The Vinyl Café Notebooks

by Stuart McLean

  And you know, I bet Miss Manitoba, no matter how brainy she is or isn’t, or was or will be, could have done just as well on the market these last few years as my investment dealer. All she would have needed were a few darts and that smile.

  6 June 2004

  THE WALL CLOCK

  Recently I bought a large, round wall clock. It looked like something that might have hung on the wall of a railroad station back in the days when you needed to know the times the trains were running. I didn’t need it and hadn’t set off to buy one like it. I had driven a friend to a store, and was content in my role as chauffeur, until I saw the round clock and was smitten. I turned to my friend and said, “I like that clock.”

  “So buy it,” said my friend unhelpfully.

  When I got the clock home, I was overcome by the need to get it on the wall right away. The clock was ticking. Time was suddenly of the essence.

  I went to the basement and fetched a ladder. I got a hammer from my toolbox. I found a little gold hook, the kind you use to hang paintings.

  As I stood beside the ladder, the clock propped against the wall at my feet, I thought, This hook is not strong enough to hold that clock. But there were no other hooks. If I didn’t use the one I had, I wouldn’t be able to hang the clock until the hardware store opened the next day. I didn’t have time for that.

  I climbed the ladder, hammered the little gold hook into the wall, came down the ladder and picked up the clock. I hung the clock on the hook.

  I had about twenty seconds to climb down the ladder, stand in the hall and admire what I had done, to see how good this clock looked on the wall, before the little hook snapped. The clock fell like a final curtain onto the tile floor and smashed at my feet. Or, more accurately, its glass face smashed at my feet. The clock kept running.

  It took me about twenty minutes to pick up the last shard of glass.

  The glassless clock is lying on the bed in the spare bedroom this morning, where it will, no doubt, lie until I have overnight guests and I have to face it again. It is still telling time. It has, through all this, continued to tick away, measuring out the minutes of my life and reminding me, every time I catch it out of the corner of my eye, how time inevitably defeats you, especially those times you try to hurry it along.

  22 May 2005

  PARKING LOT BLUES

  I recently found myself standing on a street corner downtown wrestling with the growing awareness that I wasn’t about to remember anytime soon where exactly I had parked my car. I’m not talking about whether I had left it on P1 or P2. It was P1; I remembered that part. The part I couldn’t remember was where the parking lot was. That is when my friend Natalie arrived, right out of the blue, on her bicycle. I tried to look inconspicuous. Who, after all, wants witnesses at a moment like that? But Natalie spotted me, pulled over and said, “Hey! What are you doing?”

  “Hey, Nat,” I said glumly. “I can’t find my car. I left it in a parking lot. Somewhere.”

  “That’s a parking lot!” said Natalie brightly, pointing down the street. And lo and behold she was right. Not only was it a parking lot. It was the parking lot.

  Natalie biked off, and I crossed the street, not unhappily but preoccupied by the notion that it took someone who knew absolutely nothing about where I had parked my car to find it.

  It is not the first time something like this has happened. I seem to be locked in a lifelong struggle with parking lots and cars.

  Most famously there was the Episode at the Airport. Years ago I parked my car at the Park’N Fly and I flew somewhere. I can’t remember where, and that isn’t important to this story. The important part is that I parked and I flew somewhere, and when I came back the folks at the Park’N Fly couldn’t find my car. It was gone. They were very apologetic about this, and the way I remember it is they provided me with taxi money to get home, and when my car eventually showed up, as we all knew it would, they called me. I went and got it, and they presented me with a voucher for a couple of days free parking to make up for the inconvenience.

  In fairness, it is possible that I didn’t have to take a taxi at all. They might have found the car before it came to that. I might have just waited an inordinate amount of time for them to do that. The thing is, the car was missing for a while, and I left the Park’N Fly with a coupon, which I held on to for years.

  When I moved, I moved the coupon with me. In truth, I did a better job keeping track of the coupon than I often do with my car. It occurred to me, however, that I was pushing my luck. It occurred to me that I should hurry up and use the coupon before I lost it. It was, after all, worth more than $100 of parking, and using it would save me about $120 in taxi fees.

  As luck would have it, I was scheduled to fly to Calgary— just an overnight trip, a quick luncheon speech at a convention and then immediately home. I decided instead of taking a taxi to the airport as I usually do, I would drive, park at the Park’N Fly and use up my coupon.

  I left Toronto at six o’clock on Sunday evening, arrived in Calgary around eight, had dinner in my hotel room and went right to bed. The next morning I woke early, worked out in the hotel gym, did some rewrites on a book I was working on, took a taxi to the Stampede Grounds, gave my speech, hung around and chatted with people and then hustled out to the airport. It was about three in the afternoon when I arrived.

  I wasn’t due to fly home until six o’clock, and I was heading to the lounge to do some more work on the book when it occurred to me I might be able to get on an earlier flight. I checked the departure board and it turned out there was one leaving in twenty-five minutes. If I could get it, I would get home at eight o’clock rather than midnight. I wasn’t going to have to check luggage, so when I got home, I could jump right into a taxi without waiting for my suitcase to appear. That meant I would be home almost in time for supper. So away I went. And I made it to the gate on time, and the flight left on time, and we were actually early arriving in Toronto.

  I strode through the airport feeling like the king of the world. I jumped into a taxi, and it was only when I burst through my front door that I remembered that I had driven to the airport and my car was back at the Park’N Fly.

  I stood there for a moment while the enormity of this settled on me. Then I spun around and ran back into the street. I was thinking that my taxi was probably deadheading it back to the airport. I was thinking maybe if I told him my sorry story he would take me with him—maybe even for free. But all that was left of my taxi were its tail lights. Which meant I had to call another taxi and go back to the airport in it. The two taxis cost me the $120 I saved using the Park’N Fly coupon. And the extra trip ate up the time I saved by taking the earlier flight.

  I don’t want to imply this sort of thing happens to me all the time. But this sort of thing has happened before. I have driven to places, let’s say to work, places that I normally walk to, and then eight hours later left work the way I am used to leaving, on foot, not remembering until the next time I need the car that the reason I can’t find it is that I left it at the parking lot, ohmygoodness, that was days ago.

  Once, I left a car in a parking lot and never returned for it. Ever. But that was mindfully. It was the first car I ever bought. A little Datsun. I paid $125 for it, and I drove it into the ground over a summer or two. It was the car I drove from Montreal to Toronto when I came, in 1976, to seek my fame and fortune. And in 1977, when I returned to Montreal having found neither, I just abandoned it.

  I left it in the parking lot beside my apartment. When I came back four months later, it was gone. I figured that was better for both of us.

  I have wondered recently if the parking lot woes I seem to suffer might be traced back to that moment. That there is a karmic balance being worked through—that in that first act of abandonment, I shifted the cycle of cause and effect and that I am doomed for the rest of my earthly time to wander around parking lots, stumbling, in my better moments, from P1 to P2, clicking on my key vainly, and in my darker moments,
around the city, like a character from a novel by Pirandello, back and forth from parking lot to parking lot, trying to collect a car that was left behind years ago.

  28 June 2009

  THE NATIONAL

  UMBRELLA

  COLLECTIVE

  I added umbrella manufacturers to my alphabetized list of cynics the other morning. The first U on my list. It comes right after tobacco tycoons and just before vivisectionists—the only entry for the Vs.

  I did this after purchasing a swell blue umbrella with a stylish wood handle—a leap above the telescoping, plastichandled jobs I have always sprung for.

  The clerk at the store where I purchased my umbrella gave me a knowing smile when I presented it at the cash.

  “Good choice,” said the clerk. And then, as if he would hardly have to mention this to someone of my good taste, “You know, of course, that this umbrella comes with a lifetime guarantee.”

  “If anything ever goes wrong,” he continued with a little wave, which I took to mean that nothing of course could ever go wrong with such a fine umbrella, “just bring it in and we’ll replace it.”

  I should mention that to get an umbrella like this you have to pay more than you, or in this case, more than I, have ever dreamed of paying for an umbrella. More, probably, than I have paid for all those folding plastic-handled jobs combined.

  The impulse behind this rainy day indulgence seemed like a solid one. My idea was simple—if one bought a good umbrella, a stylish, expensive umbrella, one could expect oneself to remain moderately mindful of it and, consequently, less likely to leave it in a taxi, or slung over a chair in a café, park bench, subway—go ahead, take your pick.

  One might think that.

  Until one inevitably does forget it somewhere on, I will add here, risking a descent into yet unplumbed depths of self-loathing, the very first day one takes it to work; and that is when one, oh let’s be honest here, that’s when I was struck by this notion that the whole business of guaranteeing an umbrella against mechanical defects is, as I mentioned a moment ago, a cynical business. I can’t think of anyone I know who has held on to an umbrella long enough for any sort of mechanical defect to present itself, let alone long enough to use it for, sigh, a rainy day.

  I should mention that I have, over the years, not been entirely unlucky in the umbrella game. One assumes it should be a zero sum game; one assumes there must be some force or being at work in the cosmos, some sort of umbrella fairy whose job it is to ensure that the balance of umbrellas lost and umbrellas found works out more or less evenly. And I have found the odd umbrella these past fifty-odd years.

  But not nearly as many, it seems to me, as I have left behind me for others to find; and when I asked around the other day, I found that everyone I asked feels that way too.

  So unless there is someone out there, or a group of someones out there, who is, or are, unusually lucky in this business, I have to assume most of us lose more umbrellas than we find, a subject worthy of wondering about, which I will leave for others to ponder.

  What I would like to put forward is that perhaps the time has arrived to add the umbrella to the social safety net.

  If we lose our health, we have medicare. If we lose our job, there is employment insurance. When we lose our youth, there is the old age pension. Why shouldn’t there be help when we lose our umbrellas? Which just like health, wealth and youthfulness we all know we are bound to lose one day, no matter how mindful we are.

  I would like to propose The National Umbrella Collective.

  Because even in the unlikely event you are one of those someones who find more umbrellas than you lose, it can’t be easy on you, it can’t be all sunshine and roses, because I have, as I said, found the odd umbrella and I know what happens.

  There is an initial swell of good feeling, as if finally life’s balance has begun to tip your way, and if it keeps tipping maybe even stock trades and real estate investments might work out, or at least break even.

  But then the wave of doubt hits. What happens, you wonder, if it starts to rain? What happens if you put your new umbrella up and the original owner sloshes by, shoulders hunched, and recognizes it? What happens then?

  Thus, my proposal.

  Tomorrow morning, whatever the weather, take your umbrella with you when you leave your house. When you get where you are going, leave your umbrella behind—leave it on the backseat of the taxi, or propped on the seat of the subway, or up against a newspaper box on the street outside your office. You don’t want to tote it around all day, and let’s face it, if you did, you’d eventually leave it somewhere anyway, so leave it somewhere obvious, where it will wait for the next rainy day guy who forgets his—a guy who might even be you.

  If we all did this, if we all agreed to agree on the matter of public umbrellas, we could all be a little bit happier on rainy days.

  23 October 2005

  BOB DYLAN’S

  PHONE NUMBER

  I have a notebook with Bob Dylan’s home phone number in it. I know it’s authentic because I got the number from Pete Seeger. Pete didn’t actually give me the number. He enabled me. He left me alone with his phone book, which was open at the Ds at the time (I don’t remember, but that would be the charitable explanation). It is possible that the phone book was closed when I picked it up.

  This was long ago and far away, although I don’t mean to imply I wouldn’t, if placed in the same situation today, flip through Pete’s phone book. The point of this, or part of the point, is that I have had Bob Dylan’s home number for a long time. More than twenty-five years.

  Here’s how I got it. I was working on a profile of Pete Seeger for the CBC Radio show Sunday Morning. Pete had invited me down to his house on the Hudson River, where, at eightyseven, he lives today, in case you were wondering. I had flown down to New York City, rented a car and driven up the Hudson to the town of Beacon. As I recall, I slept on a couch on Pete’s sun porch.

  Although he had graciously invited me into his home, Pete and I were having trouble with each other. Ever modest, he was doing his best to avoid talking about himself. Every time I suggested bringing out my tape recorder, Pete would suggest something else.

  “Let’s go down to see the boat,” he said. Pete was and still is involved with the sailing sloop Clearwater and a project to draw attention to the fragile health of the Hudson River.

  “Let’s go visit a school,” he said another morning. And off we went to a local elementary school, where Pete had been asked to drop by and sing a few songs.

  When I finally sat him down and turned on my tape recorder, all Pete would talk about was Woody Guthrie.

  When he finished that, he sent me back to New York City to talk to Woody’s wife, Marjorie, and his manager, Harold Levanthol.

  After a couple of days of this toing and froing, I was beginning to panic. Finally, in desperation, I told Pete we had to do the interview.

  “Okay,” said Pete, “You go into the bedroom, and I will be there in a second.”

  That is how I came to be sitting on Pete Seeger’s bed staring at his phone book, which was lying there on the bed in front of me, either open at the Ds or not.

  In any case, pretty soon it was, and I remember, as if it were yesterday, staring at the handwritten notation that read, Bob Dylan (Home) Malibu.

  I knew this piece of information wasn’t meant for me, and I could have closed the book. I did, but I wrote the number down first, and soon after I did, Pete came in the bedroom. We did the interview, I wrote and edited the piece, it went on the radio, and when it was all over, well, I had Bob Dylan’s home phone number.

  Now, once you possess something like that you have more than the number, you have a problem. What are you going to do with it? I considered a number of possibilities. I could call Bob Dylan, and when he answered, I could hang up. Or I could ask for “Larry.” Or, better, “Pete,” which would be sort of clever.

  If I did any of those things Bob Dylan would have to engage me in
conversation. He would have to tell me I had the wrong number, and I could say thanks and hang up, but I would have had a conversation with Bob Dylan. Of course I could also try to do that—have a real conversation with him, I mean.

  I knew that if I did any of these things, especially the latter, Bob would probably have his phone number changed and then, well, then I would have caused problems for him, something I didn’t really want to do, but more importantly I wouldn’t have his phone number anymore, would I?

  I decided that having his phone number, and therefore possessing something no one else I know possesses—that is, the possibility of phoning Bob Dylan—was far better than any version of a real call that I could imagine.

  So I never called.

  I have the phone number in front of me right now, and even though a lot of water has gone under the bridge, for Bob and me, even though it is pretty clear neither of us are going to be forever young, and even though he may have changed the number many times since that afternoon, maybe he hasn’t.

  And because I haven’t called, and because I never will, that possibility still exists today, and will tomorrow too—the possibility that one lonely night I could call him, and we could talk, and if we did, who knows? The possibility exists that we might even have something to say to each other.