Old Pictures

I'll sort them out later, and try to remember the story; old memories, new questions.

 Erik painting the Nozxema girl in 1965, she morphs into a live girl on the TV commercial. Erik was rated as one of the top commercial artists not only in Canada, but also internationally for over 30 years.

 Hunting with wolves; Suzanne with Poncho and Ringo.

 After the storm

 The boyz

Back in the day it took a mainframe computer and our custom software to produce a Ray Traced graphic image of a glass prism. Your cell phone is a thousand times more powerful than the mainframe; it cost a cool million.

 Poncho and Ringo

I took this picture from up in the rafters in Studio 2 at TDF Artists Ltd. Little did I know at the time Suzanne was one of the dancers in the picture. I did not meet her until a couple of years later.

 Winter burn at the cottage

 A view down Yorkville Ave, staying focussed. We produced corporated presentations for Fortune 500 companies and their ad agencies. Over 40 international agencies.

 Layout for balloon ad

Back at the lab

The Honda shoot

 More hot air at Toronto City Hall

It's a long story

I captured this moment in time, Father Goose takes flight for the first time. He continues to soar.

We have the pilot, first flight, and Mike "The Kite" Robertson (7 times World Champion Hand Glider) but who is that guy holding up the wing? Is that you Ron?

Lighter than air; Blackstock 1975; the Lishman farm.

I have had and still am having the most amazing life I can imagine, but I have had my fair share of tragedy; three high speed accidents involving three family members. All the other guys fault. One accident accident and two drunk drivers.  We survived the car accidents, but we barely survived the evil monsters we encountered after our accidents, the people we trusted to look after our interests in our darkest hour.

I'm an old school guy, I don't go looking for trouble, but when it comes my way, I deal with it. In this case I concluded there was no point going through the system; it is rigged. Social media is the new court in town, the court of public opinion. In that regard I started Roadkill 911, basically a diary of the dirt and deception I encountered along the way; emails, secret video's, the usual. In case I needed it one day; like today.

When we went into the settlement meeting, the only thing that was on the defence table was a one foot stack of my blog Roadkill911 printed out. They thought they could intimidate me and use it against me; slander, libel, etc. bad move. That only works if the info is not true. I won, they lost; I guess all my stuff was true. I decided to go the social media route so the tens of thousands of other seriously injured Canadians could have a hand book on how to deal with slime. I have about 60,000 page views on my various blogs (I keep stuff separate) Also over the years I have posted about 4000 times on various news feeds relating to the above. Folks liked what I had to say, I got “top comments” often.

I have fought many legal battles over my life, won most of them; this is the biggest thing so far. I'm going after two law firms, a bunch of doctors, and a government agency. They all were in there like a bunch of vultures when they thought I was done. I surprised them and made the most remarkable recovery my horrified doctor had ever seen. They should have read the reports about my so called brain damage, my ability to kick lawyers butts has remained intact. I like to keep my facebook reserved for general interest stuff, so if you or someone you know has been in a serious accident, you might want to check out Roadkill911, for the hell of it. I'll let you know how it works out.
http://roadkill911.blogspot.ca/

Back in 1992 a drunk driver smashed into Suzanne's car at the end of our street in North York, it took years for her to recover. She never fully recovered to where she was before the accident. We hired the services of Thomson Rogers in Toronto. The best law firm in Canada; no doubt. After a long and protracted battle, we won the case, a fraction of what should have been awarded. The narrative did a 180 at the settlement meeting, a lot of last minute unforeseen BS.

Disappointed we asked the lawyer: "why did you do that" ? "Tooooo Bad" was his reply. It was like that scene in Back to the Future when the guy called Marty chicken. I responded in kind. We walked across Bay St. into the front doors of Lang Michener; they are really one of the top law firms in Canada; big. I sure did like that guy Clive Elkin, he went after them like a pit bull, but really cool. Before you know it, they were spitting out G notes like they were going out of style. For my part, I modified a software package to do a forensic accounting of everything that happened on the file for 5 years. I pressed the print button and out came what I wanted; the dirt.

Apparently there was something wrong with their computers because boy o boy we had lawyers claiming to be in three different places at the same time.  My little program caught everything. Toooo Bad. They issued a certified cheque,  I decided not to take further action; apparently they are back for more. You may ask: once bitten twice shy? Why the hell would anybody go back for seconds after something like that? Good question, I was bamboozled; again. I fell for it. "Oh all those guys are long gone, this is a whole new thing". It turned out to be payback; an episode out of a Stephen King novel.

One might think they would have learned their lesson, messing with me; apparently not. This time around the matter is far more serious, I paid them a quarter of a million dollars; not sure I got my monies worth. As usual I have been busy building my case, I always win. I don't go looking for trouble, but when it comes my way, I deal with it. I'll let you know how this works out; I'm not done yet.

My People

My People: My Latvian Connection

https://www.facebook.com/CristianoRizzottoVidalPessoa/videos/665889130216628/

My late father, Erik Dzenis was a founding member of the Latvian National Federation of Canada. That's Suzanne and I in the back row center at my parent's memorial service at Latvian Canadian Cultural Centre 2014

Mad Men: The story behind the story

MADMEN The Story Behind The Story

Three Days Without Sleep
Another Panic Presentation
11 Yorkville Ave
Toronto Ontario
1985

When people ask me: “what did you do?” Meaning of course what work I did. For the most part I was an audio/visual producer in Toronto. My dad Erik Dzenis taught me the basics in photography, fine art as well as commercial art; he was pretty good at all three. Although he preferred to be known professionally only in the world of fine art. Norman Rockwell was never able to shed his illustrators tag when he crossed over to fine art. Erik managed both worlds. He was recognized internationally both for his oil paintings, as well as his commercial art.

Photograph or hand painted? Look closely.

Briefly, I produced approximately 3000 corporation business presentations for Fortune 500 Companies and their advertising agencies. Mad Men of course refers to the TV show with the name, the behind the scene story of what went on with the world biggest advertising agency at the time, McCann Erickson. For a period of 5 years I produced most of their corporate presentations for McCann and their clients for their office in Toronto; Coca Cola, Kodak, American Express and 40 other big names. I also did a number of presentations for their New York office.

   

For the most part it was as the name suggested, Mad Men; complete insanity. It was a love hate relationship. The agencies loved it when I bailed then out of a tight spot, but they always knew what was coming; they hated it when I gave them the invoice. Usually when they called me it was because they were late again. They needed a presentation in a hurry; that meant the standard 200% compound charges. If the slide normally cost $100 for a normal time frame, it went up to $200 then to $400 each. That was where the hate came in, a business presentation could easily go from $5000 to $20,000 because someone went “oops”.

It may sound like a lot, however we would need to stay up two or three nights in a row without sleep to finish their presentation; redo's. I had to mobilize a team including copywriters typesetters, and artists etc. We did not know about the damaging effects of sleep deprivation back then; Get er done was the narrative. McCann had their fair share of the biggest accounts in the business, J. Walter Thompson was their biggest rival at the time. I did work for over 40 major agencies. All our artwork was produced on a drafting table, all the special effects photography was done photo mechanically. The only computer assistance we had at the time was phototypesetting; no Power Point, no digital art.

It was 2:00 am, there was a frantic pounding on my front door, it was a little scary. I opened the door, it was a Senior Vice President from the New York office of McCann Erickson. He had just flown in from NY to personally take over a presentation that went bad; his glasses were cracked. He looked so desperate when he said: “could you help me?” We had that sort of arrangement with McCann, they knew they could call me on short notice 24.7; they did many times. You might think they would learn their lesson at some point and not underestimate the complexity of a presentation; they never did. It only got worse, I suppose in part because they knew in the back of their minds, I would always bail them out.

No digital art back then, everything was done by hand. Erik painted the entire series for American Express Gold Card Series in conjunction with the King Tut exhibition in Toronto at the time. 

In this particular case, it was the American Express presentation; they needed to convince AE they should retain the stewardship of this multi million dollar account. By all accounts the account was in serious jeopardy, way more than they realized. Not only did they miss their time frame, but the selected format was not going to work out. They selected a xenon projection system for a really big screen, 100 ft plus; except the typeface they selected was not readable. I warned them of this ahead of time. If we somehow managed to produce the presentation, nobody would be able to read it. Try telling that to a hot shot executive in a panicked state.

My pal Dave Reppen was an art director at Paul Phelan and Perry

He sketched this poster for me. He handed me a note under the table at one of our meetings wondering if I knew of anybody looking for a good art director. Fortunately I did not know of any agency looking for one. A few weeks later he was promoted to VP soon to become the president of the agency.

I advised them as I always did, you left it to the last minute, there's a chance it won't get done. It could be full of mistakes, and it will cost a fortune. In this case I took it upon myself to produce a parallel presentation to have ready when they finally came to grips with their big mistake. When the time came to show them their presentation, 5:00 am just before the team left for the airport to fly to Mexico. There was a collective groan from the team, they all realized if they show up with this mess, they would most certainly lose the account. By contrast, a collective sign of relief came when I pulled out the backup presentation that could actually be read. Love/ hate. It ended up costing them a small fortune.

The team got back from Mexico, the meeting was a success, McCann retained the stewardship of AE. Now it was time to face the music, to explain to the president how the thing went out of control. That's the hate part. To save their own skins, one of the junior execs attempted to blame the fiasco on me; after what I did for them.

I called my pal Vic, a Senior VP in the Toronto office. Uncle Vic was always my go to guy at the agency, whenever there was a problem, Vic would solve it. I told him. I want an apology from the company for how I was treated, I want to know I still have the account, and of course I needed this huge invoice to be paid. I had to give my car ownership to the typesetter to finance the second presentation at 5 in the morning. Vic looked dismayed, he said: “Ed you might not get any of that”. Just what I needed to hear after 3 days with no sleep; it was a little stressful.

A couple of hours later, Vic called to say you will get everything you requested. It's too bad it came to that, but that was the nature of the business. It costs a lot of money when people screw up; that was one presentation, it went on like that for about 15 years.

A few slides from an agency presentation for my pal Ray Kundinger.

Often on a Friday night, McCann and JW would show up at my door with presentations competing for the same account. Not usually done in the business, conflict etc. All other AV houses back then were required to sign a non-disclosure contract because of the propitiatory information in the presentations. They knew better than to ask me. I would do both presentations and I would always know ahead of time who had the better presentation and who would most likely win the new account.

More importantly I would do presentations for the two biggest cola companies competing for shelf space at major outlets, that was a little more touchy, but I was never asked to sign the non disclosure. I did these competing presentations for five years. The new business presentations were a real time marketing course, a behind the scenes look you could not get a course at the university level. I would do these presentations and then take off to the country for a few days to recover.

Time To Change The Game

This is not about me, I already won my case, this is about the thousands accident victims that get screwed over by corrupt people in the system. I promised myself if I ever recovered I would remove the firewall. Game On!

 What? It's just a picture of the meds he prescribed and picture I found on the internet. What$ the problem?

http://roadkill911.blogspot.ca/

 How bad does it have to get before folks stand up to the corruption in the system, to protect themselves and their families from abuse? I spoke with one of the top malpractice attorney's in the country yesterday; he told me about this doctor who performed hundreds of unnecessary operations on women so he could collect extra vacation money. He was caught; in a plea deal he agreed to give up his license to avoid prosecution. This is justice in Canada? The hundreds of victims he mutilated did not have a say in the matter. I'm not interested in changing the rules, I'm going to change the game. It took me 7 years to recover, I am ready to take on the doctors, the college, and the law firms that protect them. I won't be going through the usual channels.

Connecting Consonant Syndrome CCS

Haven't touched a drop for seven years, but I have to admit we closed the joint more than once. It was packed to the rafters every Friday and Saturday nite, folks singing their hearts out, everybody had a good time. 

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/03/31/brunswick-house-closing-tonight-five-moments-from-an-era.html

 Crying in my beer the last time I was in Albert's Hall. Suzanne and I met up with Carol Martin and Ian Morrison at the Old Brunswick House. Carol coached me informally (as my girlfriends older sister) in discus and shot put for two years in high school; she was the Canadian champ in both events at the time; she asked me how I did in the Ontario semi finals (Georgian Bay Track Meet)  in Midland. Not too well I replied; 6th. "how so" she asked. I told her my first two throws were disqualified because of style; they were a full six feet further than the next competitor. They said I didn't throw/put properly. Carol was also the Pan Pacific champion. That's how it went down in the record books that year 6th, because I didn't throw it properly; in both events despite all my training. Right. I call it CCS, connecting consonant syndrome (dz); it affects me to this day.  Apparently it only affects immigrants, not the backwater hillbillies that run the province. 

To get to the Ontario finals, I won the school meet at Thornhill High, then the regionals at Thornlea, and finally the county championship at Langstaff High School in King Twsp. I guess I must have thrown it "properly" there. I thought about it all the way home on the bus ride back to Thornhill; I knew who won that day, and so does the teacher who cheated that day. I am still proud of my 6th place finish, I loved the sport, Occasionally I wonder what direction my life would taken, if they counted my throws? Perhaps it was just as well, not much of a future in tossing a disc or putting a shot. But most of all my world view about participating in sports was shattered that day, the honesty of the footrace etc. It became apparnet to me this is the world I live in; it was a wake up call for things to come.  I had another event, I ran the 440 against all these skinny guys; life was just not fair for well rounded athletes. No high school pentathlon in those days. My friend and team mate (hockey) Terry T won the Junior Boys Ontario Championship; he threw it "right". 

Carol trained with some very interesting folks, many national champions from around the world, I was fortunate to meet a few of them. Ian Morrisson was the national cycling champ from Scotland; we had some Glen Fiddich, and we did close the joint that night, as I recall. On another double date, the four of us Carol, Nancy, Ray Powell and myself attended the Caribanna Festival at the Royal York, dressed to the "nines" we danced to the steel drums of the Merrymen; we closed the joint that night as well.

Seven Day Velodrome Race Delhi Ontario

Number One Canada: Canadian Cycling Champ Joclyn Lovell

Canadian Cycling Champ Joclyn Lovell. I think about Joclyn often, how full of life he was. He was the guy that rode the tricycle in front of the Queen at the games in Scotland, and fell over as in the stunt on the TV show Laugh In; Joclyn was a character.  We traded cars for fun, he had the the yellow one, I had the blue one. Then one day we heard the tragic news, Joclyn was severely injured; hit by a truck while training. He was paralyzed; it broke my heart, I haven't talked to him since, every time we pass a cyclist on the road I always say, "go wide". 

Rest in peace Jocelyn. Everytime I pass a cyclist on the side of the highway, I can't help but think of you; I always go extra wide.

How I met Walter Carsen and the secret we shared

Walter Carson

The quirky anecdotes, the story behind the story, it's often more interesting than the story itself. Especially interesting to the people in the story years later who were unaware of these little gems. The sphere of influence, the circle of life; the founding principle of social media. In that regard, it is not just gossip, but an integral insight into the relationship. Briefly, the late Walter Carsen was one of the pillars of success in Canada, a self made man who crawled out of the depravity of WWII. Walter did exceeding well in life and he was a most generous man, donating most of his fortune to the arts, but more importantly personally assuring the well being of projects he donated to. Walter was one of the most driven men I ever met, with an unbelievable sense of personal style. He was an aristocrat, he was a simple man; he had the touch.

How I met Walter Carsen and the secret we shared

Back in those lazy hazy days of summer of 63, me and my friend Val, were chilling down by the Don River under the shade of a willow tree; smoking cigarettes, listening to CHUM 1050 am rock and roll on a transistor radio; those were the days. Enter Walter Carsen, an adult, and apparently we were on his property. It was my understanding the high water mark was the boundary, but it was the cigarettes likely, not the high water mark. Walter was just as surprised when he stumbled upon us, he was very pleasant, gave us a lecture about smoking and leaving campfire debris on his land. We went on our way, thinking to myself: so that's Walter Carsen. I knew this because his daughter  Johanni  and I attended Woodland Public School, I was in grade 8,  Johanni  was in grade 6.

The next time I saw Walter, I was driving up to the house at the top of the hill, just up from where we were caught smoking. At the time I was riding a 1949 500 cc single cylinder AJS, looking sort of like a biker at 17; leather vest, boots, long hair, etc. The motorcycle had no muffler or headlight, it was early and it was loud. Apparently I thought this was OK. I was there on the occasion to pick up his daughter for our first date. Walter and I looked at each other and immediately we both remembered the smoking incident years earlier, he smiled. I think Walter had greater concerns at this point, “like who is this punk ass”, in any case he just grinned politely and let it slide. I learned later in life, you don't mess with the romantic interests of your daughter, especially the first boyfriend.

Sculpture by Fritz Wotruba. I was commissioned by the late Walter Carsen of Thornhill to produce photographs for a catalogue of his private art collection for Expo 67.

Over the course of the summer, Walter gradually implemented upgrades to my act. Getting me used to riding his Honda 300 for starts, helping out with picking up stuff in his wife's 66 Mustang convertible. He didn't like my AJ. Over lunch and dinner and a few outings, Walter and I got to know each other beyond the constraints of my interest in his daughter. We found we had a common bond in the arts, he was well aware of my father's paintings and my father's work with the National Ballet of Canada. Walter was on the board of directors at the Ontario Society of Artists. He was surprised when he heard the cast of the Bolshoi showed up for an after hours party at our house in Thornhill; accompanied by a fully armed KGB escort to make sure nobody left the party unannounced.  As a young student my parents did their best to expose me to culture; it must have worked.  I was able to have some interesting discussions with Walter about the politics of the arts; especially painting and ballet.  Walter went on to become a generous patron for the National Ballet of Canada.

Briefly to that point, my father was trying for years to break into the politics of art in Ontario via his talent. He didn't realize it was mostly politics that determined what good art was. Over lunch one day Walter offered his influence to help my father's admittance into this elite society of artists. My father being the hard head he was flatly turned down Walters offer, holding to his principles, his work and talent should be the ticket. That's another story.

Back to Walter and me, our relationship took another turn; Walter had one of the most extensive private art collections in the country. It was just around EXPO 67 in Montreal and Walter was lending a few pieces to the art show, but first he needed pictures of his famous sculptures and paintings. I was the man, not because I was dating his daughter, but because I was proficient at art photography. I had access to my father's equipment, including the 4x5 Linhoff Tecknica studio camera. Walter was aware my dad photographed many famous works, including Picasso's, and other artists. I got the job.

My best friend at the time and I drove to Toronto every day to attend Thornton Hall, it was a pain, but it was worth it. Walters daughter attended Havergal, it was on the way. By this time  Johanni  and I had gone our separate ways as teenagers do. It was an awkward silence driving to school and back that winter, we all took turns, it was a very awkward time in our lives. So many conversations we didn't have. The last time I saw Jonnai was a few years later at a roadside gas station on 401.

Upon the occasion of his death at 100 years of age, The Toronto Star printed the story of Walters struggle with his past, fleeing Nazi Germany, joining the RAF, and never speaking of it until his kids were adults. Walter was Jewish, he was so traumatized by what happened to him during the war he never told his kids until they were adults. It broke my heart to hear this, to know I spent time with his kids growing up in Thornhill. In hindsight, I subsequently understood why Walter did this to protect his kids. Antisemitism was alive and well in Thornhill at the time; you heard it everywhere, not only antisemitism, but overt discrimination against virtually every minority that came along.  I barely made the cut, being a poor Christian immigrant of European heritage; apparently connecting consonants made no difference in Thornhill if you were a good hockey player. We had one black student at Thornhill at the time, my pal Ray. But that's another story

After 60 years of the most wonderful life on God's green earth here in Canada who would have thought that I would also become a target of hate and discrimination, apparently I am not white enough for some folks up here. Ah, the two connecting consonants, it will do it every time. I'll put my genes up against theirs any day. To be clear, I am not a victim, I am not really concerned about the opinions of certain backwater hillbillies, but I think Walter would be happy that I am taking them on, one at a time. Game on.  I was lucky to have known him. That catalogue I did for the Expo 67 show, opened a lot of doors in the years to come.

The Walter Carsen Center in Toronto

I just knew him as Walter