Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2016

The AIH Transcript for February 15, 2017

Hosts: Helen Mann and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

HELEN MANN: Hello, I'm Helen Mann.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening, I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight:

HM: He talked the talk – so he was forced to walk the walk. But the end of Michael Flynn's short tenure as U.S. National Security Advisor may just mark the beginning of an investigation into his conversations with the Russian Ambassador.

JD: Chaos doesn't mean disorder. One psychiatrist says U.S. President Donald Trump is self-absorbed and destructive, but we should stop saying he's mentally ill – because it's insulting to people who really are.

HM: You can take that to the Banksy. You'll just have to take it to the PATH through a condo building in Toronto – where the mysterious British artist's work has been carefully preserved by our guest.

JD: He never leaves his buddy's behind. A newly discovered beetle isn't a butt-in-ski so much as a butt-on-ski – hitching a ride on the rear end of the deadly army ant.

HM: My cup runneth over – but he had to have his shipped. An Irishman who broke his mother's beloved measuring cup scoured the world for a replacement – and found a saviour in Winnipeg.

JD: And...he contained multitudes. Dave and Morley, their many friends and neighbours, and Galway the cat – after more than two decades, their stories have come to an end, with the death of the legendary CBC storyteller, Stuart McLean.
As It Happens, the Wednesday edition. Radio that says goodbye to a man who may not have been big – but was never small.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Part 1: Stuart McLean obit, Michael Flynn resignation, beetle ant

Stuart McLean obit

Guest: Jess McLean

JEFF DOUGLAS: He was one of CBC Radio's most recognizable and best loved voices and the creator of some of Canada's best loved characters. Today we are very sad to report that our friend and our colleague Stuart McLean, the host of the Vinyl Café, has died. He was 68 years old. He was diagnosed with melanoma in late 2015. Stuart was born in Montreal and he was a fixture on CBC Radio since the 1970s produced documentaries for CBC Sunday Morning and was often heard alongside Peter's Gzowski on Morningside the first Vinyl Cafe aired on June 6^th, 1994 and here's what it sounded like.

SOUNDCLIP

STUART MCLEAN: Hello, I'm Stuart McLean. Welcome to The Vinyl Café, featuring music from The World's Smallest Record Store, where they're proud to say they may not be big but they're small.

[Sound: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star plays on the piano]

STUART MCLEAN: Because this is our first show, I thought I should begin by telling you a little bit about the world's smallest record store. It's where we get all the music we're going to be playing for you here on the Vinyl Café, and it's a little different from most record stores these days. First, because Dave who owns and runs the establishment, still sells records. And it's organized… the store is organized differently from most record stores. Most record stores these days file their discs by artists, but Dave uses what he believes to be a more sensible system. He categorizes his records by the nature of the music on each disc. It's a system that either works for you or doesn't, and if it doesn't you're not liable to go back there which is OK with Dave. Dave displays his records in hundreds of cardboard boxes that he has on sprawling tables that he constructed himself using those large plastic milk cartons.
Regular customers will tell you that the more time you spend with those boxes, the better you'll understand how Dave's mind works, and the easier it is to find whatever it is you're looking for. I've found it's better to go to the World's Smallest not knowing what it is I'm looking for. It's a place that's made for poking around, the kind of store where regular customers arrive with a cup of coffee for themself and one for day. The kind of place where it only takes a visit or two before you feel like you should be bringing coffee in too.
There's always someone hanging around the cash register chewing the fat, and before you know it, that someone is you.
Once you get past the cash and back to the records, Dave has the store divided into various sections by hand lettered signs that he has hanging from the ceiling. The signs float over the various bins and say things like “Jesus loves you” or “Bourbon,” or “Golden treasures on wax.” My favorite section stretches right across the back of the store. It's called “Vinyl’s last stop.” It costs a dollar an album for any of the records that you find in those boxes. And if you buy in bulk, you can take home any 15 albums for 10 bucks. I found our first tune in a section about halfway along the store. The section’s called “She never loved you anyway.”

[Sound: Music]

JD: That was from the very first Vinyl Café, 1994. Jess Milton has been the producer of Vinyl Cafe for many years and was a friend of Stuart McLean. We reached Jess Milton in Toronto.

HELEN MANN: Jess, first of all I'm really sorry for your loss.

JESS MILTON: Thank you.

HM: So many Canadians are going to be feeling this loss today, but you were friends with Stuart McLean. Can you tell us how you met each other?

JM: He was my teacher, my professor at Ryerson and he and the founding producer, the amazing founding producer of Vinyl Café David Amer offered me a job. Pretty much straight out of school and I started as a production assistant, answering letters and that kind of thing so I've worked with Stewart for almost 14 years.

HM: What was he like to work with?

JM: He was amazing. He was amazing, but he was probably a little bit different than you might imagine because people see him on stage and they see him performing, and he was a tremendously good performer. But what made him such a good performer and such a good storyteller wasn't that he was naturally like that. He became that way because he was an incredibly good listener. I want to say he was a mirror, and he reflected the stories back to those who told them. But mirror’s not quite right. It's almost like he was a conduit for other people's stories. He listened and observed and did this incredible job of just sort of passing the stories along to others. You know, we would, we did about 75 or 100 live shows a year and we only recorded some of those. But we'd arrive sort of like I don't know three four five days ahead of time, and we would kind of set up shop in the town.
We would, first thing every morning, we would we would sort of hit the ground running. We would go out and we would sort of just talk to anybody who would talk to us. You know, the woman who served us coffee at the café, the person behind the front desk at the hotel, the lady walking her dog on the street. We would do that and then we'd end up back at the hotel and we'd caucus. We'd meet up in my hotel room or in his hotel room and we'd just share our experiences.

HM: As a listener, I was always taken, I've always been taken by the enthusiasm and the joy you can hear in the voices of those people in those auditoriums. They're just so engaged, like they know Stuart McLean, they know his characters so well. What happened at those shows? Can you describe that relationship with the audience?

JM: Oh it was… it was an incredible. You know, I said he was a good listener. He was a good listener ahead of time and when he did his research, an amazing listener and observer. More than a listener, an observer. But you're right. The audience… his connection to the audience was pretty incredible. And we learned a lot from them you know. So you know we do the show, we did the shows… before we would record a show, before we would record an opening script about Medicine Hat or Calgary or Tofino British Columbia, we would or before we recorded the Dave and Morley story. We'd perform it a couple of times to make sure we kind of got it right. And we really learned from the audience.
So you know he'd work hard with his “long-suffering” editor Meg Masters on that draft of the Dave Morley story ahead of time, and might do seven or eight or ten drafts. But then, he would get it in front of an audience and sometimes you wouldn't even recognize the story afterwards because we learned so much from them. I would sit in the wings, stage left, at every single show and he always was on the stage left side of the stage, and the look on his face when something magical happened, you know he would deliver a line that we were you know, ahead of time we'd be like “I wonder if this one's going to be big or not” or you know, “I wonder if they're going to get this,” right?
And he would deliver the line, and that crest that wave of laughter would crest, and you know, he’d turn to me and kind of raise his eyebrows and sometimes even give me a little thumbs up. You know, he took such pleasure in it. And he listened to the audience. He did his work ahead of time, but then he did his work in the moment. And his favorite thing to talk about was what he called “the moment of giving and receiving.” You know most authors don't have that opportunity. They write something for the page and then they're not there to watch you read it. They're not there to watch you laugh or more importantly not laugh at something that should be funny and they're not there to sort of change it on the fly. And he loved that moment of giving and receiving.

HM: You mentioned Dave and Morley. Those characters are so iconic. You've also talked about the fact that when he told his stories, they made us smile and laugh, made us think. But they also made us cry. There was a poignancy. Tell us about what it was about the stories he told that made them so resonant in so many different ways.

JM: So there was a lot of there's a lot of truth in them. You know, he never let facts get in the way of the truth, because of course his work was mostly fiction. But he… there was a lot of truth in what he did and that's what he strived for. And more than anything, I think they connected us. You know they connected us to our country. They connected us to each other. They connected us to ourselves. They connected us to Canada because every town that he stopped in, you know he swam in our oceans, he rode our railways, he skated our ice and he told us our story over and over and over again until we could really hear it. He… and not only so we could hear it, but until it felt true. And that's really powerful that connects us to Canada, he connects us to each other because he’s, you know he told stories about small towns, main streets, and he told stories about you know Vancouver and Calgary and Toronto and Montreal, and he blurred the edges between those two worlds and he made us realize that they're not that different.

HM: Before I let you go, not many of us had the privilege of knowing him in person. I just want to know if there's one thing you'd kind of like Canadians to know about Stuart McLean that might surprise them.

JM: When he sent letters, he would send… instead of using just like a stamp that you or I would buy, Helen, he would he would cover the envelope in decommission stamps which are still… you can still use them. And he would they would add up to 89 cents or whatever it cost to send the letter. And that's sort of how he lived his life. He took something as mundane as mailing a letter and he made it beautiful. He made it something that others could take pleasure in. He believed that moments add up and that every moment counts. And I'm certainly grateful for every moment that I had with him.

HM: Well, he’s left many happy memories for a lot of people in this country. Thank you, Jess, again. We're really sorry but we so appreciate you speaking with us about him today.

JM: Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Helen.

HM: OK. Bye-bye.

JD: Just Melton was a friend of Stuart McLean and has been the producer of Vinyl Cafe for years. We reached her in Toronto. Stuart McLean the much loved host of Vinyl Café died today. He was 68 years old. And tomorrow afternoon, CBC Radio One will air an hour long special called Canada’s Storyteller: A Tribute to Stuart McLean. It will air at 1pm, 1:30 in Newfoundland.

[Music]

Michael Flynn resignation

Guest: Jeff Merkley

JD: U.S. President Donald Trump thinks we're all being too hard on Michael Flynn. At a press conference today, he called his former National Security Advisor a "wonderful man" who has been treated "very, very unfairly."
But that won't stop Democrats, and some Republicans, from pushing hard for an investigation into his resignation – and the administration's relationship with Russia.
General Flynn was forced to step down from his position on Monday, after it was revealed he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador before President Trump assumed office. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley is among those calling for a deeper look at the situation. We reached him in Washington, D.C.

HM: Senator Merkley, you are among a group of Democrats calling for more information on General Flynn’s departure. What is it that you're looking for?

JEFF MERKLEY: Well 11 of us joined in a letter yesterday that called for an independent investigation. An investigation is necessary to determine what General Flynn did, who knew about it, and what the team in the White House did, and when did they do it and to pursue that. We feel it's essential that there be an independent special counsel.

HM: Now the Senate majority leader said yesterday that it's highly likely the Intelligence Committee will investigate. Why is that not good enough?

MERKLEY: The intelligence committee can do important work but because their entire conversation is behind closed doors, and because it's extraordinarily difficult to have any findings that they might make be declassified, it is not a process that meets the challenge or the equivalent role of a criminal investigation.

HM: So you listed some of the questions you have. What are your biggest concerns about General Flynn and the White House handling of the allegations against him?

MERKLEY: There's really two issues here that are broader than General Flynn. The first is what type of coordination occurred between the Trump campaign and the Russians? And second of all, after the election, what type of coordination occurred between the team Trump and the Russians and those two both raise very large important issues that could involve either criminal conduct in the context of a campaign or criminal conduct in the context of the transition.

HM: So are you expanding then they request that you made now that we have this report in The New York Times about contact during the campaign?

MERKLEY: it is our belief that it's unlikely, and I'm speaking just for myself here, but it seems very unlikely that General Flynn operated solely on his own. He is very close to Steve Bannon. There's been a lot of conversations in the campaign that set the stage for the type of conversation that General Flynn is reported to have had. So the information regarding the general's telephone call raises far more questions than it answers.

HM: We learned that the president had this information for some time before the departure of General Flynn. Can you summarize for us your understanding of what happened in the lead up to his resignation which we now have learned is a forced resignation?

MERKLEY: Well if we turn the clock back, the framework is that it was late December that President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia, and it was the same day that Flynn then proceeded to call and talk to the Russians, and within 24 hours Putin said he wouldn't retaliate. Which was quite a surprise to everyone because that's not the pattern you would expect.
So that framework existed and then the President was warned in January that Flynn had misled the Vice President, and this was the result of conversations between a number of the leaders of the intelligence community and Sally Yates the acting attorney general, and they filled in the president that Flynn’s commentary to the Vice President and to the press secretary were not consistent with their knowledge.
Now what everyone wants to have the president clarify, is why when he was warned on January 26, the National Security Adviser had not only misrepresented key facts to the Vice President, but also posed a security risk or potential security risk, a potential for blackmail by the Russians, why the president did not act immediately to fire him.

HM: We heard President Trump blaming the media today for treating Michael Flynn “unfairly,” in his words. He's also pointing out, as is his staff, that these Intel leaks themselves are problematic in the White House estimation. Do they not have a point when it comes to that, given the stakes here that Intel officials are leaking information that shouldn’t necessarily be made public.

MERKLEY: Every administration struggles with leaks. And certainly President Obama worked very hard to control information. It is a big challenge for each and every administration. But at this moment, that is a distraction from the core issue. You can't allow the issue of how the information became public to distract us from the fact that there are major issues involving the integrity of American campaigns and the integrity of American foreign policy at stake.

HM: President Trump also suggested a lot of these leaks and the subsequent outrage we're seeing from Democrats is just sour grapes because your team lost. Is there some partisan gloating going on here as well?

MERKLEY: I don't think there's any gloating at all. We don't actually know what went on yet, but it is essential for the functioning of this administration, I believe the president should be leading the campaign to say we are going to get to the bottom of this. His best route to having an effective administration is to clear this up as quickly as possible. And if that means there was additional conduct that was inappropriate, or even criminal in nature, that needs to be unveiled and dealt with. Dragging this out over the next multiple months or half a year, or more will do enormous damage to the administration.

HM: So what do you make of the fact that he's not doing that?

MERKLEY: Well let's give him a little time. Presidents often go into a defensive bunker when they're feeling like things are hitting them and they're not sure what's going on. So I won't speculate specifically on why he hasn't taken that pose yet but I hope those aides of his who can see this clearly will recommend that he take that action.

HM: What kind of message do you think this crisis is sending to the rest of the world about the state of the state of affairs at the top of the U.S. government?

MERKLEY: Well this is showing an administration that is deeply in chaos. It is having a great deal of difficulty addressing the core issues that ran on it. It said it was going to basically drain the swamp. It was going to take on Wall Street. It was going to fight for workers. And those three themes have disappeared. So you have all of that. But then you have one incompetent action after another and then this, which may well go beyond incompetency to criminal conduct.

HM: All right, Senator Merkley , thanks for taking time today to talk to us.

MERKLEY: Oh you're very welcome.

HM: All right. Goodbye.

MERKLEY: Thanks. Take care.

HM: Bye-bye.

MERKLEY: We reached Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, in Washington D.C. and to read more about General Michael Flynn’s resignation and the growing calls for an investigation, go to our website cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Beetle ant

Guest: Christoph von Beeran

JD: In this particular case, there's a very real upside to being a fake backside. Researchers have recently discovered a new species of beetle in the rainforests of Costa Rica. These beetles hitch a ride on army ants. Or – to be more accurate and also perhaps more interesting – the beetles bite the waists of army ants, and then pretend to be their butts.
Christoph von Beeran was one of the researchers studying the beetle. He's an entomologist at the Technical University of Darmstadt. We reached him in Darmstadt, Germany.

HM: Christoph von Beeran, how did you come to realize that some of these ants looked kind of strange?

CHRISTOPH VON BEERAN: We were actually sitting on little folding chairs in the rainforest during the night and watching these ants, and some just looked a bit odd. So the colour of the abdomen, of the back, was a bit different, and also we have headlamps, because we worked in the night, and the reflection was kind of different and we weird too. And that's when we realized that something is wrong with this.

HM: And so you got a closer look. What did you do?

CVB: We collected it. We have little aspirators, so we sucked the animals into little vial and then looked at it from the side and that was the moment that we realized that something is really weird here because it looked like the ants had two abdomens. And then we shook the vial and then the beetle detached, and once it detached, it was clear that was a beetle that we just did not know what kind of animal it is because it just looks like a ball.

HM: So it's fair to say you were surprised when you shook the vial and another creature fell off.

CVB: Yeah, quite surprised. It was Daniel Kronauer and me. I can still remember the situation and I remember exactly at which place we were, although I have collected ants, I don't know how many hours and how many times but I still know this specific moment because it was quite exciting.

HM: You say it looks like it had a second abdomen but I've also read in my notes it described as having a second butt. But what exactly does it look like?

CVB: If you look at the ants from the side, you just see that it has two backsides or two butts if you like. And that's just not normal. It's actually they are very difficult to see if you look from top. Because from top, it just looks like the ant had one butt only.

HM: So it’s the same color and texture as the ant then?

CVB: The colour is a bit different but the texture is very similar. And also when you look at them during the night, it just looks like a normal ant that has a slightly different colour. But otherwise it's like from the shape and so it’s very similar to the ant abdomen.

HM: Why are the beetles attaching themselves to the ants?

CVB: Because it has to keep up with its host. And these host ants are [unintelligible]. They are army ants and they migrate to a new nest site almost every night. And all the guests that parasitize these ant colonies need to find a way to somehow participate in these emigrations, otherwise that would be left behind. And would need to search for a new host colony every time. And there are different strategies and this is, so far, I would say the most remarkable ones.

HM: So what are the beetles eating? Are they true parasites? Are they sucking anything from the ant?

CVB: We have no idea about this. This is something for future research. Most of these animals that live together with these army ants feed on the prey items the ants actually take in. So they're kind of stealing some food from the ants. And there are also some species known but very few that actually feed on the ants or on the ant food. But most of them seem to feed on the prey of the ants.

HM: And there are a lot of different creatures that travel with these ants, right?

CVB: Yeah there are quite a lot. There was a recent paper in 2011. One really famous researcher Carl Rettenmeyer, and he described that more than 300 species are obligately associated. So they are dependent on one particular host species. So only one army ant species has more than 300 species and this is for sure only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more species that need to be discovered.

HM: Is that because these ants are so vicious they leave so much carnage for other creatures?

CVB: Yeah absolutely. They have such a high prey intake. I mean army ants are also considered a top predator in the tropics. They have a very high impact on the ecosystem and they have a lot of prey on, a lot of different animals that have a high prey intake. So they are for sure… it’s very attractive for other organisms.

HM: How are the beetles able to latch on without falling off them strong?

CVB: They have very strong jaws and can therefore, there's a little connection, a little trunk, between ant’s mid part and the back part. And they really cling to this trunk very tightly. And then the rest of the beetles just goes up and stays there but it's all attached at this with its strong jaw.

HM: That does not sound very comfortable for the ants. Can they tell whether there is a beetle attached to them?

CVB: No they can't actually. But even if they are and I'm pretty convinced that they would not be able to get it off, because they could just try to get it off with their hind legs for me. But they're very tightly attached to them. So my guess would be that even if they realized that something is wrong or that there is a hitchhiker on their back that they just are not able to get rid of it.

HM: How much force did you have to use to get the beetles off of them?

CVB: Depends on what you do. Because we analyze them genetically, we threw them into alcohol and then they detach for sure pretty quickly. But if you do it by hand, I don't know with the forceps, I actually broke a few of them when I tried to detach them because they were so tightly attached to the ends they didn't want to get off.

HM: Are there any other species you've observed that have this kind of relationship where something attaches and rides along like this?

CVB: There are other ant guests that also attach to the ants. And mites for example attach specifically to the necks of the ant and sucks from the blood from the ants. And it's actually used by the ants like a normal neck. And even the legs of the mites are used if the ants for example, get, the build a nest their own bodies by clinging their claws together and then it's just the mites’ legs that are used as the claws and it still works. So it's really fascinating adaptation.

HM: You've left me feeling like I want to scratch a little bit.

CVB: Go ahead.

HM: Mr. van Beeren, thank you very much. They’re fascinating and creepy at the same time. It's good to talk to you.

CVB: It's not creepy just fascinating.

HM: All right. Bye-bye.

CVB: Bye.

HM: That was Christoph von Beeran, an entomologist at the Technical University of Darmstadt, in Germany. And that is where we reached him. There's more on that story on our website.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Narcissistic personality, Banksy art

Narcissistic personality

Guest: Allen Frances

JEFF DOUGLAS: People have called U.S. President Donald Trump all sorts of things. Including mentally ill. This week, 35 American mental health professionals wrote a letter to the New York Times saying Mr. Trump's, "grave emotional instability", makes him incapable of serving safely as president.
The letter comes after all kinds of other people – most of them amateurs – have said the President could have narcissistic personality disorder. All of this doesn't sit well with Dr. Allen Frances. He's the guy who helped define "narcissistic personality disorder." And now, he wants the media – and his fellow psychiatrists – to stop using it. We reached Dr. Allen Frances in Coronado, California.

HELEN MANN: Dr. Frances, after this letter from 35 psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers came out, you've responded with your own. What do you think is wrong with their position?

ALLEN FRANCES: Well I think, first off, it's inaccurate. I don't think that Donald Trump qualifies for mental disorder. And even worse, it's insulting. Insulting to the people who have severe mental illness, who do suffer a great deal of distress and impairment to be lumped with someone like Donald Trump. Most people with mental illness are decent, well-behaved, well-meaning people. And Donald Trump has none of these so it's a slur against them.
Secondly I think it's hitting the wrong target. I think the people who are starting these petitions and writing these letters feel helpless in the face of what seems to all of us a very scary attack on U.S. democracy. And they want to do their part.
But the way to stop Trump is political. It's not psychological. He is a person who's not going to be bothered very much by a few psychiatrists calling him crazy. We have to work very hard at not underestimating him, at realizing that this is a tremendously dangerous and unique moment in American history. And we have to find ways of meeting his challenge, denouncing his behaviors, but not using psychiatric name calling.

HM: In that initial letter the authors mentioned they remained silent until now because of the American Psychiatric Association’s Goldwater rule. What is that?

AF: In 1964, Barry Goldwater ran for the presidency in the United States. He was considered at the time to be an extremely right-wing radical person. Some liberal psychiatrists felt the urge to point out to the nation that he was mentally unstable and unfit to be the end of the nuclear button. They did a survey, they publicized the results. This was taking a political confrontation and again turning it into a psychiatric name calling. And so the American Psychiatric Association established and the ethical policy against doing this.
I think the psychiatrists who are violating that policy are doing it in a well-meaning way, but one that is self-defeating.

HM: You know how important is that rules seem to be in your field? I mean how egregious is it that these folks are going this far and making these statements publicly?

AF: That's not my call but what I am very concerned about is keeping psychiatric diagnosis restricted to its appropriate usages. We have a terrible problem of over diagnosing attention deficit disorder, over diagnosing depression, lots of things within psychiatry.
It makes it doubly bad when we start calling mass murderers, terrorists, rapists, and Donald Trump mentally ill. When people are bad, they should be labeled appropriately and denounced for their behaviors. We shouldn't use mental illness as an excuse to slur someone.
It's a very strange society that thinks that it's somehow worse to call Donald Trump mentally ill than to call him evil. You're very clear with us on your political views. Beyond those though, why doesn't President Trump meet the criteria for this mental disorder? This narcissism? We all have personalities. His characteristics which certainly make the behaviors that are described as narcissistic; grandiosity, entitlement, exploitativeness, apathy, enviousness, arrogance. He's a world class representative of these particular traits. But having traits doesn't mean that you have a disorder. Having a personality doesn't mean that you have a mental illness. It also has to cause considerable clinically-significant distress and impairment. There's very little evidence that Trump suffers from his behavior. And there's lots of evidence that instead of being punished for his obnoxious behaviors, he's rewarded for them. He's become the president of the country.
He doesn't meet the criteria of a clinically significant distress or impairment.

HM: Aren't you sort of diagnosing from afar yourself though, in our conversation and in the letter you wrote?

AF: I think in a way it's inevitable. There's no way of protecting against wild diagnosis that's going on except by contradicting it.

HM: Why do you think people are so quick to embrace this idea and to spread it? That he might indeed have some kind of mental illness.

AF: He's acting in ways that are impulsive, and people are groping for an explanation of his motivations. But from my perspective, we have to go beyond trying to psychoanalyze him or diagnosis him, and face the real danger is that his policies promote.

HM: You said a few moments ago that you felt people labeling Donald Trump as having a narcissistic disorder was insulting to people who were genuinely dealing with mental illness. What impact does the labeling of him have on those who really do have these kind of challenges?

AF: I wrote this letter only because there was another letter at the time that I was responding to. I've been absolutely amazed at the response to it. People saying thank you. Hundreds, maybe a thousand people saying thank you.
It is a terrible travesty to take bad behavior and call it mentally ill. Because it lumps together criminals and the mentally ill, and we've terribly criminalized mental illness. We put the mentally ill in jail. There are 350,000 of them in jail for nuisance offenses because we don't have appropriate treatment housing for them in the community. We've ignored them, and now we're shaming them by lumping them together with people who are just simply bad.

HM: Dr. Frances thank you for joining us today.

AF: OK my pleasure.

HM: OK bye-bye.

JD: We reached Dr. Allen Frances in Coronado, California. Dr. Frances chaired the task force behind the DSM-IV – which classifies mental disorders. And yesterday, his letter to the editor was published in the New York Times – in which he said that calling President Trump mentally ill is harmful to those who are genuinely diagnosed. We have more on this story on our website, cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Stabbed bus driver

JD: All he did was wake up a sleeping passenger. Today, charges were laid in the fatal stabbing of Winnipeg city bus driver, Irvine Fraser. Brian Kyle Thomas – aged 22 – was charged with second-degree murder and possession of a dangerous weapon. Police believe Mr. Thomas killed Mr. Fraser after the driver pulled up to the last stop of his shift yesterday – and went to the back of the bus to wake him up.Tracey Garand is also a Winnipeg city bus driver. She knew Irvine Fraser. Earlier today, she went to the spot where the attack took place, bringing flowers.
The CBC's Nelly Gonzalez was there. She asked Tracey Garand why she felt the need to do that:

SOUNDCLIP

TRACEY GARAND: I did that for who I called my superman. I met Irvine about eight years ago when I first started at transit and I was at City Hall catching a bus to go to my training. And I was standing there with a backpack just on my shoulder, and a guy had walked by and grabbed it and started going in and I just seen this blue flash kind of because I was startled right? And the gentlemen came back and it was Irvine and I had never met him before and he said “You know you've got to be more careful.” And you know, kind of gave tips about transit and stuff. And I asked him his name and he said “Superman.”
So every time I've seen him I've always said you know, “Hi Superman” because that's who he is to me. Such a great guy. Like this is just horrible like he just… it's just crappy. Really crappy. And he didn't… he didn't deserve this. Nobody deserves this. And. We have lots of support. We have lots of coworkers that are dealing with the same way. We're talking about him, you know all the good stuff about them. To be honest, I haven't heard a bad thing about him. He was there for you, you know from what. From what other coworkers are talking… Absolutely awesome guy.

NELLY GONZALEZ: Has that ever happened to you when you're driving a bus where someone' s asleep and you have to wake them up in the middle… Like at the end of your shift?

TG: Yes. Yeah.

NG: What do you do.

TG: I tell them “It's the end of the line” and if they don't wake up I call control, you know.

NG: Some people do it different I guess but I just don't want to be put in that spot. And for me that's just the safe way to do it.

TG: So does that happen a lot for bus drivers where people fall asleep and you have to wake them up?

NG: It happens at all times of the day. All times of the day.

TG: So now going forward, I mean knowing what happened, how do you feel about your job?

NG: Everybody is on edge. You can’t blame us right? You know something like this happened out of the blue, out of the blue. Like who expected something like this to happen to anybody? You know, we're hauling precious cargo. That’s the people were taking home. And we want to take them home safely. And we want to get home to our families safely. And unfortunately. on a day of love, someone lost his life and that's horrible. Absolutely horrible.

JD: That was Winnipeg bus driver, Tracey Garand, speaking with the CBC's Nelly Gonzalez earlier today in Winnipeg. Ms. Garand was remembering her friend and fellow bus driver Irvine Fraser. Mr. Fraser was stabbed to death yesterday on his bus as he was finishing his shift. Today a man was charged with second-degree murder and possession of a dangerous weapon in Mr. Fraser's death.

[Music]

Banksy art

Guest: Jared Menkes

JD: It's political. We think. But we don't know for sure – because we don't know anything for sure about the anonymous British artist known as "Banksy." We do know he visited Toronto in 2010. And we know he left his mark. It's called "Guard with Balloon Dog", and – unlike most of the Banksy pieces in Toronto – it wasn't destroyed. Jared Menkes is the vice-president of Menkes Development. He was behind the decision to keep the piece, after Menkes bought the building it was stencilled on. We reached Mr. Menkes in Toronto.

HM: Mr. Menkes, what made you decide to save the Banksy piece from demolition?

JARED MENKES: We all really liked it. And you know, as a company as Menkes, we really like to give back to the city that we develop in and this is a perfect reason to, because we had a public path that connects you know that's open to everyone. And this is a landmark development in downtown Toronto and of course the Banksy was originally on the site. So we thought why not put it back?

HM: Describe the piece itself for us.

MENKES: It is a police officer with… you know what was made famous by Jeff Koons, the pink balloon dog on a leash.

HM: And the balloon is muzzled. Is that right?

MENKES: That's right.

HM: And what's the size of the piece?

MENKES: Oh gosh. It's life size. It's on three large concrete and limestone panels encased in glass. And then there's kind of a piece that Johnson Chou designed to complement it, which is a mirrored reflection of the image as you're walking down the pathway.

HM: So it's actually a larger installation than just the original piece itself.

MENKES: That's correct. And then even behind the Banksy, there's some history of the piece itself, and the old building that did stand on the site.

HM: Why choose to put this in the PATH system?

MENKES: We thought you know it was a good way to animate the PATH as well. It was actually exactly where the piece was. It just happens to be on the second floor now instead of on the ground level. And for all our projects, we like to, you know have a art component. This was a great opportunity to do that.

HM: You have to wonder what an anti-establishment artist like Banksy would think of having his work displayed right where it is in sort of the heart of corporate Canada though. What do you think?

MENKES: I think he could only be happy that we gave it back to the public rather than having it in a private collection.

HM: You don't think the fact that you're a developer and this is a condo might be an issue for him?

MENKES: Well it's a condo, it's an office, but it's a public space. So I think he displays in public spaces and now it's back in the public realm.

HM: How complicated was it to get that piece off its original location and put it in its current format.

MENKES: It took a lot of engineering. A lot of people designing how we were able to make it float vertically. It's two and a half tons of concrete and limestone and then another one and a half tons of glass. That's a lot of work to do and a lot of weight to carry. It's taken a long time. The piece was originally done on the site in 2010. We purchased the property in 2011, and it’s now 2017. So it's been a long time waiting to put this back where it was. And I think we did a good job doing it.

HM: I understand there was also some restoration work involved. What needed to be cleaned up?

MENKES: There was some other graffiti pieces that were done over two separate pieces and we decided to bring it back to its original state and that was quite an interesting process and actually we've documented it all and we're going to be releasing a short video that kind of tracks the whole history of that piece from when we first demoed the building and then the restoration process, and the installation process.

HM: Now you must, having looked at this picture so long, have had some thoughts about what Banksy was trying to say with the piece. What do you think?

MENKES: You know, I think art speaks to everyone a little bit differently. For us, we're just really excited to have it in a public realm. You know people are always rushing to and from work, to and from home and we just thought, someone will just look up from the phone for a moment and you know, have a little smile. I think people would be pretty happy to see that on their way to work or way home.

HM: Now this piece though, it was painted on headquarters, former headquarters of the Ontario Provincial Police. And the timing is interesting. It was in 2010 just a month before the G-20 summit. A police officer, a muzzled balloon dog. Can you give us a sense of the context?

MENKES: I wouldn't speak on what he was trying to do. He was on tour for promoting his Exit Through the Gift Shop. There were you know six other pieces that were done in Toronto, all different. And this happens to be the only one of a police officer, so I'm not sure if that was a lucky coincidence or statement.

HM: He is of course, extraordinarily hard to reach. Lives a very private life. Have you had any have you made any efforts to reach out to him?

MENKES: We e-mailed him just to let them know, but obviously, like all the responses he gives, it was no response.

HM: I have to say, as someone who's been lost in the PATH system more than once, how hard is it to find your way to this piece.

MENKES: You know, it's actually a really exciting development because it's south of the Gardener in Toronto, it's above ground, so it's a lot easier to find it . It's surrounded by glass so I think a lot of people find it a lot more or a lot less confusing when you when you're able to see outside.

HM: Well look thank you very much it sounds like a really interesting project and I look forward to seeing it.

MENKES: Great. My pleasure.

HM: OK bye-bye

MENKES: Bye.

JD: Jared Menkes is the vice-president of Menkes Development. He was behind the decision to preserve and display the Banksy piece in the public path that goes through a condo building in downtown Toronto.

[Music]

Alanis theft

JD: In both cases she was betrayed by someone handling her financial assets. And in the second case, those assets must have been really, really heavy. First case first though this week L.A. Morrisette former business manager Jonathan Todd Schwartz came clean. While he was helping her, he was mostly helping himself. In court documents, Mr. Schwartz confessed that he had stolen more than six million dollars from her accounts over a five year period.
Apparently he covered his tracks using an ingenious strategy. He claimed the enormous withdrawals as "sundry-slash-personal expenses."
And he might have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for sheer dumb greed. Ms. Morissette sued Mr. Schwartz last year, after discovering that he had claimed 116 different withdrawals as "sundry-slash-personal expenses."
They settled out of court. But now, Ms. Morissette is dealing with yet another enormous withdrawal. This time, by burglars – who apparently broke into her home in L.A. last Thursday, picked up a safe containing more than 2.6 million dollars' worth of jewellery, and left.
So in total, since 2010, people have stolen just short of nine million dollars from Alanis Morissette. That’s terrible. Let's hope that safe turns up, and that out-of-court settlement involved at least some recompense.

Back To Top »

Part 3: Oroville dam resident, NAFTA explainer

Oroville dam resident

Guest: Margaret Johnston

JEFF DOUGLAS: They have been allowed to come home. But residents have been told to stay vigilant. Yesterday officials in California lifted an evacuation order on communities below the damaged Oroville dam. It is now an evacuation warning. And authorities have said that there is a possibility that residents may have to leave again, if conditions change. This past weekend, nearly 200,000 people were told to leave their homes. Officials were worried that the dams damaged emergency spillway could collapse and cause flooding. Margaret Johnston lives in Oroville. She returned home yesterday. That's where we reached her earlier today.

HELEN MANN: Ms. Johnston, how does it feel to be back home?

MARGARET JOHNSTON: It feels great. Feels great.

HM: What's the mood like in Oroville today?

MJ: It's kind of somber but there's a few more people than the last time I was through town. It was because it was pretty deserted when I left, Monday.

HM: And when did you actually get back?

MJ: Yesterday around 2:00.

HM: OK and were there a lot of other people coming back along the same time?

MJ: Well we thought we were going to be catching up with a lot of them but we were actually we were lucky and got ahead of some of them but I guess when they finally got started it took them a while to get here. But we got here just like it was a trip you know out of town so that was good.

HM: Yeah. Now the evacuation order was Sunday. Sounds like you didn't go with that first wave?

MJ: Well we did. We went to a couple of houses that we were invited to but I didn't feel comfortable there. So we went out to one of the casinos. And it was supposedly high enough that then they started saying it wasn’t high enough so that we’d have to leave so I came back home and was trying to find one of my boys and finally got a hold of him, so we went and eventually the police came and told us we had to leave. They told us were we could get some gas and the place to go in Chico.

HM: How scary was that not being able to find one of your boys?

MJ: It was really scary because I wasn’t going to leave. You know what do you do?

HM: Yeah of course. Now what is your understanding of why you and other residents were allowed to come home yesterday? What did they tell you.

MJ: All I heard was what our sheriff said it was OK. But we would still be, we'd have to watch, not unpack everything, just leave things sitting so we could go in if we needed to we could just throw things in the car again and go.

HM: So are you ready to settle or are you sort of feel like you're on tenterhooks?

MJ: I kind of I'm not really relaxed. But it's nice to be home and get a few things done. But I'm ready to go if I have to. You know that first feeling was very disconcerting. You know you're out on your own, you don't know where to go, you don’t have a place to go. It’s very sad and just throws your game way off.

HM: How do you feel emergency officials have handled everything?

MJ: I think they could have told us sooner to be ready for something like this. It was just kind of tentative at first and then I got my stuff packed and then Saturday or Sunday you know it was like a regular day. I went, got groceries, got a few things at the store anyway while they were still open and stuff. And my son, my grandson, he was in another, where I stayed the night afterwards. They were just out shopping and stuff and they heard it on the radio and they called me and said get out of the house and go to a shelter or go to somebody's house. And that's what we did.

HM: So you think you could have been told more over the course of the weekend.

MJ: Yes I think that it wasn't enough… I'm not taken away from what they did. But there was just not enough information.

HM: Some environmental groups have come forward in the last few days to say that they had warned the government years ago that there were potential problems with the Oroville dams’ emergency spillway, that money was going to be put into it fix it. How do you feel about that and how they've handled the actual dam itself?

MJ: I don't think they were doing their job completely. You know, I'm sure they were they thought they were. But when something dramatic happens like this, it shouldn't have happened, it shouldn't have happened. I realize that it's been there a long time but at the same time, when you're dealing with concrete, or whatever substance they use with that concrete it wears you down. And it's right in full view of the sun and stuff and that… it's been there almost 50 years. It can't last forever. Nothing lasts forever.

HM: Are the water levels down? Are they doing enough to keep the water levels down?

MJ: Last I saw on the news it was down 20 feet, but we're expecting rain again and that was one of our main problems, because we had a lot of rain in the valley. We’re considered in the valley where I'm at right now. But we had a lot of rain in the mountains and that caused a lot of water to flow into the dam and it rose really quick, you know. I just don't think there was enough water out of the dam, but when you start letting water out, you know, it's there, you can't do anything with it, you know?

HM: So you're letting your sons go very far from home right now?

MJ: No. Nobody’s home unless I know right where they’re at and the phone number.

HM: Right you're ready to go. Well I hope you don't have to.

MJ: Me too. It was very… I don't know it was just something tear your heart in your mind it just puts you in a different realm. You know you think everything's just perfect, not so much perfect but normal I would say normal for what you're used to doing every day and then that's taken away from you and it's like, you’re just put in another world that you have no control over.

HM: Ms. Johnston all the best to you, and your family and your friends in the area too. Thank you for talking to us.

MJ: Well sure, I appreciate your time and thank you again.

HM: OK. Bye-bye.

MJ: Bye-bye.

JD: Margaret Johnston was allowed to return to her home in Oroville, California yesterday. That's where we reached her, earlier today.

[Music]

Trump – Netanyahu meeting

JD: As today's meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approached, there was more and more talk about taking the two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinian territories off the table.
Neither leader was willing to go that far today. But Mr. Trump did signal a retreat from supporting a Palestinian state. At the same time, he asked Mr. Netanyahu to, quote, "hold back on settlements for a little bit."
Despite some tough questions from reporters, the two leaders seemed friendly and comfortable with each other at their joint press conference. Here are Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu earlier today in Washington, taking one of those questions.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: Mr. President since your election campaign, and even after your victory, we've seen a sharp rise in anti-Semitic incident across the United States and I wonder what do you say to those among the Jewish community in the States and in Israel, and maybe around the world, who believe and feel that your administration is playing with xenophobia and may be racist tones.
And Mr. Prime Minister, do you agree to what the President just said about the need for Israel to restrain and to or to stop settlement activity in the West Bank and a quick follow up on my friends’ questions. Simple question: do you back off from your vision to the end the conflict of two state solution or you still support it? Thanks.

DONALD TRUMP: Well I just want to say that we are very honored by the victory that we had. And there's tremendous enthusiasm out there. I will say that we are going to do everything within our power to stop long simmering racism and every other thing that's going on because a lot of bad things have been taken place over a long period of time.
I think one of the reasons I won the election is we have a very, very divided nation. As far as Jewish people… so many friends, a daughter who happens to be here right now, a son-in-law, and three beautiful grandchildren. You're going to see a lot different United States of America over the next three four, or eight years, and you’re going to see a lot of love. You going to see a lot of love.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I believe that the issue of the settlements is not the core of the conflict. I think it's an issue that has to be resolved in the context of peace negotiations. We also are going to speak about it, President Trump and I, so we don't keep on bumping into each other all the time on this issue. And on the question you said, you just came back with your question to the problem that I said. It's the label. What does Abu Mazen mean by two states? A state that doesn't recognize the Jewish state? A state that basically is open for attack against Israel? What are we talking about? We're talking about Costa Rica? Or we're talking about another Iran. So obviously it means different things. I told you what are the conditions that I believe are necessary for an agreement.
It's the recognition of the Jewish state and it's Israel's security control of the entire area. Otherwise, we're just fantasizing. And finally, if I can respond to something that I know from personal experience. I've known President Trump for many years, and to allude to him, or to his people, some of whom I've known for many years too. Can I reveal how long Jared, we've known you? I've known the president, and I've known his family and his team for a long time. There is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than President Donald Trump. I think we should put that to rest.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. I appreciate that very much.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump speaking to the media in Washington D.C. earlier today.

[Music]

Etan Patz verdict

JD: If you don't know the name Etan Patz, you might know his face. In 1979, the six-year-old went missing while walking to school in New York City. His photo appeared on thousands of posters and news reports. He was one of the first missing children to have his image printed on a milk carton.
The case shocked parents across the country, and led to new laws about how child disappearances are handled by police. For years, there were no developments. And then, in 2012, police zeroed in on Pedro Hernandez – a clerk in a local bodega who confessed to luring the boy into the basement of his store. Yesterday, Mr. Hernandez was finally found guilty of the murder. Back in 1982, As It Happens host Elizabeth Gray spoke to Etan Patz's mother, Julie Patz. Here is part of that interview, from our archives.

SOUNDCLIP

JULIE PATZ: My six-year-old son disappeared two and a half years ago. I saw him out to the sidewalk in front of our home, watched him walk half a block. He had an additional 1 block to walk to the bus stop. We could see parents and children waiting there for him. The street was very busy with our friends going to work and the local businesses functioning. He was never seen at the bus stop. He never got to school, and we have not seen him since.

ELIZABETH GRAY: Was this the first time, as far as you know, in your neighborhood, that a child had gone missing?

JP: To my knowledge, yes.

EG: How many children are missing at the moment in the United States?

JP: The number of children missing it here in this country is probably, in the area, reported including runaways, is 1.8 million. A large number, perhaps 400,000 a year, are parental kidnappings. And the problem is simply out of hand. People are not taking preventive steps.

EG: Have you given up hope of finding your son?

JP: No. There's no way I can do that. I have known him is alive and only alive. And until I have concrete evidence that that he is dead if that is the case, I will not give up.

EG: Ms. Patz, I hope you find him.

JP: Thank you.

EG: Thanks for talking to us.

JP: You're welcome.

EG: Bye-bye.

JD: From our archives, that was former As It Happens host Elizabeth Gray speaking to Julie Patz. Ms. Patz is the mother of 6-year-old Etan Patz whose kidnapping case went unsolved for decades. Yesterday, Pedro Hernandez was found guilty of the abduction and murder.

[Music]

NAFTA explainer

Guest: John Weekes

JD: Of all the words U.S. President Donald Trump exchanged with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Monday's meeting in Washington, one stood out. That word was "tweak". As in what he intends to do to the North American Free Trade Agreement, to NAFTA.
After calling the U.S.-Canada trade relationship "outstanding," President Trump said that any changes to the agreement affecting Canadian commerce would only amount to "tweaks."
That's a pretty vague word. And with so much at stake for Canada, people are wondering what it might mean.
John Weekes was Canada's chief NAFTA negotiator. We reached him in Ottawa.

HM: Mr. Weekes, what do you think President Trump was trying to say when he used the word “tweak”?

JOHN WEEKES: I'm afraid I have great difficulty getting inside his mind. But I think, on the one hand we can take some comfort from the fact that he seemed to be referring to the Canada – United States trade relationship in pretty positive terms. So I think he seems to think that that's a relationship that's valuable and is working reasonably well and that's why he chose that term like “tweak”. But as to what tweak might actually mean when we get to a negotiating table, I don't really know and I don't think anybody else does either.

HM: Are there issues though that you can see the Americans have some concern with at least in terms of this administration?

JW: Yes. And once they get some of their trade team actually in position, they're going to start to identify an agenda that will no doubt pick up on a number of the issues that have been around for some time. So I think you know we can certainly expect to see some attention paid to our agricultural supply management system for dairy and poultry. I think we'll, you know see some of the familiar issues on the sale of wine beer and spirits pop back up again. They've also identified some concerns about investment restrictions in Canada particularly in the telecommunications sector. They've identified Canadian content in broadcasting regulations. So I think a lot of these things will come up and you know, the restrictions on dairy and poultry imports. That's one that Chrystia Freeland found out quite recently is of concern to the speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, who comes from Wisconsin.
So as the administration is required to consult by law with Congress before they actually begin the negotiations they're going to hear a lot of things from congressmen too and I think they'll pay some considerable attention to what the speaker of the House of Representatives says.

HM: So our agriculture boards are one thing. Some of the other things you mentioned though, about media and investment in those things. Those are all really sovereignty issues to many Canadians. They're pretty sacrosanct right?

JW: You know there's a reason they've been around for so long and they've been irritants for such a long time because Canadian society attach importance to maintaining these restrictions.

HM: Now the other words President Trump used was reciprocity. He said the U.S. would be seeking more reciprocity in trade with Canada. What might that look like?

JW: Well it's a traditional word in trade negotiations. I mean, negotiations almost always take place on the basis of reciprocity. And at one level I think it just means that you know, you give something and you get something in return. But you know, I'm a bit concerned when I hear that word used because it sort of reminds me also of the use of the word “fair” which I've heard a number of times used by the President. And I think fair is one of those words that's sort of in the eye of the beholder. Fair means you know “Is it fair for us?” And I certainly wouldn't want to have a trade relationship with the United States that was based on their perception of what they thought was fair, without taking account of what we thought was fair. So you know I think any of these words that sort of imply value judgments about it, you know we've got to be a little leery of that.

HM: Now the prime minister stressed yesterday that Canada is the biggest trading partner for 35 states. Some of those really key states when it came to President Trump’s win in the Electoral College. So how much leverage does that potentially give us?

JW: Well I think it's very important leverage but I think we have to remind Americans that that is the case because I think a lot of people down there, they are sort of surprised when you say that you know you're the principal export market for your state. And they think “Oh really? Just Canada? I mean it's not China or Germany or…” And so I think it's going to be important for the government to lead really a broad advocacy program working with the provinces and business, to talk to lots of Americans over the next months in terms of reminding them that this is a relationship that's beneficial on both sides of the border.

HM: And involves considerable jobs.

JW: Yeah. So maybe as a smaller partner that you know, we're more dependent on the United States than they are on us. But they are dependent on us for a lot of good well-paying jobs in the United States. And the interaction between the three economies in North America also makes the whole North American economy more efficient in the global marketplace. NAFTA has allowed the three of us together to compete more effectively with China and India and other dynamic centers in the world.

HM: Now President Trump and his team have both made it very clear they see Mexico as a whole different thing than Canada. And I guess the question is, whether Canada should take any comfort from that and what the implications might be?

JW: Let me put it this way. I would much rather be sitting at a table with the Americans where we weren't the sole focus of attention, you know, because I think they do a much more thorough job. So if we're at a table where the Mexicans are attracting quite a bit of attention from the Americans, fine. Some people seem to look at this as to whether this means you know we have to either stand up for the Mexicans, or throw the Mexicans under the bus.

HM: Including some former trade negotiators.

JW: I know and I don't think it's… I don't think either of those is what we have to do. We just have to go there. We have to defend our interests. You know this agreement is 23 years old and it could do with some refurbishing and renewal.

HM: So when it comes to tweaks, what tweaks should Canada be seeking? From our point of view.

JW: Well I think one of them would be you know, buy America, which clearly is something that Trump seems very keen on. But at the same time, you know we have our new free trade agreement with the European Union which will come into force sometime this year, and under it, European companies will have better access to Canadian procurement markets than American companies do. And these American companies aren't going to like that. So you know there may be some possibility of some reciprocal to use that word again, negotiations here in which we and the provinces, would agree to give the same access to American businesses in exchange for some reform and thereby America practices.

HM: Mr. Weekes, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.

JW: You're most welcome, Helen. It's a pleasure.

HM: All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

JW: Bye.

JD: John Weekes was Canada's chief NAAFA negotiator. He is now a senior business adviser at the law firm, Bennett Jones. We reached him in Ottawa.
Meanwhile, today, members of the European Parliament voted to approve the Canada-E.U. free trade agreement that Mr. Weekes mentioned there, closing years of negotiations.

[Music]

Stanley Bard obit

JD: "Eyeing the traffic circulating the lobby hung with bad art. Big invasive stuff unloaded on Stanley Bard in exchange for rent. The hotel is an energetic, desperate haven for scores of gifted hustling children from every rung of the ladder. Guitar bums and stoned-out beauties in Victorian dresses. Junkie poets, playwrights, broke-down filmmakers, and French actors. Everybody passing through here is somebody, if not in the outside world."
Those are some of musician and author Patti Smith's impressions of New York's legendary Chelsea Hotel, as described in her 2010 memoir, Just Kids. And the man she mentions in that account – Stanley Bard – oversaw it all, as the hotel's part owner and so-called "curator".
Stanley Bard died on Tuesday, in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 82.
As Ms. Smith said, not everybody who passed through the hotel's doors was necessarily recognized as somebody on the outside. But a who's-who of writers, artists, and performers forged their fame – and crafted some of their most memorable work – while residing under its roof.
In 1980, Stanley Bard sat down with writer Freda Garmaise on the CBC program Don Harron's Morningside. Here is part of their conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

STANLEY BARD: There are distractions if you want to be distracted. But if you want to work, more creative things we turned out here than anywhere else. Virgil completed several operas here. Katherine Dunham did the choreography for Aida here. I mean Dylan Thomas, Thomas Wolfe completed You Can't Go Home and The Web and the Rock here. And so many books that bookcases filled with books inscribed to me that were completed here in the hotel. So you have those that come here for, you know a variety of reasons. Those that wish to work do work. As a matter of fact that's why it is so difficult to manage, because in normal hotels, I should say normally usual hotels, people leave for business and come home at night. And here, many many people are in all day and sometimes it's difficult to get service or for the maid to do it because everyone is in. There's a lot of work going on here all the time.

FREDA GARMAISE: Janis Joplin stayed here. Leonard Cohen stayed here. Do you have any sort of sizzling anecdotes. I'm sure you have many.

SB: Well we do have anecdotes here. Yeah. Not only Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Bob Dylan and on and on, Jefferson Airplane. So many groups stayed here just like so many literary greats; Dylan Thomas, Thomas Wolfe, Edgar Lee Masters, Eugene O'Neill, O. Henry, Mark Twain. There isn't a literary personality probably in you know that didn’t at one time stay here. Eugene O'Neill, Ms. O'Neill, Oona Chaplin. You know, so many, in every creative field. We could include some of the greatest living or even people that have died that not only stayed here but probably worked here. In the artistic field as well; De Kooning, Jasper John the great late David Smith, Kenneth Noland.
In fact TIME magazine once did a story on the top 20 American artists. And when that story came out and was published, I would say at least half were staying at the hotel at that time. You know it's just the uncanny thing.
Peter Brooks, the great English director, always stays here. And he told me he met Arthur Miller in the lift and he had directed one of Arthur’s plays and he was looking for him for years and missing him wherever he went all over the world. And then when he came to Chelsea, while he was staying here, he met him in the lift. And he said it was clairvoyance. He was looking for Arthur in the Chelsea left. He saw Arthur as someone he couldn't catch up with around the world for like four years. And he directed one of his plays.

JD: From Don Harron's Morningside, March 23rd, 1980, that was writer Freda Garmaise speaking with Stanley Bard. Mr. Bard was known as the "curator" of the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York City. He died on Tuesday, In Boca Raton, Florida. He was 82 years old.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

February 15th, 2017 episode transcript

More Stories Like This