They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar: Thunder Bay Votes

Politics for Joe 9:
They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar

by Hubert O'Hearn
for Lake Superior News

I've always thought that the best thing the late Rod Serling ever wrote and produced wasn't an episode of The Twilight Zone, or even Requiem for Heavyweight. There was an Emmy-nominated episode of Night Gallery in 1971 called 'They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar' in which a  down-on-his luck William Windom stands outside his now closed neighbourhood purveyor of liquid pain relief and is visited by the ghosts of his past. It ends with Windom left alone as an emotionally broken man, a grey soul living the words of the under-appreciated William Greenleaf Whittier, “of all words of tongue and pen, the saddest are, 'It might have been'”.

Which of course leads us to election night in Thunder Bay. This will definitely be the last of the parochial Thunder Bay columns for a long, long time – but having begun a story one should finish it.

Thunder Bay went through what I will call its Tim Riley moment. The raw results – at first glance a crunching win for Keith Hobbs over the incumbent Lynn Peterson, while the  City Council team effectively kept the varsity, added from the alumni and only has one intriguing new face. This mix of change and stability is like a revolution going on in a library reading room, but quietly enough to not wake the snoozing retired majors. How can something so refreshing still seem so stale?

For change is refreshing. It's why we have elections – endless trials and errors of formula combinations attempting to perfect a life for a community of people. Until the last week, as you know, I thought Peterson's 'run from the Rose Garden' strategy of pointing to past accomplishments was going to be good enough to hold the vote. Hobbs clearly had the momentum going, but I honestly didn't think his campaign was good enough or clear enough to carry the day.

I suspect – and hopefully some inspired Politics class at the College or University will investigate this – that there must have been close to a 10% swing in the last two weeks. To call a spade a spade (and risk termination by another employer) the stronger I sensed the Chronicle-Journal protecting Peterson's position, the more I felt Hobbs was gaining. Hobbs ended up winning the popular vote by 46% to 30%, which has to set some kind of record for a slaughtering of an incumbent in any office in this City's history.

That will be a hard number to beat in the future. The only way a multi-term incumbent in a non-party race gets that crushed usually requires a sheep or two and money missing from the safe.

Peterson's campaign wasn't all that bad. As I've written before, if you don't have an inspiring picture or design of the future to offer, then sure you run on the resume. Lynn Peterson does have the problem of coming across as shrill when defending herself from attack – I'm not being sexist, just observant. Shrillness to women politicians is what bad mustaches are to the males – they are qualities people don't endorse. But it shouldn't have proven fatal.

I did think Peterson was in danger were there to be a sudden change of events close to election day. Thunder Bay is not exactly the Magic Kingdom when it comes to optimism, no matter what the three levels of government attempt to tell us. Good Lord, they keep singing us a chorus of 'Everything's Coming Up Roses' from Gypsy, to a community that is living 'Rent.'

Perhaps too obscure, but those who got that will have enjoyed it.

It's a depressed, scared and frightened city that has little if any faith in its governments. Granted, there are interesting economic opportunities arising from Lakehead University as it follows the American model of pimping itself out (sorry, but that is my opinion) as a supplier of cheap research for multinational corporations. Still, a job's a job, and the rert of the economic activity at present seems to consist of the destruction of gas stations and the construction of Seniors' Homes and doughnut shops.

While the Transit strike was averted after the eleventh hour – and their Union team is to be congratulated on the brilliance of their timing in getting the best deal for their members – the Horizon Wind Farm turned an already jittery public into jabbering William Windoms.

Frankly, I've always supported the wind farm. For once this City could be ahead of the timeline and if we don't need the power at present, might it not be nice to offer it as an incentive to business? Energy will be the ultimate incentive starting on a day within our view. And if it wrecks your view, well dear, some of us recall being rocked to sleep at night by passing trains so suck it up princess.

But regardless of one's position on that subject, all of a sudden the public was looking at City Council scrambling and grasping for a position to appease protesters, there were in camera meetings being held and now this damn Horizon company was dropping a $126 million lawsuit on Thunder Bay. Pass the pitchforks and heat up the tar, someone's going to pay.

And that was the end of Lynn Peterson.

But this election also had a pathetic turnout of 47.43%. So even Hobbs' near-majority of 46% is really less than a quarter of the over 18 population. The angry voted, the satisfied stayed home with the bored.

I was part of the bored. But as there were no actual platforms, visions, meat and potato  proposals by 90% of the various candidates people went back to Tim Riley's Bar, back to the past, back to when Mom and Dad would make it all better. And therefore Ken Boshcoff again led the polls – gaining 22,516 votes, almost exactly 5,000 more than Hobbs. With the exception of McKellar Ward's Paul Pugh – who actually had to face a Red-baiting smear campaign in 2010 – Council is very much a reunion tour.

Looking to the future, the flaw of Hobbs' campaign in not having any kind of detailed plan can work as a strength if he uses it correctly. He will need to meet the Councilors individually and privately, figure out who he can best work with to form a working coalition of seven. If he is wise, he will find a meeting of the minds with Lawrence Timko as well. Timko was the Bubble Boy, finishing sixth out of an At-Large race where the top five were promoted. As Boshcoff will effectively be turning training laps waiting for the Federal election, Timko will likely be coming on board at some point in the next twelve months.

In looking at it, I can see Hobbs building a group consisting of Boshcoff (who will want to be seen with the winners in Getting Things Done), Rebecca Johnson, Larry Hebert, Brian McKinnon, Joe Virdiramo and Mark Bentz. Now, the former head of the Police Association may not like the look of this centre to centre-right grouping, but it will hold and the voters have put their trust in what is largely the old guard.

Well, it'll be interesting. Be seeing you.

Hubert O'Hearn
Lake Superior News

Twitter, TV Theme Music and Santa's on Fox Sports!

All men bowed to Lola Albright ...

Inside Television 523
Publication Date: 10-22-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn


At long last, if an existence of two years can even be termed long last, I am starting to understand Twitter. I ignored it until around August, as I could not get my head wrapped around why anyone would want to spend time sending teeny tiny messages to the world. And if it was going to be like Facebook, where people breathlessly inform me every time they brush their hair or teeth, why on earth should I waste even more time.

But in the personal style which has made my card opponents quite happy over the years, I had guessed wrong. Twitter is more a gigantic cocktail party where you can join in the conversation with the Cool Crowd. It is a phenomenally efficient marketing tool, much more effective than Facebook in attracting Web traffic, and now it is supplying grist for the column mill.

So I follow Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC Anchor as well as the finest sports news anchor in history. You really haven’t lived as a baseball fan until you watch a game with your Twitter open (my that sounds rude) and follow along with Keith’s commentary. Keith made a reference to the Fox Sports music, as follows:

“15 years of this Fox music at the end of innings, in NFL broadcasts, and every time I think: "Why are they playing 'Sleigh Ride'?"

And later as explanation: “used to hear it in the studio when I did MLB on Fox and we'd all start humming Christmas music. In July. In L.A.”

Well, needless to say I laughed a Man’s Laugh at that one. For it’s true, that blaring trumpet anthem just seems made to be followed by jingling little bells and maybe some high-stepping reindeer can-canning their way across the bottom of the screen.

All of this made me think about TV theme songs and about how they don’t play ‘em like they used to. That said, those who follow those column on-line are going to have way more fun that newspaper readers, as on-line you can right click the links and YouTube your way to a hap-hap-happy day. Then again, newspaper readers might have one of those Apple thingies that you paid $1200 for new, which you can re-sell for $300 next year. Anyway, let’s tune up the Nostalgia Band.

Back in the day, TV didn’t mind wandering off into genres that weren’t all mock-funk synth pop. (And by the way if you can say ‘mock-funk synth pop’ five times in a row ... you will sound extremely silly and people will avoid you in the future.) And not just dramas, sports and comedy shows either. For fourteen years NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report closed their newscast five times a week with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony 2nd Movement. And by the way, if you look up the clip, notice the level of erudition and intelligence that Chet Huntley and David Brinkley possessed. Were one or both to appear on Fox News today (or heck, throw in CNN) they would sound like Aristotle dropping in on Mrs. Whimsy’s pre-kindergarten play period.

Jazz used to be quite well-represented, I think most memorably by Henry Mancini’s theme for the hard-boiled noir detective series Peter Gunn. That repeating bass line and hot brass certainly told you there was excitement ahead - plus the show’s principal set was a jazz blues bar -  Mother’s - whose singer was Lola Albright. Lola Albright’s curvaceous figure and sultry sultriness taught many a young boy important lessons; the meaning of curvaceous for one.

I don’t want to go too far with this, because we could spend all day going, ‘Remember when?’ But  just a few more to illustrate the point. I do miss the campfire quality TV theme, your Beverly Hillbillies or Gilligan’s Island. And who among us has not bravely taken the Eva Gabor part in a beer hall version of Green Acres? (No, me neither. ahem.)

For curiousity’s sake, send me your favourites in the comment box below. Or if there is any other topic you would like me to look at, let me know. As Dean Martin used to say, ‘Jeannie and I looove getting letters.’ Until of course the letters were from divorce attorneys, but that’s a story for another day. Be seeing you.

Politics for Joe 8:

Where Have All the Parties Gone?

Why isn't this man your MP? No Party behind him silly!

The living journalist I admire above all others is Christopher Hitchens. It is not that I necessarily agree with his every stand, but I so admire his willingness to take them – proudly, publicly and well-reasoned. And even those points of disagreement somehow emerge from the same ethic. For instance, Hitchens believes in the Afghan War as a necessity to eliminate radical Islamic sects ben on destruction of the West. I concur with the goal, but the war itself is a March of Folly. Like the wonderful histories told in that title by Barbara Tuchman, this particular expensive, exhausting, long and deadly fight began with the noblest of goals.

In any event, Hitchens is better-read than the contents of the average political studies section in a university library, bears no prejudice against any race or colour, is unafraid and is a compelling writer and public speaker. Why in heaven's name (sorry, Hitchens is an atheist) has he not at least been the Honourable Member for Cheddar-Spread-Sandwich?

Clearly the thought has occurred to him as well, judging from his latest on-line column on slate.com. To quote:

I could introduce you to dozens of enthusiastic and intelligent people, highly aware of "the issues" and very well-informed on all questions from human rights to world trade to counterinsurgency, to none of whom it would occur to subject themselves to what passes for the political "arena." They are willing to give up potentially more lucrative careers in order to work on important questions and expand the limits of what is currently thinkable politically, but the great honor and distinction of serving their country in the legislature is only offered to them at a price that is now way too steep.

Being an elected member – a term that does imply some form of amputation – is indeed a brutally tough job. On the other hand, name me anything that is really worth accomplishing in life that isn't brutally tough. And no, winning a lottery doesn't count. It's almost a cliché that you can watch American Presidents age two years for every one served.

Now I grant you that the American Presidency is probably the most stress-inducing political job in the world … save for being the President of some corrupt dictatorship who's just got the midnight call that the Army has turned against him. But neither of those is the norm, thankfully, for elected officials. No McKellar Ward Municipal Councillor ever turned to the bottle because the sewer down the street backed up, unless he was headed there already.

Which in a way is the point I wish to add to Hitchens' lament. Canadian politics faces nowhere near the scrutiny and hyper-judgment of its American counterpart. Personal religious views have never been an issue in Canada (thankfully) and Ontario has had a succession of powerful provincial Cabinet Ministers who were gay without the electorate batting an eye.

And yet, the reader can undoubtedly compile a personal list of names of people they knew or know who would be thoughtful and effective politicians, none of whom ever threw a hat, golf glove or parchment into the ring. Why?

One interesting place to look is at the process we are going through right now: municipal elections. These should be the breeding grounds, the fish hatcheries if you will for future Provincial and Federal members. The tradition of the political parties avoiding full endorsement and – God forbid! - application of party machinery to school board or City Council candidates has always puzzled me. Do correct me if I'm wrong, but outside of certain wards in Toronto and Vancouver, the traditional parties all go on vacation.

What a missed opportunity.

Mind you, to be able to do that requires a political party to actually exist in between elections, nomination meetings and delegate selection to leadership conventions. Were help to be offered to a challenger in a Ward there would actually have to be, er, help to be offered. And none of the local political parties in Northwestern Ontario really have such a machine, with the exception perhaps of the NDP in Thunder Bay – hence two elected Mps.

Still and finally one wonders: How many of those talented individuals who never ran and never will run made that non-decision simply because they were never asked?

Be seeing you.

Hubert O'Hearn

for Lake Superior News

Issues like Tissues - Why Voters Eschew

Sometimes you gotta go with your gut ...

Politics for Joe
Issues like Tissues - Why Voters Eschew
October 9, 2010

I have promised, and I mean to keep that promise, that this will not become a parochially interested, Thunder Bay municipality column. we will be switching into Federal election mode shortly, and whatever happens in the American mid-terms - as volatile a situation as I’ve ever seen, even more than the Newt Gingrich Revolution of 1998 - will impact the Canadian election. The reason for the latter of course is that every lazy pundit in Canada will spend column inches and televised minutes speculating on the impact of the American mid-terms on the Canadian election.

To expand on the latter, if say the Tea Party ... (having trouble finding non-derogatory noun) ... faction does extraordinarily well, the Serious Faces of the Ottawa Press Club will tell us that we’re all about to lurch to the right. And Lurch of course was the name of the butler on The Munsters.

Canadians being Canadians, we will do the opposite - should that scenario occur, which I rather doubt. If the safest bet in politics is that a split opposition favours the incumbent (see last week), the second safest is that Ontario at the very least will always attempt to impose a balance. I worked in David Peterson’s government for a brief time in the 1980s.  Peterson flat-out knew that the John Turner-led implosion of the Federal Liberals in the 1984 election would create a favourable wind for him to launch the ultimately successful 1985 provincial campaign.  I’ve always suspected that Peterson played nice-nice with Brian Mulroney in the Meech Lake Constitutional Talks - a decision that largely led to Peterson’s defeat - in order to keep Mulroney in power, to maintain the balance. In my wildest dreams I would never expect Peterson to affirm this speculation. But I maintain my suspicions.

So we’ll have all those things to talk about, but for now there is a municipal campaign going on and I do believe that my observations on Thunder Bay can well apply to your town. Just play the game of (Insert Name Here).

Today, The Chronicle-Journal printed its Election 2010 insert. While not an act of altruism on the part of the daily newspaper, candidates very much pay Market Rates for their inclusion, space in in would be a Must -Buy were I running a local campaign. If a Council or School Board candidate has been hitting their electorate with targeted pamphlets and a well-organized canvass, then not. But i haven’t heard of one of those yet.

By the way, i happily and openly encourage candidates to use the comments section to prove me wrong. I would be delighted to be wrong. But please supply evidence to sustain your argument.

In any event, I have never seen such a wheelbarrow-sized boring lump of cold tapioca as the majority of candidate messages. Here is Political Campaigning ABC:

A - Identify the critical issue (or issues, but no more than three)
B - Stimulate discussion of the issue
C- Make a clear statement as to why it is that your election will create a positive outcome for the issue

You need Me to do This so That will happen.

Everything else is just klieg lights and soundtracks. What I’m seeing in the ads and statements presented by the candidates are a bunch of people who are (or who know) absolute ninjas at the look of a desktop publishing presentation but write as though they’re running for captain of the cheerleading squad.

Want examples? Of course you want examples. That’s why you read political columns. Allow me to deal just with the three principal mayoralty candidates. I will be commenting on one Ward race in a few paragraphs, but by and large I don’t feel right hammering at neighbourhood guys and gals who are new to this Blood Sport and have no interest other than trying to fix stuff that’s been bugging them and their friends for years.

But you run for Mayor - to drill deeper into last week’s topic - you’re saying to the public, ‘I’m a Pro.’ You’re the coach that’s winning us the Stanley Cup. You’re what Toronto had with David Crombie, or Chicago had with the retiring Richard Daley, or heck what Duluth MN had with Gary Doty. You have swingers like wrecking balls and you’re going to yank this city into sanity.

In other words, you screw up, you should know better.

You have to meet the expectations of the office.

So let’s look at the Big Three of Hobbs, Peterson and Pullia. My apologies to the Little Three but ... why are you doing this? Never, ever enter a race you’re neither going to win or pull a decent second. Killing makes you effective and a shark. Being butchered means that your ideas are subservient to your ego, as otherwise you would have run at a level where you might actually succeed at implementing them.

So in  order of their appearance in the C-J supplement - and by the way, when did ‘advertorial’ first enter the Oxford English Dictionary? - let’s look first at Keith Hobbs. And do bear in mind that this is the message exactly the way the candidate’s team wanted it presented.

Hobbs’ slogan: ‘Thunder Bay can’t move forward by looking back.’
My Comment: Meaningless. Also calls to mind the phrase, ‘Those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it.’

Promise: ‘a new approach’ on a variety of issues.
My Comment:Consisting of what exactly? Random family kidnappings and hostage demands would be a new approach. I don’t mean to suggest this is what Hobbs proposes, but are we talking about conciliation, persuasion, I caught you with a dead sheep ... what exactly is this new approach?

Turning to the ‘advertorial’, the first bulleted point - where the eye travels to - is: ‘(We need to:) Have a taxation level that is affordable for homeowners and allows our business community to remain competitive

I can’t write the exact phrase I want to write for fear of making advertisers vanish like a May snow, so let me just comment:

Yeah well, I hope my Mom likes her new Easter bonnet.

What is the implication for that comment? Are we talking tax breaks for all? Or if it’s just “we’ll try and hold the line on mill rates”, that is not the sort of issue that is going to drive people into the street with pitchforks and torches.

Which is what a pure Outsider campaign has to have happen in order to win.

Keith Hobbs, if you happen to read this, I’m not loving you or hating you because I don’t know you. I don’t have a picture in my head of what your Administration will look like. You’re doing Nixon running from the Rose Garden when the only thing that will elect you is an insurgency. You need to go bold when the Transit strike hits. Check that. You need to go bold before the Transit strike hits. Playing it tight may seem the way to go, but I remind you that Doyle Brunson won the World Series of Poker Main Event twice on the same hand: 10-2.

Sometimes you have to play the 10-2.

Turning a page or two in the supplement, we come to Lynn Peterson. She is running the classic incumbent campaign. Every young actor wants to do ‘To Be or Not to Be’ as their audition piece. Every incumbent runs on the record. The first lines of text in her ad are: ‘Change doesn’t just happen - it comes from careful planning and sound decision making.’

Comment: So the subtext is, ‘Vote for me. I’m not crazy.’

Well now, there’s an inspiring message. I used to work for a multi-billion dollar company whose trainer said to use the sales pitch to prospective clients, ‘We’re Big, We’re Old, We’re  Boring.’ Same message, different product. Appeal to the risk-averse.

As a general principle, I can’t argue with the approach. Once you’ve been around for awhile  - and four years is way too long a term in my opinion - it is very hard to difficult to re-invent one’s self as someone new. Lady Gaga in a Lady Gaga costume is hot and intriguing. Cher in a Lady gaga costume is - um - wow - do you think you can still get away with that?

And now of course I have this really awkward and upsetting image of Lynn Peterson in snow white 10 inch flat heel boots with five snow white ostrich feathers sprouting over her head.

I suffer for my art.

The thing is, Peterson’s campaign is so based on her hole cards - what I have will defeat that which comes - that I still say she is wide open to what the Republicans in the U.S. refer to as the October Surprise. The aforementioned possible transit strike. A sudden mass layoff. What about one of the other candidates lobbing a grenade into the mix like:

Did you know? that Bird Construction, awarded the contract for building the new Provincial Courthouse, whose disruption to the Transit system has forced the City of Thunder Bay to turn its City Hall into a bus depot at considerable expense - did you know that they are planning on flying in workers and putting them up in hotgels rather than, you know, hiring locally?

If - if - I’m running a campaign against Lynn Peterson or any incumbent I’m going to say hot that kind of gut issue about 20 minutes into a 1 hour debate, just when everyone is getting a little satisfied and bored and light up the room. I’m going to play that you don’t have a ready answer for  that kind of attack, you’re going to try and bury it in bureaucratic jargon and I’m going to look like a hero.

The only counter is to have a clear understanding with the public that the process used in decision-making is completely on the side of the people’s raw needs - jobs, shelter, food, health. I am not feeling that narrative from the Peterson campaign. The split opposition vote will carry her through but ... if events and the other side get smart and ruthless ... I’d want to be prepared.

As for Frank Pullia, this seems bizarre to say, but the slogan ‘CHANGE you can TRUST’ is both as ham-handed as Arnold Ziffel and sooooo 2008. You’d think it would work - Pullia obviously does - because those are the elements you want the public to want. Change - throw the bums out. Trust - throw in non-bums. But this Obama-echo is so obvious and so photocopied that it becomes worse than meaningless; it is annoying in its meaninglessness.

I certainly don’t mean to rag on Pullia. I’ve met Pullia and he seems a decent and sincere man but a top Priority of, ‘Job Creation through economic development & growth’ is like saying ‘Let’s stop earthquakes!’ Yay! Stop earthquakes! Yay! How are we going to do this!?!? Tell me!

... why do I hear the sound of crickets chirping?

And it is no good to point to a fat binder on a shelf and say, “Oh? you want to see the plan? Well, here - THUD.” Nobody’s going to ask. You have to be able to tell people in 50 words or less who you are, what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. And yes it’s hard and yes that’s why political pros make lots and lots of money.

But always, with every decision in a campaign, the only thought process that counts is, ‘What decision can I make that will help me win? What decision can I make that might destroy me?’ And the lines can sometimes (usually) be hard to discern. But sometimes you gotta cross that line. What do you want to be? the runner who scores or is thrown out at home plate; or the runner stranded at third because he didn’t go first to home on a double?

All of which is why I’m only endorsing one candidate in this election (an endorsement which I am sure will result in a voter shift measuring in the ones): Jay Stapleton, running for City Council in Red River Ward. I refer you to his blog at http://jaystapleton.blogspot.com/ for informed, reasoned, firm yet equally understanding of the public’s desire for transparent processes. I hope he makes it. And if he pushes his message hard, he can.

Be seeing you.

Survival Tips for the Hotel Traveler

When your travel agent hates you ...

I am the Night Auditor at a medium-size hotel in a medium-size city. Naturally, on my annual tax return I list my occupation as Professional Writer. It’s somehow comforting to picture soulless bureaucrats in the Regional Tax Office reading that and then imagining poets with windswept hair swept by the wind into a Yorkshire pub, lit by the moon of a ghostly galleon a Bronte sister clinging to each arm. The soulless bureaucrats will then picture their own lives as devoid of romance for they themselves are timid as neurotic mice. They will then proceed to slam shut their tin desk drawers for the last time and hurl themselves out to the street - preferably via the sixth floor window. Well, preferable to me anyway.

The combination of Hotel Clerk and Professional Writer really is the best of both worlds. I know that the mortgage will be paid. I know that I will have a good two hours between 2-4AM where I can write without having to take the dog out for a widdle. I get to claim things like PPV movies and new games for the kids at Christmas as ‘work-related research expenses.’ Plus - bonus! - I get to strip mine the Hotel experience and turn it into wordsmithed gold. Please send your used jewellery and watches to ...

... but I digress

Truthfully, I feel sorry for travelers. I’ve been one and I serve many. I know what it’s like when the wireless internet boots you out; at places where you have to pay for it, that experience can take you straight from a tea-sipping Bill Bixby to a raging Lou Ferrigno in seconds. Seconds that you’re paying for.

Either the worst or best thing that ever happened to me as a hotel guest was a few years back in Hamilton, Ontario. I’d been in hospital for a quadruple bypass and my darling bride to be and me checked into a grand old downtown hotel the night before flying back home. The only reason I don’t mention the name of the hotel is that the following could happen to any of us.

We check into the room - all cornice and mouldings and we drew back the cover on the bed ... to find a saucy little pair of black lace panties curled across the blanket like a relaxed kitten. I’m not sure that much laughter is exactly recommended for recuperating patients, but I’m still here so the risk was evidently minimal. And it was nice to see that the housekeeping staff was offered recreational benefits by management.

In the morning, we returned the panties to the front desk clerk - of course it was a young woman - would you have expected anything else? The first thing I said, as the panties were laid (bad choice of words) across the plexiglass counter was, ‘These aren’t ours.’

People will tip the damnedest things you know.

And by the way, just after writing the above I took a walk around the hotel. One section smelt very much of Novice Hooker No. 5 cologne. I take that back. Definitely perfume and not cologne for the oil is still clinging like Glad Wrap to my nostrils. This is not a good thing.

As the point to this article is to advice, assist and coach the readers for whom ‘hotel travel’ is frequently misheard as ‘penitentiary time’ we might as lead with that.

Tip Number One: If you smell like a hooker, don’t blame us if we look at you like you’re a hooker.

I mean, it’s not like we desk clerks haven’t seen one or fifty in our time. And that was just Tuesday night in room 202. This in turn leads to a certain hotel truth:

We don’t care if you bring in a hooker. Honest. We’d rather have you sexed up and sighing than tanked up and screaming.

Seriously. I was a hearty drinker of laughing beverages until I had to start explaining to drunks just why it was that I was going to kick their sorry ass out into the street, you can deal with me or deal with the cops, it’s your choice sunshine. No fun there. Plus it interrupst my writing time.

So, I respectfully request your assistance in my writing career.

Tip Number Two: For God’s sake complain!

If you’re placed in a room next to Bubba, Dave and their good buddy Jack Daniels please let the desk know so we can get to them before Dave starts to demonstrate his old high school hurdling technique over the office chair (and into the flat screen). Actually, wait a moment. I need to add a sub-clause to this tip.

Tip Number Two A): Complain RIGHT AWAY!

There is nothing more frustrating than checking out a guest in the morning, asking ‘How was your stay?’ and the hearing a list of complaints that would do Martin Luther proud. This may come as a shock, but while I may moonlight (literally) at a hotel, The Amazing Kreskin does not. We can’t fix what we aren’t told.

Which is not to say that we can always fix what we are told. You would be amazed at the number of guests who will hand a desk clerk a brand new laptop right out of the wrapper and ask one us to configure it to the internet. Well, there goes the next hour of my life in futile pursuit of something which may bear no fruit for either of us. Which is another hotel truth:

The hotel desk clerk is neither your neighbourhood bartender, your free psychologist, nor your personal life coach.

Ask me for a tip on a restaurant, directions to the nearest Tim Horton’s Doughnut Shop, or what time the Wal-Mart opens and I’m there for you. Do not expect me to assist with the activities mentioned earlier, as two guests did a while ago.

Two brothers were staying at the hotel where I work. They were, shall we say, of a foreign extraction. You may now think of your favourite racial stereotype. Well, the boys come smartly up to the desk, shoulder to shoulder like Chang and Eng Bunker and ask me, in these words, ‘Please, can you assist us in finding your local prostitutes?’

good times.

I was never so thankful that the yellow page in the desk phone book that listed Escort Agencies had been torn out.

You know what they say, Here today, gone Gomorrah.

The last tip I have goes straight to your wallet, where the Good Things live.

Tip Number Three: Ask

Our hotel chain offers a 10% discount to Auto Club members - CAA, AAA and their off-shoots. There’s even a sign on the door advertising this. Yet I know that many a hotel guest has driven off after having paid Rack rate. It’s easy to tell. The AAA bumper sticker over the left taillight is a pretty good clue.

For years, I got anywhere from a 5% to 10% discount when checking in to hotels by just asking for the ‘Liberal Party of Canada discount.’ I was never turned down, ever, neither in Canada nor the United States. And it’s not like it was a lie. I did have a $10 membership card in my wallet as documentary back-up, which I was never asked to produce. That $10 probably saved me around $500 in a two year period.

I’ll post more of these as I think of them. In the meantime, feel free to post your own tips in the comments section below.

Be seeing you.