The set flies by a lot faster, or seems to. Everybody looks tuned in to the details of presenting the songs. The audience is surprisingly appreciative—maybe more so than in Lefebvre’s hometown. Lefebvre has a few anti-oil songs, and he makes damn sure the town not so far from Leduc, the birthplace of the Alberta oil boom, knows which side of the debate he’s on.
• • •
We stay overnight at the Sutton Hotel in downtown Edmonton. Bookin and Lefebvre get up early and head out into the minus-four cold. They’re off to CBC to do an interview at Q, the daily morning arts and (some) politics show, with Terry O’Reilly. The guest host has his list of questions, and he’s damned if he won’t get through it. Not much for follow-up queries, this guy. Still, it’s national exposure for the fifty-nine-year-old aspiring rock star.
At Edmonton International, Lefebvre bumps into Mike Harcourt. The former British Columbia premier, 1991–96, is off to Halifax. He’s now an itinerant sustainable development preacher, and Halifax is part of his circuit. “We’re within thirty-six months of eradicating homelessness on the lower east side,” he brags to Lefebvre, looking for a gold star of approval. Harcourt has been working in the sustainability business since leaving politics. He fell off his balcony into the ocean a few years back. Good thing his wife was there to fish him out and get him to a hospital. It took about a year to recover. Harcourt meets Payne, Leisz, and Bookin. They listen to Harcourt do his sustainability rap for a bit.
“Sustainability,” Payne interrupts, finally. “I guess that means you’re in the Viagra business?”
On the flight to Van, I sit beside drummer Ricky Fataar. One of his big moments was working with the Beach Boys on their album Holland in the early seventies, but he’s been a musician since he was twelve years old. He found out there’s a website dedicated to his first band, the Flames, in South Africa. All his most embarrassing moments, frozen in time online for all to see. He tells me about “Mr. Moto,” the group’s Ventures-like instrumental single from 1964, now forty-seven years ago. The Trailer Park Boys, unbeknownst to Ricky, were huge fans of the Flames. They asked him and his brother to contribute to their movie soundtrack.
We touch down at Vancouver International around noon on Wednesday. Everyone has a free day, although Lefebvre has reserved a long table for us at Gotham, a high-end steakhouse a few blocks from the hotel, for tonight at seven.
A van driver arrives to ferry us from airport to hotel. He’s tall and his black hair is slicked back like Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs. He wears a black trench coat, a black suit, and a white shirt. He makes small talk with the guys standing with their suitcases. He asks what they do.
Leisz: “We’re musicians.”
“Oh, what kind? Jazz musicians?”
Payne: “No.”
“Classical?”
Payne: “Yeah.”
“Oh, well there are good venues for classical musicians to play in Vancouver.”
Payne: “Oh yeah?”
“What instrument do you play?”
Payne: “Piano. And Patrick here, he plays the skin flute.”
“Oh really? That’s great.”
Later on, the guys who were there replay the conversation for the two who weren’t. Everybody cracks up. The laughter builds to a frenzy, which cracks everyone up even more.
Leisz: “Some people are so gullible.”
There seems to be an implication here that it’s some Canucks that are so gullible.
Fataar: “That was juvenile, Billy.”
Payne: “Yes it was, yes it was. That’s me, I guess.”
Billy Payne is sixty-two years old.
We check in at the Georgian Court, a boutique-style hotel on Beatty Street across from BC Place, the stadium where the British Columbia Lions host rival CFL teams and where Lefebvre and his mom met the Dalai Lama. Bookin suggests anyone who wants lunch should meet in the lobby at one. A gang forms and we start walking away from the hotel. We find a good place, but it’s packed. Danny Patton and Fataar stay behind; they want coffee and a small bite. Patton’s smart. He knows we’re going to a steakhouse tonight; he wants to eat light. Also, he knows Lefebvre probably won’t restrain himself.
Hutch gets an idea in his head that he’s been to a really good restaurant a few blocks away—there’s that memory for every meal kicking in. We keep walking and end up in Gastown. Hutch finds the place, Chill Winston. Seven guys sit down: Lefebvre, Bookin, Warren, Hutch, Payne, Leisz, and me. I sit across from Warren and beside Bookin. Warren starts talking about his wife and young daughter. He got married late in life, one of those late-bloomer dads who will be around seventy when his kid moves out of the house. He seems homesick.
We start ordering, drinks first. I ask for a glass of the cab sauv listed on the menu. “Hold on, Bill,” Lefebvre calls out. I look over. Hoo boy, here we go. I look at Warren and say, “Right, I forgot, you cannot go solo and order the wine when you’re with John.” After examining the official wine list he asks the waitress, “Do you have anything for spoiled boys?” He smiles.
Lefebvre has ordered two bottles of expensive wine. They found a couple of really good bottles tucked away in the basement. I can’t keep track of the names, and I forget to write them down. Some journalist. Everybody loves the sandwiches and compliments Hutch on his top-notch memory. The chef personally comes over to present a gift of non-flour chocolate dessert with chai coffee sauce, a brownie really. It is insanely good. Bookin inquires: “Do you ship to L.A.?”
Bookin tells us he’s finally had that conversation with the headliner about the opening act’s sets going overtime. It’s an issue because the band is still vacating the stage at least fifteen minutes late. Not cool. There have been no complaints from the Felder camp—yet—but Bookin doesn’t want the issue to fester. He managed to stop Felder and talk to him directly about this delicate subject.
“Well,” Felder said, replying with his own question, “is John enjoying himself?”
“You bet he is!” replied Bookin.
“It’s okay then.”
So it turns out Felder is a real softie. Lefebvre mentioned something in passing about Felder being somewhere along the way on the twelve-steps road, which might account for the beatific attitude. Bookin is impressed with Felder. “Few guys would do that, because the opening act can suck the air out of the room if it goes on too long, which is death for the headliner because he has to work that much harder to win back an audience exhausted listening to an act they didn’t necessarily come to see.”
Then Bookin chats me up about the book. He wants to talk about the kind of information that gets out there about Lefebvre. To Bookin it’s important to remain vigilant about what people know and don’t know and the few things they take away with them when they hear about the artist. Airbrushing the Lefebvre picture for mass consumption seems to be a tactic for him. He’s worried the majority of people will hear Lefebvre or hear about Lefebvre only in passing—hear him talking on the radio for a couple of minutes, say—and that’s the only impression they’ll get. That’s Bookin’s goal, to limit and shape that mass-culture first impression.
• • •
Lefebvre has booked us into Gotham for seven. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tonight is a night off. The steakhouse is swank, a meat eater’s delight, and the servers are young men, one of whom performs a spontaneous spastic act with a full wine glass. Somehow he manages to project every drop of the ruby red liquid over one end of the white tablecloth. Lefebvre cautions the headwaiter not to beat the guy up about it. A new cloth covers the offending stain, and all is forgiven. It was a sensational feat. No way the guy could have duplicated his pratfall even if he tried a hundred times.
• • •
At sound check the next day, it’s entertaining to watch these super-pros grouse in a friendly but vexed way through the changes they have to deal with, the accommodations they have to
make. Colin James, the Canadian blues-rock guitarist and vocalist (who lives in Vancouver), has been invited to join the band for the final two songs of the tour. Lefebvre knows him from when Neteller hired him to headline a party. They’re playing “My Baby Goes Green” and “I Won’t,” standard rock songs, but they have to figure out how to insert James’s solos, how they’re going to come out of those solos, and how they’re going to finish the tunes. So it’s delicate. They keep botching the endings, which is comical considering the level of talent on stage. It’s like the college-rock, “Louie Louie”–level band trying to figure out exactly when to look at each other to finish the song.
• • •
Greg Leisz sits across from me at dinnertime. He is a charming guy, relaxed and considerate. Leisz can play anything on the electric guitar and anything on the pedal steel, but it is his prowess on the latter that has kept him in demand. He made his name in Canada and the U.S. playing in k.d. lang’s band for years, but it’s a thrill when he straps on an electric and plays classic riffs. He can play rock action all night long with a warm but stinging tone.
Leisz had actually come up to Canada and played at the Scotch & Sirloin Restaurant in Calgary for five weeks in 1974, back when Lefebvre hadn’t quite gotten sick of driving a cab and getting wasted at the Highlander. His family owns one hundred thousand acres of property on the Hollister Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, three-quarters of an hour outside Santa Barbara. The family retreat is a steep three-mile drive above the ocean. Leisz’s mom bought the property many years ago, when it was not expensive. The family didn’t get a permit to build a house until 2005. Regulations are strict at Hollister because it is a working cattle ranch. You cannot put up fences—well okay, you’re allowed to fence one and a half acres around the house—and there are all sorts of other ecological restrictions to consider. Sounds ideal.
Ideal is also how the last gig ought to go. Lefebvre is starting to look like he’s on his game. He’s comfortable on stage. He picks his spots to address the audience, and he’s interacting with the band much better. They all look like they’re having fun. When Colin James joins the group on stage he adds rock ’n’ roll raunch. The guy is now in his late forties but still looks and acts like a kid. Good for him. He’s on cue to play the last two songs, and his swagger guarantees an uptick in tempo. The audience seems to feel it in the gut, the music revving up. Onstage it’s hard to say, but at the back of the theater it feels like the band is starting to click.
After the Don Felder set everyone convenes back at Chill Winston’s in Gastown, where we had been for lunch the day before. It was peculiar that the restaurant’s manager initially showed no interest in hosting the party. But Lefebvre was persistent in hinting he’d make it worth everyone’s while. Get a clue, buddy, Johnny’s doing the talking. He’ll pay you triple what it’s worth. Stay up late, lose a bit of sleep, let him party.
I meet Bruce Ramsay at the post-mini-tour bash. I meet, briefly, Lisa, the young woman Ramsay has dated since ending his relationship with his long-time partner. Lisa is cute, like a pixie, big eyes. As usual, I try to convince Ramsay to talk.
“Hey c’mon, just the old days with John. No Neteller.”
As usual, the big shrug. “Aw, I don’t have anything to say.”
Not even you and John and your university years?
“I don’t know.”
XVII (2001–11)
The Ghost of John
On Sunday, February 27, 2011, I pass through immigration and customs inspections at San José’s Juan Santamaría International. I’m looking for my ride to Out of Bounds Boutique Hotel and Tourist Center, a B&B located in Escazú, about five miles west of San José. In the taxi zone, three or four guys in official-looking uniforms buzz around me. After about twenty minutes, I look down and notice the warm smile of Layla Ricardo, who’s holding a sign with my name on it. I’m saved from the jackals, who back away in search of other prey.
Layla leads me to her husband Don, my driver, who loads me into a car and takes some back-roads route to my bed and breakfast, avoiding toll payments on the main highway. Don charges 12,634.75 colones (singular colón, named after Christopher Columbus, Spanish name Cristóbal Colón; one thousand colones is equivalent to about two U.S. dollars). Later, B&B co-owner Meranda Glesby will explain that she once hired Ricardo to pick up a customer from the airport. He dropped off the fare and an hour later returned the gringo’s camera left in the back seat. With that, he won all of her business. For twenty-five bucks, I’m halfway up the hills overlooking the capital.
San José is balmy, overcast, and a bit breezy. The young Costa Rican woman who works behind the desk, Cindy, speaks English well. Meranda has known her since the Neteller days. She worked in the same office building. She’s attractive, and Meranda tried to set her up with one of the young guys at Neteller (they were all young guys, except for John). They went on a date but it didn’t work out. Cindy relieves Meranda and her half–Costa Rican, half-Italian husband, Matteo Nicola Brancacci, when they need extra help. In exchange, they help Cindy’s kid get a good education. Cindy’s ex is a deadbeat and won’t help financially with the child rearing. This informal barter is typical of the way things are done in Costa Rica.
By late afternoon I’m sitting with Meranda at a table on the upper patio at the B&B, which has a half-dozen rooms and a rental house in back. “I have a present for you,” I tell her. I leave her sitting with her view and head down to my little room. I run back upstairs with two packages of cigarellos. Steve Glavine told me that I would have a friend for life if I brought a specific brand with me. “I was told you might like these.” Her face lights up like a Christmas tree in Little Portugal. She runs downstairs, shooting back a look that says: You see this crazed goofy look on my face? She runs back up with a disposable lighter, sits down, and gives it a flick. Inhales; exhales. Heaven. You cannot buy the Backwoods Cigars brand in Costa Rica. A couple of minutes later, she offers to pay. “Can I give you twenty bucks?”
“If you give me twenty bucks it won’t be a present anymore, will it?”
The B&B’s upper deck offers a gorgeous view of three volcanoes above and to the west of San José as well as the various cloud formations that come and go. To the east, the new soccer stadium puffs up proudly, which means downtown is not far. Escazú and Santa Ana are laid-back towns, close to San José yet far enough away from the bustle. Its location does not seem remote, yet I wonder about the hassle of driving up and down the mountain into the core. Meranda offers to give me a tour of the old Neteller haunts—the main reason I’m here—in the morning, from nine to eleven, before picking up her daughter Merissa from nursery. She and Matteo are putting her through private school. They’re only having one child; they’ve made up their minds.
Monday morning around nine, we’re supposed to go on the “Neteller tour,” as we’re calling it, but we’re delayed. Matteo hasn’t come back yet from dropping off Merissa. I retreat to my room, check email, and think about the day. About ten minutes later: “Bill!”
“Yup, I’m here!” I finish an email and head down to the office and the vehicle.
“Let’s boogie!”
I haven’t heard that command since I left Calgary in 1988. Meranda wears skintight blue jeans, a thin top, and a tight jean jacket. When she walks away it’s impossible not to check out the peculiar-looking white acid-wash streaks running up and down her thighs and calves. She looks like she’s decked out for an Eagles concert circa 1976. So Calgary. Her skin-toned slip-ons look like ballet slippers with clear heels glued on. Meranda used to be a tap dancer; now’s she is in a jazz dance class with other moms.
Yes, Calgarian is how Meranda acts, too—warm, friendly, and direct, with a deep laugh that betrays her love of a good cigar. She’s a perky go-getter. Her face is framed by dirty blond-brown hair. She used to be a blond-blond but gave it up. The hissing of the Costa Rican men became tiresome. Even in the trav
el guide it says many Costa Rican men have not disabused themselves of the notion that white women are easy seductions—that white girls just jump into male Costa Rican laps because they’re so, well, exotic. But local men and their antics generally don’t bother Meranda—after all, she married one. The only time she will get fazed on our little tour is when we’re in a sketchy part of town, just outside San José proper. She recalls that whenever she had to do Neteller business in that neighborhood, she would ask coworker and future fiancé Matteo to hang around, and she would always tell the client there was someone outside waiting for her.
But Meranda is not someone you should ever assume to be a pushover. She co-runs a B&B, co-raises a four-year-old, and runs an organization called the Canadian Club, which, with about three hundred members, holds luncheons with diplomats. She also co-runs a small foundation financed by John, which tries to improve educational opportunities for San José kids. Meranda gets right after it, whatever she’s doing. For instance, after one leg of our morning tour she doubles back and drives past her B&B to get to our next destination. She notices three guests waiting outside her compound. You have to ring the doorbell to be admitted—you can’t just walk in. Security is important. Meranda says there is a lot of thievery going on: “When the going wages are between two and three dollars a day, some people decide they would rather just take stuff from people than work.”
But leaving guests waiting will not do. She wheels her massive truck around. “How long have you been waiting? I’m so sorry!” Matteo comes out. “Where were you?” she scolds him affectionately. “We can’t have people waiting outside!”
Matteo was trained to be a customer service representative by Meranda. This was accidental. She wasn’t supposed to break him in, but she offered to cover for a buddy who’d been too hungover from a staff party get to work on time. Matteo was waiting when she arrived at the office. As she went over the basics of the gig, she couldn’t help looking at his reflection in the computer screen. And that was it. Meranda arrived in Costa Rica on May 2, 2001; she met Matteo on August 26, 2001; and they were married on October 13, 2002. Matteo loved the job, too. “At first I was intimidated by John,” he recalls. “He’s a really big guy—a presence.” And he would have stayed forever if the company hadn’t cut back. Now Meranda keeps him focused on the B&B.
Life Real Loud Page 33
