by Jay Onrait
As the crew laughed at my bad luck and complete incompetence, I couldn’t help but wonder if some poor insomniac, who also suffered from stomach and back pain, had found my card on the sidewalk and was right this minute walking into a medical marijuana dispensary to buy some much needed “medicine” using the name Jay Onrait. Hopefully he’d appreciate all the time, money, and hard work I’d put into getting that card but he was likely too stoned to care.
Chapter 11
The Anchorboy Press Tour, Part 1: Getting Bumped for Rob Ford
If you purchased this book it’s safe to say you probably read Anchorboy. Finishing that book was the culmination of a lifelong dream for me. I’d always considered myself a writer first and a broadcaster second, and I had always wanted to be a published writer and have my work available in bookstores. If I never had the chance to publish another book I knew I could live with myself for having accomplished the task at least once.
As exciting as the idea of finishing a book was to me, one of the other things I used to dream about extensively was embarking on an elaborate and lavish press tour to promote said book. Being that I was in the corps of the Canadian media, and that in Anchorboy I wrote about the shortcomings and overall lack of dollars available to Canadian media and how it led to other shortcomings and downfalls in my career, you would have thought I might have been prepared for what was to come. Having said that, I had never published a book before and had no idea how the process worked in this day and age.
Like most people who love to read, I love to browse the local bookstores (those bookstores that are still open, anyway) any time I get the opportunity. And like most people I have wandered around a bookstore when an author has made an in-store appearance to promote his or her new book, perhaps to read a chapter or two and sign autographs for fans of their work. And like most people I have witnessed such authors sitting there, lonely, sad, and desperate, like a twelve-year-old girl at a junior high school prom waiting for someone to ask her to dance. There may be nothing more devastating in this world than seeing someone so proud of the art they’ve created sit there and come to the startling realization that absolutely no one else gives a shit.
My friend and NHL on TSN host James Duthie embarked on a small version of a press tour for his 2011 book The Day I (Almost) Killed Two Gretzkys (a book we would often promote on our old show using the improved and modified title The Day I Tried to Murder Wayne Gretzky, under the guise that sensationalism always sells). James regaled me with tales of a dozen or so people showing up at the downtown Chapters in Vancouver. Twitter had just started to sink its claws into the collective consciousness of the sports media world, so getting the word out on his heavily followed Twitter account was really the only way to get the word out. The truth is there are very few Jonathan Franzens and Michael Chabons out there who can draw big crowds to bookstores to hear them read their books and answer a few questions. Still, walking past the Barnes and Noble on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica just a few blocks from where I now live, I still see a long roster of authors coming to speak and ply their trade for the reading public. The book tour still exists, but like all of book publishing it has been modified to adapt to the times we live in. So, for Anchorboy, instead of my dreamed-of two-week trek across the country, I did a two-day media blitz in Toronto, participating in a series of interviews on local and national shows, all culminating in a couple of bookstore appearances and signings.
My first stop on Day One was Canada AM with my former Olympic Morning partner Beverly Thomson at the CTV studios at 9 Channel Nine Court in Scarborough, the same studios where Dan and I hosted SportsCentre for ten years. It felt somewhat like showing up at your ex-girlfriend’s house, a little uncomfortable and weird but at the same time familiar. The interview with Bev could not have gone any better, and she even allowed her son to take the morning off school just so he could come in and meet me.
In a way it is always bittersweet when I run into Bev now. I wonder what might have happened had we been paired together on a show long-term. The chemistry between us is always there right away, but more than that it’s the fact that Beverly is such a true professional, so kind and warm, the exact type of person you would want hosting your morning show.
After a few goodbye hugs it was a quick stroll down the hall for an interview on CTV News Channel with Jacqueline Milczarek. I remember seeing Jacquie hosting the late-night news on Global Toronto in the late ’90s and early aughts and thinking she was a stone-cold fox. I got the distinct impression that Jacquie had not read my book and barely had any help with potential questions. In fact, judging by the questions Jacquie asked me, I came to the quick realization that she had pulled an old trick I used back at The Big Breakfast during my A-Channel Manitoba days. She read the book description on the cover and made up the questions from there. Clever girl, that Jacquie. And besides, what author could ever expect an interviewer to read their entire book before an interview? Sure, it would have been nice, but I certainly didn’t do it when I was interviewing authors.
While hosting The Big Breakfast in Winnipeg back in 1999, I was scheduled to do an interview with Booker prize–winning Australian author Peter Carey of Oscar and Lucinda fame. Carey had just completed and was promoting his new novel, a work of historical fiction called True History of the Kelly Gang. I was a twenty-five-year-old morning host who was given the book two days in advance. The chances of me tearing through that tome in forty-eight hours were somewhere between slim and none. So I pulled some questions from the jacket copy, and since Carey’s a pretty affable guy and a veteran of a million interviews, the eight-minute segment ended up being pretty fun and more than adequate.
The exact opposite would likely have occurred had Margaret Atwood showed up to promote her newly published novel, The Blind Assassin, on our show. Atwood was on a major book tour across Canada at the time, and we had managed to secure her for four minutes on our little morning show, leading our main entertainment news host, David J. Roberts, to regale me with horror stories of himself and others who had been charged with interviewing the venerable Canadian titan of arts and letters in the past. The underlying message of interviewing Ms. Atwood: She did not suffer fools gladly and you’d best be prepared. So, just as I had read the entirety of Moby Dick in forty-eight bleary-eyed, coffee-fuelled hours leading up to a written exam in first-year English at the University of Alberta, I dove headfirst into her book, took notes, and wrote down the most intelligent set of questions I could muster. With sweat beading on my upper lip the morning Atwood was set to arrive, we received a call at the last minute saying she had run late at a previous interview and with sincere apologies could not make it to our show. I don’t know if I have ever felt more relieved to have something not work out in my life.
Following the interview with Jacquie I made my way downtown to 299 Queen Street West, the MuchMusic building. En route, my HarperCollins publicist was dispatched to the Burger’s Priest a few blocks down Queen Street, just past Spadina Avenue, to grab us both a quick bite of lunch. The Burger’s Priest has without a doubt the finest burgers in the city of Toronto and even a secret menu ordering system akin to the famous secret menu at the American In-N-Out Burger chain. I requested a “High Priest,” their take on a Big Mac complete with special sauce, and made my way over to the CP24 newsroom where I would be interviewed by Stephen LeDrew.
I had been interviewed by Stephen once before, while promoting the Kraft Celebration Tour with Dan, and found him to be just a delight. I love men who have their own sartorial style, and Stephen has it in droves: shaved pate, well-cut suits, and most importantly a requisite bow tie and signature red eyeglasses. He is well versed in Ontario provincial politics and Toronto city politics and has been kicking around CityTV for a few years as a commentator and host of their noon show. I figured this would be one of the easier interviews of the day, and my good relationship with everyone at CP24 meant I might be able to try something different and fun.
I was to be given a t
hree-minute segment right around 12:15, just when my publicist got back with my burger from Burger’s Priest. Therefore, I thought it might be fun if I brought the burger out on set with me for the interview and scarfed it down right in front of Stephen while he asked me questions. Now that I think about it, the whole thing kind of sounds disgusting, but it sure seemed funny when Jay Leno used to bring gyros onto the set of Late Night with David Letterman and eat them while Dave asked Jay about life on the road as a comic. At the very least, it might make people stop and take a closer look, which was important on the CP24 News Channel because the screen is always jammed full of clutter—an ongoing traffic and news scroll, a five-day weather forecast, an ad or two jammed in there, and finally up in the top corner a small window with the actual newscast.
I waited patiently in the CP24 green room, where former Canadian Olympic bike racer and Pert shampoo commercial star Curt Harnett was waiting to be on the show to promote a charity event that weekend. Curt is famous both for being an Olympian and for possessing Olympic-worthy locks of curly blond hair that he often holds back from his head with a pair of Oakley sunglasses. I found him to be a genuinely nice guy and was having a delightful conversation with the man when I was suddenly summoned from the green room by a producer with a headset and informed that I would be on in three minutes.
Stephen greeted me warmly and cracked a few jokes about whether or not I had actually written the book myself. He had a warm and friendly nature about him and was pretty amused by my little burger prank. I offered Stephen some fries and asked him how his family was doing, but he was more interested in hearing about Los Angeles and life at Fox. We made some small talk and before I knew it the three-minute commercial break was up. “Here we go!” said Stephen.
STEPHEN: Jay Onrait is here to discuss his new book, Anchorboy, and to eat his lunch as well . . .
JAY: Have you ever been to the Burger’s Priest down the street, Stephen?
STEPHEN: Yeah, what is that you have there?
JAY: Why don’t you try one of these fries? This is a High Priest. Have you heard of their secret menu, Ste—
STEPHEN (interrupting): Jay, I’m going to have to cut you off there. It appears Toronto mayor Rob Ford is speaking to the media. Let’s go live to Queen’s Park . . .
I was a little startled.
By now you probably know the incredibly bizarre tale of Toronto’s overindulgent mayor and part-time crack aficionado, Rob Ford. To put the timeline in perspective: Toronto Star reporter Robyn Doolittle and the website Gawker had claimed to have seen Ford in a crudely shot video that took place at the house of a drug dealer near the city’s Jane and Finch area. In it, they claimed the mayor smoked crack cocaine out of a pipe with at least two other men who were known criminals, one of whom had been killed just three months previously. To that point, no actual footage of the video had been made public, just a still shot of Ford standing with the two men. Doolittle and other reporters who claimed to have seen it staked their reputations on the fact that it was indeed Ford in the video. Up until that point, the embattled mayor had denied all allegations. That particular day, however, something changed in the mayor’s strategy for dealing with the scandal. Either he or someone in his camp had clearly seen the tape and determined the footage was real, or his lawyer had decided that a more open strategy needed to be taken. That morning, Rob Ford was about to shock the shit out of the city of Toronto and most of North America.
CP24 cut away from me and Stephen directly to a swarm of reporters surrounding Mayor Ford just outside Toronto’s City Hall. The questions had already begun, but there was a strange tone to the proceedings. I tried to listen as I stuffed french fry after french fry into my big mouth. The entire newsroom was practically silent—a very unusual situation.
“What was that question you asked me back in May?” said Ford to no reporter in particular. The reporter and his fellow press corps thought for a second to try to determine exactly what the mayor was getting at.
“What did you ask me back in May? You can ask me again,” repeated Ford.
Finally one of the reporters went for it: “Have you ever smoked crack cocaine?”
“There you go,” said Ford, and then paused. “Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine.”
Well, there goes my interview, I thought to myself.
I have never in my life heard an entire working television newsroom make a collective audible gasp like they did when Ford uttered those six words. Imagine everything that these people had been privy to in their lifetimes covering the news on a daily basis: murder, rape, various types of injustice both at home and abroad. Someone who has to cover this kind of horrifying behaviour and its consequences every single day will eventually start to become numb. Sending an entire television newsroom into a state of shock would take a truly significant event. This was that significant event.
Everyone looked at each other with mouths agape. About two full seconds went by before the news director took charge of the situation and began to bark out orders to her assignment editors and writers. To a veteran news director this was like winning the lottery. Before this, most people just speculated that the Rob Ford crack tape existed but they would likely never see it. News and gossip website Gawker had raised enough money to purchase the tape through a Kickstarter fund, but they had lost contact with the reported owner of the video and donated the funds to charity instead. But clearly, someone in the Ford camp had seen the tape or at least decided it was a real thing, and now they had chosen to get ahead of the story by issuing a public mea culpa. The mayor of Toronto, fourth largest city in North America, was telling a group of gathered reporters that he had smoked crack cocaine.
I dropped the french fry that had been situated between my thumb and forefinger when I heard the news. I looked at Stephen as he turned to me.
“I think your interview is over,” he said.
“I know.”
Stephen tried to apologize but I was having none of it. I had been in the business long enough to know when a writer was going to get bumped, and getting bumped because the mayor of Canada’s largest city admitted to smoking crack on live television was a pretty respectable way to get bumped.
My only concern was the remainder of the day. I still had several television and radio interviews left to go. Would anyone have time for me now that their resources were going to be dedicated to covering this new Ford revelation? Furthermore, what about the reading public? Would any of them even remember any of the interviews if all their attention had been justifiably taken away by this breakthrough? Was there a chance that all the hard work I had done to promote the book could be completely wiped away by the confessions of an overweight and drug-addicted sensualist who was guiding civic politics in the Greater Toronto Area? I tried not to let it depress me as I sheepishly wandered back toward the green room, with the audio technician who had put a microphone on me chasing after me to get his mic back. I made some more small talk with Curt Harnett, who had also been bumped from his segment, and then collected my things and left. Rob Ford, I thought to myself, what a fucking asshole.
Chapter 12
The Anchorboy Press Tour, Part 2: Old Friends
The old MuchMusic studio—a studio that has hosted countless famous musicians and countless VJs introducing countless poorly shot Canadian videos—is now home to The Social, a daytime talk show in the vein of ABC’s The View. The Social is the brainchild of Melissa Grelo. Melissa co-hosted our Olympic Morning coverage back in Vancouver 2010 up in Whistler, and much like me she received positive reviews and praise, plus a general sense that it might lead to a career boost once she returned home. Unfortunately, also like me, she received no such advancement or promotion after Olympic Morning. In the case of Melissa, though, it had nothing to do with her talent and certainly nothing to do with her looks (she’s a knockout). Rather, it seemed to have everything to do with the biggest problem facing Canadian television since the industry began—a lack of shows. There was simply nowhere to move Me
lissa that wouldn’t have meant jettisoning a perfectly capable host out of an already occupied spot.
For the two years following the Vancouver Olympics, Melissa and I would meet regularly for coffee and basically lament the lack of progress in our careers. I kept her up to date on my ultimately failed attempt to launch a Canadian version of The Soup, and she kept me up to date on her continuing attempts to launch a Canadian version of The View. Ultimately, through dogged persistence and a staggering work ethic, Melissa prevailed in her quest, and CTV agreed to put the show on right after The Marilyn Denis Show starting in the fall of 2013, just before Anchorboy hit the shelves. The catch? Melissa was going to continue as co-host of the CP24 morning show. That meant Mel would be working almost twelve-hour days for the chance to realize her dream of her own Canadian daytime talk show. But it was her own choice; the tenuous nature of Canadian television success made her feel it was necessary. Welcome once again to the glamorous world of Canadian TV!
To promote my book, I was going to join the cast of The Social as the fifth co-host. I figured the show would give me the perfect opportunity to reach exactly the right audience for Anchorboy: moms, moms, and more moms—the kind of moms who would (hopefully) be searching for that perfect gift to put in their son’s or husband’s stocking for the Christmas season. All I had to do was be charming and funny.
Melissa was hosting that afternoon alongside another Olympic Morning veteran from Vancouver, Elaine “Lainey” Lui. As I walked into the studio, I saw Lainey sitting at a table in the middle of the room checking her phone, every few seconds taking a big pull off an e-cigarette that she kept close by. I sat down next to her, and we began chatting about her move to Vancouver. She was born and raised in Toronto, but like many Torontonians who find themselves in Vancouver for work, school, or whatever, she never had a desire to come back east. Vancouver has that amazing pull for so many people. Lainey had her own business with her megapopular website and really didn’t need to be in the so-called centre of the Canadian media universe full time. She expressed no desire to ever return to Toronto, despite the fact that she spoke with her mom daily and her mom lived there. But the lure of being one of the stars on The Social was obviously enough to finally convince her and her husband to make the cross-country move. It was hard to tell if she was enjoying herself because it was always hard to tell if she was enjoying herself. But I was happy to see her. I may or may not have had a mild crush.