Your Mother's Not a Virgin!: The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout who changed the Face of American TV!
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Your Mother's Not a Virgin!: The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout who changed the Face of American TV!
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781634242462 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trine Day |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2019 |
| Edition description: | None |
| Pages: | 738 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
IN AMERICA: Standing Alone
See that black and white picture of me? That was taken near the pool at the old Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. I was sixteen or seventeen years old. Sometime around 1950. I can't quite remember. I can remember why I had a Stetson on, though. I thought it'd make me look like a big shot. I was a gambler – albeit, a small-time one. The same with those two-tone shoes. Where did they come from? And where did they go? Maybe I thought they'd look good when I ran away from Toronto and got to kick the world in the ass. Of course, the ass-kicking capital of the world was America. I have no idea who took the picture, or even what the occasion was. Or why I still have it. What I do know is that it's the only photo of me under the age of seventeen. Maybe that's why I hung onto it. There was certainly nothing else in my life I wanted to hang onto. Especially the memories. Perhaps I was just trying to hang onto me.
Everybody I know has childhood pictures; certainly, baby pictures. Even if they had lousy parents, or divorced parents, or were being put up for adoption, there was someone who cared enough to welcome them into the world with just a snapshot. Even if it wasn't going to be a welcoming world, there was this photographic proof that they existed. Or even mattered.
The only other pictures of me under the age of twenty are in someone else's possession. The first, if it still exists, would probably be gathering dust somewhere in the archives of Adam Beck Public School in Toronto's east end, which I haphazardly attended for seven shaky years, (having skipped a grade) under the non-birth name of MacLaren. One or two more photos would be headshots taken by the Toronto Police Department on Main Street. Later versions of those two same poses would be in the possession of US Immigration at Terminal Island, San Diego, long after leaving Las Vegas. I do remember the suit, though. It was soft blue; the only one I had. I should have been smiling because, by God, I was so happy to be away from a home that would have to be seriously mended just to be called broken. I was also happy to be out of the reach of some angry cash-short card players who didn't believe a teenage kid could fleece them fair and square.
My hands were in my pockets; one of which had a serious hole in it. The other had the six hundred dollars left of my winnings, after buying the train ticket and the used wardrobe, except for the kick-ass shoes, which were new. I look like I was wondering how long that money would last. Or how long the two-tones would last before they got holes in them. But the holes in my wardrobe were nonexistent compared to the hole in my soul.
I planned on going to Vegas because, to the addicted gambler that I'd been for two years, Vegas was the Vatican. My habit was so emotionally hopeless, even as a kid, I'd have to cut down just to be a junkie. I once stood under the maple tree in our front yard in autumn and bet my favorite and only hockey stick against my neighbor-buddy-adversary, Mel Nixon, on which leaf would fall first. I lost. Of course. Gamblers always do. But I didn't know that then. Vegas was where I wanted my financial prayers to be answered.
If I didn't have to stay there to make the easy money I envisioned, I might have gone to Hollywood. After Canadian winters, I loved the thought of picking an orange off a tree in December. And, in Los Angeles, with mostly sunny days, my blue suit wouldn't have to go to the dry cleaners so often. Those thoughts about the Golden State came to me around the age of six. In Toronto, with little to go home to, from that age on, when not at a rink, I would spend a nickel and hours sitting through two double-features at the Manor Theater on Kingston Road. The end of every film, of course, said, "Made in Hollywood." That's the place where the movies told me the rainbow ends and dreams really do come true. But I had to earn a living; so, Las Vegas was it. At least I thought it was, especially after learning how to gamble properly.
For the two years prior to boarding that train, the first time I'd ever paid to ride one, every cent earned working as a coal-shoveling fireman on the Canadian National Railway or bussing dishes at Kresge's or delivering mail at the Parliament buildings downtown, or borrowed, begged, or stolen, all four of which I was very adept at, I lost in marathon midnight-till-morn gambling orgies. I was the youngest loser in a group of usually eight. The two oldest were in their forties. One was a soldier; the other a truck driver. If I ever won, I stayed until I lost it. I had nowhere to go, so I figured what the hell, it was as good a place to be as any. It was usually poker, but sometimes it was craps. I was always the first to lose, and the last to leave.
I couldn't understand why I didn't do better because unlike those guys, I wasn't distracted by drinking and smoking. I was a clear-headed and clear-eyed loser! They didn't have any trouble getting my money, so when they were pushing drinks and cigarettes at me it was because they wanted me to be more like one of the boys.
One night they pushed me to the point of rudeness for my disinterest in imbibing or inhaling, asking if I was some kind of religious nut; I told them there was a reason I didn't smoke or drink. In one of the convenience stores I had worked part-time, I once stole a carton of cigarettes. I was so afraid of getting caught I tried to smoke them all, one after the other, and got sick. So, I never smoked again. Then another time, I confessed, I stole a carton of beer. And again, to hide the evidence, I drank them all and got even sicker. Then I pulled out a large pack of condoms and put them next to the chips, and said, "A year ago I stole a carton of condoms. I still have six left!" They laughed and never again offered me a beer or smoke. Thereafter, they started every session asking how many condoms I still had.
Hearing them laugh got my mind separated from the game; it was then I realized I wasn't really there to make money; I was there to make friends. But in reality, these guys were not friends; just acquaintances. My needs weren't monetary; they were emotional. So, I thought, if I'm going to gamble, which I did enjoy, obviously too much, then I'd better learn how to do it properly. I got two books from the library. One was called, Scarne on Dice, the other was called Scarne on Cards. Here was an expert who laid out all the mathematical odds on all the possible combinations and permutations of every bet on any pull of any card or roll of a die. When to press or when to back off. When to double; when to fold. What games offered the greatest odds of winning, and why. In two weeks I memorized nearly every page. If I'd been Kenny Rogers, I would have written a song about it.
I started my next midnight session with under forty dollars and played every night for a week. I found myself no longer needing to be in every hand. I no longer had to stay until dawn. At the end of the week, I had over seven hundred dollars, and seven very leery, unfriendly acquaintances. When l got up to leave, again before the sun, they asked if I'd be back Sunday to give them a chance to get their money back.
I said, "Of course. I may want more." I lied.
Sunday morning, I was on a train to Las Vegas, Nevada with over six hundred bucks. I had informed US Immigration authorities I'd only be in Buffalo for two days. Somehow or another on the way to Las Vegas the train had to stop. There had been a wreck a mile in front of us. For over an hour we were not informed that a wreck was the purpose of the delay, just that it would be long. Of course, as an almost ex-convict, I was convinced immigration had wired ahead and had them halt the train so they could haul me off. So, I scurried off. At the tiny depot where we were delayed, a nice man informed me that the nearest bigger locale was a place called Lake Tahoe, a three or four-hour bus ride away. I was on that next bus, smiling, thinking about how the law would find an empty seat on the train they stopped.
Lake Tahoe was stunning. It reminded me of a smaller version of pictures and movies I'd seen of Lake Louise and Banff National Park in Alberta; nature's perfect rendering of conifer trees, shapely mountains, and blue water. It was late afternoon when the bus stopped, not far from a gambling chalet called the Cal-Neva Lodge. Thrilled by the newness and elegance of it, not wanting to waste my time or talents, I rushed inside.
I had only seen luxury and sets like those in the movies. A Technicolor casino abuzz with smartly attired adults crowded happily and noisily around crap tables, blackjack tables and a lush bar. Surprisingly, I felt at home. After half an hour of wandering around, savoring every sight and sound, I ended up at the end of a crap table, my back to the entrance. I was five years too young to be doing that legally. But this was Nevada. This was gambling. Who cares? In that Texas outfit, no one questioned my age. For over an hour I held my own, and even some of the House's. The stick boss and a couple of fellows across from me began to eye me like they thought I knew what I was doing. Proudly, I did. After about half an hour, the guys across from me, who seemed to be matching my bets, stopped betting. They were looking behind me. Others also stopped, even dealers. They, too, were looking behind me. It was like a wave at a sporting event. Then all activity ceased entirely. I turned to see what had brought everything to a halt.
Strutting halfway across the casino, having just entered through the huge front glass doors, was a sight that was impossibly unreal to me. I literally had to shake my head so my eyes and mind could refocus. It was Frank Sinatra, a long black overcoat draped over his shoulders like an Italian Superman; he was arm in arm with a face I'd just read about and seen in the newspapers, Sam Giancana, Chicago's crime boss. Close behind them, their praetorian guard; three dark, tough-looking Italians. Just a few months earlier I had seen Sinatra in a movie at the Manor Theater. He was in a white tuxedo standing on a tall white pedestal singing beautifully, Old Man River. Now, he was walking right past me. Who could imagine? Certainly not me, that a fabulous celluloid star would be walking out of my recent past right into my present. All because of an accident. What sixteen-year-old runaway gambler could possibly dream other accidents would make Sinatra, this icon, a significant part of my later life? Right then, though, daydreams of movie stars were not for me. Dreams of being rich were. Lake Tahoe was not the place I saw that dream coming true. Las Vegas was.
The first month in Las Vegas saw me realizing the image of easy riches. I still had my six hundred and a few hundred more. Of course, I couldn't sit at the tables all day. There were only a couple of movie theaters, so I found myself going to the live shows. I did not see one that was not more thrilling than the best movie. At the Sahara, France's tiny Edith Piaf in a plain black dress standing in front of a red curtain filled the showroom with people and a huge voice that made it feel like a religious experience. At the Desert Inn, England's Noel Coward exquisitely performing his Mad Dogs and Englishmen. My favorite, though, that I saw often at The El Rancho, was comedian Joe E. Lewis with the greatest opening I'd ever seen. He was the opening act for famed stripper, Lily St. Cyr. She concluded her act by hopping into a curtained four-poster bed where she removed all her clothes. When the lights came back up, an announcer said, "Ladies and gentlemen, directly from the bar, Joe E. Lewis." There was loud applause and laughter, but no Joe E. Lewis. After about thirty seconds of silence he emerged from under the bed covers. There was an ovation. Seeing all this, and with a wallet that was growing slowly, I thought I was happy.
In one fateful night, though, it suddenly was lost. Not the money. The happiness. The dream. It came to this unexpected weird end at a blackjack table. My favorite game. Especially with one deck. It was at the Flamingo Hotel. I was at a table with a two-dollar minimum. I was not superstitious, but I kept sitting at the same table in the same chair. If it wasn't vacant, I wouldn't play. This particular night, I sat for three hours. Other gamblers had come and gone. Nearly all had lost. I wasn't up, but I wasn't down. I was holding my own. However, I wasn't smiling. Something had turned off inside me. I didn't know what was wrong with me. My mind went blank. The joy was gone. The challenge was gone. The rushes were gone. The dealer had a face card; I had a six, so I had to pull. The dealer had a three showing; I had twelve. I had to stand. The dealer had an eight. I had two tens. I couldn't split. I had to stay. I was no longer emotionally involved in what I was doing. I had become a disconnected mathematician. I had no emotional attachment to money. So, winning became meaningless. It was almost like an out of body experience. It wasn't me at the table. It was a stranger in a blue suit and Stetson. I had no interest in him. Or what he was doing. Or what I was doing. I was not engaged. Feeling as empty as my pockets used to be, I picked up my chips, walked away from the table, and cashed them in.
Watching my money being counted out, I panicked. What was I going to do? I had to find something, anything that would engage me. Mean something to me. But what? All I could think of, was how much fun it was watching the live shows. I have not gambled since, except on golf courses. So, there you see me standing alone in front of the Flamingo Hotel feeling that one hole in my pocket, with a much, much bigger one in my life.
Six decades later, at this typewriter, I'm happily sitting alone, recalling all the wonders that did engage me. However, before we pack up again and I take you to California where I did pick oranges for a while, I'm going to pause this picture. And put our story in flashback like the movie Citizen Kane. Only ours is called, Not Yet Citizen Barbour.
IN CANADA: We'll Meet A Stranger
There's someone I'd like you to meet. I'm introducing him to you very reluctantly because I have no real desire to meet him again. I haven't seen or thought about him for over sixty years. Even when I knew him well, I couldn't wait to get away from him. Because right now he is somewhere I never want to be. That is the past.
It is me. As a boy.
To me, revisiting a childhood is as useless as trying to taste a meal that's already been consumed and eliminated. Who would want to taste a meal again that was bitter to begin with? You can't truly recapture the taste, and in the end it all turned to shit anyway.
When I was a kid listening to adults, I was always given the advice and impression that if one was good and worked hard that cream would rise to the top. But in the world I was experiencing, I noticed that maybe cream did rise to the top, but so did shit. For cream to rise it must be stirred. Not shit. Shit floats up all by itself. When cream gets to the top and stays, it doesn't get creamier. It turns to shit. Even though it was all around me, I was surprised when people were evil or cruel. Now that I'm no longer that boy, I am surprised when people are good.
A few years before Dean Martin died, I was playing golf with him at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. Just before we teed off, a fellow about Dean's age came up to him, extended his hand, and said, "Dean, you'll never believe this, but I saw you in a club in Steubenville when you were just starting."
Dean declined the handshake, walked away ignoring the fellow, and teed up his ball, saying to me, "Let's play."
I was embarrassed for the stranger, but said nothing. Dean noticed I was very quiet, which was not like me on a golf course. He said, "I hate the past, it means absolutely nothing. I never want to hear about it. There are only two things in my past that ever cross my mind. They were the two best things that ever happened to me." He stopped his swing, and looked directly at me. "That was meeting Jerry Lewis ... and leaving Jerry Lewis." Then he hit his shot. "Life's like golf. You can never re-hit a bad shot, or any shot, or even think about it. It'll only get in the way of the most important shot, the one right in front of you!"
Nearly everyone I met who is screwed up, (and that could fill a football field) can't seem to live his or her life happily; they're too busy trying to psychoanalyze their unchangeable past. Driving forward is hazardous staring into the rearview mirror. It is true that when you're too young to understand or play in the game of life that the bad shots, and if there any good shots, they are all hit for you or at you by others, a parent, a guardian, whoever, but, like in golf, as Dean said, there comes a time when you have to take those shots where they lay, and continue the game on your own. Fortunately for me, that awareness came early.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Your Mother's Not a Virgin"
by .
Copyright © 2018 John Barbour.
Excerpted by permission of Trine Day LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword 1
In America: Standing Alone 4
In Canada: We'll Meet a Stranger 9
On the Street Where I Live 10
Two Houses Don't Make a Home 11
1939 13
Unframed Photos 14
The Big Parade to World War II 17
A Growing Boy's Menu 21
A Mental Multiplex 25
The Last Two Arenas 31
Playoffs and Gas-offs 33
Adam Beck School Daze 39
A Midnight Enterprise 41
A Woman Named Peggy 49
An Uncle Named Garth 52
I'm Dreaming of a White-Knuckled Christmas 57
A Summer Short Cut 62
The Little Outhouse in the Prairie 66
A Couple of Killings 69
Farmer John 72
The Slaughterhouse 76
Hay Fever 79
Ann 85
The Long Shortcut 86
Rescued and Rebuked 94
The Spell Broken 98
The New Boarder, New Visitor and Drop Out 102
Whistle While You Work 108
Buffalo Bound 110
From Mail Boy to Male Man 114
How to Spell Real Relief 118
T.G.L.F 121
Back in America: Lost and Found in Las Vegas 123
A House Not on Elm Street 123
The New House I Live In 125
The Lady in Black 131
Another Familiar Face 137
A Jewish Superstition 141
Who's That Knocking on My Door? 143
Last Call 148
The Great Escape 150
IN CANADA AGAIN: Boomerang Boy and Unfinished Business 154
IN AMERICA AGAIN: A Good Fit for A Misfit 160
The $64,000.00 Question 164
Take me out to the Ballgame 166
An Offer I Couldn't Refuse 169
Some Say Cheese Better Than Others 171
Extras, Extras 173
Another Greek with Another Idea 176
The Meeting 178
The Waiting Game 180
What's A Blacklist 182
So That's What Blacklist Means 186
Here Comes the Son 189
IN ENGLAND: London Bridge is Falling Down 191
Agdas 194
Where There's A Will 199
The Call 201
Birth of a Salesman 205
A Foggy Year in London Town 209
An Untossed Coin 211
IN AMERICA … AGAIN: a Goodbye Burger 213
Friends and Neighbors 215
A Goodbye Gathering 218
Another Script 222
Endless Summer 224
A Pink Slip of the Tongue 225
Showbiz and Other Odd Jobs 227
Two Deaths of a Salesman 230
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall 234
A Closed Mouth Goes Farther than an Opened Mind 236
Knock, Knock … and it's No Joke 238
The Last Supper 239
Sidney Kaplan 241
Where to Start? 244
Finding Mel 245
Woman in Blue 250
IN AMERICA, YET AGAIN: The Green Card 255
Send in the Clown 260
My Kingdom for a Joke 263
The Horn 266
Advice from the Future Gomer Pyle 270
The Hungry I 272
Pat Morita 280
November 22, 1963 283
Fresno 289
The Bottom of the Ladder 293
It's tough to be White 295
Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl 300
Catch a Falling Star 305
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes 306
All the King's Horses' Asses 311
Art Linkletter's Talent Scouts 314
And Send Two Copies 318
Whitey 322
Manley and the Mob 328
Jack Rollins 334
Mister Kelly's and Ms. Warwick 339
Merv, Murray and Management Three 345
Remembering Lenny Bruce 367
The Dean of Variety Shows 372
Dis-Connections 378
June 6, 1968 382
Roger, Me and Merv … Again 386
More Things on Heaven and Earth 391
Sitting In For Merv 394
In the Eye of the Hurricane 398
The John Barbour Show 402
January 29, 1969 408
A Child Born; A Father Created 411
Am Los Angeles 417
How Do These People Get These Jobs? 420
The Fairness Doctrine 424
Be My Guest 430
Jane Fonda 431
Mohammed Ali 436
Ronald Reagan 439
Cesar Chavez 444
Jim Garrison 449
Critic-At-Large 458
One Foot in the Stirrup 464
The Not So Great Gatsby 468
Three producers 470
Backlash from Biggies 476
Critical Tidbits 489
Joyce Haber and the Oscars 494
More Kelly Lange and Bryant Gumbel 495
The Gong Show 500
The Laugh-ln Revival, Sinatra's Arrival, Redd's Departure, and a Small Dinner 505
My Friend, Francis 513
Chicago, My Kind of Town … Almost 520
Oh, Boy, Oh, Danny Boy 526
There's No Business 540
Giving Up 544
The Best Things Happen by Accident 547
Not Heavenly Hosts 550
Real People 555
A House Call 559
This Shit's Not Going Anywhere 562
Crazy George 566
A Show for All Seasons 570
Jolene 574
Real People …. Stories, Stories, Stories 576
All About the T-Shirt 580
The Ides of March 585
The Power and the Glory 596
Kill All the Lawyers, Henry VI 603
Speak Up, Jim Garrison 611
January 29, 1982 620
That Awful Quiz Show 625
The Little Engine and Ernie Kovacs 632
A Late-Night Dinner with George Burns 639
John Barbour's World vs. The Real World 641
Showtime on Showtime 645
If at First You Succeed, It's Harder to Do It Again 648
Almost Above Being Local Again 650
Really … news? 654
The Barbour Report and Reliable Sources 662
The Garrison Tapes 671
The City of Second Chances 684
54 Pine Isle Court 688
A Brief Break About Money 692
The Last Word on the Assassination 694
The American Media and the 2nd Assassination of President John F. Kennedy 704
Epilogue 706
Postscript 710
Pictures 711
Postcript Poem 720