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The Current Transcript for February 13, 2020

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

The variety and style, the ability to subvert what people normally associate with pro-wrestling and sort of where that's taken us now to 2020. And I think Vancouver really celebrates that in a creative and cool way.

MATT GALLOWAY: Spring like weather in February, a proximity to nature. The best running route in the country. Vancouver has a lot going for it. And if that wasn't enough, turns out this city is also at the forefront of reinventing pro wrestling. I climbed into the ring and was shown the ropes. I am still sore in an hour. The story of heals and baby faces and a West Coast wrestling revival. Also this morning.

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Yes. I owe it to him for saving my life. If it wasn't in for James, I'd probably be still out there in my addiction or six feet under.

MG: Big problems to Vancouver's small Downtown Eastside neighborhood, from addiction to poverty to homelessness. James Harry knows them well. In 30 minutes, the remarkable story of how a member of the Haisla First Nation is bringing hope to those on the margins in this city's poorest neighborhood. We begin, though, just up the road where the Corona virus is having a heavy impact on the bottom line. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway in Vancouver. And this is The Current.

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Coronavirus and Canadian trade

Guests: Glyniss Chan, Craig Alexander

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Right now in Canada and in B.C., the risk of this virus is very, very low. We know we have four confirmed cases and all of their close contacts are being monitored. So no, I don't believe there's any reason that we need to cancel events and that we need to take restrictions on community activities.

MG: The message from public health officials couldn't be more clear. That was B.C.'s provincial health officer Bonnie Henry speaking this week. But it's a familiar refrain right across the country. The risk is low. Carry on, as usual. It seems, though, that not everyone is listening. We were at the Floata Seafood Restaurant earlier this week taping a forum about Vancouver's changing Chinatown. If you missed it, you should check it out online. While I was there, I got talking to Brian Yu about how the Coronavirus scare is affecting his restaurant.

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MG: So tell us what the last few weeks have been like. I mean, we've been hearing about the effects on businesses of coronavirus. What have you seen here?

BRIAN YU: So after the news came out, we received calls for the cancelation of the events, of these Chinese celebration events. They are canceling or delaying because of the panic from the news.

MG: How many cancelations have you had?

BRIAN YU: Just this month we have 500 people's cancelation. So and we are expecting more just in one restaurant.

MG: 500 tables. That's a lot.

BRIAN YU: Yes, it's quite a bit.

MG: When people call and they cancel, what do they say about why they're canceling?

BRIAN YU: They are receiving letters from groups seeking to avoid public gathering in big groups. For an organizer, they want to minimize their risk. So they chose to avoid by canceling their events, their celebrations.

MG: Is there anything that you can say to them when they call to try and change their mind?

BRIAN YU: There's nothing much we can say. We have we served the banquet for over a year time. But after the news in one week of time before the event, they call us to cancel. And there is nothing much we can do about it.

MG: You can make up those tables. More people can't book, for example.

BRIAN YU: No. With a scale like that is very hard to make it back up.

MG: What does that mean? You mean restaurants operate on a knife edge and you need to make money to stay afloat? What does that mean for the business?

BRIAN YU: As a Chinese restaurant, we depend on Chinese New Year for the first, at least, first half year to sustain our business. These are the months to February and March are the only ones that we make money on. And now is just zero. It goes to zero. And also low sales. It's down by half and dinner is not and not many people that goes out and eat now.

MG: Now you have a sense as to how much money you would have lost?

BRIAN YU: About 150,000 to 200,000 dollars, just a month of sales.

MG: What happens if you lose 150 or 200 thousand dollars’ worth of sales in a month? Can you stay in business? How does that work?

BRIAN YU: Of course, cash flow will have a problem and we try to cut costs and do whatever we can to sustain hopefully until the news fades away.

MG: You said you're trying to cut costs as you can. How are you doing that? I mean, how are you working to balance that out?

BRIAN YU: We are laying off some of the workers, some of the shops, some of the floor staffs. And also we are cutting back the operating hours and also try to cut our some of the operating courses, for example, with janitorial or whatever we can, you know, to make it balance.

MG: How long can you sustain losing money like that?

BRIAN YU: Oh, not for a very long time. Of course, no business is guaranteed. And that's especially something like this come up. I hope that, you know, the panic goes away and we're back on our feet.

MG: How worried are you about this continuing?

BRIAN YU: It is very concerning because as I know, there are already a few restaurants closing up just because of the news. So we don't know what is going to come out, but we will start cutting costs whoever we can.

MG: What would your message be to those people who are worried? What would you say to them?

BRIAN YU: I would say keep your eyes on the official news from coastal health and use your own sense of knowledge to act and be responsible.

MG: We're glad to be here. I mean, it's important for a bunch of reasons to be here. But your restaurant is fantastic. Appreciate you having us.

BRIAN YU: We've been here 25 years. This is the first time we face something like this. But thank you for coming. Thank you, Matt.

MG: Thanks. Thank you.

MG: It's not just restaurants. Aberdeen Mall in Richmond, B.C. is unusually quiet, and businesses, depending on tourism and travel, are also seeing a big change. Glynnis Chan is the owner of Happy Times Travel here in Vancouver. Good morning to you.

GLYNISS CHAN: Hi. Good morning everyone.

MG: When did you start noticing a drop in business?

GLYNISS CHAN: Oh, about 10 days ago already.

MG: 10 days ago?

GLYNISS CHAN: Yes.

MG: How much is business down already?

GLYNISS CHAN: Today, I can say at least a 70 percent.

MG: 70?

GLYNISS CHAN: Yes.

MG: 7, 0 percent.

GLYNISS CHAN: Yes.

MG: That's a huge drop in 10 days.

GLYNISS CHAN: It's a very bad affected.

MG: What are people telling you about why they might be afraid to travel?

GLYNISS CHAN: Well, as the virus news spread around the world and people are scared to travel and most worst scenario is when the airlines suspend the flight service from the country to China. Not only one country. So then what, you think? You don't want to travel anymore.

MG: And so is it people who are just worried about traveling to Hong Kong or China or you're saying it's more widespread than that?

GLYNISS CHAN: Well, major, we'll be talking about China destination and Hong Kong or Asian cities. But people in a fear of the virus infection, not just like Asian country, that might be thinking about Europe.

MG: So are these people who have trips that are already booked and are canceling them or they're just not calling to book at all?

GLYNISS CHAN: Well, very bad thing is people book and in the past couple months ago and they call in to cancel the trip. And they are lucky, though, as airline, I had a good real policy. Allow them to make a change without penalty or refund a ticket. And we don't see any new booking at all.

MG: Is it mostly pleasure travel, I mean, leisure travel or is this business travel as well?

GLYNISS CHAN: Well, major, we are in leisure group, but we do have a group traveling and that all cancel.

MG: We were hearing as well. I mean, it's not just flights. There's the stories of the cruise ships that are being quarantined.

GLYNISS CHAN: Poor experience by coast passenger and specially the one the Diamond Princess at Yokohama and passenger had to stay on the ship for 14 days and nothing can do. Lock in in the cabin. So my personally worry about those passengers, the inside cabin category.

MG: And is that the kind of story that is also affecting? I mean, there's a lot of cruise ship activity that comes out of Vancouver. People might want to take a cruise. Are they now rethinking that because they see that story or they hear about that story.

GLYNISS CHAN: I have my negative feeling that, we might be having another business drop for the Alaska cruise for this year.

MG: When that season starts up.

GLYNISS CHAN: Yes. Because it is shadow of the fear when you're on the ship then. You know, like lock in. Nothing can do.

MG: And again, I mean, there's no connection. There's no sense that's that if you take an Alaskan cruise, you're going to be stuck in a cabin. But people do see that one story and they worry that that might be them in the future.

GLYNISS CHAN: Yeah, you never know because it actually the crews have the problem about the medical concern. But this time, not only one cruise line, you have this a problem and other cruise line also had a problem, cannot dock at the city or the port. They're supposed to be scheduled. So in this kind of shadow, we'll make the people thinking that was why I'm going on a cruise.

MATT GALLOWAY: People are making comparisons in a number of different ways to what's happening now, to what happened during SARS. How do you see that comparison when it comes to the drop in business?

GLYNISS CHAN: Well, at the time it is SARS, I don't worried that much as what today being over it about the travel suspension cancelation, because SARS is just too late to happen in certain region or a city not around the world. And this will be more than 22 countries. And where you can go, people still worry about it.

MG: So if you have already had a 70 percent drop in business in 10 days, how worried are you about this getting worse?

GLYNISS CHAN: Well, I already cut on my one operation cost and I had my staff and there so nicely to cooperate with me. And we cut down half of the staff. You know.

MG: You've laid people off already.

GLYNISS CHAN: Yes. Just like no pay, no pay, no pay. That like half the time they come to work.

MG: So that's hard. That's hard for them. I mean, if they're not being paid, it's hard for you as well. How long can you continue doing this?

GLYNISS CHAN: We don't know yet. We just see what happened because the mostly the problem now, I'm not like restaurant can close my door because I have passengers still traveling. I had to look after my customer if they need help right away. Like I have a couple case already passenger they need to come back from other country, but they cannot do so because if the tickets go through China. So I had to help them to change airline ticket to make a new reservation to come home. And then we have to wait for the customer, call us what we can help. And then. We don't see any new reservation come into our business because people don't want to go anything that had the hassle.

MG: Good luck. It's a very sticky situation. And with the news headlines still swirling around, I hope things turn around for you. Thank you.

GLYNISS CHAN: Thank you for having me.

MG: Glynnis Chan is the owner and operator of Happy Times Travel and Tour here in Vancouver. Well, Craig Alexander has been following how this might affect Canada's economy as a whole. He's chief economist at Deloitte. Craig, good morning to you.

CRAIG ALEXANDER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What do you make of what Glynnis Chan and Brian Yu are saying just about how quickly their businesses seen a drop in the light of the headlines around the Corona virus?

CRAIG ALEXANDER: Well, I think their experiences show that the virus, even though we haven't had a serious outbreak in in Canada, it is going to have significant economic repercussions. And some of those impacts are through sort of traditional economic challenges related to, for example, reduce trade with China. But your stories also highlight the powerful psychological dimension to this where consumers can actually overreact to the environment. And in some cases, you know, if we think about people perhaps overreacting on the travel side, that actually can help reduce the, you know, itcan help on the can containment side. So it isn't entirely negative, but there is going to be a component of an overreaction. You know, from a psychological point of view.

MG: You just wonder how long businesses, I mean, if you if you're losing two thousand dollars in the space of a month or your business is down 70 percent. We were in Chinatown last night. And it you know, you see a drop in foot traffic there. How long can businesses continue in that frame?

CRAIG ALEXANDER: Well, you're highlighting the core risk that, you know, some businesses will have a buffer that they can work against, but they can only use up the buffer it for a temporary period of time. I think the hope is that the you know, the bulk of this impact will be felt in the first three months of this year. So based on how the medical outcomes are unfolding, there is speculation that the worst should be over by April. In other words, if you look at the spread, the contagion spread much faster. It spread very quickly at the start. But if we look at the number of new cases being announced each week, the numbers, it's not growing as quickly. And the problem with doing this from a medical point of view or from a medical assessment point of view is that you can get ebbs and flows when you have like a flu outbreak. So the question that we don't know the answer to is, is the signs that it's ebbing? Does this mean we can see the light at the end of the tunnel or will we see a flow of pick up again? So, I think that what we're seeing is the efforts on containment are much more stringent than we saw with SARS. So I think it's going to have you know, it's going to have a greater economic impact, but it is trying to resist the spread of the of the flu.

MG: There are small businesses that rely almost entirely on the Chinese market, and they're really hurting right now. Have a listen to Darrel Thomas. He's a geoduck driver in British Columbia. And we caught up with him on his boat.

SOUNDCLIP

DARREL THOMAS: Basically, our industry is at a standstill. We rely almost 100 percent on the Chinese market. Canadian goeduck China is about a 50 million dollar industry. So if we can come to some agreements, the CFO in extending our season, we have a better chance of recovering our losses. If we're forced to close the season and just all those pounds gone, we're talking about millions of lost dollars. Most of us realize that it's not going to happen overnight. But as long as we get an opportunity to fish our pound and deliver it to the live market, it's the most important at this time.

MG: What would you say to someone like Darrel Thomas? He's hoping that things are going to turn around soon. Is that light at the end of the tunnel all the way out, or is it the train, as they say?

CRAIG ALEXANDER: So I I think that if the containment is proves to be successful and in fact, the we continue to see a declining number of net new cases, which is currently the hope and the base case, what you should see is there should be a rebound in that activity as the effects and the fallout of the outbreak diminish. This is what we saw with SARS where you had one very significant negative quarter and then you had a rebound the following quarter. But the key thing is that the rebound doesn't make up all the ground that was lost. So, for businesses like the one we were just thinking about, if the contagion passes, then they will be able to make up some of the ground. But if you think about the example of the restaurant and the cancelation of events or the lost tables, you know, it's going to be much tougher for a business like that to recover the financial losses they incurred because of the nature, like people are only going to eat, you know, dinner once each day.

MG: Right. You mentioned SARS. We spoke with a different person who's also named Brian Yu. He's deputy chief economist at Central One Credit Union here in Vancouver. Have a listen to what he said about the similarities between what's happening right now and the economic declines during SARS.

SOUNDCLIP

There was a marked decline in the overall restaurant sales. People not congregating into normal areas as well as fewer tourism numbers had a significant impact. I think the worst thing that a four to five percent drop off year over year in restaurant activity. Similarly, I think in air transportation. So flights, those are only down as well. Again, in terms of the actual growth impacts we're still assessing that, but I think is pretty clear that there will be a negative impact on the economy, at least temporarily.

MG: If you take a look at Canada's overall economy, what is the impact thus far and what should we worry about in the short term?

CRAIG ALEXANDER: So if, as I say, the contagion is contained and gradually addressed, what will likely happen is we'll have the bulk of the impacts probably to be felt in the first quarter of this year. It's going to be concentrated in China because that's where the outbreak has been largely contained.

MG: It's interesting, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, is just speaking now and has said that China will maintain the development momentum of China's economy. Does that suggest that the Chinese leadership sees a real threat and is going to try and continue - given its economic power around the world, and it's going to try and continue to keep things strong at home?

CRAIG ALEXANDER: So China is roughly four times bigger now than it was.. Its share of the world economy is four times bigger than it was when we had the SARS outbreak in 2003. And so when you had the SARS outbreak and it had a negative impact on the global economy, the current coronavirus is going to have a larger impact because China's a bigger share of the world economy. And then from a Canadian point of view, Canada gets impacted through many, many channels. So for one, the biggest the actual biggest economic blow is probably going to be on the losses in the commodity sector because China's a huge consumer of raw materials, natural oils, base metals and commodity prices have fallen. So, this will impact Canadian provinces that that are heavily commodity reliant, like Alberta, like Saskatchewan. But then you're going to have the impact on Canadian trade with China. Now, China is the destination of getting in trade is a relatively small percent of overall Canadian trade. But it's been growing rapidly. And there's a lot of business like you point out, that are actually dependent on the Chinese market. So there's going to be a direct impact on Canadian firms selling in China. There's another indirect effect, though, that, you know, we need to be very mindful of, and that is we live in a global economy. So you could have a U.S. business that sells to China that is, you know, not able to make those sales or their production facilities in China are disrupted. And you could have a Canadian company that sells to that U.S. company. And through supply chains, Canada can import the weakness in China. So it isn't just about Canada's direct exposure to China. It's also it's indirect exposure. And the Canadian dollar has weakened in response to the to the current economic risks. And that's actually trying to create a shock absorber to try and minimize some of the damage that's being caused the Canadian economy.

MG: I appreciate you walking us through this. It's something that is as immediate as what we're seeing in those restaurants. But there's a much bigger picture to this as well. Craig, thank you.

CRAIG ALEXANDER: Oh, my pleasure, Matt.

MG: Craig Alexander, chief economist at Deloitte. The CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

My name James Harry. I'm here on behalf of the Haisla Nation. And I want you to know that you are not alone.

MG: That's how James Harry greets people on Vancouver's downtown east side who are struggling with addiction. It's his catchphrase. You will hear his extraordinary stories coming up in about six minutes time. My name is Matt Galloway in Vancouver. And you're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

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'I found my purpose': Haisla man working to save his own from Vancouver's opioid crisis

Guests: James Harry, Edwin Fow

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway in Vancouver. And you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come. Tracing the popularity of wrestling in this city. Yes. Professional theatrical wrestling. But it's changing and it doesn't look like the wrestling you might remember from your childhood. That story coming up in half an hour. But first, a journey to Vancouver's most notorious neighborhood.

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MG: The many troubles of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside are well-documented. Drugs, poverty, desperation. Our next story from there is about hope about a First Nations man from Kitimat on B.C.'s, North Coast, who's trying to counter some of that narrative. It's about his unique work and trying to make a difference. One day and one person at a time. This is Wawmeesh Hamilton's documentary, Not Alone.

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JAMES: You know, this is actually one of the alleys I used to hang out in.

PRODUCER: James is a complicated man.

I'm James Harry from Haisla Nation.

PRODUCER: He's a Hiasla First Nation and Kitimat married with children. He was a former addict.

JAMES: I was crack cocaine, alcohol.

PRODUCER: I'm walking the streets in New Orleans with the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver with James.

JAMES: So we're going to walk down here. We'll get into the alley behind the west. And that's probably the busiest alley down here.

PRODUCER: So could you tell me about what your life was like when you were addicted and living on the Downtown Eastside?

JAMES: One word, and that's Hell. I didn't know at the time. But it's was living around the lower risk places in North America.

[Sound: Sirens].

JAMES: In the winter time. It was nothing but rain, was just trying to stay warm and trying to keep dry. Was there is a dumpster, or doorway or just the [unintelligible]. Fighting for a spot in those doorways. This is the busiest alley, and you got to bare there. The alleys are another world. There were dark, dank, Dickinsonian World. Summertime, and it was people outside there drinking all day and somewhere to relieve themselves. And this is where they come. The horrific smell of urine and the faeces and just combined with the heat.

PRODUCER: He still goes down to the Downtown Eastside every day. Only now he's looking for his own First Nations' people who are struggling with addiction themselves. James is just over 50 years old. He's got what I call a one of the guys look. He's slender but sturdy built, and that counts from years of playing basketball and soccer. Salt and pepper hair, more salt and pepper. He's got deep set eyes. He's been six years, I believe now, drug and alcohol free. During the height of his addiction. James once again be the foray into the Downtown Eastside into a particular alley that he frequented.

JAMES: When I knew I was going to use and I was en route to pick up her alcohol or drugs, I always had that guilty feeling back my head.

PRODUCER: He was there for I think he said three to five days drugging, just drugging.

JAMES: I remember this one, this one moment. Going home, try to sneak in and open the door. And my kids popped up and see how happy they were. That we're okay and that we're alive and how quickly those, those eyes went to hurt eyes.

PRODUCER: And that for the first time pierced him.

JAMES: I vowed never to, in my power deaths to bring on those hurt eyes anymore.

PRODUCER: And that was the thing that propelled him to seek help for his addiction and get it and become a drug and alcohol free guy.

JAMES: My very first month into recovery an older told me, said creator has kept you here for a reason. You got to find out what their reason is.

PRODUCER: He'd still go down to the Downtown Eastside to congregate with his Haisla people.

JAMES: I come down here and I'd just grab a bite, treat for a coffees and pass along and talk.

PRODUCER: And one day he happened upon a young fellow.

JAMES: My cousin's son.

PRODUCER: From Hiasla, who was deep into addiction.

JAMES: I know he's struggling down there and they were worried about him. So I...

PRODUCER: Connected with him. He just made a human Haisla First Nations bro connection.

JAMES: He called and let him know that we found him and he's okay and continued to connect with them and stay in touch with them.

PRODUCER: And in time, he encouraged the young man to get treatment. And I think the young guy said to him, just take me home.

JAMES: I said. Let's get you home.

PRODUCER: And James drove him to his little single room occupancy unit, which is like a bug drug infested little eight and a half by eleven hotel room somewhere in the dark, dark Downtown Eastside. And the guy got his little bag of things. Got into James Car. And James drove him 18 hours home.

JAMES: I got him out of the city.

PRODUCER: To Kitimat to the Haisla First Nation, and the guy got into the [unintelligible] center, the healing center that they have there and kicked his addiction. He still lives there today. The young man's father, James cousin, was on the Kitimat First Nations Council. And he saw not only this connection James had with his son, but the living, breathing proof that whatever James had done with him worked. And if it could work with him, could it work with others. Two or three months later the Kitimat First Nation went to James with a proposal. And that proposal was to be an outreach worker to find their members struggling with addiction on the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. Make a connection. Encourage them to get off the street and to get treatment. And James said yes.

JAMES: When I was first told about the position and exactly why the Created got me here.

PRODUCER: That's why on any given day you can find James walking the streets in the alleys of the Downtown Eastside.

JAMES: I make my way down to the war zone and say a little prayer in my car and ask the Creator to keep me safe. As the ancestors to be behind me.

PRODUCER: You don't notice him. That's one of the first things you notice. Very unobtrusive, not aggressive , very monastically. Like he's comfy, but he's always his eyes are always darting back and forth.

JAMES: Look, both ways here, just looking.

PRODUCER: Watching.

JAMES: In the doorways, looking for people, looking for any, maybe, in neighboring communities. We have a couple of members that hang out here and I walk through here. I'll just stay like let them know I'm here and let them know that support is always there.

PRODUCER: When he'll walk in, you see someone who knows. He just makes a connection.

JAMES: Enjoying the weather?

VOICE: Yes. Nice today.

PRODUCER: Hi, how are you? How's things? Where are you at in life? And I notice James shake hands and I noticed James hugged him too. And that's how it was all the time that we walked down. I noticed when James sees other Haisla people, he always greets them in the same way. He says yaw'c.

JAMES: Yaw'c.

VOICE: Yaw'c. Heavin an elder back home it's yaw'c.

PRODUCER: And people will see that back and that's how is the people's greeting to one another. So they, they know. They never forgot something still, it's a little connection but it's a connection nonetheless.

JAMES: Just passing out the coffees and saying hi to somebody struggling down there, are a lot feels alone down there. Just means the world to him.

PRODUCER: How do you find that her Haisla people?

JAMES: How do I find them?

PRODUCER: Yes.

JAMES: By word of mouth or just down my daily rounds. And sometimes by fluke, I'll be walking down the alley and I just say hi to somebody and before you know it I find out that they're Haislan.

PRODUCER: When he makes a connection with a Haisla person struggling with addiction, his first words to them. Every single one of them, he says:

JAMES: And I'm James Harry. I'm here on behalf of Haisla Nation. And I want you to know that you are not alone.

PRODUCER: And that pierces people almost all the time. Almost all the time. Some people reject him or her.

JAMES: Rejection hurts.

PRODUCER: We ran into a guy that was struggling with addiction already. And you could see that he was tweaking. It's a drug used term. He was under the extreme influence of a drug.

JAMES: I just know it because I was there at one time myself. You know, maybe it'll just take some time.

PRODUCER: Two minutes later, when we walked down the same alley, another guy approached him, a short, quiet spoken, nice fellow that is partly from the Haisla First Edition and another First Nation. And James had been talking to him for some time. This time, though, the guy approached James and James broke our walk.

JAMES: Give me a couple of minutes, okay?

PRODUCER: And said, I have something I have to do. Could you wait for me at this corner? And I did. And while I waited for him at that corner, he took the guys that he talks to him. That's what the guy wanted. He was ready to try.

JAMES: I know, I know exactly what you're going through. Maybe it may be that you're using a different drug or what have you, but it- I still see that person struggling. I can still see that the person lost and feeling unworthy and not deserving of life. I know how that feels.

PRODUCER: Edwin was the first Hiasla person James helped as an outreach worker.

JAMES: Very first success story. Edwin.

PRODUCER: Tell me about Edwin.

PRODUCER: I met him on the block.

EDWIN: He just approached me one time in the downtown core when I was drinking, I guess.

JAMES: I remembered him from high school.

PRODUCER: And he looked at Edwin and said, My name was James Harry. I'm from the Haisla First Nation and I want you to know you're not alone.

EDWIN: When he mentioned his name, I said, Oh, you used to play basketball. Didn't you? James Harry.

PRODUCER: Edwin Fow was born into a Haisla family, but I think at age five or six was adopted in Kitimat by a non-First Nations family.

JAMES: He's part of that sixty scoop era.

PRODUCER: In later years, met a girl and was going to have a baby. When his daughter was born, he wasn't there for her. He was off drinking and partying. Two of her family members, male, didn't like what he did and took him out of Haisla. Right now.

EDWIN: They said they didn't care where I went, but they said I was not welcome in Kitimat.

PRODUCER: So he left.

EDWIN: I was like, devastated.

PRODUCER: Got to Vancouver, was drawn like a moth to light to the Downtown Eastside.

EDWIN: It wasn't difficult for me to blend in and get to know people.

PRODUCER: Just the sheer number of indigenous people. And very quickly took out with people who drank, a lot.

EDWIN: Met some people in shelters saying, hey, you want to go and drink and drinking Chinese cooking wine. And gradually I drank real alcohol and beer and gradually [unintelligible] drink and drink and drink and drink. In middle 90s maybe I was drinking hand sanitizer.

PRODUCER: Rubbing alcohol.

EDWIN: Listerine too.

PRODUCER: Hairspray.

EDWIN: I have ended up in hospital periodically. Like I know alcohol is depressing. I'd pick up the phone and say, I'm suicidal, I want to end my life and end up going to the hospital. End up going into the psychiatric ward. Thinking, well, not given my life up because of my family, like, I I know they don't have that kind of money to bury me in or whatever.

PRODUCER: People he knew would pass out and not wake up.

EDWIN: It's brought a lot of my friends that I associated with down. Killed them.

PRODUCER: So I think he tried to heal once himself, got into drugs and came out.

EDWIN: And then I relapsed. And then...

PRODUCER: In the course of that relapse, while he was literally laying on the ground, James walked up to him and reached down and pulled him up.

EDWIN: He said, oh, well, you're ready to do it again.

JAMES: I said, I gave him some options and he was, let's do it.

EDWIN: I said, Yeah.

JAMES: Let's get this going.

EDWIN: He made the arrangements.

PRODUCER: That was two years ago.

EDWIN: He helped me get clean and sober.

PRODUCER: He's alive.

EDWIN: Yes. I owe it all to him for saving my life. It wasn't for James. I probably still out there in my addiction or, six feet under.

PRODUCER: He works a little job.

EDWIN: An organization that end with, Mission Possible.

PRODUCER: And is one of several cleanup crews that clean cleanup along the streets. And he often says there was a time when I used to litter, I'd throw my stuff away. I didn't care. Now I pick up after people that don't know what a garbage can is.

PRODUCER: What was it about James that made you trust and open up to him?

EDWIN: Him being a Haisla, I can make it felt good that somebody out there did care about me. Back then, I didn't think no one cared about me. He's proud of what I accomplished.

PRODUCER: When I sat down to talk to Edwin, when he was just getting ready to leave for Kitimat the next day, he was going back to Hiasla. Chief among the reasons for him going back was the hope of meeting his daughter.

EDWIN: If she wants to.

PRODUCER: The daughter who was an infant when he left, she'd be 22 now, maybe twenty.

EDWIN: It's going to be nervous. Maybe I'll take her for dinner and sit down and have a conversation.

JAMES: Down there is who's running from something. They're running from a trauma. It's no secret that what happened to our people in residential schools in the sixties' scoop and the pain they endured in those horrible schools and what they brought back to our communities inflicted are on the community and the families and [unintelligible] today's totally passed on.

PRODUCER: The fentanyl crisis gives more urgency to his work because at least two to three people that I know of that he's tried working with have died of fentanyl overdoses.

JAMES: [Unintelligible] just a Russian roulette.

PRODUCER: He grieves those losses.

JAMES: The one that we lost and we had the connection. They would call and keep in touch. Then you got one call one night, let me know that she didn't make it. That was her breaking. It was made me question if I'm if I'm doing my job right.

PRODUCER: But you've got to go on. There's other lives to still try and save.

JAMES: I've been living in Vancouver approximately 20 years, 25 years.

PRODUCER: Edwin's about 5 foot 7, 5 foot 8. A few times that I've seen him he's wearing a hoodie with Haisla on it. It's a an indigenous design designed by somebody from Haisla.

EDWIN: The hoodie that I'm wearing now is James. James actually gave me along with a pair of sweat sets. It says Haisla a nation down the lake.

PRODUCER: And a Haisla ball cap.

EDWIN: This makes me proud to know where my background is.

JAMES: The day that I met Edwin was also the day that Crystal Smith, the chief counselor of the Haisla First Nation came down to take an outreach walk with James.

EDWIN: I got to actually meet the chief counsel, Crystal.

PRODUCER: She is the face and the voice, for the most part, for the Haisla First Nation.

CRYSTAL SMITH: My name is Crystal Smith. I am the elected chief councillor.

PRODUCER: She said, if we're going to back this program, I want to know what it does. I want to see it. She was shocked. Stunned, I think, in many ways by what she saw especially in those alleys. Later when we went to the [unintelligible]. That's when we Edwin.

EDWIN: I said, yaw'c, which means hello in our language. And she just looked around and James introduced me. And he's got to always put that Mr. This is Mr. Foe, one of our successful person that succeeded. And she says, so you're Edwin, you are amazing to our people.

PRODUCER: And she refers to Edwin as a living, breathing success story.

EDWIN: Oh, is an honor.

JAMES: We had just one member, a walk and walk out man. And I haven’t seen her for a couple of days and I stop and talk for a five minutes and it goes - Like blurt it out, said, I'm not ready today, but just to know that you're here for us and when we're ready means the world to me. And I know it means the world to a lot of people out there, our people out there.

PRODUCER: James makes trips back to Kitimat regularly. It's part of his job. And on the road you go for 18 hours. Could you tell me what that drive is like? That's a long drive.

JAMES: It's a beautiful drive. At certain points of our walk I will think about parts of that drive, going through the canyon. We have our normal stop at the canyon and we will sit on the barrier there and I'll just we'll sit there for about five, 10 minutes just looking at the power of the river.

PRODUCER: What is it like for the person that you're taking home?

JAMES: Off to sleep. More often out they're lost on those two three days banner with no sleep at all, and so always just wake them up for some food and bathroom break and right back at it.

EDWIN: He's the driving force of the downtown core. He tries to help.

JAMES: I feel this position them knowing that they have a little piece of home that is trying to help them.

EDWIN: I do miss home. But when I go home, it's only for a visit. Unless something comes up when I go up there and my daughter tells me, Dad, can you live at home? Then the Dad part will probably say yes. Okay, I'll stay home.

PRODUCER: Well, I spoke to Edwin by phone the other day. He said he went to Kitimat, but he didn't end up connecting with his daughter while he was there. And he was reticent about why, but he did hold out hope that one day they might meet again. Edwin's back in Vancouver, back working at the same place he worked at before, and he's still sober approaching his third year of sobriety.

JAMES: When I see the marina, and I see I see the water to see the ocean. It, they feel grounded. I want everybody I work with, everybody that come and talk to us who is struggling with alcohol and drugs to feel the way I feel today. When they're ready, I'm here.

MG: We've been listening to Not Alone. It's a documentary produced by the CBC Wawmeesh Hamilton, Rafferty Baker and The Current documentary editor Joan Webber. At least two other First Nation communities are considering hiring similar outreach workers. You can see some amazing photos that Rafferty Baker took on our Web site at cbc.ca/thecurrent. This is the current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway in Vancouver. Want to tell you about a story that you'll hear tomorrow on the program. Deals with a different kind of epidemic that you see in this city and across the country, different than what's happening in the Downtown Eastside. Universities across Canada are trying to come to grips with the reality of rising youth suicide rates. This is something that the president of UBC, Santa Ono, knows all too well.

SOUNDCLIP

SANTA ONO: For me, part of it had to do with the fact that I was sandwiched by two child prodigies. I was a pretty average. And so feelings of inadequacy were part of it. The other part was that I was an ethnic minority and immigrant living in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood and not feeling as if I belonged. And so really a confluence of things I think resulted in my first suicide attempt at the age of 14.

MG: What happened?

SANTA ONO: You know, I was increasingly feeling hopeless. I was increasingly feeling as if I was inadequate, that I brought shame to my family. And what happened was that one evening when my parents were watching the news, I went upstairs and went to the bathroom, open the medicine cabinet and took a bunch of [unintelligible], which is an adult called medication and took as many of those as I could. But I didn't wake up till quite late in the afternoon, the day after. So I think was pretty impulsive. I didn't think I was old enough to really plan or think about it, but I was simply hopeless.

MG: That's one reason why Santa Ono is at the forefront of those trying to help students. You'll hear his powerful story tomorrow on The Current. Well, coming up in our next half hour.

SOUNDCLIP

He wants to learn how to wrestle, welcome to the business.

[Noises]

MG: That is the sound of me being body slammed to the mats by wrestlers, real wrestlers, like giant pro wrestlers. I'm all right. Thanks for asking. Little sore this morning, but other than that, I'm okay. There was a reason why I put my body on the line, other than the fact that it's actually kind of amazing to get slammed by somebody who knows what they're doing. That reason is that wrestling is turning into kind of a big deal here in Vancouver. It's growing in surprising ways. And we'll talk about that coming up after the break. In the meantime, are going to spend the next 90 seconds or so working on my wrestling name. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Could this be - not entirely sure - The Great Galloway. That's not bad, kind of sounds, though, maybe like I'm in the circus or something like that. Somebody on Twitter was suggesting Matt The Gallows Galloway. Sort of evil, kind of like that. Maybe something to do with wrestling mats? Like a Matt on the Mat. Is that too obvious? The Great Gallos. That might be the one that i stick to. I am not sure. let see how this works.

Back To Top »

Infused with burlesque, drag and queer culture, these wrestlers are turning the genre 'on its head'

Guests: Josh Custodio, Reagan Belan

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. Here in Vancouver, and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world [unintelligible]

[Music]

[Sound: Ding]

[Cheers]

MG: Just another Friday night in Vancouver, a wrestling ring set up at a punk rock club on East Hastings Street. It's a scene that's becoming increasingly common in this city as wrestling enjoys a bit of a resurgence. Some local outfits have gone from putting on small shows at community centers to selling out major downtown venues, in just a few years. You could talk about this. That's all well and good. But the only way to really get to the bottom of this story is to get a lesson in wrestling from some pros at a training gym just outside Vancouver.

SOUNDCLIP

SCOTTY MAC: Wants to learn how to dress, welcome the business. It's like the difference between, you know, going to see Coldplay or Nickelback, just like guys with the machine behind them or seeing your favorite indie band at the Commodore, where your favorite indie band of Commodore.

[Background chatter]

SCOTTY MAC: My name is Scotty Mac. I am the 51 percent owner of Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling and the most decorated wrestler in the history of the Pacific Northwest. Right now we are in Surrey, British Columbia at ECCW's training facility, a warehouse with two wrestling rings. Not a lot of light. Not a lot of heat. Just a bunch of brick. Some tough as nails wrestlers.

MG: What's happening here in Vancouver now that is leading to this resurgence? Maybe just as certainly like a boom.

SCOTTY MAC: The amount of young athletes that are choosing professional wrestling, like we are talking about the 80s, like if there was a professional athlete, like an elite athlete that was in professional wrestling, he'd probably already played football or something and had some sort of knee injury and couldn't do that anymore. So like Ron Simmons, for instance. Now, it's like you've got elite athletes that are choosing pro wrestling first, like a guy like Ricochet in WWE who's just so insanely talented. And you've got all these great shows, you know, from the bottom all the way up to WWE.

[Background chatter]

SCOTTY MAC: Let's get you in the ring. We got Sharif and Dre and Miles, and they're going to help me out. All right. So start with the right foot. So right. All the time. So [unintelligible] That's pretty good. Yes. Did you're catching on faster that some of the students. That's good. So we'll slot up. So a lot of matches start like bell ring with a circle. You want to come in with a hand on the back of the neck. And then in the elbow here. And we're jockeying for position basically. [Unintelligible] doesn't get in there looking for a clean break. But if not, [sound: Bang you must shock to the guy. If you're bad guy like me.

VOICE: We'll count back, kind of like you work here or there. And you kind of telegraphed to the other guy what's going to happen next.

SCOTTY MAC: Yes. Yes. If we walk out and then pull me into you.

MG: Okay.

SCOTTY MAC: Yes.

MG: Like that.

SCOTTY MAC: Now we can kind of move around, keep our feet near. You wouldn't want to get tangled up. Give me a tackle.

[Sound Bang]

[Laughter]

MG: This kind of stuff you dream about when you're a kid. You know what I mean? You wonder if we did this in the backyard, somebody will end up their neck broke.

SCOTTY MAC: Oh yes. That's right. It happens all over the place?

MG: We wouldn't know what we're doing.

SCOTTY MAC: That's right. It's a lot like dancing than anything else because we can have a dance and cell communication, whether it be very few words. You want to put on a performance that even if every audience member has watched every secrets of pro-wrestling video, listen to every CBC interview where we expose it all that they're so emotionally invested.

MG: A big show.

SCOTTY MAC: That's right. Because of the two characters and the believability on our faces and inner reactions. They completely forget about it. I mean, that's my biggest thing. I work in a bar. You have a guy sitting at the bar, very critical. And he's throwing around the F word left and right. Fake, fake, fake, phony, phony, phony. The only reason it bothers me, not because they know, because everybody knows. But it's that they haven't gotten over it. Get over it. When you go to Star Wars, you're not walking [unintelligible]. You know, this is all right. Those spaceships. They're not really- Jar Jar Binks isn't real. You just get over it. You just you shut up and you sit there and eat your popcorn and just enjoy the show.

MG: Enjoy the show.

SCOTTY MAC: That way we want to go all at once. We want to slap the mat and always we wanted to tactfully this.

[Sounds: Bangs]

SCOTTY MAC: That's good, you're natural

[Indistinctly joking in background]

SCOTTY MACK: Well, what we're going to end up doing. Check you heard [Sound: Bang]. All right. If you trust me, you'll be just fine. I mean, take this. This arm.

MG: Yes.

SCOTTY MAC: Put it over on my head.

MG: Yes.

SCOTTY MAC: I'll pick you up. Yes. Whoa.

[Laughter]

MG: That's crazy.

[Laughter]

MG: I mean you could use the word show a couple of times. Is that what really it's about? I mean that you're putting on a show.

Yes. That is all I'm doing is telling stories through very physical theater. We're telling the story of good versus evil and we take you on a roller coaster and there's, you know, sometimes a story last six months and sometimes it lasts six minutes. Wrestlers are the closest thing real life has to superheroes because we intentionally suspend our disbelief and get emotionally invested into someone doing something that most people can't. And it's a magic that you don't really, you can't find it anywhere else. It's really it's the greatest thing in the world, really. There's nothing, nothing beats professional wrestling.

MG: For the record, I should probably say that it wasn't quite as painful as all of that sounded. But I did discover some new muscles and those muscles are now sore. If you want to see some wild photos that we took of me being thrown around, you can find them on our Twitter feed at the current CBC. Scotty Mac and his crew are training for free traditional wrestling. But it turns out that there is a new scene that's emerging as well. More of an indie movement which aims to subvert some of the more, shall we say, controversial aspects of mainstream professional wrestling. Reagan Balen is a wrestler and burlesque performer here in Vancouver. Josh Cutodio is a lifelong wrestling superfan. He co-hosts the wrestling podcast Top Marks. Good morning to you both.

JOSH CUSTODIO: Good morning.

REAGAN BELAN: Morning.

MG: I'm a natural, apparently.

JOSH CUSTODIO: I heard that. That's a big deal being called a natural.

MG: What is it like to be a wrestling fan in the city of Vancouver right now, Josh?

JOSH CUSTODIO: It's incredible. It's better than almost anywhere else. I've lived in, certainly anywhere else I've lived. I would say it's one of the best places in Canada to be a wrestling fan in terms of the variety and style, the ability to subvert what people normally associate with pro wrestling and sort of where that's taken us now to 2020. And I think Vancouver really celebrates that in a creative and cool way.

MG: Scotty, Mac was talking about this being a show, but also a sport. Is it a sport or is it a show or is it a little combination of both?

JOSH CUSTODIO: It is a combination of both. I'm sort of in a rare air where I don't really have much of a problem calling it a sport. It I understand it does not meet the normal parameters of a sport. There aren't traditional winners and losers. But Scott put it well there this. It's only fake insofar as it's scripted. Everything is still happening. It's still being performed.

MG: Reagan, how did you get involved in wrestling?

REAGAN BELAN: I mean, I've watched wrestling from the time that I was a kid. And when I moved out here, I think about 2010 was when I discovered the CCW circuit and like the community center wrestling and I got really into it. We would go monthly and it just never occurred to me that there would be a way to start training or like, who does that? How do you even find that? And my friends, who are the artistic director and executive director of Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society, started collaborating with Kenny Leisz doing the show called Glam Slam. And it was an entry point for female performers to start getting ring time. And when they started doing open calls, it was something that I wanted to do from day one as soon as I started doing the show.

MG: What did you like about it when you were growing up? When you were a kid?

REAGAN BELAN: The theatrical of it. I got really into the storylines. I mean, I loved Jake the Snake Roberts.

MG: Like the guy who, like, came with like a bag with a snake in it. And when he won, he'd put the snake on the guy.

REAGAN BELAN: Yeah, exactly. And like I feel like it was it was one of the natural disasters who crushed his snake. And I think I cried. Like I was really emotionally invested in the story is.

MG: So if I came into one of your shows, what would I see?

REAGAN BELAN: You would see me probably dressed as some sort of ridiculous character. I mean, last my last show, I was a unicorn. I've been Mrs. Potato Head. I've been a senior citizen. I have a tag team called The Monarchy where I am Queen Elizabeth and my tag team partner is Queen Victoria. So it's really kind of a random gamble of what you're going to get.

MG: Is there? I introduced you as a wrestler and a burlesque performer. Yes. Is there a crossover between the two? Is there a conversation between those two art forms?

REAGAN BELAN: Well, I mean, the one part where I think they're really common when you're developing a burlesque persona, you're channeling the parts about yourself that you really, really like. But you maybe keep hidden from the world, so you're amplifying yourself to, you know, a thousand percent. And that's the exact same thing with wrestling, whether, you know, you're a heel character where you really want to be this nasty person and you want to channel that energy and find an outlet for it.

MG: That's the villain.

REAGAN BELAN: That's the villain - or your face and you'd like this is what your superhero persona is. So it really is about sort of channeling who you are in your imagination and then putting that on display to entertain people.

MG: I wanted to be a heel, but apparently I'm the face. I'm a baby face.

JOSH CUSTODIO: I would say that seems true so far.

MG: We'll see.

REAGAN BELAN: Yes. I think baby face works for you.

MG: How different, Josh, is what Reagan is describing to maybe the kind of wrestling that you grew up watching, kind of wrestling that drew you to the sport?

JOSH CUSTODIO: Well, I would say that it's better. I think that representation and expanding boundaries and wrestling is really important to me personally for me. You're asking sort of what connects you to the wrestlers when you're young. And for me, it was a little bit more, you know, heroes that I could identify with. Mankind, for example, is a hairy covering his face weirdo, which grade six me also sort of completely in line with that. And I think the more space there is for people to find that, the better. And so things like what Reagan's doing in the Vancouver community at large are huge for a guy like me.

MG: Is that like an evolution of - we'll call it a sport - like is that an evolution of wrestling and as a sport in terms of bringing it into a more modern era?

JOSH CUSTODIO: I would say it is an evolution, but it's almost more of an answer to me. Wrestling has so many sort of, in my opinion, negative southern roots in terms of very deep rooted conservatism and some homophobia and a lot of things in that space. And I think where wrestling is now, it does feel like, okay, we're taking this world and we're going to turn it on its head a little bit and want to see how that plays out. And that's just a side of things that I'm more interested in general. Let's get weird.

MG: You were nodding as he was saying that just in terms of some of the roots of wrestling.

REAGAN BELAN: I mean, one of the reasons why I love the Indy circuit so much is that it really, again, it's that taking ownership over something that maybe felt like it was exclusionary to certain demographics of people for whatever reason. Lots of people still really enjoy the WWE, but it still is very homogenous in a lot of ways, particularly in how they present the women wrestlers.

MG: So for people who don't watch, I mean, they have an idea of wrestling. They know what's out there, but they don't watch it. How are women generally portrayed in mainstream wrestling?

REAGAN BELAN: I mean, I don't want to comment on any specific wrestlers because they're all incredible athletes. But as somebody who I'm fairly athletic and thin. So, you know, I have a certain amount of privilege in the world. But the type of aesthetic styling is, you know, a very specific body type with very long hair. You know, it feels like it's a directive to look a specific way based on the owner of the organization. Whereas you go to the Indie circuits and you see a lot more people who have free expression of how they present themselves. Lots of different body types. The variety of people who are the fans are represented in the ring.

MG: What does that mean in terms of who the sport is for and who feels as though it's their sport?

REAGAN BELAN: It opens it up so much. I mean, I still have to pinch myself that I get the opportunity to be in the ring and do something that I never really thought was physically possible or something that I could enter into, even though, like I'm an athletic person. I played sports all my life. And so like seeing more queer trans wrestlers, women represented in the ring, I mean, I think more representation of women. I mean, I really love inter gender wrestling. So like being put on the same playing field as anybody versus having to only wrestle with other women, which is great and it's fun. But it also provides just a different a different avenue in a different dynamic.

MG: You just see - and it's people will align it with me too, or Time's Up, which you see in society and other elements of society change that happens. And it's about how stories are told, what stories are told, how in particular women are portrayed in those stories. And it sounds as though that's happening within wrestling as well to a degree.

REAGAN BELAN: Absolutely. And I mean, one of the things I'm really proud about with glam slam is, is how we are able to sort of apply the burlesque that hiring society lends to the shows that we do. I mean, our last show had I mean, our big heel is Dwight Privilege. So he's the main bad guy and everyone hates him. And in our last show, Dwight Privilege became WOAK, you know, it was the WOAK Breaux's versus our glam slam stable. And of course, it's poking fun at people using the language of oppression to try and still maintain power.

MG: Dwight Privilege.

[Laughter]

REAGAN BELAN: Dwight Privilege. I know.

MG: It's a great name.

REAGAN BELAN: It's the most incredible heel name.

MG: Josh, how accepting do you think wrestling fans are of those sorts of changes?

JOSH CUSTODIO: It's interesting and it'll be hard to speak out at large because wrestling has this really perpetual weird about relationship at wrestling's popularity peaked in 1997. And the Attitude Era names that maybe your listeners are familiar with, like Stone Cold, Steve Austin, the Rock. People around the water cooler chatting about wrestling and this era of wrestling is mostly focused on the things that for myself aren't the best things about wrestling. Women like you brought up, they're mostly just an accessory, their models, their valets to the big, tough, macho men. So I don't know how accepting that fan base is. There is some crowd resistance, even locally to some characters that push boundaries in that way. But I'm certainly not saying that's a bad thing. You know, I think a little discomforting growth is probably good. But in terms of Vancouver specifically, certainly the circle that surrounds me, though, the listeners of my show, they do seem to enjoy the more socially engaged and inclusive side of things.

MG: One of the big wrestling success stories coming into Vancouver is the Singh Brothers, tag team duo. They were born and raised in Burnaby, now signed with the WWE. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

VOICE 1: The Singh Brothers. Are they actually making a movie right now.

VOICE 2: Think they're Bollywood movie stars.

VOICE 1: Bollywood.

VOICE 2: Bollywood, with a B. Bollywood as in they might get beaten down here by the raw Tag team champions. Eric and I [unintelligible]

MG: That's what it sounds like when the Singh brothers enter the ring. Tell me a bit more about the gimmick that they have cooked up, Josh.

JOSH CUSTODIO: Sure. So here in ECCW, they were the Bollywood boys. They would enter to the Bhangra as the style of dance that they enter to. And it is a celebration of Indian culture wearing the traditional garb. And it's a very high energy, colorful, great gimmick here locally that people did really respond to.

MG: Could also be seen as a stereotype or a caricature one.

JOSH CUSTODIO: This is the interesting discussion about tokenism and especially as it pertains to the WWE. You know, they recently have their first black champion. And so it's do you give them credit for having a black champion or do you say now is the first one? Do you go, you know, well, we have a black champion? Is that something to celebrate? You know, there is just this this push and pull. So it does feel like an ultimate good that these doors are opening people at the Singh brothers doing that. But you do wonder if there's just a portion of it's like, well, we got this part covered, so we're good there.

MG: Two fans lap that up. I mean, there was a time dating myself here, but in the wayback machine, in wrestling, when you had, you know, the iron chic Nikolai Volkoff and again, they played on kind of ethnic and cultural stereotypes. Is that much different than the Singh brothers?

JOSH CUSTODIO: It's a really interesting question. So specifically to the same brothers, they aren't presented as, you know, deeply evil foreign heels, so to speak.

MG: Which is what you're the character from Russia. The character from Iran, were...

JOSH CUSTODIO: Absolutely. Wrestling's history with just the Middle Eastern heel is long and detailed. I mean, there are very few that are presented as, here's your good guy, America, go cheer for your champion. So it's a really interesting discussion about, you know, where is that line and how do people receive it. But I do think people like Mustafa Ali in the WWE are getting baby face pushes and the crowds are taking to them. And so I do think we are seeing a bit of a turning in the corner in that rep specifically.

MG: Is that conversation changing? Reagan And it is changing enough.

REAGAN BELAN: I like I think so. I mean, at least in this in the circles..

MG: In Indie.

REAGAN BELAN: In indie circuits for sure. I mean, there's definitely a lot of conversation about what is your persona, what is your gimmick, especially in the training ring and about, you know, how do we present that to the world? I mean, in my mind, it's always. Is it punching up? Is it, you know, is the target of, you know, the heel or the face? Is it the right target?

MG: So so the homophobia that might have been part of wrestling in past, for example, where somebody would be, you know, doing a character like a tulip or somebody like that who is being portrayed as a gay character. And that was a punch line that would never fly now in the circuits that you're in.

REAGAN BELAN: Well, I mean, there was like very recently there was the like secret lesbian trope that was presented on WWE as well. So, I mean, in the mainstream, it's still kind of being used as a punch line. But I mean, I look at productions that are happening like there's a really great wrestler I follow called Effy. And this show that he's putting on it, it's like I really want to go to Tampa for Effie's big gay brunch. And so it's really like it's combining drag and it's combining like all of the parts of queer culture like. So it's really about bringing in queer culture into the wrestling ring as well.

JOSH CUSTODIO: Wrestling is profoundly fun and it really is at best when it's selling how much fun it is. And the more sort of high octane everyone is here. This is a party, the better it is for me. And so things like Reagan speaking about in the conversation is changing, in my opinion. I do think, like you say, sort of as this cultural zeitgeist is moving in a direction. But I do think wrestling is lagging behind a little bit. For example, I just think a lot of it is financially driven. This female push in WWE is a direct answer to the UFC having massive success with Ronda Rouse's Asante. I don't know if that's a name for your listeners to be more familiar with, but they see oh, a single female star can really draw money. We should do that. And only then do they start getting these. They call it the woman's revolution and you just wonder if everything's going to be financially motivated. Is that an actual change?

MG: One of the other changes you see it in sport elsewhere is a real concern around the health and well-being of the people who are involved in this. I mean, I went for this training session, got kicked around, thrown around. There's great concern around making sure that you're not going to get hurt, but it's a very physical sport. Do you worry about your physical well-being and in doing this?

REAGAN BELAN: I mean, I certainly think about it. I mean, I started training at 36. I can do things, like I can do a handstand for the first time in my life, which is kind of wild to think about. But also, like you see people being taken out by injuries. I mean, I remember the first ballroom brawl when Scottie Mac jumped off the balcony and had to take a few months away because he was pretty, like, there were some real injuries there.

MG: What about conversations around concussions? I mean, again, there used to be the phrase was, you know, she or he got their bell rung. That happened in hockey. That happened in boxing. Sure. It happened in wrestling as well. Is there a different conversation around concussions now?

REAGAN BELAN: I mean, taking care of your head is the first thing that you've got to do. And if you're not protecting yourself, you're not protecting your partner. So safety is paramount. I mean, I learned early on that you can you never do anything in a show that you haven't done a hundred times in training and know you can do safely. I definitely try to move too early and nearly dropped someone on their face. And that was a hard lesson because it really threw me off for the rest of the night. I was worried about the person I was in the ring with. I wasn't taking care of them. And it was a big deal.

MG: And that idea of taking care of the person in the ring, that's really important.

REAGAN BELAN: Absolutely. I mean, like, if you're making a go of this, you're going to be working with these people over and over and over again. They're your colleagues. They're your coworkers. You know, like there’s a mutual respect when you get in the ring with each other that, you know, of course, you're fighting each other, but you're also taking care of each other.

MG: What do you think people don't understand about wrestling? Because you can imagine they're people who are listening. Who are you kidding me? You're having a serious conversation about wrestling. Wrestling is a sideshow. It's on television. The kids used to watch it. Nobody does anymore. Why do you think people don't understand about this?

REAGAN BELAN: Like, it kind of comes back to a lot of the things we were talking about, where there really is a magic in being able to suspend your disbelief and just watch the show. You know, even though I've been training and I know again, like the secrets or whatever, like there are times where I'm watching and I'm still just blown away by what happens in the ring. And it's just so breathtaking to see. So there's like there's always new peaks that you can reach. And when it's done, well, it's a really, really magical experience.

MG: Josh, what do you love about wrestling?

JOSH CUSTODIO: Almost everything best I could. Here's what people don't understand about wrestling. I hate to get on my high horse, but I've got to say, people think wrestling is trying to compete with real sports. They think wrestling is hockey. They think wrestling is MMA. They think how could people believe these people are actually fighting? And to start there, we've already missed the point. Wrestling is figure skating. Wrestling is Game of Thrones. Wrestling is the things you're into, but performed alive with action and actual danger happening. It is watching your fictional television program play out in real time.

MG: Like a soap opera. Almost.

JOSH CUSTODIO: It's a soap opera. Like these are its cousins. Nuance is dead. It's blown up. And we're having fun out there. So that's what the misunderstanding about it and what I love about it is watching characters I'm invested in execute credibly high level storylines that I'm invested in exactly the same as every other piece of fiction I'm into.

MG: Reagan What is your wrestling name?

REAGAN BELAN: Glory. S. Gamms.

MG: Oh, that's amazing. How do you come up with a name like that?

REAGAN BELAN: Oh, I got long legs.

MG: And that's it.

REAGAN BELAN: I was I mean, I really wanted an initial and I like 1920 slang for legs. So glorious Gamms.

MG: How would I come up with a wrestling- I'm a natural, apparently. So how do I come up with a wrestling name?

REAGAN BELAN: Well, I mean, like, what's your gimmick? What's your angle you got?

MG: And that's what you have to do. You have to think of what you're going to bring to it.

REAGAN BELAN: Think out who you are in the ring and what you're going to bring to it. And the name kind of flows from that.

MG: I'm like a skinny dude.

JOSH CUSTODIO: Can I pitch something for you?

MG: Please.

JOSH CUSTODIO: The badboy of broadcasting, Matthew Galloman. And it's you come up with the mike. You will. You said you want it to be a heel. You come out. You're cruel, you're sneaky. You're wrapping the cord aroun people, look into the crowd. You use your own mike that's plugged in. You're talking during the match. I'm on the radio. What do you do? I can see it now. This I really think you have a future.

MG: The Bad Boy of Broadcast. I love it.

JOSH CUSTODIO: Matthew Galloman, not Galloway, not Matt. It's the full change. I think you really make some money here.

MG: Thank you. Thank you very much, both of you.

JOSH CUSTODIO: Thank you so much.

REAGAN BELAN: Thank you.

MG: Reagan Balen is a wrestler and burlesque performer. You can find her performing in Vancouver under the stage name Glory S. Gamms, among other names. Josh Custodio is the co-host of the wrestling podcast. Top Marks. That is The Current for today. There's some nostalgia in the city of Vancouver this week. It was a decade ago the Vancouver 2010 Olympics began. I was here. Seemed like this energy in the city went from zero to 100 when the torch relay appeared downtown. But the party really got started on day two of the games when Alexander Bilodeau became the first Canadian to win gold on home soil. Here's what it sounded like. I'm Matt Galloway in Vancouver this week. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEXANDRE BILODEAU: I mean, I feel honored to have that chance. And I catched it.

[Cheers]

ALEXANDRE BILODEAU: I mean, there's more to come and we are already at a lot of metal, so I mean, it's great. We need to be proud to be Canadian and to just enjoy and cheer for the other actors. They've been training so hard for all of this and for me and my Olympic experience is not done. I was at Church Rock and I lost almost my voice there. So yes, it's great. It's the best time of my life. Definitely. It's going to be the best two weeks and just started with the best two days of my life. And it's just going to follow like that.

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Thursday February 13, 2020 Full Transcript

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