by Jay Onrait
Just as the family of four walked past, I yelled “SHIT!” and karate-kicked the garbage can like I was Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid Part III, knocking it over and spilling its dirty contents on the ground. The whole incident was over in a split second, and I was instantly embarrassed and a little shocked by what I had done. I turned around to see the family staring at me, the father grabbing his children by the shoulders and leading them away from the monster I had become.
“Sorry!” I yelled out to no avail. Reid just turned away and started walking toward the car in silence. So much for the jovial bonding session that we’d planned back in Toronto.
After a couple more hours in the car, during which I lay across the backseat in agony while Reid put the pedal to the metal with Weezer cranked to full blast, trying to get us to Pittsburgh as soon as possible so he could finally separate himself from me and my bowels, we finally made it to the outskirts of the city. The whole time we were driving I stared at the ceiling of the vehicle trying to figure out what the hell was causing me to feel this way. And then it hit me.
It was the Goddamned orange juice.
Suddenly, all those glasses of apple juice were starting to look pretty good.
The OJ was just too acidic for my sensitive stomach, and it was wreaking havoc in a way that nothing had ever done before.
The highway we were on was thankfully not that busy, and Reid was in an understandably strange state—unsure of the road, with its many tunnels. As I felt sicker and sicker in the back, and as I discovered the culprit of my peril, I got more and more vocal: “Fucking orange juice. Fucking orange juice . . .” I kept muttering as Reid turned up the volume on Pinkerton. “If I ever go back to Wilkes-Barre, I’m going to find the chef from that hotel and kick him right in the nuts.” Reid felt helpless. He was such a people pleaser and there was nothing he could do. I was making him more uncomfortable than any acidic beverage could ever make me. I consoled myself with the knowledge that this long nightmare of a drive would soon be over.
Instead of GPS or a navigation system, we had literally printed out dozens of Google maps, so one of us would have to navigate while the other drove. This was just a bit before GPS systems were commonplace on smart phones. Our system had been working quite well until I went and consumed too much acidic morning beverage and destroyed my insides. Now Reid was forced to drive and navigate through a city he had never set foot in. Our hotel was at Exit 4. I was in the back becoming more and more uncomfortable and subsequently more and more belligerent. “Why haven’t we made it yet? Are we there yet? I’m about to paint the back of this car with my poop if you don’t drive faster.”
Reid would respond, frantic, both hands gripping the wheel: “We’re getting there, man. I haven’t been to Pittsburgh before!” In other words, the usual conversation between two dudes on a baseball road trip. The exit numbers were descending from high to low as we approached downtown, and therefore Reid deduced that we were on the right track. I continued to be a belligerent asshole in the backseat.
“That chef is a dead man . . . that chef is a dead man . . .”
Reid kept his eyes on the exit signs.
We passed Exit 7.
We passed Exit 5.
We passed Exit 3.
Reid looked back, his face painted with agony. “I don’t know what to tell you, Jay. I think we missed Exit 4.”
“You son of a bitch!” I said. “I’m dying back here!”
We hit Exit 2. Then we went into a tunnel. “Jay, I’m going to have to double back and try to find it.”
I wasn’t even listening by this point. How was I going to hold on? I was just daydreaming about toilets—toilets with big comfy seats. Remember the ones at your grandmother’s house with the squishy, comfortable seats and the soft shaggy rug covers for the lid? I wanted to embrace one of those toilets at that moment. I wanted to hug it like it was my long-lost child—a baby I had given up for adoption that was now in my arms and ready for me to sit and shit on. Granted, that’s kind of a strange baby/parent relationship, but don’t judge my parenting techniques. I was a desperate man. Tears were literally beginning to stream down my face.
Then suddenly, we emerged from the tunnel. And there it was. Exit 4.
It didn’t matter how completely messed up the Pittsburgh interstate exit system was in our minds; what mattered was that the second Reid pulled onto the Exit 4 off-ramp, he saw the hotel.
“I see it!” he proclaimed, a man so very happy at the thought that he’d soon get away from my company.
He wheeled into the entrance of the hotel and parked as close to the lobby as he could, and I sprinted inside with the speed of an escaped convict who’d just had the spotlight shone on him during a midnight jailbreak. There was a public restroom in the lobby, and I made that public restroom my bitch for the next ten minutes while Reid checked in. We met back at the car.
“We have to move the car,” I said.
“Why?” asked Reid, who was probably seconds away from hitting a man in a violent rage for the first time in his entire life.
“Because when we pulled up I was in such a rush to empty my bowels that I put a dent in this car next to us.”
We both looked at the door of the car next to us. The dent was huge.
“Let’s move the car,” said Reid.
By the time we got to our rooms, my bowels were once again calling out for a toilet. I decided to skip the toilet altogether this time and just go for the tub. As George Costanza once said, “It’s all pipes!”
While I was continuing to deposit every remaining ounce of waste in my body into the plumbing of that roadside hotel, Reid went downstairs to the business centre to check his email. He’d been waiting on some news about a job. One of the sportscasters at CTV Edmonton was going on maternity leave and there was a fill-in job up for grabs. Despite the uncertainty over where it would lead after the year was up, Reid was more determined than ever to get that job. And once again, he was easily the most qualified person for it.
After about fifteen minutes of hanging my ass over the edge of the tub, I heard a light knock on the door of my room. I said, “Just a second!” and washed up before answering it. A dejected Reid entered the room. Amazingly, he did not pass out from the smell in the bathroom. He just stood in front of the television set.
“I didn’t get the job in Edmonton.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting that. “I’m sorry, man.”
“And I quit my job in Lloydminster”
Wow!
“I’m just done. I called my old boss and gave him my two weeks’ notice.” He was practically in tears.
In years past I would have tried to talk him out of it, to tell him to stick things out at least until he found something—anything—else. Then I remembered what I had said on the subway. It was time to move on. The decision had already been made. The strange thing was that as conservative as I usually was about these things, I thought he had made the right decision and I had given him the right advice.
“CTV Edmonton gave the job to my weekend guy,” he explained.
Now I really thought he had made the right decision.
At some point, we all come to grips with the fact that television is a visual medium, and often the best and most talented journalists and broadcasters don’t catch their big breaks. Reid wasn’t as handsome as his younger, much less experienced and less qualified weekend guy. He’d literally taught that weekend guy everything he knew about the business, but the weekend guy probably looked like a frat boy, and that’s what news directors wanted in their sports anchor.
When people ask me how they should put together a demo tape, I think back to the advice I was given by a news director some years ago: Begin with a montage of you, just you, doing on-camera reads. Stand-ups, at the news desk, whatever. Basically you’re giving the news director a chance to decide if he or she likes the look of you. Before that news director ever has a chance to determine how good a journalist you are, they need to determi
ne if their audience will actually want to turn on their television and look at you every night. If the answer is “no” then sadly no amount of journalistic expertise is going to land you that job.
There is a terrific sports anchor who has worked at Global Television Vancouver (formerly BCTV) for years named Squire Barnes. He is funny, he’s sharp, and his delivery is understated and unique. Squire is a truly different personality and has become extremely popular in the market. He also looks like the kind of guy who would dress up in costume to attend the San Diego Comic Con. In other words, he’s not your typical sportscaster. But somewhere along the line someone took a chance on Squire and it worked. Reid never got that chance, never had a person in a position of power like Squire and I had who believed in him.
Meanwhile, back in Pittsburgh, I had to excuse myself and return to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet this time like a normal person, or as normal as I could pretend to be given the situation. Reid detailed his new, hastily constructed life plan to me through the bathroom door, competing with my loud and violent shits, which he ignored as if I were his family dog. He would sell his place in Lloydminster and return to Edmonton. He would take some more time off and then try to figure out where he wanted life to take him.
“Good for you, buddy!” I said, before letting out a loud PFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTT from the bathroom.
After about ten minutes of discussion and pooping, Reid checked his watch and realized he had to go if he was going to make the start of the Pirates game.
“Fuck it, I’m coming with you!” I said.
I didn’t care how sick I was. I wasn’t going to leave my buddy alone while he was downtrodden and trying to figure out the next step of his life. Reid had bravely driven me across the state of Pennsylvania while I was belligerent, verbally abusive to him, and suffering from a violent stomach bug. The least I could do was suck it up and make sure he wasn’t alone that night.
So I turned on the water in the tub and scrubbed my ass one last time—if I had a Brillo pad I probably would have run it up and down the crack just to make sure I got everything. Then a quick change of clothes and we were off to PNC Park. The park truly was the highlight of the trip—perhaps the most perfect ballpark I had ever seen. Smaller than most of the other parks we had visited, at around 35,000 seats—about the size of Fenway—but the layout was spectacular. Same with the food and the view of the Roberto Clemente Bridge, perfectly situated just beyond the outfield. We somehow ran into Devin Steigerwald, son of Pittsburgh Penguins play-by-play announcer Paul Steigerwald, and he talked about the years of frustration Bucs fans had been forced to suffer through since Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, and Jim Leyland had left town in the early 1990s. We had a terrific time.
My one regret is that I didn’t get a chance to eat one of the famous Primanti Brothers sandwiches—the family had a location in the park and they were apparently a must-try. My stomach, while finally starting to feel a bit better, just wasn’t quite up to the task.
DAY SIX
The next day we drove to Cleveland and in the course of one day miraculously saw the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a Cleveland Indians game at Jacobs Field against the Minnesota Twins—all before driving the six hours back to Toronto. To say I would like to return to have a longer visit to “the Cleve” would be an understatement. The Pro Football Hall of Fame was great but admittedly a bit underwhelming compared with its baseball counterpart. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a mindblower. I was engrossed in a display about handwritten lyrics by Sting for the Police when I suddenly realized the place was closing and I hadn’t even seen half of it. Someday I will drag my kids there and force them to stand and listen as I explain why it was fashionable for Elvis to wear bedazzled jumpsuits on stage.
When we got home, Reid followed through on his promise to quit his job and move back to Edmonton. Not long after that he got a job as a news producer with A-Channel and then returned to his true love, sports, as the host of Inside Sports and the pre- and post-game shows on Edmonton Oilers broadcasts for 630 CHED, a station I had grown up listening to when it was a Top 40 juggernaut. Now CHED is an all-news-and-talk station, and they have the radio rights to broadcast the Oilers and Edmonton Eskimos games from the NHL and CFL. Reid finally found someone who believed in him, and every once in a while he’ll call me up and I’ll appear on his show. We don’t break out the sociopathic Chris Cuthbert impersonations anymore, but we do discuss our ill-fated baseball trip on occasion. It was a life changer for both of us in so many ways. Reid learned that he had to take a different path to get what he wanted. I learned to never again touch a glass of orange juice.
Chapter 9
Some Time in New York City
My first trip to New York City was back in 1996—a nine-hour bus ride with a few dozen Ryerson students from the radio and television arts program. In those days, New York was still in its pre-Giuliani cleanup mode and Times Square was still a porny wasteland neon dump. We went to legendary Lower East Side music venue CBGB, where the likes of the Talking Heads, Blondie, and the Ramones had all hit it big, but the experience was lost on most of my fellow classmates, who couldn’t figure out why we were going to a run-down dive bar in the Bowery instead of a “cool” club like the Limelight. I also dragged a group of friends to Dangerfield’s Comedy Club all the way out in Queens because I knew that was where Andrew Dice Clay had recorded his The Day the Laughter Died comedy album. Blissfully unaware of New York City’s geography at the time, we all piled into a cab from Manhattan instead of riding on the subway. The comics were okay, but they would probably have been just as good if we’d gone to Carolines in Times Square. After that experience, and the overpriced drinks at Dangerfield’s, I was never allowed to plan another outing in New York ever again.
A couple years later, my best friend, Peter Sayn-Wittgenstein, was offered the use of an Upper West Side apartment for the weekend and invited me along for a trip. On the flight down I read a Details magazine, back when people actually read magazines. I was captivated by an article about Michael Alig, a notorious “club kid” on New York’s nightlife scene and a close associate of Canadian-born Manhattan club owner Peter Gatien. The article went into great detail about the fact that Alig had maybe, possibly, chopped up and killed his drug dealer “Angel” in a drug-induced haze, stored him in his bathtub for several days, and then dumped him in the Hudson River. Eventually, Alig was convicted of the crime and sent to jail, but at that point, he was still living freely in New York City, even though pretty much everyone assumed he was guilty.
Our first evening in New York, Peter and I decided to try to be social, so we made our way down to the Bowery Bar, which at the time was one of the hottest nightspots in all of Manhattan. It was located not far from CBGB in an area on the verge of gentrification after years of being a dangerous part of the city. We walked toward the door with absolutely no hope of getting past the massive bouncer since we were two dudes wearing T-shirts with Corn Pops boxes on the front, as well as baggy, unwashed cargo pants.
Suddenly, I spotted Michael Alig wandering toward the club with a group of underage boys trailing behind, who all looked like they’d just arrived off the bus from Iowa. In an uncharacteristically bold move, I approached the club kid:
“Is your name Michael?” (Brilliant opening line, Onrait.)
“Yesss,” he answered with understandable reluctance.
“Alig?”
“Yesss,” he answered again, wondering what the hell I wanted.
“Can we get in here with you?” I asked, fully aware that I was likely about to enter NYC’s hottest club with a man who was capable of chopping me into pieces and storing me in his bathtub for a few days.
“Uh, okay,” said Alig. And like that, we were in! We were just cute enough for a killer! (That was also an alternative title for this book.)
Once through the door, Alig and his merry band of underage boy toys disappeared. But he had provided our passport to Manhattan debauchery
, and later that evening I passed out drunk on a small table in the club and was asked to leave.
These days, when Chobi and I visit New York City we are less concerned about which clubs we’re going to hit than making sure we get into the best restaurants of the moment. It’s time I made a horrifying confession: My wife and I are foodies. That’s right, the dreaded “f” word. We’ve spent many nights bonding over our mutual love of celebrity chefs, overhyped restaurants lit exclusively with Edison bulbs and furnished with reclaimed wood, and the Food Network. Our television-watching schedule breaks down like this: fifty percent sports networks, forty percent Food Network, and ten percent premium cable. I make no apologies for being a foodie. It’s fun! However, the foodie movement of the early 2000s brought along with it a frustrating, if understandable, trend: the “no reservation policy” restaurant.
In an effort to keep every seat full, while creating the illusion of demand, many restaurants—including our favourite Toronto restaurant Pizzeria Libretto—simply did not accept reservations, operating instead on a first come, first served basis. This way, no seat ever goes empty and there’s always a lineup at the door, or more likely a crowd uncomfortably sandwiched into a small bar at the entryway, awkwardly holding drinks elbow high while simultaneously giving the stink-eye to patrons lingering over their desserts and coffee. Waiting in restaurants like this always gives me flashbacks to that 2 Live Crew concert in Edmonton. But if the food’s good enough, I’m willing to play along.
The Spotted Pig in New York is the epitome of another cringe-inducing modern food movement, the gastropub. The concept, of course, involves taking the humble place around the corner where everyone knows your name and elevating the food options beyond ploughman’s lunch and chicken wings. In the case of the Pig, they brought in some real culinary heavy hitters. Mario Batali, the venerable Italian-American chef, seemed to be nothing more than an investor/consultant, but adding his name to any restaurant always lends cachet. The head chef, English-born April Bloomfield, has made a name for herself elevating versions of English Pub classics. But perhaps the most interesting investor at the Pig is New York hip hop icon Jay-Z, aka Jay-Hova, Shawn Carter, the new king of New York, Beyoncé’s lesser half, and the subject of elevator beatdowns by disgruntled sisters-in-law. The Pig, with all of its faux historical interiors and rich mahogany wood, couldn’t be further from the Brooklyn projects where Jay-Z grew up. The place has been raved about online and on television, and it also happens to be in one of the nicest parts of Manhattan’s West Village, about as “idyllic New York” as it gets.