September 7, 2022 scottcjones

So I’ve been cleaning a bookstore in Chinatown for the past couple of months. On Tuesday mornings. I put on some old clothes, affect a smile, and take the R5 bus to the store, on Georgia Street.

I like the work. More than I expected to like it. I like mopping floors, dusting shelves, sorting recycling. It’s good, honest work.

I don’t know Chinatown all that well, honestly. Because of Chinatown’s proximity to the misery  of “Tent City” on Hastings and Main, like most Vancouverites, I tend to give this section of the city a wide berth, if I can.

Which is a shame.

Beyond the prone bodies and strewn garbage is a rich and vibrant, and unknown part of Vancouver.

This is a part of Vancouver that I have gotten to know, well, more intimately, thanks to the bookstore job.

There is a very old Italian market located on Main Street. I walk by the market every Tuesday. The place captivates me. The market is shuttered now. But, clearly, it was once a beautiful store, in another time. The storefront is filled with boxed pastas and canned tomatoes, all covered with fine dust. The store looks almost petrified, in stasis; the way that Pompeii must have looked after the eruption of Vesuvius.

It’s as if time outright stopped on this one block of Main Street. As if someone closed the market’s door and locked it one day forty or fifty years ago, and never looked back.

After my shift at the bookstore yesterday morning, I was hustling back to the bus stop at Hastings and Main in the early afternoon sun. I was adjusting my mask (still wearing it, yes). I had a thousand different things on my mind. A hand suddenly tapped me on the shoulder.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

I assumed it was a homeless person, looking for change. Against my better judgment, I stopped and I turned. An old man was standing next to me. The old man mouthed a string of incomprehensible words at me. 

And, being the city-savvy person I am (I’ve lived in cities – – Chicago, New York, and Toronto – – since my early 20’s now), I kept moving, kept on adjusting my mask.

Then I had a thought: Did that old man ask me for help?

My feet stopped. I turned. The old man was still standing there. He was short. As bald as an acorn. He was shrugging his shoulders for some reason. He looked small. Helpless, too. A kitchen apron, dusted with what appeared to be flour, was tied around his wait. “I need-a help,” the old man said in an Italian accent.

 

 

January 16, 2023 scottcjones 1Comment

Nordstroms in downtown Vancouver is as sombre as a church in the mornings. I know this because I went there in the spring of 2022 to apply for a bartending job. The store’s typically ritzy theatrics – – wide aisles, waxed floors, racks of $180 collared shirts – – are tranquil and gloomy when the store is devoid of people.

It was 10:45. Tuesday. I needed to see manager Naomi Byrne about a bartending job, and, hopefully, make a memorable impression on her.

I had dressed myself in leftover TV clothes – – vintage shirt with pearl buttons, threadbare Harry Rosen blazer. I practiced my tepid smile in one of the blinding mirrors in the Nordstrom’s makeup department. Harsh truth: I have a lousy smile. My whole family can’t smile for beans for some inexplicable reason. Our teeth are fine. But our faces simply are not inclined to execute a warm smile. In every family photo from my childhood, you can see all four of us – – mom, dad, me, my brother – – coaxing our faces into unnatural shapes.

A security gate was blocking the restaurant’s entrance. Behind the shuttered gate, a series of leather banquet booths, as vacant as pews, stretched to the restaurant’s bright windows. A hollow-sounding muzak was coming from a set of invisible speakers. Ambiguous cooking smells were wafting from a kitchen somewhere within.

I was early. Therefore, I had time to kill – – fifteen minutes or so – – before I could make my formal arrival at 11 o’clock. Didn’t want to appear overanxious or desperate or anything, obviously. I found a quiet area near the department store’s elevators. I took a seat on one of the Nordstroms’ welcoming lounge chairs, and attempted to soothe myself – – in vain, of course – – with calming thoughts.

This is a silly restaurant job, I told myself. That’s all this is. I’ll charm this Naomi Byrne person and begin my training tout de suite… Look out, top o’ the world: Here I come.

That is not what happened. 

What happened was this: Naomi Byrne, looking enviably fresh faced and bright (and annoyingly young) after her presumably restful vacation, told me, point blank, that the position I was applying for had been filled. It was filled weeks ago. The ad for the job, which I had found online, was dated. Naomi, trying to be kind, asked me when I had last waited tables or tended bar. I told her it was in Chicago. In the mid 90’s. Naomi, who was sharp, did a bit of math in her head. Then she asked me a question that landed like a blow to my midsection: “So then,” she began, “you haven’t waited tables or bartended in nearly thirty years?”

She moved behind the hostess stand as she asked me this. Her eyes, I noticed, were a soft lavender color. She was pretty. Tired. Ambitious. Healthy. She blinked once, then waited for a response…

Was it possible that almost thirty years had passed since I’d waited tables? That couldn’t be right… Could it be right…? Because thirty years sounded like an absurd length of time.

Naomi said that if she did hire me – – which she didn’t think she could do at that moment in time (again: job was filled weeks ago, remember) – – then she’d have no alternative but to start me off as a lowly trainee. “You’d have to learn the ropes for a few weeks, before we could even consider assigning you a section,” she matter-of-factly explained. She handed me her business card. Told me that they might have “something” in the next month or two. That I should stay in touch for the moment. She said that there was plenty of turnover in the service business. Which gave me hope, obviously. Then, like the good Canadian she was, Naomi apologized for not being able to offer me anything tangible right now, then sent me on my merry way.

I retreated from the restaurant. My legs were numb. I felt like I’d been anesthetized somehow. This was not the result I’d hoped for, of course. This was not the barnstorming that I’d imagined it would be. I’d hoped that Nordstrom’s/Naomi would be dazzled by my forthrightness – – how I had just showed up, in person – – can you believe this guy? how bold he is? – – and how my forthrightness told them everything they needed to know about my character. I also assumed (hoped?) Naomi might have remembered me from my TV days. It was possible. People still stopped me in the streets from time to time…

Instead, what I learned was that it has been nearly thirty years since I’d last worked in a restaurant. Had three decades really elapsed since that time? It seemed that it had, yes.

And that if I was hired by Nordstrom’s, that I would have to be a 53-year-old trainee, fetching teas (side note: waiters loathe serving tea because it is cheap, and absurdly complicated – – there are what feels like a thousand peripherals – – lemons, teabags, fussy spoons – – involved in a tea service – – and, worst of all, it involves piping-hot water) for some mentor-waiter with ironic tattoos who would likely be twenty, twenty-five years my junior.

Back out on Robson street, just in front of the double Nordstroms doors, I doubled over right away. I braced my hands against my knees. I felt like throwing up on my worn-out TV shoes.

Then I gathered myself. Pulled my shit together as best I could. I promptly emailed Naomi Byrne from my phone before I boarded the R5 bus back home.

A response was waiting for me by the time I got back to my flat: “Thanks, but no thanks,” Naomi had written.

A gloom draped over me. A gloom that reminded me of the heavy curtains in my grandmother’s front parlour. A nagging gloom that I could not seem to unhitch myself from for some reason.

I thought I knew darkness, depression, all of that horseshit, from the medical stuff I went through back in 2014. Assumed I’d touched the cold bottom of the deepest, darkest pool imaginable. But this? This was something new and far more menacing. And this was only the beginning, unfortunately…

January 10, 2023 scottcjones 3Comments

So I was up against it in 2022. Up against it in a way I hadn’t been before. 

I was broke. Broke as a joke, as my barber likes to put it, annoyingly.

I had been living off savings since EP went off the air in 2015. I consulted for game companies from time to time. I was making ends meet, just barely.

Then COVID happened. Then my consulting work, because of COVID, dried up. My savings, which had once been an enviable amount of money, ran out of my accounts like sand through an hourglass. I needed to do something. Something that would staunch the dizzying outflow of cash.

I’d usually wake up in the mornings with a cold knuckle of nausea in the pit of my stomach. Was my life falling apart? Is this what a life falling apart looks like? And feels like?

Yeah. Sounds about right.

For two weeks or so I stumbled through the rooms of my life, paralyzed by this situation. I was vulnerable – – truly vulnerable. I was a 50-something-year-old man who, only a few years back, had enjoyed great success. I assumed that I would always be on top. What a damn fool I was! The world had changed. People’s values had changed. And part of what paralyzed me was the woeful feeling that I had bet on the wrong horse, committing myself to media, the way that I had. I had wanted to be a great writer. A solid TV host. A journalist of great substance! And all of those things, which were at the top of my “Success Ladder” for almost 20 years, were losing value with each passing day.

I simply could not do what I had always done. Could not command a respectable salary any longer. No one was willing to pay me to do what I was quite good at.

What I did was this: I groused and I grumbled, 24-7. I had a tough time getting out of bed in the mornings in 2022. Being distant from people (see: COVID) certainly didn’t make my situation more tolerable. Meanwhile, the goddamned bills were piling up. My credit score, which had once been in the stratosphere, was plummeting like a stone to the bottom of a cold lake.

I needed to earn money somehow.

That’s when I stumbled on an online classified ad for a bartender position at Nordstroms department store. I thought to myself, I can grit my teeth through a few shifts, placating shoppers with mint juleps or Tom Collins, or whatever. I realized that if I wanted this bartending position, then I needed to be aggressive. Needed to step up and take charge of this situation. So I sussed out who the manager was (*Naomi Byrne) for the restaurant group at Nordstroms. I sat at my computer, the now-familiar ice-cold pig’s knuckle of nausea throbbing in my lower abdomen. Started typing an email to Naomi. Halfway through, I realized that the email was, in fact, a cowardly gesture. That there was another road for me to take here, and that road, folks, was the high road.

I found the phone number of the restaurant at Nordstroms. Clock said that it was 10:45 on a Monday – – which meant the restaurant would open soon. This was a fine time to call – – just before opening. I dialled. Asked for Naomi. 

The polite man who answered the phone told me that Naomi was, unfortunately, on vacation. I asked him when Naomi was coming back. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Call back tomorrow. She’ll be here.”

I thanked him. Hung up. Then I sat at my desk for a moment, lost in thought.

This is when an unexpected thought occurred to me out of the blue: What if I didn’t call tomorrow? What if, instead of calling, I simply showed up at the restaurant? “Hi Naomi, I’m Scott. Your new bartender…”

Now, that would be bold, wouldn’t it? That would be aggressive. I knew that this was what I must do.

I went to the closet and attempted to cobble together a semi presentable outfit from my old TV clothes…

[*Pseudonym]

 

 

September 11, 2022 scottcjones 3Comments

[One last bit, then we’ll drop this story and move on.]

The old shop keeper, chin planted firmly on his chest, frowned theatrically at THIS THING. Frowned as if it was a relation who had wronged him somehow. Perhaps a son who had shamed him in some unforgivable way.

Then the bald man – – yes, still frowning – – bit into his lower lip with his espresso-hued incisors.  He glared at his visible affliction – – as if it were not an oversized and neglected hernia at all but a symbol of his own mortality. Suddenly, he lifted the hair-covered back of his hand. Didn’t strike, but only lifted the hand, while frowning, while still biting his lower lip. Lifted it just above the hernia.

The old man, I realized, was menacing THIS THING, threatening to strike it in a familial and Old World sort of way.

 

 

September 8, 2022 scottcjones 4Comments

“I need-a help,” the old man said. “I have a cheese wheel, you see…”

I must have had a confused look on my face.

“A CHEESE WHEEL,” the bald man said, speaking slowly and with more volume than was obviously necessary.  Hey buddy, I thought, I’m not hard of hearing.  “I need you,” he said, “to lift a cheese wheel for me. You see… I can’t lift anything right-a now.” He frowned like a sad clown in an Italian opera. With both of his hands, the man grabbed onto – – and, my sincerest apologies if you’re eating while reading this – – an engorged protrusion that was extending straight from his potbelly.

He grabbed the protrusion violently, through his apron, as if he was attempting to wring its cursed, little neck. “I have-a hernia!” he explained. He held onto the protrusion, and began referring to it as THIS THING. “THIS THING means I can no longer lift even a little wheel of cheese anymore! GODDAMMN-A THIS THING.” He looked at his misshapen lump with disappointment in his eyes, as if THIS THING were not a misshapen lump at all but a prodigal son who had deeply disappointed him. He gritted his teeth and pretended to threaten THIS THING with the back of his hand.

Then he looked up at me again, as if remembering that I was still there. The old man’s eyes were a beautiful soft blue color. Like a robin’s egg. “I beg of you, lift this-a cheese wheel for me? You are young! You are strong! I know that can do it!”

Instead of waiting for me to respond, the man turned. Then he and THIS THING limped back through the open front door of the dusty confines of the Italian market.

I felt afraid. As any reasonable person should. Chinatown in Vancouver is no place for horseshit. The street lamps here are plastered with Xeroxed MISSING posters of people. These were people who came here, then were never seen again. Chinatown is filled with decades of loss and mystery.

But I also felt, well, curious. Maybe the city was offering me something here. Perhaps lifting an old man’s cheese wheel in the early hours of a sunny Tuesday afternoon was exactly what I needed that day. No, I was not young nor strong anymore – – the old man had been flattering me when he said those things. Yet I also knew that the city can sometimes offer up an experience that can prove meaningful to you when you needed it most.

And so I followed the blue-eyed, bare pated little man and his engorged hernia into the shadows. I trailed him through the store’s darkened aisles, all the way to what appeared to be a deli counter. There was a skylight overhead, opened in the ceiling. A thin ray of dingy sunshine fell to the floor. I spotted the old man standing next to a circular card table. He was pointing at something on the floor. “This is wheel,” he said.

I bent my knees, lowering my centre of gravity, and I gave it a shot. The wheel was covered with a stretch of butcher paper. “The wheel is-a PARMESAN!” the old man said. As if this was a useful bit of information somehow. He slapped his hand into the middle of the card table. “Now,” he said, “bring her HERE.”

The cheese wheel wasn’t as heavy as I’d expected. No, I didn’t lift it with ease. But I also didn’t quite struggle, either. Maybe the old man was right, I thought. Maybe I am young and strong still…

Then the old man began to shout at me. “HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE!” he said, slapping the edge of the circular table.

“The edge?” I asked.

“Easier for cutting!” he explained.

Once I was finished, the old man smiled at me, said thank you, then lost interest in me. He moved off, deeper into the store, further into the great expanse that I couldn’t see, but that I somehow knew was there.

Then I turned and made my way back to the front of the store. Back to the street. Back to the early afternoon sunlight of Main Street in Vancouver in early September. I felt a lightness in my step now. Something had changed in me. Something small, but significant. I had helped a strange old man who asked me for help. I had followed him into the high-ceilinged confines of that lost-in-time Italian market. To my surprise, my good feelings lasted for a fair chunk of the rest of the afternoon. And the next morning, when I was eating my breakfast cereal at the kitchen counter, I noticed a curious smell coming from my hands. It was parmesan, from the old man’s cheese wheel. Some of the wheel’s rind had gotten under my fingernails when I was lifting it. It was a beautiful smell, full of life and history. That smell persisted for a couple of days.

And then it was gone.

March 11, 2022 scottcjones 2Comments

Host Scott C. Jones talks to Nick Harrison – an actor, stuntman, and fight coordinator in Hollywood – who says that the Star Wars movies got him through his difficult childhood.

The original trilogy of films helped Harrison find his way through a gauntlet of nightmarish experiences – – experiences that otherwise may have destroyed Nick had Star Wars not been there when he needed it most.

Harrison released an autobiographical book last year (titled Safe Space) that catalogues his pre-adolescent experiences along with his undying devotion to The Force, the Light Side, and R2D2. [**Warning: This episode features frank conversation about sexual abuse. Discretion is advised.]

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October 18, 2020 scottcjones

Marissa Roberto is a TV host, sports maniac, and certifiable eSports goddess. Some people say that she’s the Canadian equivalent of Cher. Hailing from the flyblown prairies of Saskatoon, Marissa established herself as Victor Lucas’s number one co-hosting choice on television’s EP Daily.

Now, back in good old Toronto, Marissa currently barnstorms Tik Tok (@mrob29) and “roolz” Instagram (a.k.a. “Insta”) (also as @mrob29) on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Due to the pandemic, which, unfortunately, is still wreaking havoc, Marissa currently hosts and produces her own sports-centric TV show for TSN – – not in a fancy-pants TV studio, but from her own home in Toronto, where she lives with her husband, puppy, and the ghosts of a million farts.

TORONTO LOSES IT’S MIND OVER BABY FOXES! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/world/canada/toronto-coronavirus-foxes.html

MARISSA PROMOS:

https://www.bellmedia.ca/the-lede/tv/tsn/digital-sportscentre/

https://www.superchannel.ca/pressreleases/heads-daily-hud-premieres-tonight-super-channel

FIVE (ERM, WAIT, JUST THREE) TIK TOK VIDEOS THAT MARISSA RECOMMENDS:

MARISSA’S FAVE CHARACTER IN ANIMAL CROSSING IS THIS ONE:

JOIN OUR COFFEE KLUB HERE:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLabq2mbEIwL1YzEIkvBDXlnwqk0fDNMvs

DOLLHOUSES/MINIATURES ARE “SOMEHOW LIKE A GREAT ISLAND IN ANIMAL CROSSING”: https://www.artic.edu/highlights/12/thorne-miniature-rooms

THE THORNE MINIATURES VIDEO:

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August 24, 2020 scottcjones

Kristen Salvatore was an esteemed games journalist for a handful of years – – she was, in fact, EIC of PC Gamer, as some of you know. But before the journalism boat sank, Kristen transitioned to the business side of the world. Indeed, everything Kristen does seems wise, confident, and terribly considered. But the reality for her? It’s a bit more complicated than that, as you’ll learn in this week’s revealing HTFG episode.

Currently, Kristen is the Senior VP of Marketing at Cloud9 eSports in LA. She’s working from home these days, like many of us, and trying to co-parent with her partner in a Brady Bunch-type household.

Does the strong, seemingly mythical Kristen Salvatore have challenges? You bet she does. In this honest, forthright, and terribly candid HTFG convo, Kristen reveals that even fancy execs like herself still put their tailored, Gabardine slacks on one leg at a time like the rest of us do.

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July 22, 2020 scottcjones

Ken is a salty, experienced game developer. He’s worked on a host of AAA games in his career. Raised and educated in Canada, Ken impulsively relocates to the UK in his 20’s, and manages to land a series of plum gaming gigs.

Early in his career, Ken meets a strong but complicated woman. They fall in love and have a son together. But the relationship is strained for a variety of reasons.

And Ken, desperate to support his reeling family, takes a job in a remote part of Scotland. During a contentious time, Ken and his young son find solace in 2003’s The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.


Ken and Kieran (who is now grown, obviously), proving that the apple never falls far from the tree.

DESTINY’S SWORD (Ken’s soon-to-be-released game): https://destinyssword.com/

One of Ken’s AAA games from early in his UK developer career (title: APB).

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2003) screenshots:

Farrah takes aim — and saves the Prince’s skin once again.
“Now, please shut your pie-eater and follow me.”
“I thought we agreed – – no shirts.”
Pro Tip: Not having a shirt on makes it 4 percent easier to balance on the game’s tiny platforms.
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June 21, 2020 scottcjones 1Comment

When I lived in Vancouver, my guest today and I once made plans to meet for coffee on Robson Street. Our shoot ran long that day at EP. Running behind, I raced across downtown, trying to get to my meeting. I was 10 minutes late. I was prepared to apologize profusely, to make it up to Dr. Zentner. But when I got there, Dr. Zentner was already gone.

Dr. Z. (Ali to me) does not suffer fools. Never has. Never will. I was angry with Dr. Z. for ditching. Sometimes people get stuck at work, I told myself. But I also respected the fact that she ditched. It was her choice, and it was a strong one. Our friendship has been difficult, to say the least. But there is, as you will hear in our conversation today, great love and respect between us.

Dr. Zentner is married to a veteran game developer at Relic Entertainment (Jason Brackman). She is one of the most successful, confident people I have ever met. Yet she’s also fallable and real and vulnerable, too. There’s never been anyone in my life like her. So, buckle up — today’s interview is funny, intelligent, and embarrassingly honest.

Follow Dr. Z. on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alizentner
and Twitter https://twitter.com/alizentner

Earnest Ice Cream can be purchased here: https://earnesticecream.com/

Dr. Zentner’s Tedx Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXwSVl8luho

Dr. Zentner’s excellent book, The Weight-Loss Prescription https://www.amazon.ca/Weight-Loss-Prescription-Doctors-Permanent-Reduction/dp/0143187678

Dr. Zentner’s marvelous clinic in British Columbia https://www.nofatshame.com/in-medicine

Too Hot to Handle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_OUwF28fJU

Take the Implicit Bias Test here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Here she is talking about mammograms on Global News

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