor Gold.'

I admired these women so long ago who were not that worried about what other people thought about them. They knew it was worth warning others about a potentially life long sexually transmitted disease. They were heroes as was the Spartacus protectorate.

Aside from the tragedy of those women getting herpes, there was also an interesting sociological phenomenon buried within the situation. All of those women pretended in front of their colleagues, the other female graduate students, that the Lothario who was always obliviously on the make, was nothing but a nuisance. Yet Professor Gold's tactics were actually working since somehow, somewhere these women were sleeping with him. Professor Gold and the Arnold the bull knew far more about the female species than I will ever pretend to know.

list of celebrities I have known

2009-01-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

My friend Anita says I have to should make a list of the celebrities I have met throughout my life. I have no idea why this would be interesting but she says it is a must --so here it goes chronologically.

1. Marilyn Monroe

I met Marilyn when I was around five or six years old. I worked in my father's drug store in Niagara Falls and she was making the film NIAGARA in 1953. I was on delivery with Roy the driver for the store. Marilyn didn't want to answer the door of the hotel room until I informed her that I had her Nembutal and that was the open sesame. Believe it or not she had on a thin white slip and a black bra and girdle. The bra came to two sharp points and was made of material ringed in concentric circles. She seemed confused and annoyed. she had chipped red nail polish, dark hair roots and cigarette ashes in her makeup tray. She asked Roy if he could peel her a piece of Jucy-fruit gum since her nails were wet. As she signed the narcotics log, she asked Roy if he could come back that night with some more Juicy Fruit and some Photoplay magazines. When we left I told Roy that I was shocked that a woman would answer the door in a slip. When I said it was disgusting, he said he didn't think it 'was so bad.'

2.Rick James
I met Rick when we were both high school student living in Buffalo in the early 60's. He lived in the downtown core and I went to a suburban high school. He was, even at the age of 16, an amazing entrepreneur. He would bring acts to various venues and come and tell me about them so I could promote them in my high school. We saw all kinds of amazing blues players and down and out guys like James Brown and Chuck Berry before they'd made a comeback. We saw Sly and the Family Stone before they'd made it big. Rick used to come to my high school and park in the lot, he always had a different car, and he would sell items out of his trunk. I actually believed his father was a jobber, I had no idea the items were hot. When I asked him how anyone was supposed to wash the leather shorts he was selling, he said, "Honey they're a dollar-- throw them out when they're dirty."

Seven years later when I went to Graduate school, I was amazed to run into Rick again in Toronto in the Yorkville area the first day that I moved to Toronto in 1970. He was AWOL and had skipped out to Canada. He was singing and playing with the Mynah bird nightclub. He said the band was "a bunch of white dudes ( Neil Young) but they had the 'what for'". When I asked how he found these guys, he said, "Honey I got my ear to the ground and you know I can hear a mouse piss on Cotton." When I found an apartment in Toronto and wanted to look him up, I was told he was in jail. I never saw him again. I had no idea he'd become famous later as I'd dropped out of the music scene. I was in the dentists office thirty years later and I opened a TIME MAGAZINE and they had a full page obituary tribute to him saying he wrote all kinds of songs, and was responsible for building the wall of sound.

3. Tim Russert
I only knew Timmy in high school in buffalo. He went to Canasius, a catholic school and was taught by the Jesuits. I had cousins who were Jesuits and Tim and I often wound up chatting about the Jesuit mentality. I thought at that time that Tim would become a Jesuit priest. I went to Amherst, a public high school. Buffalo is a bar town. Everyone piled into bars from the age of 16 on. We all had fake proof made by brothers who eventually went off to Parsons school of design. Sometimes you can tell when a person will become famous from their drive, charisma, intelligence or their looks. There was nothing about Tim Russert that indicated he would head Meet the Press and become a famous broadcaster. He was one of those boys who was not a ladies man. ( Like most Jesuit trained boys he didn't marry until he was in his thirties) He was a nice, grounded, happy guy who everyone liked. He laughed easily and knew how to fit in. Maybe listening, remembering what people said, and fitting in, is what made it work for him. He was living proof that you don't have to be ruthless to get ahead. I admired how he kept his faith and knew his roots. He did have the good sense at 16 to suggest to me that my play involving a spoof on Lee Harvey Oswald might be in poor taste one year after the Kennedy assassination. I owe him for that one. I had no idea until thirty years later that he'd become famous. He was quoted at a dinner party I was attending in the 1990's. When I said I knew someone with the same name from South Buffalo, you could have knocked me over with a feather when it was the same guy.

4.Jimi Hendrix
I actually met Jimi twice. Both times were when I was in England going to Oxford. I went to London with some classmates and saw Jimi, before he was well known in a small London bar. My friend Margaret-Ann and I , both American, were stoned. We had eaten browies in a car that unbeknowst to us were laced. ( I know this sounds like , 'I didn't inhale,' but it is true.) My friend and I started acting ridiculous and screaming to Jimi on the stage, saying we were also Americans. I guess stoned at twenty-one we thought that was a miracle-- seeing another American in London. Finally Jimi recognized our loud pleas of American Patriotism and played THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER saying it was for the two American girls near the stage. At this point, unsolicited, we took a bow.

Almost a year later the same friend, Margaret Ann, who was majoring in religious poetry of the Tudor songs and sonnet variety ( You get the picture of the world's most repressed woman, right?) was diagnosed with Breast Cancer that had spread. I asked if she wanted me to do anything for her, and she said she didn't want to die a virgin and would like to have sex before she died with the guy who played the STAR SPANGLED BANNER on the one night of her life that she had been stoned. I promised her I would make it happen. We had a hilarious trip to London to one of Jimi's concerts at Albert Hall. We had everything mapped out and we were waiting for him in his hotel between shows. I Basically shoved her in the elevator and ran. That was over forty years ago. History has its ways of playing tricks. My friend had a radical mastectomy and lots of Chemo and is still alive, if you can call being an academic being alive, and Jimi died within the year of his fateful mating with Margaret Ann.

5. Richie Havens

In 1969 when I went 21 I was at the Paradiso night Club in Amsterdam. It was the first club in the world where drugs were sold legally. I wanted to see the sociology of the operation. My friends from Oxford refused to come. They were interested in seeing the red light district where prostitutes sat in store front windows. The Paradiso was an old forbidding looking church that had changed into a nightclub. There were a few tables but it was mostly an open room where people sat on the floor on mats. It was full of black lights so I could see all the lint on my black t-shirt. As soon as I sat down on the floor a cart, the type they use in Dim Sum restaurants to send around the tiny treats, wheeled up to me. There were piles of Hash on each plate as though it was a dessert and the waitress would cut off a chunk for you and weigh it like a clerk at a grocery store. Each brick looked like a piece of Irish peat with a Popsicle stick stuck in it. On the stick was the name of each hash and where it was made in several languages. (Example Maui-Woowie, Hawaii)
Then a woman who was topless and painted black from head to toe began dancing to Light my fire by the Doors. She urged us all to lay down and to put our head on the stomach of the person next to each of us. The person next to me was a tall black man with no teeth and when he sang his gums showed and he resembled a tiny bird still in the nest yelling for a worm. After the song I introduced myself and he said he was Richie Havens. We danced and listened to the music and he introduced me to his friends. It was before Woodstock which made him famous so he was just another face in the crowd. Later I took him with me to meet my friends for a midnight snack. He was the first vegetarian I'd ever met. I thought vegetarian was a religious sect from the deep south. I asked him if he started out in the vegetarian choir. When I saw him in the Woodstock Movie I was amazed.

6. Za Za Gabor

In 1982 I was in The Bra Bar on Yorkville Avenue in Toronto buying a bra from the two Hungarian women who are self proclaimed 'international foundations experts.' Za Za arrived, and the two clerks acted like it was the second coming and jabbered on in Hungarian. It was a a tiny shop with two dressing rooms so Za Za and I introduced ourselves and she said that the answer to a good figure is to have twice as much foundation support as you think you need. I came out of my dressing room in my bra and she said, "Those girls are looking down darling. We only have so long to utilize our assets. Now back in there with something more uplifting." She then went on with a long diatribe about how women in North America have no idea how to age. I was 34 at the time and didn't think I was aging at all. She was at least 65. I have to say she looked great and was a lot of fun. The clerks got us coffee from next door for as ZaZa said, "Getting everything in the right spot was exhausting."

Well six celebrities is really not very many. I think my friends think it is a lot more because I manage to worm them into conversation whenever I can. If someone mentions Hungry I bring up the time I was bra shopping with Za Za or even if someone says they are hungry, I mention ZaZa pretending I think they are talking about the country. It is a lot harder to bring up Rick James for he was only popular with people younger than I am. My friend Anita who is now 40 ( 21 years younger than me) said she was in a state of permanent shock that I knew the singer of the amazing tune, Superfreak. My husband was shocked I knew Tim Russert and was totally blown away that I called him Timmy. I have never once in my life impressed my children with anything I have ever done. I can tell you one thing however, they sat up and took notice when I said I knew Jimi. Of course I've milked that for all it's worth. My suggestion if you know a few celebrities is to recirculate them in conversation. However, you have to be careful. I was giving a talk at a high school about my memoir Too Close to the Falls and I mentioned to the whole school who was in assembly that I knew Marilyn Monroe and no one in the entire room had ever heard of her. I was shocked at first but when I thought about it they were 17 and were born in 1992 and Marilyn Monroe died of an overdose in 1962 which was 40 years before they were even born. I think I need some new celebrities to drag out at dinner party conversations. Five of my six claims to fame are dead. Pretty soon I'll be like Norma Desmond in Sunset > Boulevard, I'll be 80 looking in my mirror and saying "I'm ready for my close up Mr. DeMille."

autobiographical cold feet

2009-01-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

I just heard five minutes ago from Knopf (Random House) that my new book AFTER THE FALLS will be published this fall. It is volume two of my memoir series. TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS was the first volume and covered my life as a child from four to fourteen. My new volume covers ages fourteen to twenty one.

I am sitting at my computer hyperventilating and sipping cold decaf coffee. Now everyone is going to read what a whack job I was as a teenager. I never had to worry about embarrassing myself with the childhood volume because no matter how strange I was, I was still 'just a kid'. Eccentric children can be engaging, especially if they wear cowboy suits. Nothing is really bad because you are exploring the world and sometimes things don't work out as planned. That is part of what makes childhood so entertaining. However, when you are a teenager, you are supposed to have some common sense. Look at these two pictures above and you can see what I'm getting at. I mean that hair style is right out of the TV show I Remember Mama or else some bad Bergman made for TV special shown only in the Fjords.

It isn't only the photographs, although they tell their own story, I go from longing to be a country club member to longing to blow up county clubs. I go from sweater sets in 1966 to getting labelled as a subversive sympathizer by the FBI in 1968. Actually that isn't so bad either. Almost everyone in the 60's had dramatic changes from bourgeois to hippie--politicized.

What is particularly close to the bone is the initiation into an interest in the opposite sex. Learning how to flirt, and how to be 'a date' was all so painful. Why??--because I didn't do it remotely correctly. I simply didn't get it. Since I have a really good memory I could sit at my computer and conjure up each idiotic sequence and describe them in all of their slow Technicolour idiocy. When I was writing TIGHTROPE alone in my third floor study, I was so concerned with getting the details down, that I never once asked myself if I wanted to have people read about my adolescent fumbling. If I had thought then of the public actually reading the book, I never would have written the unvarnished truth. It's too late to turn back now. My only hope is that everyone else was as hopelessly naive as I was and it has simply never come up on conversation. Without giving away anything in the book, I can picture a reader from a small town near Medicine Hat reading it and exclaiming, "You didn't know that!

The second thing I worry about is how mean I was to my parents, particularly my compassionate, kind father. I never once gave the guy a break. I refused to listen to him--ever. In those pre-Walkman, pre-ipod days, I wore a hair dryer around my home and when he spoke, I turned it on so that the plastic hood would fill with air and he was rendered into a mime performance. I didn't do this for one or two years but for all of my teenage years.

When I was crossed by someone, I spent inordinate time 'paying them back' for 'their crime.' I never once remember crying, I only retaliated to any pain with rage. Now that I know that thousands of people are going to read about my misanthropic shenanigans, I am nervous. I hope that I have captured the teenage voice enough so that my sadism is slightly comprehensible to someone not in the throws of adolescent angst.

I guess these last minute cold feet are the exact reason why most people write fiction and not autobiography. Fiction writers can always claim the embarrassing dating encounters were only flights of fancy, and that the cruelty to the only parents you'll ever have was simply based on an overactive imagination. I can make none of these claims.

Of course I'm going ahead with the sequel and actually writing this blog has calmed me down. In the end the only real crime is not capturing the teenage years as they really were.

top ten favorites of fake farmers

2008-12-18T16:30:00.000-08:00

I am a fake farmer in Creemore,Ontario in the great white north of Canada so I know what makes fake farmers tick. I would say the following are the top ten favourites for fake farmers.

1. They love local food. They shop in groceries called 100 mile stores. Fake farmers won't go one inch outside of a 100 mile radius for a crumb of bread. If you go into a 100 mile store in Ontario and ask for orange marmalade, they look at you as though you have just defecated on the counter; they take a deep breath, don't yell, they are Canadians after all, and inform you that there are no oranges in Ontario, so you have, 'misunderstood the concept'.

2.Fake farmers adore organic food. If you serve a double F a chicken from Costco, then the next time they come to your fake farm, they don't bring the usual local wine; Instead they bring organic chicken assuming you will notice the difference and never foist carrion upon them again.

3.They have expensive barn dinners called 'slow cook dinners' where they only serve local food. They also only serve local wine. the type that leaves you with a blinding headache. The next day-- the mother of all headaches that makes you hide in the barn and plug up the barn slats so no light can pierce your pupils. The decorations at these slow dinners are red checked gingham colour coordinated with the matching 'cultivated wildflowers'. The cows have to be washed and then patiently wait in the drive-shed until the last fake farmer leaves. Real farmers call the these 'dinners for slow people'.

4.Fake farmers love to wear horse gear. They sport those special oil jackets that have straps that hook on your legs for riding and phony Jodphur pants. ( Only thin fake farmers get away with that outfit.) Most fake farmers don't ride horses, but it doesn't matter-- they wear these ensembles into town in muddy boots they call 'Wellies' or 'muckers' and tie their hair back as though they have just been out for a bracing trot.

5. They can't get enough of distressed old looking 'rustic' debris in their farm houses. There is an inherent problem with 'looking rustic'. Fake farmers, or gentlemen farmers as they were once called before gentlewomen were invented, have disposable income so they want ground source heating, solid floors and all of the modern amenities. The catch 22 is that they want everything to 'look' hundreds of years old. Enter the distresser. There are actually men ( I have never met a female distresser) who will enter your home with a ball and chain and beat things up. They charge by the piece and not by the hour. Successful fake farmers can have a distresser there for two full days. When I asked a fake farmer why she just didn't beat her own kitchen cupboards with a wire brush, she said she 'preferred professionals'.

5a. Distressed flooring is de rigeur. If you walk into a farm house and find a new floor, you are definitely not in a fake farmer's house. The double F uses only 'reclaimed wood' wide plank flooring. This is the wood that real farmers are throwing out in order to put in new floors.

6. Fake farmers love furniture made by local fringe religious groups. In Ontario it is the Mennonites. This group does not use electricity so modern saws are out of the question and everything is made by hand. They don't distress, since they make things primitively to begin with. Fake farmers love to tell you about all of the Mennonites they know personally. They also refer to the names of real farmers that they know. Occasionally after a nip of local cider, they will tell you of their friendships with local natives who they buy fish from.

7. Fake farmers prefer shopping at the open market. They carry fair trade cappuccinos in one hand and straw baskets in the other. They wear embarrassing wide brimmed hats. It is here that they invite all of their 'green' friends to their 'organic, hundred mile parties. They also love to go to the farmer's feed store where they have 'an account' and pretend they are buying 'farm supplies', when really they are only buying bird seed.

8. Fake farmers love gardening and 'raising their own produce'. They hang tomatoes upside down so that gravity will not impinge upon their development. They grow only 'heritage plants'. If you have a fake farmer tomato salad ( never red, only every other colour.) you will be 'eating a tomato that was once grown by Susannah Moodie.' If you offer a beefeater to a fake farmer, he will think you are offering him a wrestler.

9. Fake farmers pepper their conversations with barn talk. They discuss the stone base, the repairs and the number of horse stalls they have. If they have a barn that is falling down, they are so proud of it, they take a picture of it and send it into the local paper.

10.Fake farmers have particular social rituals. Real farmers curl. Fake farmers snowshoe and cross county ski. Real farmers wear Tough Duck clothing while fake farmers wear Patagonia. Real farmers dress up to go to parties. Fake farmers take their lamb's wool slippers to one another's homes to don when they take off their boots. They slip them over their Icebreaker socks.

We did a spoof the the hundred mile store and the fake farm scene. Hope you like it.

My life as a fake farmer

2008-12-17T08:57:00.000-08:00

Last year I decided I needed a farm. No one else in the family felt the same need to ‘return’ (I had to put return in quotes since I have actually never been ‘of the land’ in the first place.) When the oily real estate agent took us to a farm in the area of Creemore, Ontario, I immediately fell in love with it. It had more acreage than you could shake a chain saw at, a 170 year old red brick farm house, a horse barn and a drive shed.

My husband, always one for focusing rather darkly on minor details, pointed out the drive shed was sagging in the middle. The agent who doubled as a soothsayer said, “Well, it has stood for 200 years when the Scots settled this area. I don’t think two Torontonians will blow it over in a day.” The first winter we were there the drive shed collapsed in the snow and sent live wires sparking into the air like fireworks.

Mr. cup-half-empty also took issue with the garage shed attached to the house. He pointed out that it was not insulated. He gathered this information because sunlight was streaming through the unpainted wooden slats. The agent said, “Well first of all it is sunny and you should be thankful for that. Second, it is meant to be cold; a place to store boots and root vegetable like potatoes. What he didn’t say was that the potatoes would be stored in the boots. The chipmunks ate all the fur off of my boots and all of my Christmas guests’ boots and used it to make a nest the size of a flying saucer. Secondly the chipmunks stored chewed-up potatoes in the toes of everyones' boots.

Once I ‘bought the farm’ (Now I know why that expression is so perfectly suited to implying you have died.) I had to deal with the owner who had Christmas decorations up all year round a la Rita MacNeil. She also had a Chihuahua who wore a Santa Claus rubber diaper. Whatever happened to border collies that worked on the farm rounding up the herds? When we were transferring ownership, I asked the owner what company she ordered the water from. I explained that I had to call the company and change the billing. She said, “it comes from a well”. How dumb did she think I was! Clearly this woman had never taken care of the family finances. I said “I know that. Who puts the water in the well?” At this point she called her husband to handle my queries. He came out with his thumbs lodged in the bib of his Tough Duck bib pants and said, “Maybe people from Toronto don’t know what God does on a daily basis. I’ll let you in on a little secret, God puts that water in that well”.

After settling into our crumbling farm for a month and traveling into town in my non-fur-lined boots, I read a notice in the Creemore Echo that said there was a contest for the best mockumentary of Creemore life. I decided to make a film of my first few weeks on the farm. Low and behold, we won $500. If you want to watch an amateur at work have a look. It is blogged here and is titled It's Sooo Country.

Like a memoir wasn't enough?

2008-12-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

I swore I wasn't going to blog since I've written a three volume memoir; but hey, how else can I ever tell you what I left out of my memoir?

When I wrote TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS, I was really 'creating' a character even though that character was me. I could calculate what embarrassing moments I'd reveal, and how much bravado versus insecurity I would include. Memory is a screen that only allows a certain previously created self to emerge. A blog is the here and now. It doesn't have to create a unified character. I don't have to strive to be Boswell or Samuel Pepys. I'm thrilled that I can let it rip. I can be Charles Manson one day and Mother Theresa the next.

I've called my blog Gildiner's Gospel mostly because of the alliteration, but also because no one can tell me I'm wrong. It's my pulpit. After all those years in Catholic school, there is something comforting about being Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all rolled into one faded blonde.