In the first part of the 1980s, life was not well for Genesis drummer Phil Collins.
Genesis, 1971. Members: Tony Banks, Phil Collins , Mike Rutherford, Anthony Phillips and Peter Gabriel
Hired as the drummer for Genesis in 1970, at age 19, Phil Collins assumed the role of lead singer for Genesis in 1975, following the departure of Peter Gabriel.
Where the music critics of the day loved Gabriel, the Brit award-winning progressive, singer-songwriter and his extended length prog-rock jams, as well as Gabriel’s all around genius musicianship, influential music critics were less than thrilled with the contribution made by Phil Collins after Gabriel’s departure.
Collins’ career went from bad to worse after he became Genesis’ lead singer, but it was in the pain of the break-up with his Canadian-born wife Andrea Bertorelli — who returned to her home in Vancouver in 1979 with their two children, Joely and Simon Collins — that provided the therapeutic impetus for the creation of Face Value, a break-up-and-divorce album the likes of which had never been heard.
Finding inspiration in the pain caused by his divorce, and craving artistic independence after years of collaboration, hiding away in the studio, Collins produced Face Value himself, playing keyboards and drums, and despite vehement opposition by his manager, Collins called in Earth, Wind & Fire who provided the horns and back up vocals necessary to fill out the songs Collins heard in his head.
The rest is rock ‘n roll history.
With the release of Face Value, Collins went on to become a massive star, Face Value topping the charts across the globe for 16 consecutive weeks, going on to become the top-selling album of 1981, in the process winning Collins a raft of awards, including the Grammy for Best Rock Album of 1981, Song of the Year for In the Air Tonight, and Best Male Pop Vocalist at the 1981 Grammy’s show that year.
Kicking off with the bitter anthem In the Air Tonight, rightly considered one of the great heartbreak songs of all time, the album alternates between moody ballads and bouncily soulful tracks that try to put a smile on the pain.
On the quieter songs like If Leaving Me Is Easy, Collins’ wracked vocals leave no doubt that he’s not sugarcoating his emotional devastation as he sorts through the wreckage of his life.
The impossibly hooky I Missed Again, meanwhile, displayed Collins’ skills as a hitmaker and vocalist.
The gently sung, sweet-as-punch This Must Be Love, which was written post-divorce about a new love, also gives an early respite after the lurching, bruising In the Air Tonight. This range of sound and emotion is part of what helped the album to succeed as much as it did, as did the feeling that Collins felt driven to make this album to help him heal.
Face Value was not a career move or a cash grab, but rather the album was a transmission from a wounded soul delivered with a soft touch and sensitivity.
As such, Face Value is Collins’ most honest, most compelling work.
Face Value stands as Collins’ masterpiece, one of the finest moments of the ’80s musical landscape, and one of the best début albums of the past 60 years.
The woman you see pictured above is the love of my life.
In the summer of 1988, Lori and her son Darren, and my two children, 11-year-old Megan and 13-year-old Jude, travelled over to the west coast of Vancouver Island, where we rented a cabin near Tofino, and where we enjoyed the time of our lives, a memory that resides deep in me still.
Photo of Megan Tomlin, taken at the cabin near Tofino where we stayed in August 1988
As the children were growing up, given that (for the most part) during the first few years of their lives I was the sole custodial parent — sharing custody with Cathy as the children grew older — my relationship with my children was close.
Jude and Megan and I talked about everything, and as far as was possible I answered every question put by them to me, as honestly and as fully as I could.
While Jude was an energetic boy of the world, making friends with anyone and everyone, full of joy and laughter, out and about in the neighbourhood and across the city, skateboarding and skiing and as athletic as he could possibly be, Megan was a much quieter child, no more reflective than Jude, just more prone to staying close, wanting always to converse on the broadest range of topics, and anxious to learn as much about the world (and all its complexities) as she could.
Megan, in particular, was curious about the state and nature of the world, about politics and political structures, about the nature of governmental decision-making, both children attending the peace marches with me each year, as well as meetings of the progressive, left-of-centre Coalition of Progressive Electors Vancouver civic party, as well as at various federal and provincial New Democratic Party meetings, with Megan as engaged as she could be as a budding young feminist and community activist.
Megan, as with my mother, was also possessed of a preternatural ability.
Photo, Broadway campus, Vancouver Community College, taken from Chinacreek Park
Over the years, as we shared our lives with one another, both Jude and Megan were curious about my “work”, what I was up to when I wasn’t with them.
Arising from that interest on their part, I always sought to make them a part of my work life, taking them to the places of my employments, to my office in SFU’s Faculty of Education when I was working on my Masters, to attend in the elementary school classes where I taught (when they were on a ProD day), at Vancouver Community College, and later in my work at Pacific Press (which paid phenomenally well for very little work, allowing me to continue work as an arts and entertainment editor, and later, Director of Special Projects at Vancouver Magazine).
Early in the 1988 summer semester at Vancouver Community College, Megan attended my Monday evening English Literature class, sitting quietly near the back, erudite and well-read as always (better read than me, true then, true still), interjecting occasionally to clarify some bit of information, for me or for one of the students in my English Literature class, unassuming, friendly, and clearly informed.
Midway through the three-hour class, we took a 15-minute break, most of the students leaving the classroom, with Megan standing with me outside my office, opposite the classroom, when the following occurred …
“Daddy,” said Megan, “do you see that woman standing just on the other side of the glass doors, the blonde-haired woman leaning on the railing?” Then a pause and the proffering of a question, “What day of the week is it?”
“Monday,” I replied.
“Hmmm,” she said, looking somewhat quizzical. “Monday, huh?”
At which point, she seemed to find herself lost in thought for a moment, then turned to me to say, “By Thursday, the two of you will be living together.”
“Megan,” I protested, “I don’t even know who that woman is. And besides, she seems much younger than me.”
And with that, we dropped the subject, shortly after returning to the classroom, where she set about to correct me on aspects of my teaching presentation style, and information that I had imparted that she felt was not clear enough, and should have been better clarified by me, telling me during the break …
“Given who these students are, you seem not to be taking into consideration that they’ve been out of school for awhile. Your use of language, the words you choose could be better chosen to impart your message. And, oh yeah, you were telling the students that they would be expected to write papers during the semester. I want to be present when you’re grading those papers, and I want to read the papers you’re unsure as to what grade you will give. Overall, I trust your judgement — I’m just not sure I feel all that confident that your command of what constitutes good essay writing is as well-developed as it could be.”
The class was over at 9pm, I met with a handful of my students, some in the classroom, others in the hallway, and a couple in my office (with Megan waiting outside in the hallway, engaging with some of my students).
When the class had come to an end, I reminded the students Tuesday’s class would take place downtown, at a venue where a play I’d be teaching was currently being performed; student attendance was mandatory.
Megan and I left the campus around 9:30pm, stopping off at Mike and Edith’s (friends of ours) Cheesecake, Etc. on Granville Street, near the south end of the Granville Street bridge, where Megan enjoyed a piece of cheesecake topped with fresh, organic strawberries, and I had my usual fresh-baked, and toasted, baguette with butter and jam.
Both VCC Broadway campus English Literature classes attended the performance of the play, which took place upstairs from what is now part of the Vancouver Film School. My class sat close by me, while students who were taking my colleague Peter’s English Lit class sat nearby him, except …
When the lights went down, and the play began, I felt a warm hand move over my right hand, and looked over to see an absolutely radiant, beautiful young blonde woman, with her arm rubbing up against mine. I thought to myself, as I am wont to do in similar situations (which always come as a surprise to me, having occurred quite frequently throughout my life) …
“Raymond, it’s a figment of your imagination. There’s no one sitting next to you, and most certainly, no one has their hand on top of yours.”
I didn’t give it another thought, returning my attention to the play.
On the Wednesday, I taught my Writing class (grammar! … I am the last person you would want to have teach you grammar … I am capable of doing it … grammar just seems so restrictive to me … but I suppose you need to know the rules, before you can break them).
Thursday I returned to teach my English Literature class.
After class was over, and after meeting with a few of my students, a blonde-haired woman walked up to me — who I may, or may not, have been made aware of earlier in the week — saying to me …
“I’m working on a paper on apartheid, and have been told you might be of assistance in helping point me in the right direction to research the paper, and provide me as well with how I might best formulate my argument.
I’ve heard that you like to walk, particularly along the stretch of beach over by Spanish Banks. I was wondering if we might walk and talk, which would afford you an opportunity for some fresh air after three hours in a stuffy classroom? It is, after all, a lovely full moon night, don’t you think?”
I thought the idea of the walk was a good idea, and (as anyone who knows me soon realizes, I am more than voluble about conversing on issues of interest to me). I grabbed my coat out of my instructor’s office, and the two of us headed off in the direction of my car.
But I was famished.
I asked her if we might stop in for a brief moment at Cheesecake, Etc. on the way to the beach — we could discuss her paper over a bite to eat.
When we arrived at Cheesecake, Etc., after consulting with her, when Mike came up to take our order, I requested two orders of the toasted baguette with jam. “Oh, you mean the usual,” said Mike. Both Mike and Edith flitted around this woman and I for the half hour we were in the restaurant, with Mike taking a break to begin singing at his piano, his songs seemingly directed at this young woman and I.
Just before 10pm, this young woman and I left the restaurant, climbed back into my car, and headed towards the beach, traveling down West Broadway, during which glide along the street, she turned to me to say, “You live near here, don’t you? I noticed it’s getting kind of chilly. I was wondering if you might have a sweater I could wear?”
Within a couple of minutes, I pulled up in front of my housing co-op, turning to her saying, “I’ll grab you a sweater and be right down,” with her responding, “I’ll come up with you, if that’s alright, to find the sweater best to my liking.”
Upon entering my apartment, while she stood in my living room, I entered my bedroom to look on the shelving where I kept my two dozen sweaters (what can I say, I’m a sweater person). Upon returning to the living room, holding up a warm, late spring appropriate sweater I thought she would like, standing opposite her, she approached me, and standing on her tippy-toes, she kissed me.
Once again, I thought to myself, “Raymond, she didn’t kiss you. That’s just a false projection. You just better give her the sweater, and head off to the beach.”
While I was having this inner dialogue with myself, she once again stood on her tippy toes, pulling my face closer to hers, and kissed me again, a long, luxurious kiss, a kiss unlike any other I’d ever experienced.
Lori and I moved into together that night.
Coda
Four years from the date of the story above, Lori — who, as has been the case in my life these 50 years and more with all of the women who have shared their lives with me was / is / and remains brilliant, gifted and contributory — completed an honours Bachelor Degree at a Metro Vancouver institution of higher learning, which she then followed up with a Masters degree in Counselling Psychology.
After graduating with her Masters degree, Lori was hired by Corrections Canada to work — in a secure group setting, within various prisons — with sexual offenders who had offended against children. All but a very, very few of the men she worked with truly regretted their offense(s), of that she felt quite sure after spending weeks and months in session with them, and one on one with each one, as well — the recidivism rate among those with whom she had worked well below five per cent.
Shaun Joshua Deacon, 57, has a lengthy criminal history that includes convictions for sexual offenses against children in 1988, 1996 and 1998. (Not referenced in the paragraph directly below)
Except, Lori says, there were the “monsters” who found their way into her group, from time to time, irredeemable, violent sexual offenders who presented a palpable risk to re-offend, and hurt children in ways monstrous and despicable. Those few sexual predators scared the daylights out of her, and as far as she was able Lori did everything in her power to ensure these predators serve out their full sentences, requiring they be supervised in the community upon mandatory release.
Lori went on to complete a PhD. While working on her PhD, Lori was hired as a university instructor, and upon graduation was hired at the university as an assistant professor, working her way through the ranks over the years, publishing as is required, relatively high profile, and a credit to the university and her profession.
While working as a university teacher, Lori was hired as a psychologist within the university’s clinical psychology centre where she treated clients. Over time, Lori opened up a private psychology practice — a very successful practice, as proved to be the case over the years — working, mostly, with women survivors of abuse.
Human history, since time immemorial, has been undeniably marked by a series of revolutions that helped shape us as modern individuals.
Our whole concept of civilization is determined by a succession of consecutive turning points.
From the early Neolithic Revolution, 12,000 years ago, through the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century and the Jet Age of the 1950s and 1960s, our species has evolved enormously.
In the current age, the Digital Revolution — also known as the Third Industrial Revolution — is the continuous evolution from the previous models of analog, mechanical and electronic technologies to the transformative digital technology with which we have all become familiar in recent years (think: streaming).
In 1993, digital technology revolutionized cinema.
The highest-grossing movie that year was Jurassic Park, whose dinosaurs ironically represented an evolutionary leap. Audiences were wowed by those hyper-realistic digital effects — all six minutes of them.
Leading up to its release, the 2009 movie Avatar promised to be a record-shattering hit.
In order to capitalize on the blockbuster to the fullest extent, movie theatres around the world got rid of their creaky old film projectors and purchased sleek digital replacements.
While projection technology had been available for a decade, it took the promise of a digital smash hit to convince theatres to adopt it at a large scale.
Before long, digital filmmaking and digital projection had become the industry standard. While it was an expensive investment for theatres, it allowed them to be more nimble in what they screened.
“It’s not a surprise that this transition took place: physical film was particularly inefficient. It’s heavy and it’s expensive,” says University of California, Berkeley marketing professor Eric Anderson. “What was more surprising was how this affected the assortments [of movies] offered to consumers.”
“With digital,” Professor Anderson continues, “it’s easier to have time for niche films, because one employee can manage all the screens in a theatre, and can effortlessly switch between one movie and another with the push of a digital button. Digital technology also gives the theatres more flexibility to stream big blockbusters even more. In a study conducted recently, it was interesting that we found these two effects together.”
The very first fully digital film, Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, was screened in Los Angeles in 1999. But it took time for theatres to switch over, in part because the new equipment was so expensive.
A single digital projector could cost as much as $150,000 — an eye-popping sum for a theatre with eight screens to convert.
As a result, Anderson says, theatres “fought the change as much as they could until it was shown to them very clearly that the economics made sense.”
Initially, there was little urgency.
From 1999 until the early 2000s, relatively few films were released in a digital format — mostly big-budget offerings, such as Star Wars and Toy Story 2.
Converting came with a host of benefits: the film era required the creation of costly physical copies of movies. The number of times per day a theatre could screen a hit movie was limited by the number of copies they had.
Film also posed logistical challenges: each movie required several reels that were heavy and hard to manipulate, and the process of switching between movies on a projector was time-consuming.
As a result, theatres tended to show only one movie per screen each day. Digitization changed all that, making it effortless to offer more movie variety to consumers.
Still and all, the financial crisis of 2008 continued to slow the transition to digital by making it difficult for theatres to borrow the capital they needed to upgrade their equipment.
But Avatar “acted as a rallying point to get the industry to transition, which James Cameron pushed very hard for,” Anderson explains.
As the highest grossing movie of all time, Avatar was also the first 100% digitally photographed “film” to win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Not since George Lucas’ Attack of the Clones had a director tried to fundamentally change the cinema-going experience and, love him or hate him, James Cameron meant to do just that.
Cameron immersed audiences in the alien world of Pandora by incorporating ground-breaking 3D along with the digital Fusion Camera System to capture his vision, ushering in the final shift towards digital cinema for the majority of movie productions.
From that point on, the conversion process picked up momentum; 90% of movie screens worldwide had gone digital by 2015.
The true effects of the digital transformation became apparent and overall movie variety increased. Smaller theatres with four or fewer screens saw the most noticeable increases, about 11%. In larger theaters, the percentage of screens devoted to blockbusters increased during weekend hours, but decreased on the weekdays, resulting in greater variety during these less-popular times.
In other words, theatres prioritized blockbusters during peak periods and “offered slightly more variety or more niche films during off-peak periods,” Anderson observes. “It’s a more efficient use of their screen space, given the ebb and flow of consumer demand.”
As filmmaker John Boorman noted in a 2023 article in The Guardian, “Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans was the only Best Picture Oscar nominee this year shot on celluloid.”
“For more than 100 years, films have been made of film,” Boorman observes. “Now, instead of a magazine being loaded on to the camera, a card is inserted that electronically records whatever the camera sees.”
“Today, most ‘films’ are made electronically,” says Boorman. “No film is used in the making of them — not the shooting, editing or projection. So they can’t — or shouldn’t — be called films.”
Change, as most of us know, is constant, and inevitable, if in the eyes of cinema purists, “regrettable.”
Perhaps the time has come to change the language we employ to describe what we see at the cinema, or on our screens at home.
Unless a new picture is actually made of film, it should not be called a film.
Perhaps, going forward, we should refer to it as a …
Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen, elected to office on the evening of Saturday, October 15, 2022
Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen is, and has been for a very long time, one of VanRamblings’ closest, and very best friends.
Not to get too maudlin, but Mike Klassen is an executor of VanRamblings’ will — the other two: current Vancouver School Board trustee, Christopher Richardson, and former Vancouver City Councillor, Colleen Hardwick. VanRamblings’ ashes will be thrown off the side of Peter Armstrong’s yacht, which will be temporarily ‘moored’ just off Locarno Beach. Colleen, Mike and Christopher will be on board.
Mike Klassen. On January 17, 2024 as Vancouver experienced a cold spell and a 20mm dump of snow
All of which is to say three things, if you’re wondering where we’re going …
VanRamblings has known and been close friends with Mike Klassen for 30+ years;
In the interest of full disclosure, VanRamblings’ readers should be apprised that you will never, ever, ever read material on this blog that in any, way, shape or form disparages Mike Klassen — although we reserve the right, from time to time, to be critical of a policy decision taken by the good and honourable Councillor;
As VanRamblings expressed to Mike Klassen during the course of the recent holiday season: “I will not allow a disagreement on the future of Park Board, or any other policy issue that may arise, to disrupt or in any way interfere with our friendship.”
In VanRamblings’ world, loyalty counts for something; for a great deal, actually.
Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who topped the polls on election day, October 15, 2022
For many years now, Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung has been VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province: a dedicated, exceptionally bright public servant, who works night and day for citizens (the hardest working pol we’ve ever experienced); and a politician who doesn’t always ‘play by rules’ — which we think, on occasion, is a good thing, a very good thing!
Sarah Kirby-Yung succeeded in having cetacreans — whales and dolphins — in captivity banned at the Vancouver Aquarium during her tenure as Vancouver Park Board Chairperson, despite the fact that the initiative was contrary to the policy of the political party she ran for office with in 2014.
Even in light of the current contretemps surrounding the Park Board ‘abolition’ issue that has caused VanRamblings much consternation, and about which we have been writing endlessly in recent days, our affection, regard and respect for Sarah Kirby-Yung has not lessened one iota — although, in the interest of transparency, we will write that Vancouver Kingsway MP Don Davies has (unknowingly) worked hard in recent days, weeks and months to displace Councillor Kirby-Yung from her august position as VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province.
Of course, VanRamblings is hoping saner heads prevail at Vancouver City Council, that Councillors Kirby-Yung and Klassen will lead the charge to convince Mayor Ken Sim that the time has come to “pull a Doug Ford” — which is to say, reverse his shameful position on eliminating an independent, elected Vancouver Park Board.
Today, 9 a.m., Jan. 25, 2024 | Mayor Ken Sim announces transition team that will lead to abolition of an elected Park Board. Pictured: Mayor Sim, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Brian Montague, Lenny Zhou, Mike Klassen
As someone who campaigned for ABC as a park commissioner, this is not true. Ken and the campaign team were clear that he was not going to abolish the Park Board. I would not have run otherwise. #vanpolihttps://t.co/oLPLTHuiIj
The maintenance of Kits Pool and Aquatic Centre was taken over by the City (under REFM department) and has been poorly managed since. This is not evidence of a broken Park Board. #vanpolhttps://t.co/S2Ti0DabUa
ABC Councillors: Lisa Dominato, 2nd term on Council | Rebecca Bligh, 2nd term, Vancouver City Council
ABC Vancouver Councillors Lisa Dominato, initially Non-Partisan Association Councillors, who switched party affiliations to join the nascent ABC Vancouver civic party seeking office, are serving their second term at Vancouver City Hall.
VanRamblings has known the principled and accomplished Lisa Dominato dating back to the autumn of 2017, when she was elected to the Vancouver School Board as a Board of Education trustee in a by-election that year. A strategic leader with 20 years experience in government administration, public policy, communications and stakeholder relations, Ms. Dominato was responsible for the construction and implementation of British Columbia’s SOGI 123 programme, which provides guidance to educators across our province to help make schools more inclusive and safe for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI).
Rebecca Bligh is a passionate supporter of families, education and the environment who championed Vancouver’s diverse and inclusive communities in her first term of office — as she continues to do today — dedicating herself to helping make Vancouver a more livable city, while serving to address the affordability crisis and issues around public safety and the poisoned drug crisis, working in concert with her colleague, Lisa Dominato. Both make an invaluable contribution to our city.
On balance, VanRamblings believes ABC Vancouver had a good first year in office.
The ABC Councillors also brought a welcome civility back to the Council chambers.
Vancouver City Councillor Brian Montague | Lenny Zhou | and Vancouver City Councillor Peter Meiszner
All 10 Councillors and the Mayor worked as a team over their 12 months in office, arising from the expressed desire of Mayor Ken Sim to work collaboratively with “opposition” Councillors, One City Vancouver’s Christine Boyle — who is having herself some kind of (great) second term — and Greens Adriane Carr and Pete Fry.
There’s a tendency to dehumanize our elected officials — as if they’re not members of our larger family — to criticize the individual rather than the policy, to engage in the politics of character assassination over reasoned, thoughtful debate.
Was VanRamblings happy when the ABC Vancouver Councillors collectively decided to undo our City’s Livable Wage Programme, mandating that suppliers of goods and services to the City pay a living wage to their employees, currently in the $24-an-hour range? Absolutely not. We thought it was an abomination.
Which is to say, when you have a City Council where the average annual Councillor salary tops well over $100,000, it’s not just bad optics but borders on the inhumane, when you — as a majority ABC Vancouver Council — set about to cut the wages of working people struggllng to get by in Canada’s most expensive city.
VanRamblings realizes that the 36.3% of the Vancouver electorate who bothered to turn out at the polls in October 2022 to elect a new Vancouver City Council, did not cast their ballot the way they did to please VanRamblings as their priority for a new Council. ABC Vancouver won fair and square (unlike Donald Trump, we’re not given to saying things are ‘rigged’ when events don’t unfold as we might wish).
Dan Fumano, Postmedia: ABC Vancouver returns $116,000 in prohibited donations from 2022 election
VanRamblings will continue to be critical of our city’s majority ABC Vancouver City Council, involving their collective decision to attempt to eliminate a cherished 133-year-old environmental institution, the Vancouver Park Board. At no point, though, will we publish rhetoric that dehumanizes our ABC Vancouver elected officials.
