MY TSE LIFE

You Can't Spell Reunion Without 'U' Part Two

2008-09-01T15:11:00.005-04:00

As I mentioned before, there were a couple of very emotional moments for me at the reunion. The most emotional of all was when I finally got to see my best friend from the 'floor' days walk across the room to say hello. Chris Martin. He was the guy I had most of my fun days and nights with. Almost every good time memory involved him and quite a few sad moments as well. Seeing him for the first time in god knows how long was quite an experience. I definately have man love for the guy. The Chris I knew was a stick of a guy who looked like he needed a good meal...haha

Seeing him now, in a more 'filled out' form was a fucking shock. He looked good...just bigger.

We stood around laughing for the longest time and when we teamed up with Rick Walker the evening became hilarious. Seriously, I laughed so hard and so long that I was sore from cheeks to ribs! We were standing in a crowd of 'how are ya doings' when Radar came along. We made him retell one of the best and funniest stories ever told. This, by the way, could only happen to Ralph. It was the cottage cheese rape story and if I was a slightly bigger asshole I would tell you every detail. OK...I'll give you a hint. It involved Radar, who we all know was about as big as a bug back in his 'floor' days, and a blind date he had with a charming girl who outweighed him by possibly 300 pounds. Because Ralph would die, and maybe kill me in the process, I have to stop there. But just think about the ingredients...Radar, a 450 pound blind date, (man) date rape and cottage cheese. Yeah, it is as funny as you can imagine, and then some. Ah...to be young and stupid again.

Since it has been some months since my first post and the subsequent complaints from some wronged? parties to my writing, I feel less enthusiastic about this whole process. For one thing, my friend John Bickerton died June 12th. John's dying, while no surprise, was an eye opener. It makes me very aware of how old and fucked we are all getting. It also made me aware of how many of us are dead now. It made me aware of the lifetime of lives that have evolved since the floor closed so many years ago. Something that was a bit disconcerting to me were the discussions I had with several people about John's illness and his limited chances of survival. It seemed like 'some' of the people really didn't give a shit. This was a direct result of the calous nature of the business we were in. The same business that would generate countless flaming astronaut jokes within minutes of the Challenger space shuttle disaster in, I believe, 1983. At the time I thought the jokes were funny. I guess I'm just not as big an asshole as I used to be. I am still burned by the Bickerton thoughtlessness expressed by some people. Maybe I should have expected it and been less offended. Maybe I should have punched them in the mouth!

One of the most meaningful and poignant moments for me came when I spoke to Rick Peirog about the passing of his very good friend and companion, Kim Bueller. Kim was a great guy and died way too early in life. I was shocked when I heard about his passing. Kim died many years ago and I just heard about it this spring while contacting friends about this reunion.

Rick was so devistated, even after the passing of all these years. It reminded me of my own feelings about Steve Gilbert. Rick told me how difficult it became to normalize the everyday events his family shared with Kim's. They did everything together. Now, even the weekend barbecues which were so family and common place became uneven and vaguely uncomfortable for all concerned. That is what the death of someone close can do. Rick was hurt and is still hurting. This is a measure of a good man who will forever feel robbed of the friendship of another good man. This is why I always liked Rick.

The rest of the night was filled with alot of nice moments with people that I shared a significant part of my life with. Seeing the changes in them, their physical features, their emotional damage, their change from eternal hope to a sense of acceptance of what will never be, their lost youth for take no prisioners aging, their life of the party for discounted alcholism. This is the final chapter of our lives and not everyone has a happy ending. I guess those of us who made it this far, who find happiness where and when we can, whose drug dependences have changed from recreational to required pharmacudical, whose idea of a good time is closer to a nap than an all nighter. We have changed so much. We have changed so little. As the death roll continues to grow and the life expectancy continues to shorten, I hope that we can take advantage of the time we have left and make the effort to get together on a more regular basis.

My night got really good when we went to the bar after the reunion and I finally got to see and talk to some people in a less restrictive atmosphere. I had such a good time with Chris, Melanie, Owen Ritchie, Rick Walker, Mark Grimes and his beautiful wife and daughter and everyone else. At the end of it all when good people were falling down drunk and puking in the corners, I was still having a really good time. Rick Walker, Chris Martin and I drove home and we laughed harder and longer than any of us have in a very long time. We remembered so many great moments and stupid indiscretions and it was all so great. I have no doubt that Rick, Chris and I will get together with some of our other close friends from the floor in the future. We just have so much to share from when we were great and life was good to all of us. I wish I had seen Bickerton and Stevie Gilbert and Mark Haughton and Kim Bueller and Jack Dunbar, Lorne Fallon, Jimmy Ackers and so many other good people that are with us no more. I wish that I had seen Billy Walsh, Pier Doninni, Larry Hoes, Kelly Gilbert, John Newell, Don Bainbridge, Richard MacKay, Boyd, Mike Bond, Jack Max, Frank Pike, Ian (round), Scott Zufelt and Maria, Scott Cook, Chris Cook, Danny Moran, Mike Binns, Mike from Montreal, that blond postie that was friends with Dorie, Nancy Westcott, Jim Mc Gann, Jim McGann jr., Jill, my former friend and wannabe benefit associate, and so many more who are with us but wern't at the reunion for any number of reasons.

I guess this seems a little maudlin and overly gloomy and I guess it might be.

I could have written nothing but happy thoughts and fun time stories. Unfortunately that wouldn't be very realistic or true to the life we lived and are still living.

The 'Late' John 'MAD DOG' Bickerton

2008-07-07T12:24:00.002-04:00

John 'MAD DOG' Bickerton
Posted by Jim MacPherson on June 14, 2008 at 10:55am.

I spent all of Friday the 13th driving from Cape Breton to Pickering and my biggest worry was perhaps a speeding ticket in Quebec or the never ending highway project delays. When I arrived this morning I checked my e-mails and saw one from Owen Ritchie that caused me and my prior good mood a huge blow. The subject in Owen's mail read...John Bickerton. Nothing else. I didn't need to see anything else. I knew exactly what it was about. Today I am thankful that I was able to track John down a couple of months ago and talk to him at great length. John and I had a lot of history between us and we were having a good laugh about some of the shit we used to do. I tried to convince John to come out to the 'Traders Reunion' but he didn't sound too hopeful. He told me he didn't even know if he would last that long. Profound words. I could not of course really believe that he was as sick as he told me he was. The John I remembered could take out a bar, or a hockey team, if the notion came to him. I can only think about John in those terms. Big, strong, tough and a party waiting to happen. He was the 'Mad Dog' and he earned that name and reputation through a lot of experience. When we were speaking, for the first time in 15 years, John told me about the waiting list for the double transplant and the hep 'c', which I already knew about. He told me he wasn't too hopeful about the prospects of getting the call. He knew he was a 'low' priority because of the hep 'c' and the extreme damage to his organs. He told me about the trips to the hospital, the long stays in hospital and the tole it was taking on him and his tired body. I tried unsuccessfully to talk him into investigating the possibilities of organ transplant in India, where money talks. He just didn't think that he could do it.We talked lots of shop and John told me he was making a killing on gold and silver recently and that it was keeping him involved in his love of the market. He talked about his family and how he knew that they would be 'alright' when he was gone. He talked about his folks and was interrested in checking out my properties in Cape Breton as a possiblility for them in retirement.Although he sounded less like the 'booming' voiced hellion of his earlier days, there was never a sense of resignation to his situation...more like a realistic view of things.When I was at the traders reunion and was telling people that I was in touch with John I got some interresting responses when I told them of his situation. Some rumors had him 'hiding out' from the russian mob because he scammed them out of a small fortune. Another rumor was that he had made a ton in the market and was living in the south seas with a harem. John was bigger than life and his rumors followed suit. Everyone, except those who knew the truth, seemed shocked that he was this sick. They, for the same reasons as myself, could hardly believe that John, MAD DOG Bickerton could succumb to anything. Unfortunately, we were all wrong. John did succumb and we are now left with the memories and the great stories that I am sure will grow in proportion to the man they represent.When I called Rick Walker today to inform him, which he had already been, he said something interresting when I said how shocked I was by this news of John's death. He said, to paraphrase, "I am not really shocked. When you consider the life we all lived and the age we all are at now, there will be a lot more of these calls comming sooner rather than later. Sometimes I feel like I am on borrowed time already and one of these days the shoe will hit the floor" or something to that effect.For those of us still dumb enough to take ourselves and our friends from the TSE for granted, Rick's words will become very relevant...sooner rather than later. John Bickerton was a love him or hate him guy...much like myself, I suspect! John Bickerton was a really wonderful guy to me and always treated me fairly and respectfully. Not everyone felt the same way, for their own reasons, but none can deny the effect John had on all of our lives. He will not be forgotten by me, and I suspect, anyone else that knew him. My eyes are welling up now. That's for you John! Wherever you are now has just become a much more interresting place.Rest In Peace Brother

1 Comments Add Comment
"My deepest and sincere sympathies go out to John's family. " wrote Jim MacPherson on June 14, 2008 at 11:00AM.

JIM MACPHERSON'S BLOGS - OFFENSIVE MATERIAL ? ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THE TSE TRADERS' ARCHIVE PAGE

2008-04-26T00:02:00.006-04:00

I am very sorry to tell you that I will no longer be contributing postings to this site. (The TSE Traders' Archive Page) There have been 'a few' complaints from people about the content of my blogs. I have been asked to 'edit out' anything that might be considered offensive...to anyone I guess. I will not do this. To those of you who have given me such positive responses to my words, I thank you profusely. To any of you that I might have offended...HA! Anything else I might add would no doubt be considered offensive.
One of the things that made us what we were, was our absolute lack of political correctness. That is why I could NEVER work in an office environment. Political correctness makes me puke. This is why I will not be 'edited' for the sake of a few gilded lillies.
If you want to read anything else that I write about MY TSE LIFE, I will now be posting on my personal blog site ONLY.
If you are prone to sensitivity...stay to hell away from it.
This is a copy of Simone Lau's e-mail to me informing me of my perceived bad behavior - it is not confidential, so I share it with you.

Hi Jimmy.
We've received a few complaints about your postings so we had to start taking out parts of your stories. Some people don't wish to be reminded about more sensitive areas of their past and may not share your sentiments or sense of humor. The point of having this archive is to create positive memories for all so anything that may make people uncomfortable will be removed.
So please, if you have the time, go through your postings on the archive again and edit them.
Thanks.
Simone Lau
ScotiaMcLeod Equity Trader 416.862.3906

Simone's e-mail addy is: Simone_Lau@scotiacapital.com

If you have a problem with what I have contributed to this site and feel it has been offensive or negative, please, by all means, let her know. If you support what I have contributed and feel that it has been positive and of benefit to your enjoyment of this site...let her know!
link: http://mytselife.blogspot.com/

YOU CAN'T SPELL REUNION....WITHOUT 'U' PART ONE

2008-04-25T00:55:00.019-04:00

I have to start this by telling you, April 23, 2008 was one of the best days I can remember in a very long time. Says a lot about my life, doesn't it!

I parked for $18.00 at Bay St. and Lakeshore Blvd. at about 4:15 and walked up Bay toward the Toronto Stock Exchange, which it will always be to me. I walked along the east side of the street, just as I had done on my first day as a floor trader on April 1, 1980. The throngs of people were moving south, so I was definately swimming upstream. My mind filled with the memories of that first day so very long ago. I was so young and excited. This day I was excited but I have no idea what happened to the young. When I reached the area across from the Exchange I stopped and sat down and stared at this beautiful art deco masterpiece, which, even as a shell of its former self, was still magnificant.

The sound of the pipes brought me back to my Scottish roots and Cape Breton home, and as they do for every Scotsman's blood, they made me feel just a little homesick. This time I wasn't feeling homesick for my Nova Scotia shores...I was feeling homesick for my Toronto Stock Exchange. This time I was feeling homesick for my many, many good friends from the floor. This time I was feeling homesick for the wonderful respected life I led as a Floor Trader. This time I was homesick for the laughs, the fights, the excitement, the boredom, the young guys, the old guys, the girls, the posts, the arb, the clock, the screaming, the bob loblaws', the day-o's, the 3:33:33's, the can, the california sandwich lunches, the gallery, the paper ball fights, the paper cuts, my trading book, the 10 coffees a day, the 15 coffees a day, the TD danishes, the greasy eggs at Marta's, the mango shakes, the capuccinos, the great lunches, the liquid lunches, the shitty lunches, the missed lunches, the beers at the Cork Room, the drinks at Sammy's and Ho Shim's, the hockey nights, the Bulls, the Rockets, the softball games, the soccer games, the easy money, the easy girls, the easy guys, the easiness in general, the constant buzz, the energy that didn't run out, the parties, the lines, the all nighters, the tough mornings, Weston health club pool, the limos to Buffalo with Gardner for wings, the almost getting killed with Gardner in Buffalo, people who liked me, the people who hated me, the pictures in the Star, the TV cameos, the first bonus, the last bonus, all the bonuses in between, downtown girl watching summer days, my first BMW, the trips to Vegas, the trips to New York, the trips to Montreal, my band playing at Ildiko's, my bad 80's hair, skinny ties and most of all, every single day I spent on the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange.
As I j-walked across the street to the TSE, and it will ALWAYS be the TSE to me, I saw a few barely recognizable faces from the past. Faces I hadn't seen for a very long time. The one of these bodies I was closest to, as a friend, was Marty Wittenbols and Paul Napolitano. Walking over to the boys I was immediately flushed with the memories of our arb days with Burns Fry. Marty and his wonderful histrionics as the ultimate 'arb' trader every time there was a TV camera within screaming distance. Paul with his intimidating presence and big booming heart which now contained 4 new bypasses. As we shook hands I wondered what it was like for Marty when the floor died. He was such a fixture and was so at home on the floor, it must have been really tough. And for Paul who could never see himself in an office. Arb boys and offices were oil and water. Seeing Marty and Paul I was feeling the first brick being laid in the foundation of emotion that would become a building as the event unfolded. I stood outside for about 10 minutes and shook some hands and exchanged smiles filled with joy and sorrow. It was beginning to dawn on me that times had really changed, never to return. People no longer looked the same and I was only then feeling sure that this was also true of me as well. Then I saw this woman crossing the street comming toward the building. She looked vaguely familiar and when she was beside me our eyes met and I realized it was Carm, my old friend from so long ago. When I knew Carm, she was a girl, who I shared a lot of time with and somebody who meant a great deal to me at in my time on the floor. We were, at one time, great friends. We always had a wonderful sexual tension, mostly because Carm was just a bundle of young exhuberant sexuality and she carried herself in a very confident way...kind of slutty without being a slut. She was wonderful. When Our eyes met, I not only knew it was Carm, I knew I meant very little to her these days. She almost blew me off and did not look, not even for a moment, as if she even had the time of day for me. We exchanged a few very uncomfortable words and drifted off to other greetings and salutations with other people. It was so very wierd. This was the second brick in the foundation, which was a perfect metaphor for my feelings before and after theis event...bitter/sweet! I shook off the wierd encounter with Carm qiute easily, not because I was didn't care, but just because I was so hyper psyched and excited. But I have to tell you, under normal circumstances, Carm's reaction and obvious indifference to me, would have devistated me.
I walked into the building and took a moment to breath it all in. It was of course different now in its new life as 'the design exchange'. (note the lack of capitals and mild distain) I pain my $75.00 and was wrist wrapped by the smiling Susan Tonkin. I slowly assended the stairs, as I had done so many hundreds of times before. This time with a flood of memories with every step. It was warmly overwhelming. When I got to the top of the stairs I stopped and took several deep breaths. They were bittersweet. Surrounded by the familiar marble, granite and deco art and detail, I knew I was home. I entered the room and was immediately overwhelmed by a kind of out of focus feeling as I looked over the crowd for familiar faces. My vision wasn't out of focus, but my memory of what everyone looked like in my mind and the reality of the people 18 years later was enough to cause a momentary blur of emotion. The first person I encountered inside was Mark Grimes. Not in person, just in his overwhelming booming voice over and above the din of the assembled crowd. I meandered through the people feeling amazingly good. Shaking hands, hugging and kissing friends. Feeling like some wierd time warp had taken place and everyone I knew now looked like people I didn't know. Within a very short period of time I met up with Ed Szolopiak. We talked and shared a few memories and lamented the lost life we lived. Ed looked basically the same. Little thinner on top and a very grey moustache. Little more cynical after too many years locked away being a battery in an office cell. I then talked with Kenny Rathgerber and thanked him for his efforts in this reunion and the web pages we now live our past lives through. Kenny looked basically the same. Just a little heavier but maybe a little happier than most. We posed for a few pics and chatted with Harold Maines, who looked great! I drifted toward the bar but was intercepted by Owen Ritchie whom I spent a great deal of the evening talking to. Owen looked good, a little heavier, like the rest of us, but filled with the same contageous energy that I always loved him for. We shared some great laughs and some sad memories of comrades lost.
Standing with Owen, something odd caught my eye to my right. This leather clad, helmet toting cowboy made his way toward us. I barely recognized him. It was my old friend and co-abuser Mike Gardner. Mike Harleyed his way there and looked every bit the poster boy for middle aged penis replacement. haha. Just kidding Mike. But I think it used to be a Porsche or a 20 year old blond to cure that crisis of mid life. Think I would've gone for the blond Mike hahaha!
We very briefly chatted as I marvelled at the difference in appearance. Holy shit man, we were definately NOT in Kansas anymore Toto.
I walked around, scoping out the crown. I spotted a lot of my pals and one by one, I was making my way through as many as possible. With so little time and so much to say, it was a difficult task. I met up with Anna Dixon and shared some great moments from the past. The great parties at Colin's place. Her unbelievable french maid uniform costume at a halloween party at Chris Martin's place. I informed her that her costume had made her a bit of a celebrity with the horny boys who only drooled, because of her Colin status. To this she responded, half in jest, that if she had known that, she would've dumped Colin and gone for the boys...all of them. Anna is great and as a 19 year old, she was very very hot!
I chatted briefly with Anna Carlouchi. She looked great and was her usual smiling self, but didn't really have too much to say. I was a little dissapointed. Her and Carm were good friends back in the day, so I wondered if there was residual from the Carm thing. Who knows. Maybe these girls didn't like me as much as I thought. I walked over to Jimmy Dimson to say hi. Jimmy looked great and it was cool to talk to him. Across the room I spotted Joe Turner. Joe sent me a pic of him and his dad a couple of weeks before the reunion, so I wasn't shocked to see the shock of white hair on his head. It seems so out of place with his youthful face and 20 year old posture. It was great to see Joe. He is a great guy. He told me I looked the same as I did back in the day...with an 80's tie, slicked back 'same' hair and 'ahem' casual look jacket, which he obviously didn't care for too much. Oh well. Truth hurts...haha! We chatted for awhile and Joe told me about his business these days and it was all good.
I saw and chatted briefly with Brent Schwalm, Gord Gladney, Jimmy Barkwell, Russle Barnes, Bob Point, John Manna, Bruce Cocker, Brad, Jerry the Bell man, Peter Ergli, Dave Knight, Gord MacNeil, John Moir, Dave James, Peter Polson, Johnnie Johnson, Lori Sexton, Sandy Eamond, Ken McIntosh, Glen Grossmith.
Then I had a great chat with Ronnie Williams. Love the guy. We had some great times back in the day. Ronnie looks and sounds great and he deserves it.
Then I met up with Steve Welch. He looks a little older but has lost none of his amazing wit and sense of humor. We had a few belly laughs before we continued on our journeys from chat to chat with as many friends as 41/2 hours would allow, and we met up throughout the evening for similar moments of laughter. Then Rick Walker and I shared some memories and laughs. Rick and I have been talking some in the past weeks and we both needed this reunion, for our own reasons. It was really good to see Rick. He is a great guy and we have a great past and share a macabre sense of humor. Steve Curry saw me in a crowd and came over and gave me the big hug and smile. I was so happy to see him. He will always mean alot to me. One of the great people I was so lucky to share some life with. After sharing some memories with Curry I was getting just a little overwhelmed with the moment and the huge emotional surge that came with it.

STAY TUNED FOLKS, FOR PART TWO COMMING SOON

Post# 11 DID SOMEONE SAY...PARTY?

2008-04-05T22:15:00.028-04:00

Any discussion of time spent as a Floor Trader would be less than complete without an 'in depth' look at the socializing habits of this strangely elite group, of which I was a proud member. The single most defining description of these socializing moments can be found in one word.....PARTY.
Because of the fact that too many people might be subjected to too many non-specific slings and arrows for me offering a totally factual play by play, I have to seriously limit my recolections to a 'G' rated version of events. Those of you that experienced and lived through the events I speak of, well, you already know what I mean. As for those of you that don't...use your 1980's imagination. Sex, Drugs and Rock&Roll baby!

I don't know if it was the times we were in, cause the 1980's were unbelievable, or maybe the chemistry that seemed to manifest itself among the floor people whenever there was an opportunity to enjoy any given social momnent. Maybe it was the cliches' that started to make sense like "going out with the boys and comming in with the men" and "work hard, party harder". Maybe it was just the amazing, almost magic feeling...like shared valence electrons forming a bond between adjacent nuclei. HaHa...Ok, grade 12 chemistry alert!! Or maybe it's just because a group of talented, intense, extremely pressure driven individuals who shared one of the most individualized working environments on the planet, just GOT IT! We really knew how to enjoy the moment and live it to the fullest, no matter what the outcome. Ah, unbridled passion and crazy people...sounds like a party to me.
There were several categories of party in the floor trader world. Almost every time a group, be it large or small, of Floor Traders would get together for any of a number of reasons and sometimes no reason at all, a party was always a distinct possibility and a danger of breaking out. These parties could start from a gathering at the Cork Room or some other popular apres work thurst quencher. They could start to develop from a group playing soft ball or day tripping downtown. They could start from an impromptu road trip to who knows where. Honestly, they could start anytime, any place...anywhere.
The next category would be the sometimes planned, sometimes unplanned 'house parties' that were as common as they were legend. These were the parties where everyone was a little more equal than they would ever be on the somewhat 'elitist' trading floor. You know, the kind of equal where we were ALL as capable of facing the indignities of hurling in the host's bathroom as the next guy...or girl!
The final category of 'party' that we will endeavour to study in this thesis will be the 'organized' or 'annual' parties that had existed for ever as far as I knew. These parties included the 'Stags', the annual company 'Christmas Parties', the 'Bun Toss' and the most intriguing and the mother of all great Floor Trader inspired parties, the annual Montreal based 'Oyster Party'.

HOUSE PARTIES

In my time on the 'floor' some of the best house parties were held at the Bayview and Eglinton house rented by Chris Martin, Bill Walsh and Rick Walker, Chris's Yonge & Sheppard abode and Jimmy Barkwell's place on Wellington St. downtown. I was only at about 10 of these events, combined, but that was enough to grasp the concept. The 'three amigos' house, Chris, Bill & Rick's, was a small, kinda 'cute' little 'North Toronto' bungalow and a half, or for party purposes, cozy. It was in a nice quiet area just off the busy intersection. Most of the action was centered on the main floor area where as many people as you can imagine would be sardined into a very 'cozy' space. But I have some rather 'odd' blury memorries from a sub-terrain area of the house where only strangeness can be recalled. These parties were usually friday night affairs as I remember, so people usually pre-tanked downtown in the Cork Room or wherever and by the time most of us got to the party, we were pretty much hammered. By midnight the air quality was roughly that of Bejing in rush hour. It seemed that everyone and his mother smoked cigarettes in those days and in parties like these, you barely had to light up. Even the non-smokers woke up in the morning feeling like they 'smoked a pack'! As if the cigarette smoke didn't create a thick enough ambient curtain, the pot smoke was absolutely dense and seemingly never ending. You would be able to share in wave after relentless wave of countless joints. I know it's hard to believe, but 'some' people actually did 'drugs' back in the day. Well...take off your hat and say...Imagine that!
These parties were so great, not so much because they offered anything out of the ordinary, it was something more like a spiritual hammering of the minds!
They were just so very much fun because you knew everyone and everyone knew you and we all knew how to have a really good time.

Jimmy Barkwell's parties were another fantastic way to willingly submit yourself to mild, or not so mild, brain damage. The smoke never deemed as big an issue at Jimmy's because there was at least an opportunity for ventilation and not just circulation. He had a great frightening elevated patio kind of thing at the back of the place. OK, so I can't exactly remember the details because I was never at Barky's house when I wasn't pissed. Not angry...drunk! All I know for sure is that there was an open area overlooking a parking lot. I think!! I remember there were always more ladies at Jimmy's parties. Sorry Chris...haha Or maybe I just kept seeing the same ones over and over. Whatever the case, these parties were excellent. There were some great eating places close by, so the enevitable attack of the incredible drunken/stoned munchies could be satiated with prejudice. That means you could get drunk and blitzed and eat. Hah!
I think I can safely state that EVERYONE that has memories of the parties at Barkwell's place thinks they were really, really cool. Jimmy always brought that inexplicable 'je ne sait quois' to his events much as he did to the rest of his life. He was such a smooth rider that his energy alone could bring a so so, to a cool high! That, believe it or not, was not a veiled drug reference. We all owe Jimmy a little thank you for the good times he provided so many of us so often.

THE ANNUALS'...'BUN TOSS', 'COMPANY CHRISTMAS PARTIES' and 'THE OYSTER PARTY'

Ah the 'bun toss'. What more needs to be said. You get a group of business men (and women) together, in this case floor traders, and you add a formal dress code, a luxurious hotel banquet area with dancing to follow and about a million pops and about 2 million buns. No, the dinner roll kind! I remember at my very first bun toss I actually thought the 'boys' were pulling a fast one on me, the rookie, and that I would be somehow sorry if I took it too seriously.
When we were at the event Jimmy Ackers was on the podium and after the glad tidings were spoken, he gave everyone a stern warning NOT to indulge in the bun tossing ritual. Something about insurance concerns from the hotel. I guess not too many people were listening. Within 30 seconds of the end of the meal, the boys were scrambling, grabbing and stockpiling every 'bun' in the place. They seemed to be popping up everywhere and then it began. From every direction and from even the most unlikely sources (Eddie Lewer), the air absolutely filled with buns. Man oh man did they get tossed. I was hit by about three before I even knew what was going on. Mark Grimes was at our table and he was like a 'bun tossing' machine gun. Across the room at Ackers table, there was Jimmy, rocketing off a barage at harold Maines. It was insane. It was the most immature display of grown men being boys that you can imagine. And it was THE most fun you could ever hope to have at ANY formal event you can imagine.

After the buns died off, the mess was something else. 'I love the smell of dead yeast in the morning'. This was a small part of the wild environment that was the world of the floor trader.

THE 'OYSTER PARTY'

It is difficult for me to hear ANY 80's song these days without evoking memories of those wild and crazy party soundtracks from back in the day.
So many of those songs were related to my memories of the 'oyster parties' throughout the 80's. Don't think I missed one.
Within six mmonths of starting my job on the floor I attended the first of my 'oyster parties'. A weekend in Montreal was required to fully participate and comprehend the 'oyster party'. This was definately NOT like other parties, there were none that could compare.

The party started with a trip to Montreal. Limo to the airport, drinks. Flight to Montreal, drinks. Taxi straight to the party and lots of drinks. The party itself was held at the Boursse de Montreal, or for everyone else, the 'Montreal Stock Exchange'. The party was a really cool affair that started with a trip to the trading floor to chat with guys we worked with. That meant Frankie Breaker and Paul (something english) and Paul (something french). He had the hottest girlfriend whose name I cannot remember. She worked some time at the 'boursse' but I think she might have been a stripper. Whatever! Anyway, by the next oyster party rolled around, she was dead. They found her and some other girl in the trunk of a cadillac at the Dorval airport parking lot. Wrong place/wrong time...that's another story!
What a waste.
Back to the action. When the floor got boring, an average of six minutes after arrival, we made our way upstairs to the actual party floor. It was a great space and had a fantastically catered food service. But that isn't why they called it the oyster party. This was why they called it the 'oyster party'...thousands of oysters! Oysters Rockefeller, Deep fried oysters, oysters neuberg, breaded oysters, baked oysters and most importantly, oysters on the half shell. I absolutely LOVE oysters. Here I was in oyster heaven. Mark Grimes absolutely LOVES oysters. He too was in oyster heaven. This being my first oyster party, I was a little laid back, a taking notes kind of thing. Rookie you know! That lasted till I power chugged four bloody caesars with Mark and he challenged me to an oyster war. Oh yeah, eating oysters till ya die. I didn't say we were smart. Our little contest was a see who can devour the most oysters in the shortest time deal. I told you. I didn't say we were smart! To make this interresting, all oysters had to be dressed with red sauce, hot sauce and lemon. Yummy!
The first couple of dozen had pushed our profile to the 'alert' level for the eight servers on duty. It was taking us very little time to go through their pre shucked supplies. Keep in mind that there were about 700 other patrons throwing back oysters as well. We didn't care. We also had to drink at least one caesar per dozen oysters. By the time I got to my fifth dozen, Mark was over 100! He wasn't just eating shucked oysters, he was throwing down ALL varieties available. And to start with, he was about twenty drinks ahead of me. We kept at it for quite awhile but Mark blew my doors off. He might have eaten 12 dozen. Shit, it might have been 20 dozen...haha. I was so hammered by this time that it was a woozy world of oysters and caesars and little else. I had to struggle to keep it all down, especially with Mark giving me the 'noogies'. But then something magical happened and we were fairly sober again. What a world!
This night was just getting started. After the oyster portion of the party it was back to the hotel for a little post party, partying. Oh yeah...that's right!
The next part of the oyster party weekend was definately the best looking part. It was off to 'Club Super Sex'. Today there are tons of 'whaterer goes' strip clubs all over Toronto, but back in the day, there was nothing like the Montreal strip clubs in T.O....at all!
I mentioned in one of my earlier blurbs the kind of money some of the boys dropped at the clubs on these weekends. Let's just say you could buy a decent used car, on each of the nights there in the club, with the money that got G-stringed into oblivion. Oh man, what a way top go broke, haha.

On my second trip to Montreal for my 2nd oyster party I shared a room with Radar (Ralph Ditchburn). Actually it was his room and I was just going to split the costs with him. After following the prescribed protocols for the oyster party event, I made my way back to the hotel, no idea how, and crawled into bed with the spins from hell. I got into the room at about 3:30am and passed out violently. Hard as it might seem to believe, I actually woke up to an unbelievablw banging on the door. It was Radar and he was hammered and he didn't have his key. I did! Could I get up off that bed and let Radar into the room? NO! Could I do anything, move anywhere, NO! Did I care? NO! I passed out again! The next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake by some dude in a scary uniform. Of course in those days, all uniforms were scary...except those private school things. But I digress. Anyway, this barely understandable goof was shaking me and asking me..."Do you know this guy, Do you know this guy?"
He sounded like Peter Sellers doing Inspector Clouseau. Maybe he was Clouseau.
I looked over at another security guard holding Radar by the arm. Radar certainly would have been on the floor if not for this brute's strength in holding him up. I quickly assessed the situation and made the only logical choice I had available...I said NO, NO, NO, I don't know this guy. Get him out of here. They, of course, dragged Radar out of the room, kicking and screaming while giving me the f-offs to beat the band. Drunk as I was, this was a fine example of humor to me. To Radar...not so much!
I made a herculean effort to save my friend from the indignities of a french jail and called the front desk and explained that if those guys didn't bring Radar back, he would sue their asses off. The room, I reasoned to her, was in Radar's name. He was brought back to the room and the security guards sat him on the other bed and he just sort of slumped there, limp. When the guards finally finished admonishing me, for my "not funny joke", I flipped them the bird I did not understand a single word they uttered, and thusly passed out. This pass out was short lived. Radar, in a feat of super-human strength well beyond his drunk and stupid 110 pounds, jumped on me and started screaming, it could have french too, but he didn't speak it, and was punching me under the covers. I was laughing at him and my really funny joke so hard, I puked in the bed. Then I passed out again and slept in it. I guess Radar stopped pummelling me at some point through the night, cause' when I woke up at around 7:00am, covered in my own vomit, possibly Radar's too, Radar was flopped over his bed. He looked dead. I was wishing 'I' was dead!

Then we started the next day much as we ended the last...with many drinks and way too much fun and living too many cool future stories.

These were the best of times boys and girls.
In retrospect it all seemed so normal and we all just kind of took it for granted.

'THE LAST WALTZ' - FLOOR TRADERS 25TH REUNION OF THE CLOSURE OF 234 BAY ST

This brings me to what might possibly be the LAST party. Bay St ghosts present and future. So many friends have left us since those glory days. I have to wonder, at the risk of getting morose, how many will be left for the next party. At the risk of sounding morbid to go with it, we are all getting 'old'. There, I said it! We better enjoy whatever time we have to share with our many friends from the days of the floor trader. We better start to be better friends. We can do this by NOT waiting for 5-10-15 years to see each other, our friends. We can better appreciate what it was that we had by better appreciating what we have today. We aren't what we used to be. But alot of that is because we have done precious little to maintain what we were and who we were. For the sake of posterity, we better do something to keep the memory of our past lives alive forever. The Floor Trader's Archive is a great start. Compiling a directonary of e-mail addresses and phone numbers that members can access will also improve the chances of keeping in touch.

We don't have to become a lost civilization. We don't have to be the next 'lost tribe'. Lets do something to insure that there is a legacy, a "real' legacy, of the men and women who were the life and breath ofthe 'floor'. Let our children and children's children be able to look back be able to see what we were.
Once, we were great. Really, we were. Although 'we' are all going to die, (sorry, but it's true) what we were should never die with us!

Post# 10 - The Rest of My Friends At The Toronto Stock Exchange

2008-04-01T22:36:00.069-04:00

continued

THESE ARE SOME OTHER FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES FROM THE OLD FLOOR WHO MEANT SOMETHING TO ME FOR MANY REASONS!

There are many reasons people become friends. When people spend alot of quality time together under stressful and sometimes very high pressured situations over a long period of time, people become close. I was always privliged to considered many of the people on the floor my friends... good friends in many cases. Yet recently, when I called as many of my old friends as I could, it was the first time I had spoken to many of them for 11 to 15 years. Every time I think of a friend of mine from the TSE floor, any friend really, I have to give my head a real shake to try and understand why I have made so little effort to maintain a friendship with people that have meant so much to me. It is not just me...It is almost everyone that I have spoken to that is out of the business and about half of the people that are still in the business. It speaks to the human condition and the fact that sometimes when people are forced do battle together, when that war is over, maybe people all just needed to forget the war and unfortunately, the people they fought beside. I know the war analogy might be a bit over the top but I am sure that everyone of us feel and know that we have had to give up little piece of ourselves just to be in this business. This is much the same way a soldier who comes back from battle is never quite the same. That is definately very true in our business. This being said, I am thoroughly excited to re-connect with so many excellent people. Although I may not EVER know why I allowed so much time to piss away without even so much as inquiring about any of my friends, something really interresting has taken place in my cold calling of friends from days past. In almost every single case, with almost every single individual, it is as if I last spoke with them...yesterday. Sharing the memories and the laughs, the victories and the defeats and the fact that we were all so very lucky to have been where we were, doing what we were doing, in the very best of times.
At the risk of sounding really puss...to all of my 'floor' friends I just want to say that I missed you. I missed you all and I hope that this reunion will help all of us to appreciate who we are, what we are and who our FRIENDS are.

These Are Some Of My Other 'Floor' Friends in No Partictular Order

Joe Turner
I have many great memories with my old friend Joe. We had so many hours of terriffic conversations and even though he was a Habs fan, I still really liked him. Those great hot dogs in the Montreal Forum..oh yeah, and the games. haha A little baseball, a little hockey, Argos...cool memories. Joe was a really steady, even keeled trader and was well respected. A great sense of humor and a good laugh when that ketchup pack Joe was playing with exploded all over his white shirt and cool silk tie. Sorry Joe, but it was hilarious. I told you not to play with it...hahaha Joe is a really good guy and everyone that knows him will agree on this. It is great to be talking to Joe again and I look forward to getting together for another shared revisionist history lesson.

Bill Webb
My very best hockey conversations I ever had were with Bill. He was such a calm relaxed guy you would never be able to tell he had serious GOON blood flowing through his veins. Great times with Bill and his cool dad Lenny, Bill Walsh, Steve Welch and an assortment of hockey experts. Bill was one of the most informed and intelligent people on the floor and his hockey knowledge was vast and accurate. So much fun and great laughs with the 'Crunch' goon pool and every other pool that existed. So many good laughs on the floor keeping each other barely sane sometimes. Watching Tim Taugher threatening to go after Bill Brough to, I think, kill him while we stood by and laughed. Oh yeah, the good old days on the floor. Murder and mayhem...that was Bill...haha The fact that Bill and I were so, so different made it really cool to be friends. Bill was so measured and collected and I was...let's see...insane. Bill was a real calming influence on me, which was required once or twice...haha Thanks Bill. Go Wings!

Rick Perogi
Rick was an absolutely great guy. I enjoyed his company as much as anyone on the floor. I have great memories of Rick including the time he came up to my farm in Brougham to enjoy some nature...like the trees that were made available to us from the tree nursery adjoining my property. OK, so we had to wait till it was kind of dark to dig them up, but there you are...hahaha
Paper balls were king on the floor and Rick was an ace. No one was spared. He even threw a rocket that hit Tommy Milligan right on the top of his head, causing Tommy just a little aggrivation. I once threw a sugar pack at Rick, never believing I would hit him, but I did. He was so far away but the stars were aligned. I threw the pack on a very high arch, because he was so far away, and it went perfectly...as if in slow motion. BANG, right in Rick's right eye. It was so funny in a paper ball kind of way. Rick marched over to my booth as soon as it happened. He couldn't see that it was me, but yet he knew. He walked up to me and said, "nice f....ing shot Jim" and turned and walked away. What a true warrior. Just a great guy with a really good attitude. Once again, sorry Rick, but it was my best shot ever. Thanks!

Gord Gladney
I worked with Gord through part of my Peter Mitchell period as a trader and we shared a lot of hockey pools and pick-up games at midnight. Those games were tons of fun and I will now apoligize to any of my team mates that I injured through the course of our playing time together. Chris Martin, I am sure you can relate. Gord, I forgive you for the Peter Mitchell inspired plank walking in the Gordon/Davidson fiasco. I did OK by the way.

Owen Ritchie
Owen and I were kind of a ying/yang on the floor. He was a more soft edged and considerate individual to my rather hard assed approach. Of course, my being an Arb trader always kept me on edge. Pressure baby. You gotta love it!
Great Owen memories from the soccer pitch, hockey pools and chats about the 'carting' life. Owen was always so good to see. Always so positive. I only saw him loose it one time and it made me realize that it would always be better to have Owen as a friend than an enemy. Owen made having Owen as a friend very easy and rewarding. He and Bob Point could always be counted upon to provide lots of entertainment and general good cheer. I am glad I have Owen memories from the floor because without Owen, it would just not have been the same place. He was one of the truely 'good' people that helped make my job as a floor trader such a rich and rewarding experience.

Jeff Gamble
I used to really like Jeff and the times we spent together. Back in the Tow Truck days, the condo with Mike McCarthy, the boozecan experiment we almost followed through with, all of which I'm sure Jeff will deny ever existed, we had some great times. After Jeff went to New York to join the Larry Hoes gang, he was never the same guy, or so EVERYONE told me. Yeah, I thought that too Jeff. That was a real shame because Jeff was such a good friend and terriffic guy. Jeff would always help you out in a pinch and never want anything in return and was terminally friendly. I have no idea if he is any of these things anymore. Maybe some time he will tell me!

Colin O'Handley
Colin was a guy that I had much in common with. We were both musicians, motorheads and enjoyed a good party. I used to like going over to Colin's place to jam. Hey, Cherry Bomb! Pink Cadillacs'!
Colin gave the greatest parties. His annual 'corn roasts' were always so much fun...well, what I can remember from them. Colin actually served corn, boiled in huge pots with open fires and there would be butter melted into empty apple juice cans, ingenious, and the corn dipped in just right. The entertainment at these parties was always live bands and Colin and Brian Duff were in their element. What great memories!

ED SZOLOPIAK
Ah yes, Ed. Well Ed Szolopiak had one of the best names of my friends on the floor (except for maybe Rick alphabet) but for whatever reason really didn't look like his name...if you know what I mean. Ed wasn't nearly as exotic looking as his name sounded. Since he wasn't a stripper, I guess that didn't much matter. Ed and I used to spend a great deal of time hanging out and talking during the many down times on the floor. Ed had a great sense of humor, which it seems was a prerequisite to being a floor trader. Of course there were an awful lot of guys that had no sense of humor at all, so it kind of balanced out in our little universe. (see Tom Milligan) Ed was a perfect straight man and had excellent timing and demeanor for such a designation. I loved bouncing my rather extreme viewpoints off Ed because he always had such a deep measured response. His perspective on things was intelligent, while at the same time being quite funny. I believe Ed was an Acadia grad with a football major and an english minor...haha Like most of us on the floor, his education had little to do with his career. I really enjoyed my friendship with Ed and when we got together for a few after the closing of the old floor I didn't realize it would be 11 years between beers. I sincerely hope that it is not so long between the next!

Marty Whittenblos
When it came to characters on the floor of the TSE, Marty was near the top of the heat. Marty never met a camera he didn't have a passionate love affair with. Almost every clip on the news shows would enevitably be of Marty shouting and frantically hand signalling, real or imagined and sometimes including such well known 'arb' men as Arnie Coombs. I worked with Marty at Burns Arb and I enjoyed socializing with him off the floor. Marty wan not a drinker or a party animal, so it was hard to find common lines of interest. Marty is a long time Corvette man and once recorded a 'Taking Care of Business' cover video with Stevie Gilbert and I at a studio I had. Marty played drums. Marty was never as happy as I thought he should have been, although I am not really sure why.

Ike Ross
Ike was way happier than I thought he should have been...just kidding Ike! He was such a pleasure to have on the floor. A funny voice of reason in a world of turmoil. His take on life made you look at yourself just a little differently than you normally might. I think Ike was a trader, but I can't actually remember him actually doing a trade...haha Sorry Ike.

Jimmy Dimson
Swish, as Jimmy was known by so many on the floor was a really tremendous guy. Very quiet by floor standards, but a wonderful sense of fair play and a grounded personality. I thoroughly enjoyed my many and varied conversations with Jimmy. I always appreciated the fact that he would patiently listen to my many gripes and always offer calm relaxing advice. Jimmy was an absolute pleasure.

Mark Houghton
I just loved this guy. He was so gregarious and fun to be around. I spent many an evening after work having a beer with Mark and it was never ever boring. When I recently heard that Mark had died, I was absolutely shocked and could hardly believe my ears. I had been calling Mark's number trying to get in touch with him and didn't even realize that he would not be picking up. Mark spent many summer days and nights at the Exhibition, working in the family business selling home made beer nuts, which were delicious. At the end of the Ex he would often come by my apartment and drop off like 20 bags of these beer nut sweets. This was a very good 'munchy' appeaser. I miss Mark Houghton.

Sharon Butler
In my time on the floor Sharon was one of the coolest girls I ever hung out with. She was hot and could hang out with the boys and never feel like a third wheel. She was so much fun to spend time with and talk to and it was cool to have a female friend, of the hot persuasion, that you could just have fun with without the tension. Only the boys will know what I mean by that one. Sharon had a ton of friends and admirers and I am happy to have been one of them.

Kelly Gilbert
Kelly was one of the first girls that I became friends with on the floor. She was a great post clerk and we spent hours and hours of down time talking. She was the most energetic person I had ever met. Boundless energy and full time smiles. Kelly was a beautiful girl and soul. The night Kelly and Steve Gilbert became an item, and later married, was a classic. You know what, I think I will just leave that night at that. I just loved Kelly because she was such a great friend. She used to confide in me alot and I always felt like she cared about my opinions. I miss our good times together. Still love ya Kelly!

Little Carm
Carm, I am so sorry that I can't remember your last name. OK, you can shoot me. Carm was one of my very good friends and like Kelly, we spent countless hours talking and flirting. She was probably the only person that I talked with EVERY day on the floor. Carm was such a kind soul and so generous to me. She was always worried about me. She didn't approve of my lifestyle choices and always let me know when she thought I should curb the enthusiasm. I have such great memories Carm and I will cherish them forever. Love you too Carm!

Sheila Barry
The first time I met Sheila I was upstairs at the Cork Room with a group of non-traders types from the floor. Since there was a bit of segregation in the Cork Room which had the traders on the main floor and the non trading staff of the floor relegeted to the 'upstairs' portion of the establishment. Sheila was kind of hammered, like everyone else there, and people were talking about going to a party at Jimmy Barkwell's place. Most of the good parties were trader exclusive, to a degree, and the party ay Jimmy's was going to be a coup for the postie people to attend. This was to be a more 'open' party than most of the usual 'trader' parties, so people were excited. Meanwhile, back at the bar, Sheila was a real 'life of the partier' and was as funny as hell. She was toe to toe with a couple of guys and matching them gross out for gross out. She was no shrinking violet and I could tell I was going to like her. I owe alot of good laughs on the floor to Sheila. She was just a really funny girl. Since she came from a fine floor trading pedigree with trading vetrans Paul Barry (dad) and Bill Barry (uncle and gruff of note), you just knew Sheila was cut out for the job. Her North Toronto roots served her well in the wasp bastion of the trading floor of the TSE.
She was friends with Sharon Butler in those days and those two together were quite the party tag-team. (no, not that kind of tag team). Sheila almost always had a HUGE smile on her face and she really knew how to enjoy herself, which usually meant those around her enjoyed themselves as well. I always liked Sheila's company and her terriffic sense of humor and ascerbic tongue. Along with all the laughing I did with Sheila, I also considered her a great friend.

Vic Ciampini
Vic and I recently spoke about his first day on the trading floor. Vic was not your average postie in any demonstrable way. The day he started he was immediately the wierdest looking guy on the floor and discovered the attention that went with that distinction. In brief, Vic had the piercings and spiked hair of a hard core punk of the day. Not exactly a white shirt and tie guy. Vic was a musician and looked the part. Vic and I shared a rehearsal space for our individual musical needs and I loved the way he played. I was sure he could have made a career in music with a few breaks. Vic went on to become a wheel at the TSE which I am sure he wears as well as his musical endeavours. Vic is a great guy and I am indeed very happy to have spent time with him and share lots of cool moments.

Bob Mullet
I spent a lot of time with Bob on the floor as we both traded on opposing Arbs for many years. Bob always with Dorhety. Although we had an adversarial relationship, we never let that get in the way of our having a good time. Bob was a S&P 500 guy from way back which was oddly out of place for an arb trader. Bob was smart and funny and could snap you in two if he wanted to. Luckily a friendly guy. I remember Bob telling me there were way too many nights at The Keg Mansion, so many in fact that Bob actually had a nameplate there...sort of a wall of fame thing I guess. Thats a whole lot of steaks and drinks Bob...haha Ah, memories! I am hoping I get to see Bob at our reunion. That's right Bob, I'm talking to you buddy!

Larry Hoes
Larry was a good friend of mine for a long long time on the floor. When I first started on the floor a whole lot of guys thought Larry was kind of a dick and he didn't have too many friends. To be fair to Larry he was good friends with Mark Grimes, Jeff Gamble and myself. He was very hard to get to know, a very 'to himself', arrogant kind of guy, dying to be accepted by the 'in' crowd. He never was. Larry was always a smart guy and we had some great conversations. Great memories from Kensington Market, the St. Lawrence Market and endless bargain hunts. He was a driven capitalist. He traded client orders for Burns but wasn't much of a trader as I recall. His specialty however, was in the office and management. Not Burns office however because they fired him over something that probable litigation prevents me from going into. Larry went on to New York where he teamed up with a questionable wierd grey area character that I never liked or thought too much of. Larry went on to made his fortune in 'hedge fund' heaven, and lost alot of it, in 'hedge fund' hell, if the rumors be true. But that all went kind of south for reasons that probable litigation prevent me from discussing. I do not believe that his company, Sharpe Capital Inc. is doing much business these days, for reasons...well, you get the point I'm sure. Larry is, I believe, alive and that is a good thing. I tried to contact Larry in Parry Sound where he has land and some real estate holdings but he did not respond to my fax, which was the only available technology my efforts were able to come up with for him. Just doing the hermit thing I guess.
The one thing that I most regret about my dealings with my former friend Larry was that I set him up with my good friend, Carm. She was totally wierded out by the guy, which I can't go into for the previously mentioned legal reasons. She forgave me but I didn't! Larry completely sandbagged me at McNeil Mantha. Et tu Brutus? Nice friend. He usurped my power within the Arb operation I had created there while I was in the hospital and laid up for 6 weeks. Did I mention, nice friend! Other than the money it cost me and the pain of being back stabbed by a 'friend', it was wonderful. I'm not so bitter anymore however because it got me to move to the Caribbean for 4 years, which was ubbelievable, and helped me develop my current career. So, thanks Larry...I guess. It also taught me that friend is just a word...and words are cheap. Betrayal and Larry are just words too! It is odd to see me keep using 'Larry' and 'friend' in the same sentencses. Wishful thinking I guess. Larry has gone through a lot of friends, like everyone he took from Toronto to New York, and a lot of wives. Oh well! When you have the dough, you can always buy more friends I guess. Larry was never one to let friendship get in the way of his career. When Larry was getting married to one of his wives he invited me up to Parry Sound, to the wedding on his island property. I didn't go. He never forgave me. Get over it! She divorced him and so did I.

Pier Donnini
When Pier, pronounced 'Pierre', started on the floor he was an open book. A very young impressionable spirited guy with a good, if mildly depressed, attitude to life. The depression part is from Pier, not from me. He was ok at his job, certainly nothing special, which seems really wierd considering the executive position he would later go on to hold with Yorkton. He played keyboards in a band with some friends of mine and myself, mostly because I just convinced him he could. You see, he didn't play keyboards but was up to the challenge none the less. That did take some kohones! Ok, I know. We did Brian Adams songs. Come on, it was the 80's! It was great fun and I am glad Pier was with me to share in the experience.
Pier was a good friend for awhile, but when he didn't need too much more from our relationship, he abandoned it...at least I think he did. I was kind of the same way myself, so I don't have the luxury of being judgemental. Pier went on to become an executive wheel of some note and prestiege with Yorkton Securities, which was absolutely shocking to me. Not because I didn't think he could attain such a position, only that he did. He was, unfortunately front and center in the ultimate demise of that operation. You probably remember him for such courageous but career killing moves as taking on the Ontario Securities Commission...! Ouch, Ouch!
According to my spies Pier is currently the owner of an eatery and watering hole in Port Elgin or where ever that long weekend biker spot is. I informed Pier of this reunion, but because of the huge OSC publicity and accompanying crap that goes with it, he has had to suffer, he might not allow himself to come to this little reunion. I know it was tough for me when I got burned at McNeil Mantha, so I would understand. Those kind of wounds run deep. I hope he does come and I hope we can work out our differences... whatever they are. Good luck with the planning commission Piergeorgio.

In Conclusion and a Eulogy

Although one of the last two people I mentioned, in my humble opinion and based on my very personal experience, was of questionable character as a friend, and one just drifted out of friendship with me (I am sure you can tell which) something that was proved to me is that Larry was indeed the exception to the rule. That considered, it has been my absolute pleasure to have been associated with this fine group of people...these 'floor' people...traders and staff. The friends I have made far outnumber the idiots I have known by a huge margin, which is not the norm in the 'real world'. We hardly ever had to be in the real world. Our world was a more protected, more elite environment. Our world was a little more secretive and mysterious. Our world and our lives were definately more exciting than the 'real world' and average lives in it. Our world was always very rewarding and we always felt just a little better about ourselves because of the nature of our world.
My career as a Floor Trader on the Toronto Stock Exchange trading floor was more than just a job to me. It truely was a way of life. We were the foot soldiers in the never ending war that is the securities industry. This war takes few prisioners and the casualties are many and varied. We were in the trenches and on the front lines of the Canadian business world. We were warriors, without a war. We were a culture on to ourselves. There was no work like it. There was no atmosphere like it. There were no people like floor people. Truely, there was no life like it.
All of that is gone now. Chewed up and spit out like so many other casualties of the computerized trading world of today. Today the trading world is a spirit killing office devoid of personality and truely a more heartless and hostile territory. Who's to blame? Well, the short answer is WE are to blame. We fighters who put up NO fight of consequence. We dreamers who were incapable of seeing the value of the situation we were in. We loud mouths who were too afraid to speak up when it meant the most. We just allowed the bean counters and bankers come in and use us to create our own ultimate demise. It is probably difficult for many of us to agree on where or when it all went wrong but we all know that we did indeed let it happen. The Toronto Stock Exchange is dead. The Floor Trader is dead. The culture that was the 'floor' is dead. The only question remaining is...will we allow it to be buried?

Well...will we?

Post# 9 - The 'Young Turks' of The TSE (3)

2008-03-30T00:34:00.012-04:00

The Young Turks. This is the best way I can describe the group of younger, mostly male, hard working, harder partying floor traders from my early days on the floor of the TSE. The adrenelin and bravado and the money created many interresting moments both during work hours and most especially after hours.

continued

MIKE GARDNER

In my career as an Arb trader I had to deal with almost every 'Pro' trader at one time or another. There were certain Pros' that I had to deal with more than others depending on the stocks I trading at any given time. When I traded lots of RCI.A & RCI.B, Rogers Cable stock I had to deal with Johmmy Massin in the GM square quite a bit. That was usually a nice calm square to hang out in and GM Johnny was rarely overly excited. The other Pros in the area were fairly calm types as well. Pros like Dave Bond and Lenny Amon were like kittens in the lion's den. At least in the way they treated other pros' compared to how some other traders often acted, which is to say...viciously! Then there was the area where Mike Gartner traded, which was the same area as Pros Bobby Churchill, John Morrison, Dixie Duggan, Denis McColgan and several other very hard assed traders who rarely took prisioners. Did I mention...viciously?

Having butted heads with Mike as often as I did we developed a mutual respect and slowly became pretty good mates. Mike was as hard assed a partier as he was a trader, and he was a really good trader. If you measured 'good' by the amount of money you made, then Mike was very good. Mike learned his chops unter the close tutaledge of one of the Vetran greats, Dixie Duggan. Dixie was a very serious guy and had alot to offer an up and commer like Mike was in his early days. They were great friends and Mike was very lucky to have Dixie watching his back. Mike, with his well earned, substantial ego, would probably never admit how much Dixie had to do with his ultimate success as a trader. However, if you were to ask the people that would know of this process between Mike and Dixie, few of them would ever discount Dixie's worth to Mike.

Mike was a 'shooter' trader and a very good one. I loved watching him in action. He always had this wonderful smirking face when he traded and you couldn't help but think that he knew that he was winning the game. He was!

I had some great parties with Mike. On occasion, and when we felt the need for heat and if we were just bored enough, we would get a crew together and grab a limo and head down the road, an hour and a half, to Buffalo, to the Anchor Bar for their world famous 'Buffalo Wings'. We always had them with suicide sauce cause' it just made us drink more and more and that was the point. Sometimes we would take in a hockey game while there, sometimes we would just have the wings and about a million American beers.

Mike is still in the business today, as are many of my friends. In Mike's case I believe he is still in the business more because he wouldn't know what to do if he wasn't a trader. It's not because he doesn't have enough dough to retire or just relax more...He just wouldn't know HOW to relax or retire. Adreneline junkies have a really tough time going 'cold turkey'. It would probably kill him to do anything, or nothing else.

I always enjoyed my time with Mike. Although he is nearly impossible to get close to, we were pretty good pals but not really good friends. When I needed a change of scenery from the Burns Arb, as good as they were, it was Mike who talked Dixie into offering me a job trading Pro for Nesbitt, which I accepted. I will always appreciate that because in our business, the trading business, if you recomend someone and call in a favour for that someone, that someone better not screw up. To this day there is still a sneaking suspicion, deep in my head, that getting me to trade Pro, far away from Mike and Dixie's area and having Burns have to try and come up with someone as effective as I was in that square, was part of the reason for the helpfulness. My replacement in the square was not much to speak of and Mike later told me that it was so easy to play this 'new' guy that he actually missed my aggrivation. Makes a guy think..haha!

Mike had alot of friends both in the 'old school' and within the 'young turks'. His popularity was easy to understand. He worked for Yorkton Securities, where another friend of mine, Pier Donnini, became a wheel which fell off in a spectactular way. That, however, is another story. 'Teaser Alert'! That story, and the stories of the other 'bad boy' friends of mine that have gained one sort of 'infamy' or another, will follow in this blog at a later time. I will study the laws pertaining to those disclosures just a little before I discuss my litigious friends and their indescretions. Hi Larry! haha

Mike now works in an office to do his trading as do almost all the other office clones who used to populate the floor. Forced into the 'clone wars' with the death of the trading floor and the floor trader. Mike and his great 'floor' personality are definately out of place in an office and off the floor. All of us would be and are. I for one was never able to, nor did I have to, choose a move to the office to trade. I got out, well I was screwed out, which is another post, but nonetheless I was out before the machines took over and killed all the floor traders. For that I am eternally greatful. I hadn't seen Mike for 11 years of so and I am looking forward to seeing him at the reunion. I hope to hell he hasn't gotten old. He has a Harley now, the new middle aged Porsche replacement for mid-life crisis control. I bet he looks great on it. I should take one and go for a long ride with him one day...maybe to Buffalo. Maybe have some wings. Probably not quite as spicy and definately not with as many American beers!

STEVE CURRY

I have said a great deal about Curry in the preceeding pages. That's because he was my first boss and we shared some great times together.
Let me say, if I haven't all ready. that I love this guy. Ok, relax homophobes...it's man love. He gave me an opportunity to go where few men have gone. The opportunity to experience what few men have experienced. The opportunity to have been a member of the most elite and elusive jobs in the world. The opportunity to have made so many very good friends and acquaintences which I would never have without his intervention. The opportunity to have an exciting career and make lots of money while having more fun than I ever had a right to. Yeah, this guy Steve Curry was important in my life's direction and for that alone I owe him eternal thanks.

My memories with Steve are endless it seems. I will just give you some brief highlites and I am sure you will get the message. Steve was a drinker. A REAL drinker. Almost every single social moment with Steve involved our being totally hammered. SO many nights in the Cork Room. So many nights that lasted too far into too many mornings. Some of the best times were around the famous and entirely infamous Montreal 'Oyster Party' weekends in, of course Montreal. From all of our perspectives, as traders on a real 'Exchange' floor, and in consideration of the fact that Montreal had an exchange, which they called a 'boursse', Montreal was good for two things. French women and more french women. Where was the best place to find french women in Montreal...well almost everywhere. Where did we go to 'find' these french women? Club Super Sex, that's where. And when we went there, Steve Curry was the king. On one night there which started at about midnight, Steve dropped something like $1400. Those were like 1983 dollars so that would be about a million $'s today.

At that time it was about $5.00 for a dance. A naked french girl would dance in front of you for as long as it took for the song to end, say 3:00 minutes. Well if you do the math it should boggle the mind as to how he actually drank and lap danced away that amount of money. That was just for him. Radar spent something like $700. that same night in the same club, so it wasn't like Curry was paying for anyone but Curry. Well, back to the math, that amount over the three hours we were there would pay for about 200 dances and 100 drinks! Seem like alot? Welcome to the world of the floor trader. Welcome to the world of Steve Curry and the rest of us...crazy bastards at the best of times!

RICK WALKER

The first time I met Rick was, I believe, the first day on the job at the TSE. He came up to the booth to chat with Chris Martin and barely noticed my presence. Chris didn't introduce us and I didn't introduce myself. Rick was making plans to go to the Cork Room after work to have a few pops.Where I actually met Rick, in the traditional sense, was in the guys can in the Cork Room later that night. He was one of a group of about 6 prople piled into a cubicle of sorts doing what people would do in those circumstsnces. What else! As we got to know each other I soom came to like Rick, mostly because he had such a great sense of humor. The humor was a very common thread among the group on the trading floor. Rick also was a hockey fan and played pick-up games. I was also a hockey fan at that time and had seasons tickets to the Leafs, which was cool. I was always going to games with different people and when Rick and I went it was always cool. Rick's brother and I split the seasons tickets a year later and it was all good.

One of the interresting things I did while I was working on the floor was to coach the TSE hockey team, the Rockets. I still hold Dave Richardson in some contempt for my having to be associated with a team of men playing a men's game and having a lame girly name like 'rockettes' haha. Anyway, Rick was one of, if not my favourite player, on the team. He was my kind of player...gifted and dirty. hahaha. Yes you were Rick, don't lie! Rick was also an excellent goal scorer which on our mentally and talent challenged team was a gift from God.
He played with great intensity for an industrial league and he always showed up to play. We were in a playoff series against a team that kicked our arses all season and we were down in the series 2 games to 1 and down 3 to 1 in the third period when a cool brawl broke out in front of the opposing net after Rick had scored a goal to make it 3 to 2 in the game with 10 minutes to play. Scoring wasn't the thing that started the little brawl, it was Rick bringing his stick up into the air to celebrate his goal in a calculated manner and kind of banged his stick off the face of one of the other defensemen. The guy went down like he had been shot and Rick looked like he didn't notice. The opposing center DID notich and made a bee line for Rick and banged him hard with a crosscheck which Rick responded to with a fine spear to the nuts. This didn't seem to calm the other guy down and he gave Rick his stick over Rick's head, breaking Rick's CCM helmet, popping out a rivet and leaving an actual crack. After this scrum ended in this 'no-contact' game, Rick was assessed a 2 minute minor for the stickwork and his over aggressive assailant was assessed a 5 minute major for the head shot to Rick and a game misconduct for intent to injure. When Rick was in the box and we had a power play. Henry Brazil scored to tie the game. With about two minutes to play and the other teams best scorer thrown out of the game, Rick scored the winning goal and did a fine salute to the other bench in his little celebration.

Rick and I have many many memories together and I cherish almost every one of them. I say almost because in some of our times together I might have lost consciousness for any of a number of reasons and might not necessarily have cherished those actual memories. haha!

I always considered Rick a friend and I always will. I hope it's mutual.
Rick was great friends with Bill Walsh, who had been a friend of his for most of their lives, John Moir Jr., Chris Martin, Stevie Gilbert, Jack Harvey, Matt Taugher, Jack Dunbar, Joe Turner and I am glad to say, me.

Now Rick, I could have gone into much detail about your notorious reputation as a ladies man and a heartbreaker of some renoun...but, I didn't. I also could have related a wonderful funny story about you and an incident at Sammy's that Chris shared with me recently...but I didn't. I didn't because discretion is the greatest part of valor or something like that and I know Rick didn't really want me to write anything about him. Mostly I think because Rick is a humble guy, but also, like the rest of us, because he has an interresting, kind of exciting past.

BILL WALSH

Bill and Rick were great friends, as I have mentioned and they had much in common. They grew up together, played sports together, lived together,dated girls together, had friends in common and worked, obviously, in the same business. They were both big hockey fans, but Bill was a Red Wings fan. A HUGE Detroit Red Wings fan. Bill was a client trader for DS I believe, which was a good gig. I didn't have much of a trading history with Bill but I do have a cool social history with him. I spent alot of time listening to Bill talk about what a great team the Wings were, which they were. Compared to the Leafs they were a powerhouse to the Leafs' shithouse. It was the Ballard era, the middle of the worst of the Ballad era, and there wasn't too much to chirp about if you were a Leafs fan. Bill was a huge Steve Yserman, Probert and Federov guy and who could blame him. I remember lots of great conversations with Bill, Lenny Webb, Bill Webb and myself, mostly about hockey. Bill was a hockey pooler like myself and a goon pool vetran as well. Might even have won one.

I partied alot with Bill and he was a really cool cucumber. He wasn't overly excitable but you had the impression that if you pissed him off just the right amount, he would, I don't know....kill you! Just kidding...or am I Bill? haha.

Bill was good friends with Rick Walker, Terry Blackwell, Jack Harvey, John Moir Jr., Chris Martin, Matt Taugher, Jack Dunbar and Stevie Gilbert. Also friends with many other guys and girls, Bill was well liked.
I enjoyed visiting Bill's assorted residences for parties. The Bayview and Eglinton house was the best with the Seneca townhouse being a close second.

I haven't seen Bill for over 11 years, maybe as long as 16 years and I am excited to see him soon. Bill is out of the business these days and it will be good to have some of the years since I've seen him in filled with detail when we talk. I always liked Bill and I am sure I always will.

JACK HARVEY

Although Jack might not have been a 'young turk' in years, he absolutely was an honorary member and a very deserved one. Jack was a vetran trader when I started on the floor of the TSE and was a client trader DS. Jack was a party animal and fit right in with the group 'peter pan' syndrom that overwhelmed all of us on the floor. One of my first memories of Jack was at a Jimmy Barkwell party on Wellington. Jack was on the patio with a large group of partiers and was laughing uncontrolably. This laughing lasted for about 20 minutes and it was hilarious to watch and listen to. He was hammered and was the absolute life of the party, which considering the group he was with, was saying alot.

Jack was always great at happenings like the 'bun toss' parties. The Bun Toss was a semi-formal party, usually at a very upscale hotel banquet hall with very good food and drinks and a full contingent of floor traders. At such meals, there was enevitably a bun at every plate, you know, for dinner. A dinner roll. As the tradition went, and these were pretty loose rules, we would wait till after dinner when the little speeches started , and then pick out a likely terget and let them haet the bun, usually right in the head. Then, everybody in the place was throwing buns at everybody else. Yeah, we were big time floor traders at the Toronto Stock Exchange. Man, did we ever know how to have fun. When it came to knowing how to have fun, Jack was at the front of the line.

I enjoyed Jack's company alot. Jack was indeed one of the really 'good' guys on the floor and I only hope he is happy and doing well. I wish him nothing but good!

To Be Continued (Part 4)

Post# 8 - 'The Young Turks' of the TSE (2)

2008-03-27T14:16:00.019-04:00

The Young Turks. This is the best way I can describe the group of younger, mostly male, hard working, harder partying floor traders from my early days on the floor of the TSE. The adrenelin and bravado and the money created many interresting moments both during work hours and most especially after hours.
continued

CHRIS MARTIN

Chris was not your prototypical floor trader. He seemed much more refined and measured compared to the 'got to have it nows' that made up the majority of the traders'...myself definately included! Perhaps it was his British ancestory or his very laid back approach to life. Whatever it was, it served him well in his chosen profession and made him an interresting subject. Maybe that is why Stevie Gilbert and I were so drawn to him. Stevie and I were both insane and required a balance in nature so we didn't implode. Chris provided us with that balance.

Chris has an amazing sense of humor and was a perfect straight man foil to Stevie's comedic wanderings. There are so many of my TSE memories that revolve directly around Chris that he will be forever linked to almost everything I did during my time as a 'floor trader'. I am pretty sure Chris didn't have any enemies. Even his old girlfriends still really liked him. What a wierdo!

When I started socializing with Chris, he was living with two other floor traders, Bill Walsh and Rick Walker in a house at Bayview and Eglinton in Toronto. This place was the home to way too many great parties and after hours get together. Since all three residents were on the same party page, in the same line of work, there were very few disputes over things like being kept awake all night. Cleaning the dishes...well that was another matter. I have some great memories of that place and the guys there but unfortunately I am not at liberty to discuss too many of the details. Once again, to protect the guilty.

When Chris was working the greenshields wire (arb) and training me for the 'floor wars', I used to be amazed at how much shit he could tolerate. The sources of this shit were mostly on the other end of the phones and on the floor in the form of barely competent traders making his life hell. I was in that category for awhile, so I can speak from experience. In my case I just didn't give a shit at first. In the case of some of the other traders...they just sucked!

Chris and I shared a lot of quality party time several bad habits. Although, to be fair to Chris, he was, or always gave the impression that, he was much more in control of things than I ever was. Some of my fondest memories of Chris involved the pre-tanking meal rituals he introduced me to before going on a weekend binge or two. While Chris lived at Bayview and Eglinton there were a couple of restaurants on Mount Pleasant that we used to frequent that provided you with an ample serving of comfort food at a very reasonable price. It didn't matter how much money any trader made, they invariably would hunt down the cheapest meals and then go out and blow $1000 on a weekend of booze and happy time indulgences. Yeah, if we were anything, we were ANY trader! I have great memories from tons of parties like the 'bun toss' and Montreal 'oyster' parties with Chris. Sharing rooms at the Manoir Le Moine in Montreal or the Harbour Castle in Toronto, where we would house ourselves when the serious party season was upon us. I remember being in the Harbour Castle at 4:30am and having probably 35 people in the room, fighting for the ever decreasing oxygen supply and barely being able to focus on the other side of the room because of the bellowing cigarette and weed smoke. Yes, it's true. People DID smoke the ocassional joint at parties. Relax, we all feel shame today. Oh yeah!

As I mentioned in my Steve Gilbert blurb, Chris and Stevie were the best of friends. Together there was nothing but good times and happy memories, at least while Stevie was alive. After Stevie died, Chris was never quite the same. Many of us felt that way as well, but with Chris it was much more tragic. Being as close as they were, I can only imagine how much pain was and still is, involved in Stevie's death.

I lost touch with Chris after I left the business. When I did leave the business and moved to the Caribbean to do a tourism development on the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, I tried to get Chris to come down and hang out there with me but it never did come to pass and we didn't connect again until the 'new' floor closing in 1997. Even there we didn't spend much quality time together. There were just so many people to talk to and share memories with that it was virtually impossible. It wasn't till this Mark Grimes inspired reunion event came up that I finally tracked him down and we spend much phone time reconnecting.

I feel like I owe Chris alot for the great friendship and good times we shared. He was one of the truely GOOD guys on the floor as could be measured by the huge number of people that counted him as a friend. I was lucky to be one of them.

STEVE WELCH

I think everyone on the floor that knew Steve Welch really liked him. You can count me among those numbers.
Steve was a very good friend of Stevie Gilbert and was almost as funny. He was also a person that was well respected as a trader and hockey purist. Steve was a charter 'Goon Pool' member, like myself, and although he once drafted Bjore Salming as a goon, which was a stretch, he was a fan of the hockey pugalist. Stevie was long time friends with George Ellerby, Terry Blackwell and Dennis Hill and Terry Blackwell going back to the time he first started as a floor trader. When I started on the floor Steve was good friends with Chris Martin, Rick Walker, Stevie Gilbert, Jack Harvey and Bill Walsh from the 'Turks' and old schoolers' like Ike Ross, Lenny Webb, Frank Koren, Jack Elliot and too many others to mention. Steve was always a smart guy and a dependable voice of reason when things got hairy. He could bring a chuckle to almost every situation, which in our line of work was an amazing saving grace.
Steve Welch was another of my favourites on the floor and I will always count him as a wonderful friend who could make me laugh when I needed a laugh.
Steve is retired now and I only wish great things for him and his family. Oh yeah Steve, thanks for the great Ricky story in Vegas. You still got it and my cheeks still hurt from laughing!

Ralph 'Radar' Ditchburn

Way back in the day there was a TV show called M.A.S.H. which was really popular and one of the most popular characters was called Radar. That name came about because he could tell when things were going to happen and when things were going to be said, just before they actually occured. Kind of like he had built in radar. The character of Radar was a diminuitive guy with receeding curly hair, glasses and a very shy, scared of his shadow personality. He rarely lost his temper or fought back against his attackers.

This brings us to Ralph Ditchburn, aka 'Radar'. He got the name because he was a diminuitive character with receeding curly hair, glasses (later on) and a very shy, scared of his shadow personality. He rarely lost his temper or fought back against his attackers.
I mentioned early on how important a role intimidation played in the everyday activities on the trading floor. Ralph was one of the victims of that intimidation but it never outwardly seemed to bother him too much. The fact that he didn't ever come onto the floor one day with an automatic weapon and just spray the place in a very postal manner will forever be a mystery to me. Ralph had to suffer the physical and emotional wrath of almost every bully with shark blood in his veins, and there were many. Ralph was the proverbial guppy swimming with the floor trading sharks. But there was a little 'smart' shark in Ralph as well! Radar was able to use his victim persona to his advantage as often as not. Radar was, after all was said and done, a pretty decent trader, certainly above average. One of the wierdest things I observed with Radar and his interactions with his fellow traders in general was his ability to be 'kept in' on trades when he had orders. Now this surely wasn't all the time. However, unless you were Bainey, there were lots of times when the 'Pros' wouldn't 'keep you in'. Being 'kept in'meant that the 'Pro' in the stock would keep you involved in trades in his stock instead of using the information from your order against you to profit from it himself. This being 'kept in' thing with Radar was because he provided a kind of outlet for the bully boys and they probably, at some really deep level, felt bad about the way they sometimes treated this 'nice' guy, Radar. Yeah, I know. It sounds really wierd but remember that we worked in one of the wierdest places on the planet.

Ralph was trading Pro with George Chisholm for a period in his career and was a decent student of the 'charts'. I remember thinking that it was kind of wierd that George, who was known to be quite the bully himself from time to time, would hire someone that he had probably victimized was rather ironic. Obviously George considered Radar to be a good trader, which requires respect, yet still be capable of treating him with the least respect imaginable. Wierd is surely wierd!

Ralph and I were friends for a long time and he is one of the few people from the floor that I spent any time with after I left the business. Ralph used to hold annual 'super bowl' parties which were really good. While attending these parties for several years I got to see a few other floor people which was always cool. One of the neat features of the parties was the outdoor touch football games in the street in front of Ralph's house. In addition to the parties I frequently hung out with Ralph to 'jam' with him and some of his friends. Ralph and I both played guitar. Although we hated each others idea of cool music, we always seemed to enjoy playing together whenever we could. Another cool thing about the times at Ralph's place was that he lived with Peter Morrison at the time and Peter made the best organic homemade pizzas. I hope you like anchovies! We always enjoyed really good food at Ralph's place with Peter there and the close proximity to 'Greek Town' in Toronto. Love those cheese and spinach pies...mmmmmmm!

CLIFF JONES Jr.

When I think about the excesses of the 1980's where there was lots of money and the good times seemed like they would never end, I can easily envision Cliff. Cliff was born into privlidge and he wore it very very well. He was the Richie Rich of the 'young turks' on the trading floor. Cliff's dad, Cliff Jones Sr. was a bit of an institution on the floor of the TSE. Cliff Jr. was definately Cliff's Sr.'s blood. They both carried an air of money and privlidge that was as palpable as it was annoying to some of his peers.
Like almost everyone else on the floor, Cliff had to pay his dues, but maybe it was a little easier to pay those dues when you have a bloodline guardian on the floor to watch over you. But to be absolutely fair to Cliff, he had to show up to work just like everyone else. He had to know what he was doing to be successful. He had to take chances and put his ass on the line just like everyone else. What might have made some of a little envious was the fact that if Cliff screwed up, he had a pretty nice pillow, filled with cash, to land on.

My first memory of Cliff was in my first couple of days on the floor when people were rushing to the front of the 'old' TSE building to witness an obviously exciting event. The place came to a virtual standstill. What was so important that it could cause such a stir and bring the crowd out into the street? Well it was Cliffy pulling up to the front of the building in a shiny new candy apple red Mercedes 450 SL with a totally hot and gorgeous blonde in the front seat beside him. Truely, it was something to behold. They were both dressed to kill and with those oversized shades that were so popular in the day, they totally looked the part. This was so very hollywood. This was so very Cliff. This flair for the dramatic and the 'in your face' style with his money made Cliff an easy target for his critics. But really, he didn't have too many. Personally, I never had a problem with Cliff. We didn't socialize except at the countless stag parties at the enevitable craps games with him and Larry Farrel and of course the bun tosses and Jimmy Barkwell's excellent swarees' on Wellington. He certainly didn't bother me except for the envy I probably felt for his silver spoon situation. That, of course, was my problem...not Cliff's!
Cliff had some tough times trading, like everyone else, but always had a smile on his face and a fearlessly positive attitude toward the future. He always maintained that wonderful 'swagger' that served him so well in his professional and personal life. Ah...money is honey after all. So I guess Cliff was just a little sweeter than most of the rest of us.

DENIS McCOLGAN

Denis was one of the ultimate 'shooters' on the TSE floor. He loved to gamble and rarely missed a hockey pool or any other such opportunity to make some extra cash. Denis traded like a madman from time to time. He was courageous and very on the edge. He had a lot of balls which was a proverbial 'curse and blessing' for Denis. I used to love talking to Denis about trading. He didn't have the holier than thou attitude so many 'shooter' traders had. They gave the impression that they were always afraid you were just going to somehow hone in on their trading action and steal their secrets. Denis wasn't anywhere near that insecure. He felt very confident in his trading style, his very on the edge trading style, which of course drove his assorted bosses absolutely insane. An excellent example of that ability to induce insanity in his boss came from his time with Bainey. When I was with Burns Arb and trading American Barrack Gold in Bobby Churchill's square every day, I had a real opportunity to see Denis in action. It was an exciting sight well worth seeing. Bobby was a 'close to the vest' Pro Trader that rarely shared ALL of the information that he had. He always hated dealing with the Burns Arb but had to keep us in because we could hurt you as a Pro if we wanted to and we often did. Bobby could be partictularly difficult for other pro traders, like Denis, to deal with. Denis actually got along amazingly well with the crumudgeon Bobby Churchill. When ABX (Barrack) was trading in its hey day with huge swings and volumes, Denis was all over the stock sometimes holding hugh positions. Huge positions required tying up HUGE amounts of capitol by the company that the trader worked for. In Denis's case with the ABX, he was working for Daly at that time. That meant that his boss was none other than Don Bainbridge...Bainey. On a partictular day when the stock was going crazy, Denis was going even crazier. I am not sure of the amount of stock that Denis was positioning, but it was huge. When he was already holding a large position in the stock, Denis kept comming in and buying, and buying, and buying and buying. I'm sure you get the idea. At one point late in the day, Don Bainbridge was informed about Denis's trading and almost blew a gasket. With the trading square absolutely filled with frantic screaming trader and the stock trading going nuts, Bainey ran into the square and tried to get Denis's attention. Failing to get Denis's FULL attention, Bainey grabbed Denis and litteralt and figuratively dragged Denis out of the square and basically forced him to limit his exposure. As it turned out Denis was absolutely right about the stock but was so far over his $100,000 trading limit funds that he had to dump stock and what would have been a ton of additional profit. Denis was looking to relocate shortly after that for what we will call 'mutual' satisfaction.

Denis was one of the fastest talkers I ever came across. He was an absolute wealth of information and his charting skills were superior. Whenever we talked stocks, I could barely keep up and process the information that spilled from Denis's lips. I really like Denis. He always treated people well and paid his lost bets promptly. We once had over $600 in bets on a playoff series. He lost...with grace. Montreal Canadians Denis...You know you should've known better! You gotta love a good loser. Denis was good, but I would never consider him a loser.

Stay Tuned For 'The Young Turks' of the TSE (3)

Post# 7 - The Young Turks of The TSE

2008-03-24T23:21:00.027-04:00

I classified the vetran floor traders as 'over thirty' but some I mentioned might not have actually been over thirty years old. This is because there is a line that is drawn that transcends real age and is superseded by attitude. Some people who were 'under thirty' acted like old men, and as such failed to make the grade as 'young turks'. In this post I will include several people that might have been 'over thirty' in years but nowhere near that age in their attitude and friends. These individuals are and always will be 'young turks' in spirit.

There are many reasons that make it nessecary for me to curb my enthusiasm in discussing ALL of the details that might normally be a part of the true story of the younger group of traders on the floor. There are people that might suffer in their jobs, still in the business, from full disclosure of the relevant details and others who might not like to have their family and friends exposed to the realities of this piece of history. There are also many darker things that went on in those days that everyone in the business was aware of but those things were never allowed the to be considered in the light of day. Such disclosures would have hurt the industry and many of the people who benefited from the industry. This is not an apology for anything or any lifestyle that I and many of my contempories may or may not have indulged in. It is just a qualifier for the missing ingredients that would be the icing on the cake of the whole story of our world at that time. Most of you know exactly what I am talking about because, like me, many of you lived in the grey areas associated with the lifestyle usually considered with the high life. Before I bury myself any deeper in this disclosure, I will go on to the matters at hand.

The Young Turks. This is the best way I can describe the group of younger, mostly male, hard working, harder partying floor traders from my early days on the floor of the TSE. The adrenelin and bravado and the money created many interresting moments both during work hours and most especially after hours.

This group was living the dream and hard drinking and indulging away the huge pressures of the job. These pressures often created intense adversarial moments between individuals. There were many huge conflicts on the floor as everyone fought hard for the best 'fill' on their orders and 'Pro' and 'Arb' traders, risking huge positions which fluctuated between enormus profits and career ending losses. The pressure was on every single day and when you consider that we were all under the same kind of gun, just with different bullets, every once in awhile the pressure cooker inevitably exploded.

Intimidation was a fact in almost every area of trading. It was just a fact. In my first months as a floor trader I was in several HUGE dust ups and none bigger than the one I had with Stevie Gilbert. Stevie and I got off to a shakey start from the beginning, I had the distinct feeling that he didn't like me. This was because my work mate, Chris Martin, who was Stevie's best friend, didn't think too much of me either. I didn't really give a shit what they thought of me because I just didn't care that much about the job, or so I thought. I was trading on the Greenshield's Arb, as a six week vetran trader, and went into the Bow Valley square with a large, 15,000 share buy order, to take out the offer and buy it up to a quarter of a point above the listed offering price. There were 5000 shares, or so, showing offered at the time. 3000 shares of that was offered by the client desk of a competing Arb, the dreaded Burns Arb. Kenny Wegg was watching Stevie's orders which included the 3000 shares of BVI stock. Kenny sold me the stock to fill the order and within seconds I was trying to buy another 10,000 shares of BVI a quarter of a point higher. This was of course a very nasty thing to do. For one thing the competition Arb was completely pissed because we beat them to the trade out of New York and Gary Eamon, the Burns Arb clerk on that side of the floor, was calling me a sucker of male organs. I was absolutely giggling because this was my first ever 'good' trade of that magnitude. When Stevie Gilbert got back from his coffee break, Gary called him up to the booth and absolutely reamed him out for not keeping him in on the order to begin with. Out on the floor Kenny Wegg was screaming at me for being an asshole and making him look bad and the Burns client who offered the stock was going nuts because he got a bad fill when I up-ticked the stock a quarter. Stevie stormed down into the square and he and I started what was one of the 'great' scream fights the floor had seen in a very long time. We were toe to toe and spit to spit calling each other everything disgusting and crude that we could muster. It went on for about 10 minutes until floor Govenor Tommy Milligan threatened to throw us off the floor and fine us. I was absolutely exhausted after the pissing match and Stevie and Gary Eamon muttered shit at me for the rest of the day. At the close of the day Steve Curry, my boss, insisted that I go to the Cork Room to have some drinks after what he called 'busting my cherry' on the floor against the Burns Arb. After i consumed a conservative 5 drinks over a couple of hours Gary Eamon came into the Cork Room with his girlfriend and they sat down with me and Steve Curry. Gary was absolutely hammered and it took him about 35 seconds to call me out by telling me he didn't like my face or my suit. Duh! He told me he wanted to punch my face in. He didn't scare me, but Steve kept one arm across my chest to let me know I better just suck it up and relax. There was no way I was going to get to fight with this guy because he could barely stand up and as Steve later told me, he couldn't fight worth a shit. He told me that the best thing I could have done was to just stand there and take the abuse. Gary's girlfriend was getting really pissed off with him and dragged him out, visably embarassed by his display. Oh well. When my heart rate finally came down to workable levels, Curry sent me out to get some Kentucky Fried Chicken for him. That was the life of a rookie. Take the shit, suck it up and get the chicken...and like it!

Stevie Gilbert came up to me about an hour after the opening the next day and took me aside. He told me it was a really good fight we had the day before and that he knew I was just doing my job. I kept waiting for him to sly poke me in the eye when no one was looking. It never happened. Stevie and I went on to become very good friends and I love him (man love guys) to this day. One of the darkest days in my life was the day Stevie died.

The point of this story about fighting on the floor is to demonstrate that no matter how hard you had to work to keep your job and no matter who you had to hurt along the way, it was rarely personal. Although, Gary Eamon hated me forever. Even when I worked with him on the Burns Arb. Oh well. Life went on!

I will attempt to give you a glimpse of some of the great individuals and personalities I had the pleasure and the pain of working with as a floor trader at the TSE. In no partictular order...

STEVE GILBERT

I have already told you how I felt about this guy. Now I will tell you why almost everyone else felt the same way. He was a great example of a 'young turk'!

Stevie was perhaps the funniest guy I have ever known. Every day he found new ways to amuse and entertain his friends. Stevie was friends with everyone, well almost everyone. He was a man's man. He was fiercely loyal. He would go to the wall for his friends without a thought for his own concerns. He was a hockey player. He was a hockey fan. He loved sports. He was filled with passion. He loved women and he really loved his wife Kelly and his son Jessee. He was a leader. He was a party animal. He had a HUGE heart with a soft spot for every sad story. He had very little patience, which was a blessing and a curse, both for him and his friends. Steve was a unique individual. There was only one and will never be another. Anyone that had the pleasure of knowing Steve was better off for the experience. If you took Steve into your confidence on any matter, you knew that your words were safe with him. Steve did not suffer fools lightly. He chewed them up and spit them out.

Steve had a really special friendship with my friend Chris Martin. He always spoke so highly of Chris that you knew that what they had was special. I have to admit that when I was good friends with both Stevie and Chris, I was a little envious of the great friendship they shared with each other. Chris was one of the few people that could be critical of Steve when it was called for and Steve knew that if Chris was speaking the words, they must be true. He accepted them...always!

Stevie Gilbert had skin cancer when he was in his late teens and recovered. This was from way too many sun burns as a kid growing up in Toronto's Beaches along the shores of Lake Ontario. He had that pale white bread complection that burned at the mere thought of sun. When Steve was way too young and full of life, he died from a cancerous tumor which started in his back, the area of his previous melanoma, and spread through his body before it could be treated. The day he died was one of the most painful days of my life. Believing in God became very difficult after that day. Knowing how much Stevie loved his life, his friends, his family, his wife and his much beloved son is something that haunts me to this day. If ever there was a person that shouldn't have gone that way, it was Stevie. Like most of Stevie's friends, and especially his very good friends and family, I miss Stevie almost every day.

MARK GRIMES

Mark was bigger than life figure, and a bit of a legend on the trading floor. He was an ultimate prankster and a party animal of great renown. Mark was, enevitably, the life of every party. He knew how to enjoy himself and how to bring enjoyment to everyone around him. There were so many great things that happened on the floor that eminated from Mark's leadership. The kinds of things that we always needed to break the strangle hold of pressure every day would bring. Mark was the creator of the 3:33:33 phenomenon. This was the celebration of the digital clock on the 'new' floor hitting the 3:33:33 mark every day. At a minimum it would bring on a unanimous, simultaneous cheer from every trader on the floor. On the odd occasion it would bring a huge floor stopping celebration with special celebrity guests and fanfare. It was the wierdest thing ever and we all loved it.

There was a trader on the floor that Mark had a special relationship with. This trader was Eddie Lewer. Eddie was a very special guy. He had been on the floor forever. He was probably in his late fifties in this era and he looked like he was in his late seventies. Eddie usually made it to about 11:00am before he disappeared. The Cork Room and a Marta's opened around that time. I am not telling tales out of school, this was just the way Eddie liked to do things. Mark was forever playing tricks and pranking Eddie. Mark would regularly run up to Eddie when he came back from the land of liquid lunches and have one of his surprises ready for him. The funniest of the surprises was the roll of packing tape, one of many, that Mark kept for special occasions like Eddie's return. He would run up behind an unsuspecting, half in the bag Eddie and start to wrap him up. Not just a turn or two. Mark would spin Eddie one way and roll the tape around him till me was completely 'mummy' wrapped. I mean COMPLETELY!

It was the funniest thing I ever saw. Eddie would curse and sware at Mark and everyone else around him till he could sware no more. Then Mark would carry him over to his square and sit him down at the post and just leave him there...until whenever. Usually someone would feel sorry for Eddie and cut him loose, but not usually right away. Everybody just cracked up seeing Eddie like this. This might sound kind of mean, but it really wasn't. Eddie really liked the attention he received from the boys and he took the pranks in stride with a great sense of humor. At other times when Eddie came back hammered, Mark and associates would get a pad full of post-its and write all kinds of hilarious things on each note and then stick them all over the unsuspecting Eddie. Sometimes he would be wearing like 100 post-its and not even be aware at all. It was absolutely juvenile....and hilarious.

Mark also loved to play fight. If you know Mark, that can be a life threatening event. He was, and probably still is, as solid as a rock and as strong as a hangover shot of tequilla. When we used to share booth space, both on the old and new floors, there were the enevitable tussles. The only way I could avoid being obliterated was to grab his fingers and bend them back to the point of breaking. If I didn't get the fingers, I was dead! The only chink in his seemingly inpenetrable armor was the fingers. On the occasions when I did get the fingers and bend them back I would do it until I had him bent on his knees on the floor. Then I would run for my life. Not a quiet little trot but a life preserving, screaming dash right out of the building. I would be laughing so hard it hurt. Both from glee and fear. When Mark finally did get me I knew I wasn't walking away without my just desserts. OUCH! I think I still have the bruises.

Mark was and is one of the best guys I have ever known. Most of the best guys I have ever known came from my time on the floor of the TSE. I used to worry about Mark because he lived life so fully and I hoped that he would calm down to a dull roar when he got married. He did. His beautiful wife Ann and his five beautiful children seem to have done the trick.

I guess life as a floor trader wasn't quite exciting enough for Mark as he has now gone on to a successful career as a City of Toronto Councellor. Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire...Whoa!

John 'Mad Dog' Bickerton

John was a very imposing figure on the trading floor. When I mentioned how important a factor intimidation was on the trading floor, John might have been the king. He didn't have to do much to intimidate. His well earned reputation as a hard ass preceeded him. He did very little to dispell the myth of the 'Mad Dog'. This gave him a great deal of leverage and advantage in his dealings with other traders on the floor. John was an ultimate warrior on and off the floor. He never saw a confrontation he didn't like, once again, on and off the floor. When I first met John I was with Steve Curry in the Cork Room. Are you beginning to see a trend here? That night we all got hammered and sat and talked trading all night. Steve told me that I didn't have to worry about John. He said he was areally a pussy cat. Well, I thought to myself, maybe a lion! He did roar after all. As I got to know John more intimately and we socialized a few times, I came to really enjoy him and his ways. John wasn't everybody's cup of meat, but in my books, he was a great guy. John never gave me a reason to dislike him. Although many people would speak ill of John from time to time, I always thought it was more from envy of his success and attitude that anything else.

MAN, this guy could party. He never seemed to get too anything, no matter how much of anything he did. Never too drunk, even though he might have or should have been. Never too buzzed. Maybe too angry once in awhile but, hey, that's what reputations are built on and John had a reputation as large as his physical presence. We did a lot of Leafs and Marlies games at the old Gardens back in the day. There was never a dull outing. As an example, one time at a Marlies game, the whole Markham Waxers team wanted to kill John and I because they thought we wern't respectful enough of the horrible Marlies team. John was absolutle ready and willing to go at it with every last one of them. When I told him I didn't think it was a very good idea to take on the whole team of 17 year olds, he told me to sit down because he would take care of them. Seriously! Calmer heads prevailed and the Waxers coach told the little asswipes to go sit down and shut up. Probably a good idea which undoubtedly saved at least a few sets of teeth. John was great in those days. Like so many other friends of mine from that time, I didn't keep in touch with John. John is fighting some serious battles these days and I am sure he brings the same will, determination and guts to the table that he always did. I am equally sure he will prevail in these battles as he always did on and off the floor.

Stay Tuned for the Continuation of 'The Young Turks of The TSE'

Post# 6 - 'The Cast Of Characters' (The Old School)

2008-03-22T22:36:00.020-04:00

The people who populated the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange as Floor Traders, Posties, Clerks, Exchange Staff etc. were as uncommon as they were predictable. This is not a value judgement, it is merely an observation. As for the predictable, I consider the fact that the TSE has a long history as a bastion of capitalism, trade and commerce. The Stock Market is the 'alter' the investment community worships. So, as you might expect, there are some stereo-typical 'stock broker' types, mostly from the group of 'older' traders that were on the floor during my time as a trader. These gentlemen, at least the 'Pros', were feared and respected and as long as made money, which is what it is all about, it didn't matter which you felt for them.

The older generation of traders from my time on the floor will be in the 'over thirty' group, as in years of age. Both registered 'Pro' traders and client traders are considered here. I might not remember everybody, but I do remember a lot of them.

DON BAINBRIDGE

No discussion of the vetrans traders could be started without first paying appropriate respects in talking about GOD! On the floor of the TSE there was only one omnipitent being that was everyone's god and that was Don Bainbridge. Bainey, as Don was also referred to, was a giant among his peers and was evidenced by everyone that ever traded in the nickle square. Nobody ever gave Bainey anything Bainey didn't want and Bainey never had to give anybody anything that he didn't want given. His dignity and style placed him in a category all his own. There were very few bad words spoken about Don Bainbridge on the floor, his domain. When people called him God, it was well deserved. His brokerage firm R.A. Daly was one of, if not the most respected house on Bay St. and that started and ended with Don Bainbridge. As a President, Govenor, Head Trader and TSE citized Don had carved out a place in the history of the TSE that is universally recognized for his success and the class he brought to the floor every day he stepped onto it. I had the pleasure of having Don as a boss in my travels and he was always fair minded in a very biased business. All my memories of Bainey on the floor are a pleasure and watching him do a slow dance with a stripper with the same grace he used dealing with the best of the business establishment was part of his charm. He was God!

GEORGE CHISHOLM

George was as 'old school' on the floor as you could get. He was the last of a multi-generational family that owned and operated the brokerage house, Hector M. Chisholm & Co. Inc.
I believe the family was a charter member of the Exchange from its beginnings. They may well go back to the pre-historic floors trading clubs for spears. He reminded me of the Mr. Monopoly character and was about as rich and powerful, but didn't smile quite as much. George was often blustery and grumpy and didn't like to be asked questions about his stocks, such as 'how much offered' haha! Comming from an old money tradition, George was less a Pro Trader than an instituition. It seemed to me that he only came to work every day for the buzz of excitement and the lifelong friends and enemies he worked with every day. That's not such a bad reason to come to work though. Rarely was he really on the bid or offer, other that keeping an imaginary spread. He didn't like the Arbs or the Arb traders, of which I was a most annoying example to George. He thought we were thieves. I used to think that it was really cute that 'he' thought we were thieves! I wish I could say something cute and funny about George...but I am not really that creative.
My fondest memories of George was being in one of his TV commercials that was filmed on the floor. I simply walked by looking busy with every take. George had no idea I was doing a walk on in his commercial and I am sure if he did know he would have had me removed, forcibly. These commercials ran during Blue Jay broadcasts and made me a local hero, for about a day, in my hometown. My real pleasure was telling George how good I looked in his commercial, which always brought on a slow burn.

CLIFF JONES Sr.

Cliff was one of the 'old guard' and came from the 'old money' and had an air of well earned superiority, if that can be noted as a personality trait. This distinctive gentleman is most well known to me for his footstep following son, Cliff Jr. Cliff Jr. was a bit of an institution himself and will be discussed in Part Two. I don't really know that much about Cliff Sr. other than to say that I know him. Rich guy!

JIMMY ACKERS

One really good thing I could say about Jimmy Ackers was that in all my time working on the floor of the TSE I never, I mean NEVER, heard anyone speak ill of him. That would be just one of many.
Jimmy was the face of the 'floor trader'...every floor trader. As the head of the Floor Traders Association Jimmy was one to take his responsibilities in that position very seriously. I remember him spending time with me before I took my Govenor's test. He would tell me how to approach the test depending on the Govenors involved. In my case I had Tommy Milligan and Bainey, so I HAD to get it right. Thanks Jimmy, I think it worked.
Jimmy would always be the guy that organized everything 'trader'. I think that if he was with us today, there would not be one single former trader or floor employee that would have missed the 25th anniversary of the closing of the 'old' exchange event because Jimmy would have tracked down every one of them and made sure they knew how important these few and far between gatherings were. He got it. He got that something that it seems has escaped so many of us, as a group, from the time the TSE floor expired in 1997. I cannot believe how many of us simply DO NOT keep in touch with ANYONE from the floor. Jimmy would have done whatever he could to make sure we would have good reasons to get together more than once every 10 or 15 years.
As a character on the floor, Jimmy was another 'one of a kind'. He had a stare that could bring on a shitfit..haha When he looked pissed, he REALLY looked pissed and you just didn't want to get in his way. That usually lasted about 2 minutes at a time because there were few times that Jimmy, with that big buddah heart, could keep a smile off his face for any measurable length of time. He was a much befriended man on the floor, opening himself up to any and everyone that needed an ear or a career advice councellor. He helped alot of guys in alot of quiet ways and everyone on the floor respected him for all of his efforts.
Some of my good memories of Jimmy include the interresting items I occasionally bought from him, including a great ancient barber chair with a marble stand that weighed about 400 pounds. God knows where he got those from!
Jimmy was the man responsible for some of my greatest party memories from the fantastic 'bun tosses' to annual christmas and golf events. These parties were legend and anyone that can remember being at one can attest to this fact.

When I hear the name Jimmy Ackers, I think of many, many good things.

CARL CHRISTIE

I didn't know Carl very well on a personal or professional level, other than I spent every day of my TSE life in the same confined spaces. From a distance I did know that Carl was a character. He was always a sharp dresser. Not my idea of cool, but certainly his. He also had a great sense of humor and was one of the vetran pranksters who loved a good gag.
His chauvanism was well known and demonstrated. Remember, back in the day being a chauvanist was pretty much status quo. He was just really good at the status quo! One of the things I remember about Carl was his golf wardrobe from the annual golf tournaments. If you have seen Rodney Dangerfield in 'Caddyshack', imagine a thin, 6'-4" version of Rodney, then you pretty much have a picture of Carl and his classic golf gear...only a little more garish. Carl was a likeable chap...and I had no reason not to like him.

DAVE BOND

If Don Bainbridge was God, then Dave Bond was the Jesus. Also a member of the R.A. Daly dream team, Dave was one of the 'big boys'. Dave was a prime time player and a bit of a chart legend. Dave was a soft spoken man that carried a substantial trading stick. Dave was a good position trader in a well financed and leveraged firm and his reputetion was that of a 'top level' player.
Dave Bond was not exactly Mr. personality and he seemed like he was hard to get close to. I know he was a curling fan and rock tosser and he was always fair with me, so I guess I liked Dave. Or more to the fact, I just really know I didn't dislike him.

GM JOHNNY MASSIN

Well, GM Johnny was the long time GM pro in a time when GM was one of the cornerstone stocks traded in North America. Just being the pro in such a stock gave you an excellent opportunity to prosper, because that stock was a winner. Not so much these days, but in THE day, it truely was. Johnny was kind of an oracle and handed down beads of wisdom from time to time and always seemed like he was not quite equipped for the stresses of the job. He was rarely intense, which was probably a good thing. He didn't so much hang out with the boys for drinks and such and his private life was and is, a mystery to me.

JACK MAX

Oh man, Maxie was a very cool dude. He looked like a Johnny Carson clone, which probably doesn't mean a thing to anyone but boomer types like ourselves. He was a very sharp dresser and a very smooth ride. He did get upset on occasion, but was rarely anything but cool. He actually made Bill Brough laugh with regularity, which if you know Broughie is quite a coup. Jack was a very fair trader and never told you something that wasn't the case. In our business, the Arb business, knowledge was power and money and an honest piece of information was like money in the bank, so to speak. Jack was also quite a gentleman, something of a lost art even in our time on the floor, and almost completely lost now. He always treated the ladies on the floor with nothing but respect and kindness, unless they didn't take him off the bid...Just kidding!
I enjoyed Jack alot in my time on the floor. We had some great conversations and he was always a respectful guy, and he has my respect forever.

THE OTHER PEOPLE I ENJOYED ALOT

Lenny Webb, Dixie Duggan, Ike Ross, Frank Pike & Ian Braithwaite, always together, Jack Elliot, Jimmy Dimson, Russel Whittier, Frank Koren, Fredrick Douglas, Joey Fricker, Red and Moose Ferguson, Bobby Churchill, Lorne Fallon, Jim McGann, Dave JAmes, Lenny Amon, Barney Donahey, Dave Sewell, Jack Glass, Joe Hannan, Eddie Lewer and Bob Point.

THE REST OF THE GANG

These are the other traders I remember from the floor of the 'old' exchange.
Joe Pope, John Huckstep, Bill Pirie, Gary O'Connell, Harry Abbey, Bob Beggs, Harold Maine, Jim Dempsey, Jim Taugher, Tom MIlligan, Bill Barry, Paul Barry, Doug Mowatt, Al Hawkins, Tom Carley, Rick Craig, Dave Turner, Ted England, Herman Zander, Roy Lewer, Bill Brough, Tony Torella, Bill Budd, Don Moss, Charlie Mitchell, Bob Pete, Peter Green, Ron Westacott, Dave Wilkerson, Earnie Walker, Al White, George Marshall, Roy Black, Don Berrard, Dave Scott, Ross Hebert, Ron McQuaig, Tom Popovitch, Norm Oliver, Kenny Johnson, Tony Lill, Hugh Nickle, Howard Ellis, Jerry Reid, Bob Dunbar, Tom Fischer, John Moir, Brian Banford, Bill Davies, Bob Williams, Roy Coons, Alex Miller, Ross Miller, Bob Alexander, Dave Luke, Don McKittrick, Mike Accera, Kenny Wegg, Roger Rapson, John Morrison, Cam Jones, Jack Ayres, Tom Carmichael, Bill Schmidt, Bill Carnegie, Dave Prince, Ed Noonan, Jack Monteith, John Lawrence, Jim Taugher, Danny Brown, Harry Attack, Tim House, Ed Dempsey, Andy Thompson, Jack auder, Harry McGuire, Ross Brennen, Dave Scott, Ross Halbert, Gary Yarmulchuk, Peter Gemakis, Joe Ladera, Arnie Coombs, Pat Driscol, Lou Jones, Dave Farr, Roger Pesce, Bert Carmichael, Gary Sneddon, Charlie Faultless, John Bazar, Gord Fenn, Bob Williams, Nick Iannanou, Howard Jones, Bob Christie, Ken Rozell. And all the rest....

Stay Tuned for Part Two...The Young Turks.

Post# 5 - "I Can't Believe It's A Job!"

2008-03-20T00:44:00.010-04:00

Growing up in small town Nova Scotia I had a variety of jobs early in my life and was happy to get them for the most part. The first 'real' job I can remember having other than a paper route, was cutting and clearing brush for power line right of ways. That was when I was about twelve. It involved being intimate with a chainsaw. I also had a few summer jobs which all revolved around picking things. In the summer it was strawberries, blueberries and cranberries. I also made hay every summer, but that wasn't a picking job, per se. Mostly piling bales of hay and it sucked!

When I was fifteen I spent the summer vacation in Boston with my mom and step dad Frank. Frank drove a black station wagon for the McCool Funeral Home in Boston. He was the guy that picked up the bodies from wherever they might find themselves after passing on to other less earthly plains. From hospitals, retirement homes, peoples houses and sometimes hanging in closets for three weeks. I was Frank's helper for that summer and to this day it still creeps me out. I won't bother telling you too many details, but all you need to know is, I spent the summer, in a heat wave, in Boston, picking up dead bodies and delivering them to a funeral home. Eeeeeech!
When I started university, I spent my summers and off times operating my own painting company. It helped me tremendously to get through without incurring too much debt. It was pretty much what my idea of a job was, working long hard hours for enough money to get by and thinking it was great.

None of my labour related experiences prepared me for what was to become, by far, my most thrilling and fulfilling career direction. I feel absolutely blessed to have had the opportunity to have a job that most people could only dream of having. Amazingly it felt like this job was as much a source of entertainment as it was a career. It was unique and exciting!
After I got over the hate I had on for capitalism, which took about two paychecks and I started to actually pay attention to the details of my job, I realized that I was in a very enviable and interresting position. If I were to start taking this job even a little seriously, I thought I could earn enough money to do whatever I wanted after five years or so. I would later realize how insane that thought was because in THIS business, probably more than ANY other, the more you made the more you spent. Man...did we spend!
Being on the Arb wire and getting to know the cast of characters on the floor at the Exchange was an absolutely life altering experience. I used to believe that ALL stock broker, trader types were stereotypical tight assed money obsessed anal idiots. As I later came to realize, for most of the people I worked with, nothing could be further from the truth. The group of individuals who made up the population and work force on the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange were the most diverse, grounded, funny, serious, professional, goofy, hard working, hard playing and just plain GOOD people you could ever want to be associated with. As with most things in life, there were of course exceptions to the rule.

There was a certain air of cockiness that came with the job and the territory and we earned every bit of it. When people came to the Exchange to the visitors galery, or on the floor, they were enevitably amazed and excited about the whole energy driven environment. It was a magical place where dreams were manufactured, and in some cases actually made to come true. It was equally true that many dreams were left lifeless on the floor like so many dead orders at the end of the trading day. None the less, this was a place of dreams and how many other jobs could make that boast.
When you went to a bar for drinks after work and people found out that you were a floor trader at the TSE, there was an absolute respect and awe, sometimes begrudgingly, that was palpable. At the absolute risk of sounding chauvenistic and elitist, office girls would swoon and office guys would leer with envy. We were the front line warriors in the battle for the buck. We were the mercenaries, the secret hand-signaling heartless bastard capitalists that everyone wanted to be, or be associated with. In the words of Gordon Gecco, "Greed is good"!
It was a really good feeling to tell someone I was a floor trader and have them look at me completely differently from that moment on.
It was a fact that we did indeed fuel our own image by being hard partiers, huge tippers and aggressive ladies men. This was because we could...and we did! When you went out with the guys from the floor, to a bar or a party, there was zero doubt that it would be an exciting, one of, time. Our adrenelin was worn like a badge of honour and we rarely missed an opportunity to put it on display.
Too many party nights ended with the closing of the boozecan we usually ended up in. It should be noted that we usually made it into work that same morning.
I might be guilty of overly gushing about the way this job made you feel, but I don't think I am guilty of exaggeration. It was all that and more, at least in my eyes and humble opinion. It was hard not to live the moment to the fullest and my regrets are few and far between. I don't think I would trade that part of my life, as a floor trader, for ANY other job or career.
When I talk to people about my job experience as a floor trader at the Toronto Stock Exchange, I am enevitably filled with pride in the job, pride in the powerful friendships and pride in the esteem it created in me.
With all due respect to the Marines, 'there was 'no life like it'. We were kings and queens of our own domain and we all share the battle scars to prove it.

Stay tuned for..."The Cast Of Characters, Part One"

Post# 4 - Arbitrage..."The Arb"

2008-03-19T16:25:00.004-04:00

Arbitrage..."The Arb"
ar·bi·trage play_w("A0398900")(ärb-träzh)n.The purchase of securities on one market for immediate resale on another market in order to profit from a price discrepancy.intr.v. ar·bi·traged, ar·bi·trag·ing, ar·bi·trag·esTo be involved in arbitrage.[Middle English, arbitration, from Old French, from arbitrer, to judge, from Latin arbitrr, to give judgment; see arbitrate.]Noun1.arbitrage - a kind of hedged investment meant to capture slight differences in price; when there is a difference in the price of something on two different markets the arbitrageur simultaneously buys at the lower price and sells at the higher pricerisk arbitrage, takeover arbitrage - arbitrage involving risk; as in the simultaneous purchase of stock in a target company and sale of stock in its potential acquirer; if the takeover fails the arbitrageur may lose a great deal of money investing, investment - the act of investing; laying out money or capital in an enterprise with the expectation of profitVerb1.arbitrage - practice arbitrage, as in the stock marketccommerce, commercialism, mercantilism - transactions (sales and purchases) having the objective of supplying commodities (goods and services)
These descriptions are accurate but they don't really capture the magic that was trading on 'The Arb"! When I was hired by Steve Curry, he informed me that I would be working for an arbitrage operation run by Greenshields out of Toronto and Montreal, my first employer on the floor, and Drexel-Burnham Lambert out of New York. The Toronto operation was run by Peter Mitchell in the office and Steve on the floor. The Montreal operation was run under the Toronto operation but the voice of Montreal was Frankie Breaker. The New York arb operation was run by Norman Reich and Bobby Lupo and his number one man, Chickie, a Puerto Rican that was both funny and ball breaking. An interresting factoid is that Michael Milken was employed by Drexel, at that time running their junk bond department. Of course we called it 'high yield bond trading', which was a much cuter name. We traded for him on many occasions, according to Bobby Lupo, but we didn't get rich from his dealings. We were strictly on the equities side of the ledger. The movie 'Wall Street" was based on his story and the 'Arb Trader' in his office in the movie was based on our New York Arb Trader, Freddie, or so the story goes. In 1989 Milken was the fall guy in the largest fraud investigation in Wall Street history at the time. He did time. Today he is worth about $2.8 Billion. Crime pays! If you have enough money, justice can be eased if not denied.
Chris Martin was the head Toronto arb clerk, whose job it was to turn me into a clone, if possible. Chris was as smooth as silk in that job. He always seemed to know just how to calm down the ever crazy New Yorkers. They never seemed to be very happy, even when things were great and we were making scads of dough. It wasn't that they couldn't be pleased, it was more like they 'wouldn't be pleased! Even though they were very high maintenance you had to admire their drive and skill in this very competative arbitrage game.
When you traded the 'arb' you were required to be aware of every change in the exchange rate of the american/canadian dollar, the price of gold, the amount of shares bid and offered on a huge number of stocks, who had the big orders and how much and always, ALWAYS, everything that your competition was doing. Every time you didn't report a change in the status of any stock we were trading, the New Yorkers would blow your ears off with seemingly senseless screaming so you would never ever let it happen again. This happened about 100 times a day. That Chris Martin was able to handle this job as smoothly as he did was a tribute to him and his skilfull interpersonal tactics.
The job was unbelievably demanding. That was offset by the respect the job commanded and the amount of money you could make. People always stayed out of our way and for the most part, we traded the way we wanted. Always 'within' the rules but we knew the grey areas better than anybody else on the floor. The Pros' had to keep us in because if they didn't we could put a serious hurt on them. This just added to the hate but we really didn't care. We were there to make money and I was told every day that "you are only as good as your LAST trade" by Norman. He was right. Never has there been a more 'what have you done for me lately' attitude than on the arb.
At Greenshields we were a distant 'second' in the Arb world. Burns Fry was king. They were legendary. They had been Timmons, ultimate intimidating arb vetrans. In Toronto, Ricky, Marty Whittenbols, Scott Douglas, Gary Eamon, Frank 'Guido' Gradini, Paul 'the wop' Napolitano...they were a machine. The New York operation was second to none. Our guys were good...Steve Curry could trade with the best of them and Chris Martin was a great Arb Clerk, but these guys were unbelievable. In my career I was fortunate enough to work on the Burns Arb and it was as fearsome and professional as I always thought it was. Thanks Marty.
In 1980 the number three Arb operation was Midland-Doherty. They were as far behind us in the rankings as we were behind Burns. They had some great guys working for them, but they were more 'nice' than feared.
If you were an asshole, the Arb was where you wanted to be because being an asshole was a tremendous asset. Steve Curry told me that was why he hired me and I couldn't question that logic.
It took me awhile and cost Chris tons of patience, but I became, at the risk of ringing my own bell, a pretty decent Arb trader and loved every minute of it. All this despite Peter Mitchell's efforts to have me fired on at least three occasions in my first year or so. I just didn't drink enough for him, or something! Thanks to Steve and Chris, I was good enough to trade Arb for Greenshields, Burns, R.A Daly, Gordon Capital, good enough to trade pro for Nesbitt and good enough to start and run an independant Arb operation for McNeil Mantha, although they were responsible for the worst hatchet job I ever had to endure as a trader. Thanks Larry Hoes. McNeil-Mantha was a Montreal operation...So... Enough said!
Everyone in Toronto knows EXACTLY what that means.

Stay Tuned For..."I Can't Believe It's A Job!"

Post# 3 - The Cork Room

2008-03-19T01:17:00.006-04:00

The Cork Room. Just the sound of those words brings me back to so many of my wettest memories as a trader on old floor. Just down the street from the TSE it was the most conveniently located drinking establishment ever. What better clientele than the 'work hard, party harder' crew from the floor. It didn't take me very long to realize what an intrical part of this job involved hanging out with the boys and comming in with the men.
At the end of my first day on the job at the TSE I met with my boss Steve and my teacher Chris. As I walked into the Cork Room it seemed like almost everyone I had seen on the floor all day was now here. The noise level was almost as bad as it was on the floor for the opening and closing bells, when everyone is screaming loudest. It was like a party. No, it WAS a party. The place was absolutely thick with cigarette smoke and reminded me of a 1940's black and white movie. The only thing missing was the piano player in the corner. This place didn't really need the piano player character...it was wall to wall characters. The decor was not exactly what you would expect when you think about where stock broker types might hang out for a few after work. The bar was classic, the lighting was dim at best, and the best part of its design was the large number of darkened areas where one could duck away for a quick whatever you wanted. Basically fill in the blank and that's what was available. There were lots of girls from the floor there and there were also alot of other single girls, office workers and secretary types that knew this was where the 'brokers' played. So, if you were interrested and after a few drinks who wasn't, you could meet and greet and hook-up without too much effort. This was equally true for all consenting adults. I don't think it was any kind of great pick-up bar, it was just where people in our business congregated and people do what people do. On a friday night you could get just about anything you wanted. Lots of the younger guys were into everything that you have ever heard people in the business might be into. Sex, drugs and rock & roll baby!
I could barely hear him but Steve was explaining to me that we were arbitrage traders and that everybody hated us. Everybody. He went on to explain that we were basically the pirates of the industry. We were the guys that tried to take advantage of every gap that might exist in the markets and information, real information was everything. That was why it was so important to develop relationships with as many other traders as possible and what better place to do it than here, at the Cork Room.
Chris was just up the bar in the middle of a small crowd, holding a Carlsberg and talking to a cute blond and an equally cute brunette. He didn't seem overly concerned with much of anything I might want to say to him, so I just kind of sat back and watched. After a little while he asked me if I wanted to come down to the can for a minute. I wasn't sure what for, but I was excited at the mere thought of what it might be. There was a small group of us crowding into a tiny area in the pisser and a couple of joints flared to life and I was well on my way to earning my first 'come in with the men' hangover. The 12 or so drinks I consumed that night didn't allow me the luxury of remembering too much after that and perhaps that is for the best.
Many generations of traders consumed way to many cocktails at the Cork Room. The place reeked of history, beer and piss. It was an unbelievable, unpredictable ride. Every night brought something new. Lots of black eyes that walked onto the floor in the morning after had received their lumps courtesy of an evening at the Cork Room the night before. More importantly, many many deals were put together over too many beers at the Cork Room. Steve was right, this is where the after hours action started but rarely ended for most of the crazies on the old floor. Most of the people on the old floor qualified for that designation...crazy!
Freddy was the favoured bartender because he was simply the best. This guy had heard and seen more bullshit in his job than any beef farmer ever shovelled. It would be hard to even imagine the Cork Room without Freddy. Then there was Nat. I bought more wierd crap from that guy than you could ever imagine. Upstairs in his barely lit office, you could buy almost anything. Almost nothing that you would ever use. He as kind of like a one man dollar store. If the TSE had trade relations when Nat was dealing, he would have owned the Exchange! He regularily sold snow to eskimos (pre political correctness remember) and everything else to the traders. He was a very cool guy and you just couldn't say no. When the Toronto Stock Exchange closed the old floor, 234 Bay St. wasn't the only piece of historic real estate to die. It took a little while, but the Cork Room died of progress as well.
The last thing I remember that first night at the Cork Room was Steve asking me if I wanted to come with him and some of his friends for Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don't know if I went or not, but I smelled pretty greasy when I woke up in my clothes the next morning.

Stay Tuned For "ARBITRAGE"...is that french?

Post# 2 - April Fool's...My First Day!

2008-03-16T13:32:00.006-04:00

I spent a very interresting weekend pondering the consequences of my decision to take a job in the biggest of all 'Big Business' jobs. What the hell was I thinking! Everything I had done in my life to this point was almost the complete opposite of what I should have done to have a business career. I hated the idea of pure capitalism. I had read Trotsky, Tolstoy and Lenin. Socialist values seemed so much more humanistic that capitalism. I was a dreamer, not a doer. Every political discussion group I had ever sat through in university had demonized the capitalists as evil, calculated, greed motivated assholes. Yet, here I was, not just heading into the lion's den...but directy into the lion's mouth. I should have brought some floss!
I kept thinking that I would hang out and watch for a couple of weeks, maybe the summer, and take their stupid money and run. No problem.
It was April 1st...April Fool's Day! I woke up at about 8:00am on tuesday and had a huge coffee to start my day. I needed it. I borrowed a tweed jacket and a white shirt and tie from a friend of mine and stood looking at myself in the mirror for quite a long time. It was so wierd looking at myself dressed like that and yet not going to a wedding or a funeral. I wondered if this job was going to be like working for the devil while I prayed to God and then I remembered that I was an athiest. I had gotten a haircut, sort of, and felt like that was about as far as I would be prepared to go for a paycheck from the enemy. It's not like I'm selling my soul...I kept trying to convince myself. My bank account balance made that rationale much easier to swallow.
I walked over to the Eglinton subway station from my bohemian apartment at Avenue Rd. and Eglinton, which was a nice way to get the blood flowing. A necessity with my lifestyle choices to date. As I got on the subway train for the first time as a 'businessman' I actually felt like I was in my skin but somebody else was working the machinery. I just then realized that I had absolutely NO idea where the Stock Exchange was. I knew the address was 234 Bay St, so it would be between the Yonge and University lines, somewhere close to Front St. Close enough! I got off at Union Station for the first of many, many times and walked toward Bay. As I walked up Bay St. in the brilliant morning sunshine, on the east side, I looked across the street and saw, for the first time, the exterior of the Toronto Stock Exchange. Looking at that building, in awe, I began to feel a sense of fear and excitement that nearly overwhelmed me. I really needed to take a shit! I crossed the street in a j-walking blur of traffic and stood in front of the wierd and oddly powerful archetectural gem and tried to let it all set in.
As I opened the huge steel and glass door for the first time and made my way inside, my chin litterally hit the floor. I had never seen the TSE before and only knew of it in reputation and repudiation from my former peers. The walls and ceiling height were amazing. The art-deco design was oddly breathtaking. The huge clock, the cool windows, the posts with all those chalkboards and screens. The history was as obviously layered as my own fears and insecurities. Most of all I noticed the dull roar of activity that made you raise your voice, just a little if you wanted to be heard. This was before the opening, and I soon learned that dull roar was just a precursor to the real roar that was to follow the opening bell.
I asked an old guy, can't remember who now, where I could find Steve Curry. He looked at me and turned around and absolutely screamed...STEVE CURRY! Holy shit! Was this how they actually located people here. The answer is YES! Steve walked over and gave me a quick up and down, once over from his rather imperious perspective and quipped, "get some decent shoes". Ok I thought, that was better than I expected. Oh shit! I forgot his double double. The next thing he said was , "where's my coffee"? Oh shit! I forgot his double double. Nice way to impress the new boss. Ok, it can only get better from here. Steve then proceeded to give me instructions to Druxy's to get coffee and toasted bagles with cream cheese. I blazed throught the catacombs of the TC Centre and returned loaded with breakfast goodness and teeth dulling coffee from hell. When I got back, just before the opening bell, Steve told me I might want to loose the earring. I was immediately incensed. He assured me that it was nothing personal, but people were going to hard time me and might think I was a fag. Keeping in mind that in those pre-politically correct days, very few guys had earrings, and absolutely no guy from the floor. It might have been good advice. I didn't take it.
Steve walked me over to what he called 'the booth'. As we walked up a couple of steps, I could feel about a million eyes drilling through me to see exactly what I was made of. In the 'booth' in question I first set eyes on this skinny, kind of 'geeky' looking guy with glasses and a notable glare. Steve said to me, "this is Chris" and then he said to Chris, "this is Jim...teach him"! Then he walked away. I wasn't sure whose shock was more palpable, mine or Chris's.
As the opening bell went off to start the trading day, Chris leanes over and gave me a WTF are you kind of look and plugged some wired headset into the booth and told me to put it on. I did. It took me awhile to figure out what to do with it, but here I was. Chris told me to just listen and try to get a feel for what was going on. The opening was unbelievably intense. People, masses of people screaming, yelling, frantically waving and within minutes people were comming up to the booth and dropping piles of slips of paper in Chris's lap saying things like "bought 1200, leaves a thousand". Chris would yell things like "What's the market?" This, I would soon realize, would become the question that was indeed the most important question of all. How much bid, how much offered? Whose on the bid, whose on the offer? What is Timmons doing? These and about a million other questions were being fired into Chris's ear, non-stop, for about the first hour. I assumed that he was being asked these questions because he kept giving the answers to these questions to whomever was on the other end of the headphones. I just tried to take some notes and not be too noticable. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what all the hand signals were for or what the hell they meant.
When I finally figured out that I had no noise comming through the headset, Chris gave me a disgusted look and flicked the switch to the 'ON' position.
On the other end of the line were these totally wild, wierd accented guys who seemed awfully excited about things...all the time! These guys sounded completely and totally insane. What were they all about? I kept asking Chris questions, mostly of the stupid variety, and he kept dutifully answering and getting increasingly irritated with my presence. I really couldn't blame him. As the day went along and the sureal grew exponentionally, I asked Chris when the breaks were. Then, for the first of time, I heard him laugh. Not just a chuckle, but a genuine belly laugh. It was a laugh I would hear and laugh with so much in the years to follow. When he stopped he told me that when it was busy, there were no breaks and when it wasn't busy, it was a full time break. I thought he was just jerking my chain. He wasn't!
As the day wore on and things got a little more sane, as if, a strange cast of characters started making their way up to the booth. They were comming by to chat with Chris and to check out the new meat. There were tall ones, Kim and Rick. Short ones, Scott and Ralph and an assortment of every other kind, male and female...and then there was Stevie. Steve Gilbert. When Chris introduced us Stevie shook my hand in an overly hard fashion, squeezing the crap out of it. I thought he was just joking, but he wasn't. It was my first indication that he really didn't like me. Ok then, I decieded I wouldn't really like him either.
The rest of the day went by like a blur and as the closing bell went off the noise gradually rolled down to a minimal din. People were running up to their booths frantically reporting last minute trades and fills. I was completely overwhelmed and quickly realized how 'over my head' I actually was. There was no way in the world I could ever fool these people into thinking I could ever do whatever it was that they were doing. Chris hated me, his friends hated me...the building even seemed to hate me.
Chris finished going over the totals and said he had to go up to the office to finish and then he was going to go for a beer at the Cork Room. Did I want to go? Not really, I thought, but yes was my answer.
Steve Curry came over to see if I had survived. He asked me what I thought about the place and the job. As I started to answer he stopped me mid sentence and advised me I could finish that thought with him over a beer at the Cork Room. WTF was a cork room? Was this like a rubber room only made of cork. Seriously, I had no idea it was a bar. Not just A bar...THE bar.

Stay tuned for "The Cork Room"

Post# 1 - How It All Began

2008-03-14T14:28:00.002-04:00

It seems now like it was just yesterday. Of course, that is what everyone says about their lives when they reach an age where the past is significantly longer than their likely future. In the dream that was my life when all of this began, it will always be right now. In reality, it was a lifetime ago. In reality it was so many things. I am sure of this, I was part of a unique social experiment that opened my eyes to a life of rarified air. Many people have what they consider to be great jobs, great careers, unbelievable success and riches. The unfortunate truth and reality for most is that very few individuals in the work force will ever have really great jobs, great careers, unbelievable success and riches. Most just keep chasing that carrot. It is the dream that keeps on keeping on.
When you are young, it is true, you can dream of being anything you want and in some cases these dreams can actually come true. My story, 'My TSE Life', is a story of personal evolution and culture shock and something a different as a dream that never was, coming true.
In 1980 I had just finished my second year of university at York where I was majoring in Philosophy and English. I was working for a year to pay for my ongoing educational costs and to put food on the table and a roof over my head. I was a good student and did ok but the truth be known, like many other university students of the day, I was there for the social experience and the party. My time at Glendon College of York University was fantastic. In addition to my studies, I was totally immersed in the social life on campus. I was the President of Residence Council, which gave me the greatest room in residence. I had a radio show on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 8:00 to 10:00 pm. I wrote Jane Does' for the newspaper, Pro Tem. I was a #3 seed in the squash rankings at York. I played hockey regularly against the dreaded Chiropractors whose campus was just down the road on Bayview Av. I ran 5 miles 3 times a week. I played in a couple of bands on campus and I consumed copious amounts weed, hash and honey oil. Mostly with Brian Cook. Hey bud! So it was hard for me to take my 3rd year off to work, but my meager financial aid was not forthcoming after my second year, I had no choice. Unlike so many other students of that day I was there on MY dime...not on daddy's dollars. Like almost every other Canadian university student of that day and this, I was a raving socialist. I thought that the most dangerous enemy we all had to face was raging capitalism. I literally didn't have a conservative bone in my body and immediately hated anyone that I thought might. This brings me to my mentor and bastion of capitalist thinking....Steve Curry.

I first met Steve Curry in March 1980. He was dating my girlfriend Jodi's lifelong best friend, Andrea. At the time I thought Steve and Andrea were the most unlikely couple on the planet. Steve was bold and brash and loved to throw around his money in lavishing Andrea with little gifts like mink coats...that sort of thing. Andrea was brash and bold and looked very, very good on Steve's arm. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything wrong with flash (today it's bling) and arm candy, it is just that from where I came from, with marxist cravings for socialist dogma, these two were akin to a toothache. They wern't really such an odd couple, they were just...different. Different from me and everyone I knew.
Steve and I argued alot. Well, mostly I argued and Steve laughed at me, during the time we spent together. One thursday evening as we sat in Jodi's kitchen, waiting, forever again, for the girls to get ready for the evening, Steve and I had one of our philosophical discourses around the topic of 'money'. Steve said that people who thought the way I did usually had no money and were more jealously than philosophically driven. I immediately flew off into a rant about how that was the only kind of real argument people like Steve could ever hope to use against guys like me because he couldn't argue points with me based on logic. Steve laughed at me and asked me how much money I made last year. I knew this was going to hurt because I was a student but ran my own painting and renovation company, which being a part-time job, was unlikely to impress Steve Curry. I told him I made $20,000.00. It was a lie. I actually made about $12,000.00 but just couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth. It wasn't bad for a full-time student, Steve quipped about the $20K. He then told me 'That is about what I paid in my last bar tab and laughed his ass off. I became so pissed off I could have sucker punched him and felt OK about it. But I didn't. He told me he wasn't trying to hurt my feelings, which he did, but was just trying to make a point. He told me I was wasting all that good 'in your face' arguing with my socialist bullshit. He challenged me and my so called principles, saying he could make me forget my commie ways and change my mind and distaste for capitalism. I thought he was nuts! He asked me if I wanted a job. A REAL job. I snidely asked him what kind of job? He answered "What the fuck is the difference, I'll start you off at $30,000 and if you are any good at all you can make alot more in bonuses". At first my ego was insulted. That was my socialist ego. My capitalist ego (I didn't know I had one) was quite intrigued by the offer. You have to keep in mind that these were 1980 dollars. The equivalent dollar value today would be roughly $75,000.00. My other egos were just stroked, so they were happy. I told him I would take him up on his challenge but would NEVER change over to the dark side with him. He told me to steal a white shirt and tie and show up on the floor and ask for him on tuesday morning at 9:30 and to bring him a double double. He, of course, knew he had me then. He told me that everybody has a price, but the real secret was never undervaluing yourself...because surely everyone else will. Shit, I thought I was the philosopher!

I woke up Friday morning feeling the effects of what would soon become a pattern in my life and times with Steve Curry. Man, what a hangover!
I drifted through the weekend in a bit of a daze. Some part of me knew that I was about to embark on a significant life journey. No matter how hard I tried to deny myself even a tiny bit of excitement over the coming challenge, I could not deny the overwhelming feeling that I would never be the same after putting my foot in the door and my head into the mouth of the capitalist beast. Even though I told myself I would work until September and take my money and run back to school laughing all the way to the bank, I didn't really believe it. I said it, I meant it. I just didn't believe it. Then something struck me. I realized that the comming tuesday was April 1st...April Fool's Day. I thought for sure that he was playing a cruel and unusual joke on me by having me show up and then he and his capitalist buddies would have a great laugh at my expense. Oh shit! What kind of an idiot was I being.

But what if he wasn't setting me up! Wow, this was scarry!

Stay Tuned For 'April Fool's...My First Day'!