Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty

A writer in the U.S. recently released a book about how the creative class (artists, authors, singers, speakers, photographers, etc.) need to stop giving away their arts and crafts for nothing.

Stop working for free, was the gist of his effort.

My favourite news blog, The Huffington Post, called up the author’s agent and asked if he would write a review of his own book for the news aggregator.

“How much are you willing to pay my client?” asked the agent.

“Nothing,” came the reply from Huff Post, without a trace of irony.

So the author went and told his story of being offered nothing to a Huff Post competitor.

No word yet on what, if anything, the competing blog paid him for his story.

My guess is they matched the Huff Post offer, dollar for dollar.

The Huffington Post is estimated to be worth $1 billion.

By Jim Hagarty

Pigs have a bad name.

Not a bad reputation. A bad name.

How would you like to be called a pig your whole life?

There is something about the word itself that is demeaning. Pig. The namer of the pig must have been holding a grudge.

We need to substitute the name with something else.

How about swine?

On second thought, forget it. To be called a swine is almost worse than pig.

Sow? As in, “You sow!”

Nope.

Hog.

Never.

How did it happen that such a benign, clean (yes, they are clean, they only roll in muck to kill the bugs), curious, happy creature end up with such swinish names?

Has to be the grudge theory.

I have a long association with pigs. We raised them for a while on our farm. And I always kind of liked them. There was a perpetual friendly, hopeful look on their faces. And as kids, we got to ride the bigger ones. In the absence of horses, they were our steeds. They would put on quite a rodeo before they dumped us in the biggest pile of pig manure they could find.

To this day, not a fan of pig manure.

And while friendly, they could be annoying. One summer, on my break from university, I worked on a pig farm. Being chased around a pen by an angry sow is fun for about, no seconds.

But what sealed my own little grudge against these guys was the little tango we had when I was out on assignment as a newspaper reporter, sent (as punishment, no doubt) to do some sort of farm story. Always one to try to get the best, most realistic photos I could, I decided to climb the gate into a pig pen. Unfortunately, I dropped my camera case in the pen before I could get in there myself.

As it turned out, 10 half-grown pigs who were about to be paparrazied, had been waiting all their lives for a camera case to play with. Best toy, or maybe the only toy, they had ever had.

I wouldn’t say this was the low point of my journalism career, but chasing 10 lively pigs around a manurery pen, trying to retrieve their very first football from them, can tend to make a fella rethink some of his life choices. At least, later. At that moment, salvaging that increasingly dirty, smelly case was the priority.

I didn’t get my case back right away. Turns out, pigs are great at camera case soccer. And they had home pen advantage.

I don’t know what their fascination with my formerly classy camera case was, but they definitely hogged the ball that day.

I wonder, and this thought just occurred to me four decades later, if that camera case was made of pigskin.

Youch.

My bad, I guess.

I eventually won the day, got some sort of photo, interviewed the farmer and drove back to town, probably crying in my car all the way.

So you will understand if my fondness for a lot of things swinish took a major hit that day.

I mean, these guys were nothing but a bunch of pigs.

There, I said it.

By Jim Hagarty

Have you ever heard of someone buying a rhubarb plant?

I didn’t think so.

Rhubarb owners come by their rhubarb in only one of two ways. They ask someone to share a plant. Or they steal it.

I could have asked my neighbour to share his rhubarb with me. But what fun would that have been?

My neighbour was a young bachelor, renting the house directly behind me. He had a regular rhubarb farm in his backyard.

But this guy, young and interested in all the non-rhubarbian things in life, wouldn’t have known a rhubarb plant from a raspberry vine. Come to think of it, he wouldn’t have known a raspberry vine from a pack of gum. This is not to put him down. At his stage in life, rhubarb, or raspberries, for that matter, were not a priority. Gum, maybe.

I could have walked over to his place any day and asked him if I could uproot three of his many rhubarb plants and transplant them in my yard. He would have said yes. As nice a guy as you could find, he probably would have helped me dig them up.

But I decided on illegal confiscation as the better route. For absolutely no reason I can nail down.

So one day when my neighbour was at work, I wandered over to his place with wheelbarrow and shovel, criminal intentions uppermost in my mind. I carefully opened his gate, which squeaks, afraid to alert the householder who at that moment was many miles away with his job.

The gate co-operated, and I entered contraband territory. It was a beautiful sunny day, no wind, no clouds.

I started digging.

Just then, it seemed to cloud over. And the wind came up. But each time I stopped digging and looked around, the day was as nice as could be.

Back to work, excavating as silently as an earthworm.

Then the shutters on the upper part of the old brick house started banging. I stopped and looked up. The house has no shutters. Back to work. More banging shutters. Clouds. Wind whipping up.

Then a creepy feeling that someone was watching me from a window in the house. I quickly looked around. There was no one. Or was that curtain moving?

A police siren wailed. It was the rhubarb cops. I was afraid of that.

I glanced at the street in front of my neighbour’s house. A cruiser went streaking by. Maybe a bigger catch – a raspberry vine thief on the next block – was the one in trouble.

Stealth rhubarb digging is a terrible job. It takes forever to get those darned things out of the ground. Especially when it was necessary to space out the ones I took so that it would not appear anything was amiss. After a plant was removed, the big broad leaves on all the other plants had to be fluffed up to disguise their missing neighbour.

I don’t know if rhubarb plants have feelings, but suddenly, I felt like a kidnapper.

The job ended finally, amidst much terror at the clouds and the wind and the flapping shutters and the fear that my neighbour would come home unexpectedly.

I thought of all this tonight as I was in my backyard admiring our rhubarb plants. They are doing very well. My neighbour moved out of his house, none the wiser. Or grief-stricken at the loss of his rhubarb, who can tell?

Another thought occurred to me tonight.

I hate rhubarb. I always have.

By Jim Hagarty

When I was a teenager in university, I hung around with a guy who laughed at every second thing I said.

He thought I was hilarious. He even advised me that I should be a stand-up comedian. I knew that wasn’t going to happen as “stand up” was in the job title and standing up to make a living went against my every principle. I was then, and still am, all about sitting down. Subsequent summer job stints in factories where I stood up all day convinced me of the rightness of my position. Standing up for all 10 hours of a 10-hour shift became my notion of hell on earth.

I remember going to a party with my biggest fan one time when he introduced me to someone like this: “Hey, this is my friend Jim. He’s funny. Say something funny Jim.” I was suddenly the singing frog from that classic Looney Tunes cartoon who refused to sing for anyone but its owner. I had nothing funny to say.

Even then, I had a vague feeling that the concepts of comedian and clown were closely related. I had served my apprenticeship being a class clown. It didn’t always leave me with a good feeling.

But there was no denying I did have the ability to make people laugh. Over the years, I used that knack to ease my pathways through life. Sometimes it worked but other times it got in the way of my being taken seriously by people I thought I needed to impress.

Then one day, a cousin provided me with a key. He called me a storyteller. I liked that better than clown. But here is what I discovered. I can only tell a story when I have a story to tell. And lots of times I don’t have one. I am no good at making up stories, only recognizing them when they pass by. Just like I could not produce something funny when commanded to by my university pal, I cannot come up with a story when I don’t have one.

In that way, storytellers and songwriters are alike. We wait on the great Idea Muse in the sky to bless us with something. Some days he is generous; some days not.

People call me a good writer. I don’t think of myself as one. What I am good at is observing life and recognizing an irony when it drifts by.

So I live and watch and wait. Sometimes the Story Train is late in arriving or doesn’t show up at all. Concerned, I sit at the keyboad anyway and try to write something funny. But I am like a baker on those days, trying to make a cake when the flour can is empty. He has no choice but to wait till the store opens.

The fear of every songwriter is that the Muse has moved on to someone else. Sometimes, he has. Some days the best and only thing the songwriter can do is sit and wait. Same with the storyteller.

The clown, on the other hand, he just goes for it, Muse be damned.

By Jim Hagarty

Late last night I received a message from a life coach, offering me the benefits of her services.

I replied that I already have a life coach. His name, and this is pure coincidence, is Jim Hagarty.

I did not say the coach I already use is a very good one. At times, in fact, I have thought of suing him for malpractice. However, we’ve been working together on my life for a while now and I find it hard to break up with the old bugger.

Hagarty steers me in the wrong direction, on average, about three times a day. He’s often grouchy and on occasion has stopped speaking to me for hours on end. When things get tense, about the only useful suggestion he ever seems to offer is to go get myself another coffee and pick himself up one while I am at it.

When I have questions, half the time he has no answers for me. When I could use some encouragement from him, more often than not, he offers me none. When I could use a shoulder to cry on, he’s usually missing in action. When I go to him looking for a bit of wisdom to get me through a predicament, he tries to buy me off by telling me a joke instead.

In fact, the more I think about him, the more useless he seems to me to be as a life coach and probably as any other kind of coach unless a person needs coaching on how to go for coffee. And yet, he has stuck with me through thick and thin and we have a history together that goes way, way back. He has promised, in fact, to stick with me till the end.

He may not be great, but at least he’s there for me. Twenty four hours a day. Oh, and he always promises to send me a bill. But he never does. He has cost me a lot buying him coffee though.

Maybe he needs a life coach of his own to help break him of the habit.

By Jim Hagarty

I know a man. You might know him too.

His name is Yuno Wattcha Shudoo.

If you see him, avoid all contact. He is obnoxious, ignorant and potentially dangerous. His self-importance will smother your self-esteem.

But if you encounter Yurohn Hart in your travels, take her for a coffee.

She’s the one with the answers.

By Jim Hagarty

This is how my brain works.

Be thankful it isn’t your brain. I have had to live with this thing for 65 years and sometimes, it has been like sharing an apartment with the worst roommate ever.

Seven days ago, at the suggestion of my friend Al, I started my first-ever blog. Al is a longtime blogger, bringing his beautiful photography, humour, philosophy and RV tales to literally millions of readers for the past 10 years. Treat yourself someday to www.thebayfieldbunch.com. You won’t regret it.

It is shocking that a writer as brilliant as I (if you don’t believe me, just ask my brain) would be such a latecomer to blogging. Until a few years ago, I didn’t even know what a blog was. Someone suggested it was a cross between a bowel movement and a log. That seemed to make sense to me.

But I resisted all calls to blog. I decided instead to try my hand at stock marketing. If you have ever seen a moth fly into a fan, you will know how well that worked out.

But after my retirement from journalism in 2008, I joined Facebook and started sharing my stories there. The reaction was good most days and for a guy who likes to be liked, FB seemed to be just the ticket. Instant likes all over the place. Sometimes I would see a like show up almost before I had finished my story.

I carried on for years, adding little status updates as brilliant (and dull) thoughts occurred to me. From time to time, I would get 30 likes and a few comments. Jackpot! A few people would even share some of my stuff on their pages.

Then this winter, I wrote something that went a little nuts. Before long, I had almost 1,800 likes and close to 4,500 shares. My brain instantly declared, in the sophisticated way it works: “Holy crap!”

Enter Al and his suggestion I start blogging.

Here, I ran into a roadblock. It has been a lifelong policy of mine to never take up a suggestion from other people. People like bank managers, police officers, even my wife. But I acted out of character and seven days ago, followed my best friend’s lead.

On the day I launched lifetimesentences.com, I followed the stats and realized I had attracted 35 views. OMG, Brain shouted. But the next day, my tally fell to 27. Maybe people don’t read on Sundays, I thought. I know they don’t dance or drink on that day; no reading, maybe too.

By Monday, 52 viewers had recovered their senses and returned to Lifetime Sentences. My heart was full. I reported each new view to my family in the same way my kids used to celebrate finding yet another well-hidden Easter egg.

Then Tuesday came. The count was 276. I had to lie down for a while. This made no sense.

But Wednesday found me bewitched and bewildered. By midnight (and I kept watching the stats till the clock struck 12), I had attracted eyeballs to my stories 810 times. I didn’t know whether to shout it from my rooftop or jump off my rooftop.

But my brain, always lying in wait to get me, would have a lot to deal with yesterday. By day’s end, I had had a mere 448 views. Whaaaaattttt???? Those were Brain’s very words.

Where had I gone wrong?

I had to go lie down again and figure all this out.

I do my best figuring lying down.

But the most I can decipher is, this is life. At 448, I had racked up more than 10 times the tally of my first day. BUT JUST OVER ONE HALF OF THE DAY BEFORE!!!! Rising expectations, the bane of every teenage boy on a date, had me by the throat, not coincidentally, located close to my brain.

Frantically, I retraced my steps. Where, oh where, had I screwed up? In the middle of my concert, half the audience got up and left.

I believe it is time I go see Al again. I need a recharge over coffee.

If I could, I would leave my brain at home and head off by myself.

But that sucker just won’t leave me alone.

By Jim Hagarty

When we are kids, we want friends and lots of them.

As time goes by, the number of buddies dwindles. A natural selection sort of process.

Finally, we realize we have only one true friend. One true friend is all we need. He may not be someone we see on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Mates of the Soul do not wear watches or carry calendars. They were forged in the furnace of the universe. The bond is strong, the steel well tempered.

We have one other true friend if we will accept him and that is ourselves. That guy is a little less reliable. We sometimes treat him badly, ignore his needs, put him down. But he signed on with us on Day One and plans to be there till The End.

Shocking sometimes that we don’t treat him as well as we should.

Thank God we have that one other friend to turn to.

By Jim Hagarty

I am not the world’s greatest guitar player.

I know this declaration will set off howls of objections from people who have seen me switch effortlessly from a G chord to a C – and back again. And throwing in a D with a floursh.

But the way I know the Eric Claptons and Vince Gills of the world have nothing to fear from me, is the fact that I have played my guitar over the years in the company of people who are great at playing guitar. And in those moments, the fact that I am a 1977 Chevy Chevette and they are 2016 Chevy Corvettes is pretty clear to me.

There have been moments, plunking away alone in my kitchen, when I have been heard to remark to myself, “Damn, boy. You are something else.” Then I go out in the world …

Lest you think I am being too hard on myself, I extend this disclaimer: I am totally comfortable making this critical and realistic self-assessment. I am fine with it because I have a perfectly good excuse.

I learned to play guitar 47 years ago when I was 18 and living in a university residence. A guy down the hall taught me. And by the time the school year ended, I was zipping right along. But I ran into a wall and I am, today, about as good on guitar as I was 46 years ago.

Here was the wall. There was no place to practise guitar in the residence. No place that wouldn’t result in my being pummeled half to death by my fellow students. But someone suggested the men’s shower room. So I tried it out. It was amazing. The acoustics were fantastic, although the atmosphere tended to the humid side. I could sit in a corner on the floor of that shower room till all hours and I did. Till 4 a.m. some days.

My friend down the hall, who played like Chet Atkins, Jimi Hendrix and Glen Campbell all at the same time, would show me a new chord, a new lick or two. And I would hustle off to the shower room to practise.

Unfortunately, my timing for the practice sessions was often not the best and I would sit there in the corner being all Chet Atkins-like, while naked men milled about the shower room. I am not a psychologist or any other kind of ologist, but I think what happened to me might be chalked up to “imprinting.” Like a duckling that thinks a friendly rabbit is its mother. It happened slowly, but by the end of the year, it seemed I could only learn new things on my guitar when I was in the company of naked men milling about.

The term ended and I went home. My residence days were over. As were my days sitting in showers with my guitar while naked men milled about.

In the 46 years since then, I have not been around that many naked men (and not nearly enough naked women), at least not when I have had my guitar at the ready. So, my ascent from guitar-less farm boy to the heights of Hendrixism screeched to a halt.

But if some day you come to see play and I am wearing a bandana and playing up a Mark Knopfler storm, you might rightly conclude that I have joined a nudist colony. There are not that many colonies located in the cold part of Canada where I reside, but you never know. I might find one.

This might sound desperate, but I think it is my last, best hope.

By Jim Hagarty

We spend so much time, in our youth, trying to figure out what we should be. And hardly any time on the more important question of what it is that we are. As it turns out, what we are is all we can ever be anyway. The object seems to be to become something other than what we are, as though what we are is not enough for the world. In other words, we are cats trying to be dogs, dogs trying to be wolves. The nice thing about “being” a “senior” is so much of that stuff just goes away.