2022-09-23 Oral History Interview with Lee Gotham

I'm also gonna turn on the live transcript function because that allows us to save, well, not a perfect transcript, but, you know, a decent transcript afterwards, which is useful for, you know, creating a transcript for the oral history interview.

It will screw up my accent for sure the transcript, so don't worry about (?) for sure. But it's. But it's helpful later.

Yeah. So at this point I want to, I just want, to invite Carlos and Faith to introduce themselves to you 'cause they've been really digging into the Enough Said videos, and, and they're the ones who are working on this project, so. Carlos, do you want to go first, and then.

Sure, why not. So, well, I have a very long name. I I feel like one of the protocols is stating your full name. I go by Carlos A. Pittella. My full name is one of those curses from Brazilian parents, Carlos Antonio Pittella de Souza Leite, that doesn't fit any form. I I'm actually, I'm zooming in from our AMPLab, Faith is right there too. So you can see this is the AMPLab at Concordia that Jason set up as one of the founders of SpokenWeb. We have a lot of new equipment here happening so it's a very cool space, and I I'm from Brazil originally but my family's from all over the place and ended up in Montreal with, in the creative writing program. Entered last year, and joined SpokenWeb, and I'm writing about border crossing poets and border crossing poetry that is interesting in borders between languages and cultures, but especially people caught in between those borders. Yeah. And definitely I talk about bureaucracy. I feel like all my poems are about bureaucracy in one way or another.

Yeah.

But yeah, I'm very excited to be here and I'm involved in a lot of different projects at spoken, at SpokenWeb. One of them was the Ultimatum archive, the punk festival that predates Enough Said from by one decade.The Allen Lord fonds, and and we have an interesting collection of documents and and and audio recordings from the Ultimatum archive. And then after working on that for a little bit, Faith and I started working on Enough Said, seeing it's actually the first audio video archive that that SpokenWeb had access to so very cool. And but yeah, I mean that's that's me I have a a a daughter that has many languages and passports and a partner that that is ecological education. So I'm interested in ecology as well, But that's, that's basically me.

Super for her as well, very good.

Thanks, and Faith?

Hi! It's so it's so eerie seeing you Lee in I guess another video form.

(?) actually seen me.

Yeah, yeah, it really is amazing to be able to chat with you, though, I think Carlos and I feel like we've gotten to know you in some sort of senses or a past Lee, so it will be really interesting to see the evolution. But my name is Faith, I'm also an RA for SpokenWeb I'm I'm finishing up my my last semester of undergrad, and I was doing English and creative writing here, also in the AMPLab, here is an angle of some of the vinyl that we have, and hopefully at some point you'll be able to come by Montreal and be able to spin some stuff that we've been collecting here.

That would be fun.

Yeah yeah some of the sound technicians were doing tests of the work that they've been doing on like a the reel-to-reel machines and the lathe cutters and it's it's out of my purview of what I do. But it's very cool to me and I I I'm also a writer, I come mostly out of the Toronto spoken word scene and I landed here in Montreal and became really really interested in kind of histories of English-language writing and spoken word, and and Montreal and how basically those scenes overlap and filter out through Canada and elsewhere. So the series has been a real real treat to see so many familiar faces, and also people who are completely new to me, and also seeing the origins of many, many performers as well, who I, who I really admire and have grown to admire. So, yeah, I feel very grateful to to your series as well, I think it's a real predecessor for a lot of cool stuff that was to come in Montreal. So I'm I'm really really thrilled to be able to talk with you today. Yeah.

Likewise likewise yeah, it's it's certainly seems like something of a time tunnel for me back to you know, for where you are, and and the and the same sort of interests that was so thickly involved with myself at the time.

Absolutely yeah no I I think this is gonna be a really cool, like, it's it's gonna be really cool to kind of like think back to the kinds of investments and tribulations and, relationships that you had at that time and obviously how much different that might be or similar that might be to now. So I think that's always cool to the the past is so much closer than we think. So. Yeah.

Yes, but safe to say more different than than similar probably.

That's always good. Evolution.

I have a I am halfway through my sixtieth or my sixth decade on this planet. So my recollection of the halcyon days of Enough Said will be patchy, perhaps. But let's let's let's do our best.

That's okay. Oh.

No, no.

[Discussing echo in the Zoom meeting.]

Yeah, I'm so sorry we'll we'll probably be doing a little bit of that, and if necessary I can move out into to another room. So let us know if there's any issue with you know, surround sound, I guess through the interview. But, I guess one thing that also I'll let Jason explain some of the (?) of the series, if he hasn't already. I was inhaling a snack just before this, but one thing I think that's important to say off the top about doing oral history, I'm not sure what your experiences with doing an interview like this before, but it's a little different from Oh, go ahead.

I said "limited."

Limited. Okay, good I think it's important to say that it's different from like you know doing a magazine interview or something of the like in that, you really can kind of wander through memories, as you like, and feel comfortable. So if if things aren't really coming to you today, that's okay, or if you feel like, you know, a real urge to go down a particular tangent like that's, that's the kind of thing we look for and we really like about doing oral history. It's, we're not coming here to kind of dig out very specific information rather than wanting to get a sense of what the time was like and what the scene was like, for you, and asking some guiding questions to be able to make some of those memories for you a bit clearer, or get out some of the things that you want to talk abou so we have guiding questions today, but there that's what really what they are just a guide, and we can move through when we come up with questions as as we go.

Nice!

I would add just 2 little things that allow some very interesting, the provenance of the collection, how did even get to us? So there was. We have a lot of questions that would like to ask you regarding that as well. I like, how did you? ended up, involved, or starting the series? And how did the collection get to us so, we'll go there, but perhaps before we even get to that, Faith maybe I I don't know how much of the, we didn't have a chance to discuss the the permission so maybe like just even a word about the consent and then that is the the four for values about the oral history project. Yeah, I don't know if you if you or Jason would like to help with that.

But basically, basically, nothing you say will be used against you unless you want to. Basically that's the summary of it, and you can revoke this permission anytime. And and and is, if I know we talk recording is, and of course this is the idea that this interview becomes part of the collection as well. But you can change that anytime, and if things and if things seem like they are moving to a different platform, or becoming more specific. and you always recalibrate any of that permission as well. I mean I'm summarizing in my own words, but we have fancier words about the consent as well.

I understand perfectly. I did attempt to to create a documentary film once upon a time, and we had to go through all the same precautions that you're describing. So it's all good for me.

Great. Well maybe we should get started. Faith did you wanna launch, launch into the guiding questions start

Yeah that'd be great. So I guess to to get started. We were interested and you know starting off with what, some of the world historians and SpokenWeb called a life story, framework for interview. But it's it doesn't have to be so intimidating I guess, as you know, biography or something but just the question about like, where is home to you, where'd you grow up if that answer is different from home and what were some key elements of your childhood, your family, your friends defining moments in growing up.

Okay. Yeah, let me start before they the the before any more pile up, because I'll only remember 2 or 3 of those points that you just outlined. But, essentially, I was born in in the UK and in the middle of the south coast of England, and all my family still lived there, my immediate family, the only ones that ever left. So I grew up, though, from age 2 here in Canada, in, Ontario, not in Montreal. But I probably identify, and still do, almost, as a dual citizen, culturally speaking a 50/50 Canadian English sort of background if you will, although all of my blood and family and the way in which I was raised in the home and whatnot were British, and my very working class English Parents, you know, manage to convey all the normal associated, traits and and values.

I did grow up in Canada so I did have all my schooling and social life outside of the home. Just as a normal Canadian kid would, so that, that was my early, you know sort of provenance if you will. I suppose I I first identified my interest in literature, during my teens. I was not a precocious early life reader. I did, have, I thought, and probably to some degree, realistically, had, a slightly good vocabulary comPared with a lot of my classmates in early years, just because of the the the operating in a British home, you know, the language was almost incessantly whatever beaten into me if you will so. In any case, I didn't read precociously, but when I did start I started very enthusiastically, reading mostly philosophy and and and spiritually oriented texts, most of which were fiction and biographies, some of which were were more traditional philosophical texts, so that that sort of led to my interest in all things creative.

And I had an older brother who knew from day one he wanted to be a musician, and asked for a guitar at age 7, received it, and never looked back, and was, in fact, a lifelong musician composer until, unfortunately, passing away fairly early at the height of his creative powers. Regardless, I probably felt the same inclination musically, and I did in fact, get myself on stage in front of various audiences all through South-Central Ontario during my teens. But, I I gave up after having lost 3 or 4 bass players, and I began to feel as though maybe the the rock and roll path was going to be something of the self-indulgence. So I turned to writing as my only vocal coach did suggest that "Wow! These these songs you're coming up with are really great, Maybe that should be your focus. The songwriting versus the vocalizations." So I realized at that point that "Hey, I'm free to" I had a troubled secondary education and was at my sort of seventeenth year, "free to to move on in any direction I wanted to," so I chose to start writing and take take it on the road.

So for about 10 years I was more often outside of the country than here in Canada, and got my real education. What I still feel is some something of a formal education, traveling. Central America, North Africa, parts of the Middle East Europe, East and West, ending up in in the Indian subcontinent that was like the zenith of my my 10 years of travel abroad. In any case, I brought all that to Concordia in 1989, started, I wanted to to join the program. the writing program, that is, but arriving as a mature student, 27 years of age, was suggested that I I could probably benefit by a bit of English literature training training at the same time. So, I started a BA in English. it was, you know, a augmented program. I guess I had to, oh, I can't remember 18 additional credits to accomplish something like that a half a year's work. Yeah, so regardless I I did I did, you know, remarkably well, considering I hadn't prePared myself much. And yeah, at the end of it I had a Honors B.A. in English and and, went back to my old traveling ways, and after another 2 years had been encouraged to try out the the graduate writing program, and it was accepted into the masters. and did that as well. So that was all just in the lead up and around the same time, as Enough Said.

And Lee, thank you for that that answer that really covers a large stand. I feel like just like to get on the record a few things of course we know you as Lee Gotham, I wonder if you want to state your full name or that's the name you want to be registered with interview, just like, Yeah, very important question, simple one.

Lee John Gotham, actually pronounced Goetham, if you go back.

Right? I mean I can remember, going to several readings in the lobby. In the back, actually not the front, but the room in the back of the Hall building on the ground floor was used quite frequently for readings. I I can remember going to The Yellow Door, the the little folky coffee house venue in the in the McGill Ghetto. Yeah, Todd actually, it's funny you would mention Swifty and and Todd was actually in a in a class or 2 of mine. First semester, you know English classes. And yeah, we became somewhat friendly just as just as fellow students. But I I didn't actually hear him read for probably a couple of years after my arrival there. But it he was obviously much more. I know you guys are doing things. But, Jason, am I audible?

Goetham, okay. Okay.

Nobody pronounce it Goetham from here. But

That's that's good good to ask, I'm glad I asked then.

Even I've capitulated many years ago

Oh, believe me, my name has many pronounciations at this point, so I sympathize. And, but you mentioned also the the south coast of UK. Do you want to state a city in which you were born? Maybe just.

I was born in Chandlersford, which is just outside of Southampton.

I do not think the transcript is going to get that right, so I don't know if you wanna.

Let me say it again. Chandler's-ford. The chandler Guy, who makes sails for boats, right.

That's great. That's great thank you for for that and and now, that you mentioned your your traveling, that explains your collection of hats. I feel like every Enough Said you have a different kind of hat and I and I've been describing the video of it so like I really had to do a lot of research to try to get your your hat collection. But but we'll get there. And but it's, just want to ask one another question about what you said, like any specific text or books that that you remember from the time that really marked you that, as you mentioned some, spiritual, Herman Hesse is coming to my mind for some reason, I wonder if that's.

Of course I read Steppenwolf. It was certainly typical of my teen reading. Okay, I I mean there's so many of course, but I would say Aldous Huxley's novels. Certainly there was a Richard Farina novel Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me. The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test, Thomas Wolsea, famous sixties take. Lots of yoga and and and, I mean I read the Autobiography of a Yogi, I I looked at various, what would you call them? just how-to books, I suppose, on meditation and that interest certainly developed alongside all of my creative interests.

Yeah, no, but (?) book is such a classic, I mean, and all the, all the people around like the Ramakrishna or Vivacanand, I'm sure you got into, I'm assuming you got into some of those as well in in the way to India right?

Of course, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, you know, the the book of living and dying. The, you know, the actual connections from my perspective, the connections in any honest North American of my generation between spiritual pursuit and well, let's let's call it a psychedelic interests, were were many and and manifold. And the, I guess this, interpretation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead that was written by Leary, Timothy Leary, with his cohort---with his his colleagues rather Ralph Metsner, and and the third (?) the Ram Dass, I forgotten his his English name. In any case, that book interpreted a really, you know quite arcane text in a manner that made it so accessible, so so compelling, that I convinced myself, I think, as a result of reading and rereading that text in various places and times, that I was in a fact on a on a spiritual path of my own, and it differed from some of the typically long disciplined and arduous paths described in in the Yoga text that I was so smitten with.

It differed in in its in its, immediacy, I suppose. Yeah, in other words, the psychedelic path was something of a drop yourself in and start swimming quickly, because the tides will swirl about you, and it may be overwhelming if you don't just suck it up, as it were. So yeah, I I you know I'm an old hippie. I I I've never made any I've never made any bones about it. I really, you know, when people go all "The guy's done too much acid," not referring to myself, but when I hear that type of take on the sixties, or you know, you think of Elvis Costello's, you know, what's wrong with peace, love, and understanding? You know what's so funny about it? It's not funny, you know, this is this is you know, really at the at the basis of our of our needs as a human race. And, yeah, it irks me no end, you know, when the people that on one hand, were were really to talk about the subject, but unwilling to accept of the fact that North America in the twentieth and twenty-first century were, you know, a a different launching ground, if you will, for for people's spiritual lives

Absolutely, I mean like, one thing that I'm curious about, I know you mentioned your your brother in passing, and also it's just like growing up as like a teen I'm presuming in about the seventies, so this was like.

I was a teen in the seventies.

Yeah, this is like this is the kind of like yeah the fertile ground, essentially, and the kind of like searching for meaning and understanding that you're coming up in and like, do you do you remember, like, necessarily, how you started to encounter some of these texts, or like cultivate your own interest in reading. Was it like you know, someone like your older brother or like friends in your life who were like, "You got to check this out"? Yeah.

So let's put a little more emphasis on my older brother, because although he's passed, he was a huge influence in absentia. He was a a a bit of a, not a savant, but bit of a genius, you know, like he he was pushed ahead in in the school system 2 years. So he was out of high school, although he was only 2 and a half years older than myself. He was out of high school before I got into it. He he graduated and and went on to his first year, he did Western University, but he went in at the moment that, I'm sorry I'm just receiving a message off-screen here. Share your book (?). Okay, i'll share about the books. My wife is a real promoter. She's my best reader, and and a and a and a stalwart.

In any case, my brother Nick Gotham was a, you know, highly accomplished musician. I, you know, I could say he was probably, you know, among the greatest modern jazz improviser instrumentalists of his day here in Canada. The the the fellow that actually documented all of the Enough Said series for me, Drew Duncan, he actually knew my brother by reputation quite well before we met, and as a result he had he he was a he's a real jazz aficionado. My brother was both a jazz composer and a musician as well as a a great, he searched throughout all world traditions for all influences he could come up with, and he had, you know, a substantial classical music background as well.

So in any case, although he had gone out of the hometown, never to return, in in his own words, you know, by the time I was like 16 years old, his example. you know his rigor and his discipline, and his his rapid, you know, ascension through, you know, technical abilities and and and musical knowledge and and wisdom in general, it it it set a pretty high bar for my myself. Although I was the rock n' roll roll, guy. You know my the extent of my musical career was fronting rock bands, you know. I I did take that that, you know, that thread of creative continuity between us, quite, quite to heart. So, forgotten the leading question, if you could remind me.

I think you've been answering it.

Singer, your your your classic rock and roll front guy, in the day it was still quite common to have people that didn't actually feel like they needed to get a guitar in front of them. Yeah, no, that was, it was definitely the most invigorating thing I managed to, you know, before adulthood. You know, early on I wanted to be a pro hockey player and then a rock star. And after that, I got realistic and, well, semi-realistic, and started traveling as a as a vocation, I guess, for a good decade before I get to university.

I would agree, too, and I but I'm curious when you say fronting the band, were you a vocalist and guitar player that's what I.

Did did you play an instrument as well? I mean did you learn from your brother how to play?

I taught I taught myself to play the flute, traverse, this one, and and in fact, purchased my my brother's old flute as a as a first instrument, but I did not take it to, you know, to the degree of seriousness which I would have seen me, you know, taking lessons, for example. But I I I think I I I establish an excellent embouchure, what what you require by way of you know your your physical relationship to the instrument, and breathing was never trouble, and I did have instruction in in breathing, both from my my own yogic practice, and also I had a an excellent vocal coach, who was a diva Hungarian in her, you know, late seventies I think when I started she taught me a lot about the the diaphragm and various other spots along the the route the vocals are going to take. So, yeah.

Not not that we're going to be able to transcribe a Hungarian last name, but I wonder if you only just if you remember the coach's name, maybe?

It's an easy one. Her name was Lydia Zengo.

Okay, that was that was unusual for Hungarians. This is I love, I love to ask that question, Faith, and I love, I love the answer. I'm I'm thinking so many possible connections, first like we we are familiar with your style of MCing, I'm sure I might be getting ahead of ourselves here, but it it it means a lot to us to hear the front rock bands because you're so comfortable MCing the series of Enough Said. But I'm we're gonna get back to that I'm sure.

But also I just want to state that I feel like fascinating, that the readings that you mentioned simple for example yoga (?) that I'm still thinking about was always dedicated to to creating community in this case between East and West, or some of the references you mentioned. And and and and you mentioned also your brother with the world traditions, trying to to to, to to jazz between traditions as well. And I feel like I see that in the way you curated the series again getting ahead of ourselves, but I don't want to also put words in your mouth. But I like a feeling this is a feeling that that to me is very clear. and and I feel like you're giving them back history to something that I really felt watching some of those videos. I just wanted to make that commentary that's not really a question.

I think it's fairly accurate, though, I definitely always felt that East of West fusion was really one of the most important things that either side of that hemispherical divide could involve themselves with.

Oh, absolutely I I and I think like one thing too that stick sticking out to me, and I could feel some of the aspects that, like me and Carlos have like talked about starting to cohere listening to you is like, you know, not only your comfort on stage, but and, you know, introducing folks getting to know folks intervening on things that are going on the space that aren't necessarily what was planned. But also, like, you know, this kind of comfort and self assurance with like, what a scene is essentially, and I know I'm speaking incredibly, vaguely, but also like just the the concept of being in an artistic community, you seem extremely comfortable with and curating in these videos, and I'm wondering you know about, if you want to talk a little bit about you know, playing in your first bands, touring a little bit, like you've mentioned, and starting to get to know what an artistic community is like. Do you remember some key influences or figures or friends, people that you met along the way that even before your career made you feel like, "Yeah, I'm part of an artistic community"?

Yeah, certainly. The band, I only had one, and touring is, you know, perhaps a a stretch, but we we we did play, you know, fairly frequently, locally, for a shortish period, about 18 months, maybe, was the was the was the amount of it. In any case. Yeah, I don't know how informative, that certainly would have given me, I would I would have, you know already. experienced the, you know, the butterflies and and the all of the nerves, and all the the misgivings about getting on stage in front of people in that in that process. But I wasn't I think I think I'm the something of an innate scenester, you know, like I I almost. you know I I hear the term "hipster" and and and "scenester" and things like, and I and I almost kind of go. "Yeah, you know, if you were one you wouldn't have that label" you know, because I really feel it's it's just It's a natural thing. It's just something you're either really into people and expressing yourself and hearing the feedback, and you know, delving into other people's creative input, or you're not. And if you're not, you know, I think it it it shows when you get up on stage, you know so so I think that's probably most of what informed my comfort.

I mean the other big element I think I can't overstate, is the pleasure I derive, you know, being in front of a camera or on a stage, having people's attention you know I was always a huge attention slut, you know, even as a little kid, you know, I could not go out of the house dressed the same way 2 days running. It was just anathema to me. I had to, you know, have a really cool look going before I was going out that door. Just just one of those things that, you know, defined my and still, that's does probably to a much lesser extent, but.

But hence the hat collection.

Yeah, I'm still rocking the hats. I've got so much less hair I don't have as much choice about it.

But oh, it's always fun to describe the outfits of the Enough Said series. I mean, Faith and I have been having fun with it. And I'm just out of curiosity, what was the I don't think we caught the band band's name?

Oh, I'm sorry. "Casualties," and it was a play on play on word, you know, we spelt it, I think "k-a" "casual-t-e-e-z" or something like that.

Okay. And and and do you remember any venues in particular venues where you guys played at? I'm just curious to, or like the band formation.

Yeah, it was a typical rock band from the era. I had both the lead and rhythm guitarists, bass, and drums behind me and, we were all but one from my hometown, we we imported bass players, 3 or 4 now, all from the city. and yeah, it was it was my good friend from school days, Marty McDermott, who who was our lead guitars, who encouraged me to move in with him and and start a band. And we, I think the easiest thing for me to do is is just, describe the maybe 3 or 4 seminal performances that I could still recollect, because yeah, there were divey bars, you know,

The Golden Garter, this, you know, is is probably chief among my my venue recollections. It was a, it was a, you know, pretty pretty down-at-heel sort of drink drinking establishment in the center, in the downtown district of Hamilton, Ontario which is the city, nearest Ancaster Ontario, which is the small town in which I grew up. Yeah, we we played a gig there, you know, for a a pretty modest crowd. I can remember how, having my first experience of people's willingness and my resulting precocity and my resulting, you know, just jumping at the opportunity to provide something like a shamanic conduit, you know, between audience, and and performance. I I really felt like I had tapped into something that I could share, and I could share it through not just the you know the songs we'd rehearse, but my rapport with the audience that that actual, instantaneous inspired moment that can last for an evening, or you know a matter of seconds. But is really you know at the heart of of what I consider a, you know, great performance.

So yeah, the Golden Garter was was a was a stalwart place. It was right around the corner from our house, for one thing. We didn't even have to hire a truck to get our equipment there.

That's great.

We played bush bashes, you know, that was that was the the you know the another staple of people who grew up where and when I did. I always felt I had been very well served by I had been.

Oh, our light just, sorry we when you said "bush bashes" the lights went down, and I was afraid of asking a follow up. I one of us has to stand up so the light comes back in.

Disregard.

Okay, very cool.

But bush bashes is now, I'll forever remember the bush bashes.

So the bush bash, of course, in involves anything from 50 60 to, you know, 3 or 400 people out in the woods, big bonfire, whatever you can manage to construct by way of a stage, you know, usually with the generator for you know, sound so that you can have an electric rock and roll sort of experience in a very remote environment where and where you can really get loose, and and not to not sweat the establishment. In any case. we played several of those we played barns, you know, on people's farms.

We played a lot of, freaks bash, as we call these. There was a there was a great and long standing, and remarkably still going, genuine subculture here in South Central Ontario, called the Freak Olympics. It it it sounds rather risque, and back in the day, yeah, I guess it kind of was. But basically it involved getting 20 teams of 20 plus individuals all out to an undisclosed destination. Disclose on the on the day of, you know, just to the team captains, and all manner of hijinks, you know. Basically an Olympics style event which involved, instead of rigorous athletic discipline, just a lot of of hilarity and and and well-intended partying, basically. And those were events that musicians fought for because they were such great crowds to play for, and you were in such beautiful remote locations that you couldn't play over a not a note wrong, it seemed, at at least. And yeah, generally everyone was so high on the occasion that, you know you, you would get a a pretty good feedback from an audience on any given occasion. So we played lots of freaks bashes as well.

I'm I'm curious if the spirituality was already part of these events as well. When you mentioned was already that seen with the influence of Ram Das and and and, because when I think it was funny what what resonated with me, the first thing they came to mind was a in the in Nepal, the the street where all the the pilgrims when they arrive (?) I believe it's called the Freak Street so it's funny like.

It's Freak, it's called the Freak Street for the same reason, but I don't personally associate the 2 that closely, I think. And I often, you know, prided myself on my ability to extricate myself from that scene, and not spend my entire life freaking, as it were. Yeah, I I you know I had a lot more interest in in meditation. Okay, I was probably the most enthusiastic, you know, psychonaut you can imagine. But, I you know, I had the the correlating part of my life which I spent in meditation and reading and studying cultures abroad.

And Faith, I know that we can ask about this forever, perhaps I I just want to get in one more question about the the music scene, and I wonder if, like any specific song from your band, you still remember, you have the melody in your head out of out of the blue. Of course we're trying to make you sing, you can or cannot, but but I'm just very also very curious. If any of the songs still resonate, and you still carry around some of those melodies or lyrics that you would like to share with us.

Oh, yeah, I don't know about sharing them impromptu at the moment. But yeah, that not so much from the band. We, you know, we played a lot of covers, but just reinvented them. We did have a couple 3, you know, reggae-influenced sorts of original songs. They're not the ones that have stuck with me. I I wrote a bunch of stuff that just didn't suit the band, but was much more me. And yeah, I, just the other day, you know, I something came up and I was immediately singing from start to finish without a note out of place, you know, of 3 or 4 verse, you know, song with choruses that i'd written while traveling in in on a train actually in Germany. [Speaks German] which makes no sense if you try to translate it, because I didn't know German from my my left foot.

But the, oh, God, I wrote a another on on, on the on the, above the the snow line, on on a mountain in the Dhaulagiri range in the in the north of India. You know, these things, they stuck in my mind. I can I can sing snatches, but I'm not sure what purpose it could possibly serve, you know, for you guys. But.

We can register for the universe, that'll be like.

Okay, let me try and register something for the universe. [Singing] "I stepped up on Dharamkot's green slopes to take me abreast of them all. If I stepped up on Dharamkot's green slopes to take me a stride of the morn." Yeah, you know, it's not I'm not feeling that one, let's go. That was, you know, something that I wrote with a Belgian. I had the, you know, a little tin whistle, not a flute flute, but a little tin whistle he had he had a you know, his his lap that that he would tap quite well. He was a rhythmic, a counterpart that was good. In any case. "Dharamkot's Green Slopes." Dharamkot this little tiny Indian village halfway between, the the the valley floor, or actually above the valley floor you have a McLeod Ganj and and that's just above Dharamshala. It's where his holiness the Dalai Lama lives in his with his Tibetan community in in exile.

In any case, I had rented a little tiny, what they called the weavers cottage, up on a on a hilltop, a mountain top. Just on the snow line, and yes, this is where I would meditate for unruly amounts of time. I was there about 6 weeks on my own, so I I spent a a genuine you know, spiritual little seance there. But I did go down to town once a week to provision myself, and on one of those trips I met Mr. Rousseau. I've forgotten his first name. Peter Peter Russeau from Belgium.

In any case, what was the one on on the train? [Speaks German] How does it start? [Singing] "What a shame to travel such a long, long way through a land whose beauty, by the light of day is lost to me now, it's just a rushing void, beside the window, I sat annoyed. A meaningless light splash by in the night, a 1,000 wheels rolling as I start to write. Shimmy and shake the hours away, read and write through the miles. This trains given' me the grays not the blues, and shown me only darkness all the while." Okay, I'm getting out of my out of my range there so I I think we better call that a take.

That was fantastic. Thank you thank you so much for for embracing.

My humility?

The universe, and no, that was fantastic. I'm, we really painted the scene and we can thank you for sharing, and the in the circumstances as well, and I'm imagining those mountains, like, and out of curiosity were you when you're doing meditation or you're doing Buddhist meditation or like doing Kriya yoga from the Paramahansa school, like, if you don't have to share with just of course I'm curious.

I, prior to that phase of my trip, it was India and and Nepal. All of these portion of India from Kanniyakumari all the way up to the Dhaulagiri range, which is almost Ledac(?), and Lay(?), if you know the the terrain. So the Maliyas proper. In any case, and then back down through Delhi, I went back up to Nepal, and trekked all the way up to one mountain's base from Nepal, from Tibet rather, up the top of the Langtang valley.

I've I've I've been to the Lantang before before.

Have you, isn't it beautiful?

Before the earthquake, beautiful, just before the earthquake of 2005. But yeah, now I know the region really well, you must have picked up some Hindi and some in some (?).

You know, bits and pieces, but you know India, you know it it's a kaleidoscope, culturally speaking, everything changes. You know. you get off a bus or a train 60 miles from where you got on, and the language is different, the clothing, the customs, the diet, the everything, so that's what makes the place so fantastic. I I think I referred to it earlier as the zenith of my traveling experiences, because genuinely otherworldly, you know just a crazy place that it's so easy to lose your old self and find other parts of your new self. It was definitely a high watermark in in my traveling and cultural experiences in general.

I'm getting the goosebumps of you talking about Lantang here, and describing it. I I understand it, and I and I'm sorry that I cut you off as you as I had asked the question about like, which if there was any specific tradition of meditation.

Yeah, there was Nithyananda, you know, was the the elder and and the teacher of of Muktonanda, Baba Muktananda was the the teacher of Gurumayi, and Gurumayi I had studied with briefly at her ashram the same one begun by Nithyananda in Maharashtra and I suppose. Just a moment, just bear with me for a second.

Oh, of course, after you sang for us we'll wait.

No, the interview always gets good when someone runs to grab something

But this Langtang region is is beautiful, and then, and of course, today you cannot cross between Tibet and Nepal unless you are Chinese, basically. Like you can't really cross, the border's closed. But I went up to the point where I could see Tibet on the other side, but I couldn't cross, and on March(?) these days, they completely close the borders of Tibet to foreigners, because it's the Independence, a celebration there's always revolts. But I went up to the edge of Langtang when you could see the border with Tibet but I couldn't cross, and of course Langtang was the region that was very, very affected by the 2005 earthquake, was the epicenter. Langtang village was raised it was very sad, and I was there like 2 weeks before it happened, so like, give me the goosebumps talking about Langtang.

So special. Yeah, I couldn't find everything, but I'm not sure if you can make out the the title of the book. That is the book that was written by Muktananda, who was my teacher's guru. And the Gita, Sri Guru Gita, is basically what I followed through the several weeks that I spent at the at the ashram.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I feel like I'm assuming it's like a one of the Advaita Vedanta tradition schools like, of known duality, right so like connecting yoga to Advaita. I feel like it, which is like, I'm I'm not trying to hammer the point, but I feel like that tradition is about making connections between a, creating community, East and West, and like I feel like it's fascinating too to to think about those, the implications of that, the way you you set up the the series. And we were gonna get to this series soon enough.

We're gonna need another interview, I suspect.

Oh, yeah, we might have you in for the long haul. So bear with us. We have lots and lots of questions.

And if you need to get water or a drink any time, and there's, no one is gonna send this videos are not PG13, so you can get a drink, so.

I think that's good to know. Anytime also, you wanna take a break, whether it be for a bathroom break or you just need to decompress. We can always do that.

I'm having a ball, let's just roll.

Let's do it, all right. Well, I guess you've already touched a little bit on how that creative process then was, you know, really transforming during your time away. And you know, alluding a little bit to like collaborations with people you're meeting on the way, successful and also, you know, maybe songs are like i'd leave that behind. But, you know, kind of stretching those creative muscles. And obviously you're you're away for 10 years, that's a very long time to try and wrap up.

Yeah, I I don't wanna overstate that either, that 10 years from 20, 17 to 27, I spent more often abroad than at home. I didn't, I didn't, I came back regularly to re-fund. I would work for about 6 months usually I would need to to get enough to travel for another year abroad. So that was my rhythm. 6 months at home, 6 months or 9 months to a year, let's say, abroad, and then 6 months at home, and then another year abroad, and 6 months at home, back and forth like that.

Right, I think I either remember a clip from the series or maybe read somewhere that you maybe part of that involved being a post post driver in Southern Ontario? Maybe that's from a different time, but what was the odd jobs were you you were doing to re-fund?

Oh, I had lots of interesting jobs along the way, like most writers. I've had to make my bacon in other ways for the most part. And Yeah. the post office driving. I did by contract, so I was not paid well, like a real posty, but I drove straight nights, and it was it was from midnight till 8, I would drive all the way to London, Ontario, and back, which is about a 2, 2 and a half hour drive there and back, and then I would have a 3 or 4 station stop in one direction and 3 or 4 station stop in another direction. It was, it was a a good way to to, how could I describe it? Find my, you know, make enough money to to pay rent and whatnot, but to to, what was I needing to do? I was, needing at that point in my life to console myself, as much as anything, with a bit of the normal, because I've been such a you know, meditator slash psychedelic, you know, shamanic, you know, singer songwriter guy. I had transgressed, you know, various norms that aren't the ones that you get rewarded for.

Basically, I actually did a little jail time, you know it just prior to my post office driving experiences. And that was, you know, basically because I felt sharing pot with my friends was a was almost a duty, you know. I I really felt like they needed, you know, those that didn't already have their own supply, you know the benefit of my, you know, assiduous research in these subjects. So I I felt like I needed to to share the very best I could find with a fairly close circle of friends. It's not like I was a a big dude. I I've I've resented you know having to go to jail as a teenager, you know, for most of my life because of course it colored, you know the experience of my adult life. There were things that I didn't apply to do, because because I had, you know, every reason to believe I would not have been accepted in that, you know, just having a criminal record of any sort, however paltry. In my in my case I felt it was, you know, a fairly small deal. But you know, a criminal record is a criminal record. There are things that you cannot apply to do and you can't you know, visit certain places.

In any case, Yeah. Having spent 2 long months in jail, you know, I I came out, I moved into my friend Marty's place, we got a band together, I was driving a truck for the post office, I was a citizen again.That's what I meant by consoling myself, I was finding a you know a little place for myself that that made sense.

I'm I'm glad you mentioned that, I think for sure that I'm thinking I was thinking about bureaucracies already when you talked about traveling for so long because that's one of the things that you have to deal with, and I'm assuming you had 2 passports, the UK and the Canadian one. But I'm I'm sure you had to deal with your share of bureaucracies traveling as well, but it's interesting to know that it had to do with them as a at home with with the record and applying for jobs. So I mean, I wonder if you want to just talk a little bit about bureaucracies, and that's a topic that I'm passionate about, but I'm sure you had your share.

Oh, fed up with it most of my life. Still not very well reconciled with bureaucracy. I've actually written a novel fairly recently that, in which I I, characterize/name the the the, governing body of half of the world, the Western half, which I call "Nation" is governed by bureaucracy. It it's it's unseated (unceded?) democracy as a as a prevalent form of governance. And, yeah, it's it's it's it's not all Orwellian or anything, but yeah, back in the day, I can I could honestly say most of my travel had to do with escaping the bureaucracy here at home, and and and the limitations it was placing on my on my freedom.

Yeah, I didn't hear that that much abroad I I I because my my traveling was traveling proper. It was not, you know, going and getting a job, and settling down and and learning a language, and staying in one place for very long. I did a bit of that later in in in between degrees, actually, I spent a year in Paris, that was great, and you know. But the most of my travel was literally moving from place to place continually on a, you know, maybe bi-weekly basis for the better part of the year and thereby usually crossing a few borders in in a in a given trip. And, yeah I didn't experience a lot of problem, nothing to comPare with the hassles that I would experience coming home to Canada.

Thank you, I was curious, because, like a borders depending on the backend(?) we're talking about in the types of borders you're talking about, it is very different. right? But I just wanted to see how was the connection? Yeah, in the time.

Less less of an issue maybe than it is now. I I couldn't say with with authority, but certainly if you didn't try to stay and work in a in a country. Yeah, I didn't really experience any bureaucratic snarls myself.

Excellent, and and depending on the passport you have, it can affect one way or another, of course, and it changes from country to country to change from passport to passport it doesn't matter, so yeah. But I know that we are doing all the going through the world, and I know soon we're gonna arrive in Montreal, so I wonder if there's any transition before we move into what brought you to Montreal, if there's any other questions about this period of life that we've forgot to ask.

Yeah, I don't know about questions that are missing, but I can describe the actual transition, and that was the product that, I had come home from India, that zenith of my travel, you know, my 10 years travel. And I literally watched people run from place to place in their busy lives, for the better part of a year. I had a landscaping job that that I'd go to and whatnot, but I really I felt as though I were standing in one place for 6 months, watching people zoom past in various directions with their with their crazy, busy lives. India, I suppose, you know, did that to me, but I think perhaps I had just, you know, arrived at that point somewhat naturally. I needed to soak in what was going on around me and do a lot less emoting, a a lot less expressing. So I I didn't you know hole hole up in a in a room, and not go anywhere, but I did have that sensation of being very much outside of the the mainstream, which I kind of always was outside the mainstream, but outside of all the streams. I was just very remote from from what was going on in south central Ontario, and Canada in general maybe at that moment.

Now, after 6 months of that, it was funny because i'd i'd been renting a a room in a house that usually rented to McMaster University students. I'd just gone down, gotten an advertisement off the student housing board, and there was a sPare room. There was a young woman in my hometown that needed a place to stay. I told her about the sPare room. We had a little bit of a relationship that summer, at the end of which she was off to school. And it was literally, her, you know, determination to go off to university that made me go, "Oh, yeah, I always thought i'd go to university. I guess I missed that step." And yeah, I really scrambled. It was probably not more than 2 or 3 weeks between the moment I realized, "Hey, I should be doing some university work now before, you know, it's too late," and the day that I I got on the highway hitched at Montreal, and started that Concordia.

Wow, so that the application must have been an intense process, and like a a a a I mean it's yeah.

It really wasn't. I enlisted the the the help of, you know, a couple of people. I knew a school teacher. She encouraged me to no end you know all "you're up you're a you're a natural you've got to go, your life won't be complete until you do" type of thing. And then a couple other people, more recent graduates from university programs, i'd ask you about their experiences, and and yeah, I did I didn't have any any way to to gauge it other than other people's experience so, I just asked, you know, like "I wanna write," you know, "where should I go?" and, you know, if i'd have been in the US. I probably would have said the, you know, the the writers workshop in in Iowa, or something you know, but I think at the time there were only 3 genuine writing programs in Canada. There's Windsor and and UBC and Concordia I think were the only 3 full programs.

So I chose Concordia because it was in Montreal, and that was as close to being out of Canada as you can get without leaving the country. And of course I had, I developed a a endless, you know, appetite for for travel abroad and other cultures. So Montreal was a was a natural and yeah i'd i'd

Do do you remember like first impressions of arriving at Concordia? I'm sure you had visited before to to play or to to visit.

You know what, I hate to admit it, but I don't think i'd ever be to Montreal before I arrived go to school there.

So must have been have quite a transition, quite a shock, I would say.

It was wild. I literally, you know, like it was 2 or 3 weeks, you know, getting ready, you know, having a little bit of help from my school teacher friend, you know, to to fill out the applications and and figure out OSAP versus Quebec loans and bursaries, and whatnot. I didn't yeah, I didn't realize how easy it would be financially at first. I mean, I think I paid 600 bucks a year for tuition you know, my first year there. It doubled the next year and went up to like 1,600, I think, for my third year. But yeah, because of the the tuition freeze in Quebec until that 1989 moment. I think, yeah, I I benefited. I got in just in time for a couple of cheap years, you know, for tuition.

But yeah, no, I hitchhiked there, I got in what much later than I'd hoped, so there was no, you know nobody waiting for me, no, you know real place to stay. So I can remember this little hotel down the bottom of Saint Denis, where the guy told me, you know there was no rooms, and then watched me out of the corner of his eye for the next 15, 20 minutes as I was probably not crying in my soup, but, you know, obviously, reflecting on what I should do before he he felt pity, gave me a room that he probably used himself, you know, to to sleep in the middle of his night auditor's you know, shift. He probably got the chance to grab a few winks from time to time, so he probably had this room set aside. In any case. I spent my first night in Montreal, you know, free hotel room in this little place, this little dive. And the next day I went to, you know, Concordia, the the the people in, what do they call it? Not adult studies, second. What was I again?

Continuing? Continuing ed, or?

Continuing ed, no, yeah, yeah, no, not continuing ed. I did a workshop actually, I skipped that, it was in McMaster I did an actual writing workshop in their continuing education program. But in any case, yeah, I was a I was a mature student. So, that mature students lounge and and counseling services were amazing, and I I made sure to thank them in my my, my, in my various you know, stages working my way through both BA and MA programs. In any case, yeah, they were really good, they they they got me all reassured that I could do this, even though it was, you know, very late date. And yeah, it all kind of fell into place from there, you know. I had a painter friend who had a friend, that you had apartment way out of the east end of the city, which was dirt cheap, that I could, you know just waltz into and get underway.

It's very much the kind of eternal Montreal tradition of someone having a friend who has a friend who ahs a friend who has a has a room that you can crash in. So it's it's funny to hear like this kind of yeah, yeah, this kind of like triple education of like, you know, going back to school but also getting used to a new city, and then also trying to figure out exactly where you are, and let's say, like you know, where you fall into what kinds of people you want to be around like, how your self is changing and I mean, obviously they're kind of 2 parts to this Concordia story there's the BA and then there's coming back to do your grad degree. But you know, in at least in the early stages, did you find that you were also trying to get to know the reading scene in the poetry scene here, and Montreal, or did that come later when you were a creative writing student?

Oh, no, no, I was going to readings right from the get go.

Off to the races.

Pardon me?

Oh, you're off to the races.

Yeah, you know, like I had, there's so many of my early experiences at Concordia were indelible. I I hardly know you know what to choose to talk about. But, yeah the the readings were a were a staple. I I started going immediately. and yeah. Years later, when I when I was inspired to to start Enough Said, it was virtually a response to "Oh, yeah, I was so excited about the readings when I, you know, first arrived and I was a first-year student, and I've gotten you know progressively more jaded because they're all readings they're all, you know, from the lectern, from books, you know no animation no, no, you know no life" in my my, my very naive you know. take on it. I just felt like the time had come you know this, we gotta we gotta do something for the streets, you know. We gotta take the poetry out of the out of the library stacks and and and, you know, get it down to a street level, and that that's gotta mean, you know, involving a lot wider variety of people in a lot wider variety of disciplines, and you know I drew the line at---Uh oh, see you later. Faith. Oh there, she's back.

Oh, bear with me I just, my my internet's acting up, so if I just appear for a second, I'm probably switching to something more steady. Keep going I'm hearing you though.

Okay, yeah. So I had. I had drawn the line at singer songwriters and stand up comedians. I just felt those were just a little too far outside of the literary tradition to to qualify. So, although I I wanted to use music as much as any other staging and costuming and dramatic types of of manifestations that the that the text could could take I didn't want it to devolve into, you know, a a a whatever, a a a folky, you know, strum along type of thing, or a or a you know a stand up, you know, comic type of experience. So those were the 2 extremes I decided to exclude, but I, outside of that I really wanted to be as inclusive as I could, and I was, I think I think that's basically what was at the heart of Enough Said. Had it been just another reading series, I don't think we would be talking to each other just now.

Oh, I'm, that's fantastic because I feel like one of the questions we had in terms of inspiration for the series was, I'm sure there's something that there's an ideal that moves you, and you mentioned creating community taking poetry to back to the streets in a way, but also as a reaction to other series, perhaps. I wonder when you've got there, did you get to see a little bit of the oh did you get the end of the Ultimatum festivals which were involved in the punk scene?

Ultimatum doesn't, Ultimatum doesn't ring a bell. The Urban Wanderers Literary Reading Series. Endre Farkas was was one of the the the people that---

And Farkas was part of Ultimatum as well.

Okay, organized it. Yeah, you know like I'm I'm aware I thought I was aware of a more punk-oriented scene in the seventies that would have included, maybe the Clifford Duffy and and and Fortner Anderson and Ian Ferrier, people like that. That was before my time, before I even moved to the city, but I know I've I've I've heard stories about you know, individual, you know, performances. Maybe there was no actual series per se that featured spoken word performance. But yeah, I I rode on the coattails of the Urban Wanderers' popularity. So I would give props to that that particular series, because they had established the the the venue at 4040 St. Laurent. Oh, God, my---

Bistro Quatre.

Okay, thank you. I was gonna say the sieve of my memory is not serving well today. But yeah, the Bistro Quatre had had had been a a stalwart, I guess, in that in that they had a regular Monday night series, and there was a guy named Daniel that ran the place as a he managed the the venue, or the Bistro Quatre, and I just went out to them the the last night. Urban Wanderers, they announced it would be their final night, and I went up to Daniel I said, "Come on you know you don't want to give up this 100 people, you know, on occasion 50 on a regular, you know, basis every Monday night, how about giving me a shot and i'll guarantee you know we'll do at least this well," and he said sure it's all yours go for it.

And yeah, I had bill bissett and Adeena Karasick and a few other people on tap and and you know, within weeks I had them, you know, through Canada Council grants, and what not coming from from outside of the city, at the same time as i'd already done, you know, my little stick at the at the beginning, and and i'd gotten Todd Swift and and a few other people that were already comfortable behind the microphone, and and prePared to to you know do feature spots. And then, yeah, I just figured between them and and running an open mic, I would be I would be off and running. And yeah, before long the flood gates were open. I I was getting lots of people from lots of different places. And yeah, there was a bit of curating involved, because there was a lot of stuff that you know you would you'd love to be, and entirely inclusive, but you know, you're gonna get a lot of---oh, whatever.

Well, Lee, this this is fantastic, Lee, and we have questions about curation, we have questions about financing we're gonna get to ask. Before it's completely transitioned into Enough Said, I'm just curious about French. Like as soon as you've got to Montreal like, what was the was it a shock? Did you know it, did you learn it on the go, because because sometimes I mean it's it's a bilingual series to some degree, right? You have a lot, some, a lot of authors are bilingual. So just just like to mention that.

But yeah, I definitely would have loved it to be a thorough going bilingual series, I think I did my best and and I don't feel it was nearly as strong on the on the French side as it could have been. And I was happy when what's her name, Mitsu? No, and that was the---

Mitsiko, Mitsiko.

Thank you. I was so happy when she started up La vache enragee because, yeah she really filled in that to that lack and---

But your relationship to French, did you know French before?

Moi, je parle francais, mais non, je suis pas tout en fait bilingue, but I can I can make out, and I can basically because I've always loved the language, I've always considered it la belle langue, and that, you know, I didn't know more than what was required in high school and had some speaking French abroad, you know, trial-by-fire type of experiences so behind me already when I arrived in Montreal, so I was no by no means be a bilingual then. And and now that many years have passed, I I'm not sure I could claim to be altogether bilingual anymore. It comes back very rapidly, if I have myself in a in a setting, you know, for a couple weeks there, where French is the is the predominant language I could speak quite well, and I can carry on conversations in rooms with several different people, which is very difficult for me to do at the moment. But, I made sure, and had a a French course in each semester of my first year at Concordia, and I made sure all my girlfriends were on the Quebecoise side of town. That was that that was my route to French immersion.

Sometimes. Creative Commons has its pluses and minuses. But we'll talk about rights stuff, yeah, another time, once we get everything processed, that's when we'll launch the permissions emails and contacts and stuff like that.

Wouldn't be the first.

No, exactly. I would say, yeah.

Tried and true.

Yeah, I feel like I I have a theory that you have to fall in love into, with something to learn a language. Whether it's a person, a city, or a writer that's the only 3 ways or, I guess if you're hungry there's the fourth way, if you're hungry. you'll learn any language. But besides that, you gotta fall in love. But, Faith, and you have some very interesting questions about the curation and and fi- finances. I want to maybe start at finances?

Oh I actually I had something to (?) with that, though.

Faith, do you, can you---

Oh, I'm so sorry.

That's all right. Can you think about it for just a second, .

Yeah, of course.

Got an unruly pet that needs feeding.

Oh, I understand that.

He'll just make a nuisance of himself, until he gets---

Take your time

It's going great, guys.

[In the distance] There we go.

It'd be nice to hear about some more of the first readings that he attended, I think.

Yeah, that's that's exactly what I was going to ask. Oh, all good? Okay, fab!(?) and I I think one thing that I want to ask, too was like Jason also prompted us as well was---

You, you froze, sorry. Do you want me to open my microphone?

Am I back?

You're back.

Okay, I'm so sorry it's I don't really know what's going on with my laptop. I might have to disappear to---

We could transfer you to here to to a microphone if you stops again. But go ahead, I think it's working now.

Well let me just ask my question first, and then I'll do some behind the scenes work. But like what was like a typical essentially like, couple of weeks or month of like readings like essentially. Do you remember some of those like readings that you were like first starting to meet people like for story(?) an encounter like the Swift Lazar guys, for example, like Todd Swift and Tom Walsh

[Lee Gotham begins to speak, Faith troubleshoots tech issues then continues asking the question.]

Yeah. What was that, what was that scene like? What were memorable moments of that scene?

No, you are totally audible just trying to transfer the headphone of Faith to here. Give me one second because they're gonna switch the hook up. We have 2 headphones now. Can I, let me get this one? And I I I made note of where you were. Let me see this we're gonna look much more professional now. One sec. Let's see this is the end. Let's try say something, both of you. Let see.

I'm still here.

Not yet. Links (?) too loud.

I can only see half of Faith's face.

I don't think it's going to affect. I'm switching to the M90, this is the M90. This is the links, and I might have to turn off the links off. We have a lot of options here, let's try now. Oh, I have to switch on Zoom. One more second, because now Zoom has the preferences as well. Audio, internal headphones, M90. Now should work, let's try again.

I could hear both of you.

[Various utterances as tech problems are fixed and the interview resumes.]

Todd, you know, he he had a very cheap little place in in in, God, my memory again. The little place, I I was right beneath Atwater Market, and so technically still part of that neighborhood but under the freeway, in fact, on Selby. It's the only little street I think, that survived. There was only 2 houses, I think, and I got a place in one of them. But he was a little further down, not Irish channel that's that's New Orleans. What the hell is the name of that Irish neighborhood that he lived in. In any---

Pointe St. Charles?

Not quite that far.

St. Henri?

Henri, he was down in St. Henri. In any case, yeah, we we we just became drinking buddies, and yeah, he had he was one of those guys that just exuded poetry, you know. He he was obviously so. so well read so much earlier in life than myself that I, you know, I I kind of went. "Oh, now Todd has got to be a friend, you know. He might be a difficult one, but he's gonna be a friend," and for sure we became fast friends, and I think he would he would still refer to be me as much, as well, even though we have, you know, completely different styles, I I guess we had no end of of mutual enjoyment, in not only each other's company, but in the in the places and people that we that we frequented together.

So, yeah, I don't know you know there were they were really just a a mishmash of of individual events. It was no series per se that I can recall, at least you know that I could immerse myself in. No, it was really the lack of one that that sort of inspired me to to put together Enough Said.

Urban Wanders was at Bistro Quatre and you mentioned Yellow Door and like maybe maybe it's like what's Reggie's, now, or something like, you know. But on the in the Hall building. Are there any other? Any other venues?

The Stornaway?

Oh, Stornaway

Yeah, that was a good one. There were a number of loft spaces, you know, that didn't have names. Yeah, I I can't think now of any other specifically literary performance sort of venues now.

Jason, you edited with Todd before, you you did a several projects with Todd as well right, Jason.

Well I knew Todd as a student, too. So I think the way Lee characterized his friendship with Todd is matches mine exactly including the not necessarily an easy friend, but, (?) each other's company for sure. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean it was it was just fantastic that Todd could pick up, you know, that Mr. Brown could pick up and Mitsiko all picked up. All all right on the heels of of Enough Said, and overnight we had, you know, a huge scene, you know, it was wasn't just my little Monday night gathering. It was, you know, really something that was obviously going to last, and something that was always going to involve, you know hundreds of people

Can I just record those names so I know Mitsiko is Mitsiko Miller correct and Mitsiko, because Mitsiko appeared in in one of the Enough Said series, we have a recording.

I had all these people in.

Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, Mitsiko, so the name of the series that Mitsiko started. What was the name of it again?

La vache enragee.

Perfect, and the other in the other series you mentioned?

Jake Brown ran something he called Yawp. "Y-A-W-P." Oh, yeah, it was a that was a very well attended, very animated, often risque series. He he was probably the the biggest grinder, you know. He he did the promotion like nobody's business. And he enlisted, you know a lot of young people to help, but yeah, he had a real knack for it. I think one of the time last times I ever read on stage it was for Jake at at that beautiful concert venue. What was that called? It was an old---

Is it Club Soda now? Or was it somewhere else?

No, old place with a great big 360 balcony that ran around it. Oh, God, the bottom down the bottom of St. Denis.

Metropolis, maybe which it, what? Okay.

Close, though, as far as the look of the venue, and not quite that large, much older.

You remember the period, maybe for Jake Jake's series?

Oh, his came up within a year or 2 of my finishing.

So like '96.

96, '97, yeah.

I think Todd started his first, after mine and then Jake, and they ran concurrently, and then Mitsiko got enragee going.

So that's great to have a timeline in a in in our minds with this because yeah, no, and if you have I mean we should have asked this I'm, sure, we will ask you as a follow-up as well, if you have materials, I'm sure you might have posters or documents from, and not only of Enough Said but some of this other series.

Oh, yes!

We want it, we want to scan all of that.

Yeah, I don't have nearly I mean I do have stuff that I can't, somehow I just can't dig it up, you know my archives are not well organized. But I've got a few things set aside that I would definitely feel fine just. I'd like to hang on to a couple of them the, I put a lot of effort into that one I just showed you, that was one of the few that I that I actually felt like "Hey, I really nailed it there, that was a that was a piece of art."

And you actually did you and you made all the posters yourself? Did you enlist other folks? Wow.

No, Yawp, Jake, he got Billy Madreas, the cartoonist, to to to do most of his posters.

We actually have a full set of the Yawp posters in the lab, guys.

[Excited exclamations of "wow!" and "what!"]

It's an acquired taste, you know, aesthetically it's not my style but, but Billy definitely churned them out, man. They they had a different poster for every gig, and they were all one-of-a-kind, and all very ornate, very elaborate things. Oh, God, if I could show you the first, you know Enough Said poster and now you would laugh because it was it was created as a piece of concrete poetry. I guess you'd call it matrix printer and it just said "spoken word spoken word" you you know it didn't start with "spoken" it started with "word" probably or something and and it all kind of just filled a sphere. So I had a sphere of spoken word and that was it, didn't even have the name for it at the time. Enough Said came a lot---

But if you do have, even if you don't a a, I mean the decision to donate to not donate documents to to Concordia, and it's a different decision, but regardless of that, if you would like to scan those things and send to us, we'd love to to add it somehow.

(?) find everything that's worthy of note and and i'll definitely do that.

(?) because we can add to the tapes when we deposit them on Swallow as illustration as related materials, to give a full set of (?). And the posters are so precious, just so precious

Absolutely. I mean, yeah. I mean on that note, too, like knowing that you were all this kind of like, extra like elbow grease I guess you were putting into this series way beyond, just like what happens on the night like, you know. What was the when we were we're gonna come back to some of the finance things that you were talking a little bit about, and some of the coordination you would do with other folks, but like, especially because this is a week to week event, which I feel like at this point, as someone who organizes poetry readings monthly, that's already like up to my ears. I can only imagine the kind of regularity like you know. What was that like, day, or that daily kind of coordination, like getting, you know, things together, prepping for the week? You know, what was on your to-do list, typically, when you were getting ready for for Monday night? Like, who did you have to contact, those kinds of details? And also what were you balancing at the same time? I imagine school was some of that, working, perhaps, yeah.

I wish I could, you know. I wish I could. Paint a a good detailed picture of, you know, the those concerns, I'm having trouble as you're asking those questions.

It was a blur, I know.

It was a blur, and and I'm not even sure I was in school at the time, I thought it might have taken place between my degrees. It couldn't have entirely because, I went away for a year. I was in Paris for a year, so it would have been 95, I guess I spent in Paris, probably '95, '96 I I would have begun Enough Said, I think. And then I really I was just, I was just pulling, pulling in favors and and and and and following up, you know, strings of of communication and and community. I think the the actual effort of yeah, going up and down the main postering, you know, was was a was a fair bit of time involved in that, I guess. But all the all the hours I spent on the phone talking to, you know poets in different parts of the country and and setting up, you know, gigs for them to come to as well as all of the, just being on the scene, being out in in the in the community, is is what I, that's what would qualify as as my my methodology. I I just went from from place to place, and and met as many people as I could, writing in both languages, interested in in in live performance, I didn't have an office or anything like you know, an assistant. But I did have a couple of people that helped at the door.

And I did start, I think it was midway through, I think, when when I realized, "Hey, this is really subsuming me," taking all my, you know, time in there. I did start charging a buck, a night at the door (?) a dollar admission from about halfway through the series. And yeah, sometimes that went straight to you know, a visiting artist, and sometimes it went straight to postering and and, you know, it never amounted to more than like 50 bucks on a week, but you know it was something just to offset to, you know, efforts and expenses.

Yeah, I didn't really have a a like I go to, you know, list of things that I had to do on a weekly basis. I'm sure I ticked, you know, as many of the necessary boxes as I could, and I heard about it if i'd overlooked somebody, you know, probably within a week or 2, you know, I would have them up on this stage.

Because there was some, I'm sure there's some logistics are more complicated when you brought, for example, Clifton Joseph to, from, when and or "It came from the 401" and you brought the folks from Toronto over, so I'm sure there was some some logic or slightly more complicated. Did you get any partnerships to help with---

You know how enthusiastic poets are to be read and heard, you know, it doesn't take much to get it done, you know, honestly, couple of phone calls, and Clifton was my bud, you know. We had a very, you know, instantaneous rapport, we still do to this day. And yeah, it was not easy, er, it was not hard to convince him to come. I mean he wanted to be paid. He was one of the, he was one of the the guys that was convinced that you know what we do is as important as any other creative artist's work. Yeah, so he he made sure that I got on the on the Canada Council, and and you know that got the the travel grant for him.

Yeah, aside from having to do that, for, you know I did that for bill bissett and for Adeena Karasick and, you know, there there are people that you know we we wanted to to include because they were such exemplars, you know, they they just did things, you know, on a on a professional and creative level that set them apart. I had to include them, and and then there were, you know, just like, the tit for tat, you know. Jill Batson, who organized so much great work in in Toronto, was a natural, you know. I didn't know Jill personally, but I knew what she was up to just through the grapevine, and it was it was no trouble at all, you know, to to to get on the phone or introduce myself and and and suggest maybe we should do you know something at either end of the highway, you know, bring her crew down and and take mine in her direction.

I have one more question, because we also have a couple of surprises that we planned in advance. But I, there were a couple of folks in the, and I think there will be a whole, you know, we're hoping at some point we can send a few faces of people that we haven't been able to identify to you, as well as to folks like Ian Ferrier, who know the scene well. But because you often will see some of these people, even like weekly at these open mics, and identifying some of those faces will be really great. But there were a few people, though, that we do know that we were interested, especially in the local scene. We're hearing more about. For example, I think one of the recurring presences throughout the series is the Fluffy Pagan Echoes, for example. Yeah, Justin McGrail, Victoria Stanton, Vincent Tinguely, oh, I'm forgetting the 2 other guys, [Lee Gotham offers names] Scott Duncan, yep. and another fellow, who, Ran, yes.

Oh, Jason's, yes! Actually I might have to borrow that from you, Jason, I've been looking for that.

And I'm thinking about, let me see if I find it here, that was when. Oh my God, there was, yes, Jill Battson, Nancy Dembovski, Stan Rogal, and Michael Connor, and and I love the way---

My kind of press, right? So he was a shoe-in.

Yeah yeah, No, he added everything. everything. And Jill Battson, I love the way you introduced Jill, like as I'm going to find it in a second, like, the the what is it?

I'd almost forgot about the Ted's Garage gig.

No, it's so it's so good. And then oh, yes, so "Jill's now working on going from High Priestess to Poetry Goddess status in 1995." And then, and then Jill comes in "When I become Goddess I'm gonna be Madonna of poetry."

That's what I mean.

Yeah, so it's. But yeah, no this is great, this is good.

And just because also, I think, too, coming from the spoke, like we, we both come from spoken word backgrounds, or you know, experience with spoken word and and different capacities like, you know. Slam will still have, for example, you know, performance collectives and or you know doing performances together. But it's not super common anymore, necessarily, to have like a kind of more formalized spoken word collective. And it's been really great to see a kind of work like through the series. So just wondering like what your personal experience with the members of Fluffy Pagan Echoes was like growing up next, or with them as artists.

The Echoes were special because, unlike everyone else, they had a group, and they had a venue. Prior to Enough Said, there was a little restaurant right across the street on the second storey of a building up above, Schwartz's, I think, called the Phoenix, the Phoenix Cafe, and it was an extraordinary place. I mean, it was so rootsy it was ridiculous you could smell it in the air when you walked up the stairs before he even opened the door. The place, and I'm not talking about pot, I'm talking about, it's genuine you know, grassroots. They were they were freedom fighters the guys that ran that place, I didn't know any of them personally that all of the echoes would have known the much better than I did. But they had, yeah, they had done their thing, their Fluffy Pagan Echoes performance art at that place at least a couple 3 times before I had approached them to to, you know, to do one of the first nights of of Enough Said. They were one of my first feature artists, as I recall.

Yeah. Great people passionate about what they were doing, really well organized. I know Scott's girlfriend of the time helped him organize something prior to Blue Montreal. I think, or the Blue Hotel. Jason, help me out here there was a---

[Both suggesting the Blue Metropolis festival.]

Blue Metropolis, was it Scott and and Jasmine that did that, or what they did was prior to that, I think.

I think that was prior to that. I think it was Linda Leith actually, who was one of the founders.

Who did the Blue Metropolis, yeah. Well they did something else, very large scale. They pulled down a bunch of funding from some government body, and they, yeah, they did a big thing. It was it was sort of a one of those "Oh, here we could take it to the next level," as far as establishment goes, and that Blue Metropolis would have been another example a little later on. I remember going to that and hearing hearing yourself and and Todd there. In any case.

And if you remember, and if you remember, so like in like the middle of the night, should, shoot us an email with the day because, like

What am I trying to remember?

If you remember the name of this other festival that Scott's girlfriend helped organize but you don't have to, anything, anything, anything you want to add later, and we hope to have more than one interview. It's impossible to cover everything. We haven't even asked you about provenance of the archive so far. You mentioned Drew, the record---

Drew Duncan.

I'm a huge digressor. So you guys are gonna have

You are giving us everything that we want.

We have no agenda, we have no agenda. We've had some some questions, but we are going with you right there. Yeah, I I am aware of your time

Should we do videos?

So, I wonder like because, Jason, I wonder if there's any specific questions about provenance that you want to ask before moving to videos.

No, well, really, the only thing is, if you wanted to say a word about why you decided to record the series in the first place, because not all of them were recorded right? Why you chose to do it with video, maybe that's obvious, but i'd love to hear that. And what you imagined like might happen with those videos afterwards.

Yeah, it's an interesting aspect of the project because I honestly, I I got on the phone to Drew Duncan just the day before yesterday I think, because I knew this was coming up and I wanted to just let him know what I was doing that, I you know you know, begun the process of having you, the all the materials archived and whatnot through your auspices there, and that he should feel free to to have some input. We immediately had a long, you know, conversation that had nothing to do with Enough Said. Just got ourselves caught up together. But honestly, you know, either I asked him or he suggested, you know he could do it, and it's as simple as that. Yeah, he was there religiously, I think he probably, didn't miss a night, you know, in in the, in the right, in the sweet spot in the in the central, you know, weeks of that series before I started doing events off location in in various other places. And and Todd began doing his with his thing called again Jason?

Vox Hunt?

Yeah, in that in that period, after I had done Enough Said for about a year solid, there was a short period where I began doing events in various other venues, different sorts of events. And and, yeah, it was right around that time that Todd started up Vox Hunt because there was nothing else going on on a regular basis, so he got that going, and yeah, the rest of his history as they say, but also i'll try to fill in as many gaps as I can. But again, I I honestly, you know, I can't remember if Drew suggested he could do it, or if I just straight up asked him. He must have been there with a camera, or just asked, I think he just asked, "Hey, you know I got a little mini cam, you know, do you want me to come in and record all this on Super 8?" And I said, "Yeah, let's do it,"

So this was one year into the series, just trying to get---

No, right in the beginning. Yeah. he came at the, he came to the first ones. I guess I'm gonna have to have another call, or I can I can suggest he get in touch with you guys.

We'd love to chat with him.

Okay I will, he's a great he's a font of of information, generally speaking. He had a a a regular show on on the on the on campus radio, where he did jazz, for the most part. He knew my brother before before we actually met, very well, through his, through his oeuvre, through all his music. And yeah, he he was a bit of an archivist himself, you know, he's got a huge collection of of stuff at in his apartment, I remember walls of vinyl and walls of tapes and everything. He was a real good collector.

Wow, and then like can't underestimate, too, especially from our working with Ian Ferrier, like the importance of campus radio at this time also, for like linking up with people and, yeah, cultivating shared interest, spreading that kind of stuff and having like a sense of like local community before I guess like, the way that's the Internet works in that kind of similar way for us now. And yeah, and and it's it will be fantastic if we could we could talk to to Drew because of that archival impulse he seems to very clearly have from the the videos, so now that you're describing to us, that's really amazing.

No, Drew didn't, I I remember this was several, many years later. I I was worried about the integrity of the VHS format and losing stuff just through tape degradation, and. I'm gonna have to think. I'm gonna have to try and remember now exactly how i'd, I think I did it myself. I think I did it at home in Toronto. We had moved to Toronto from San Francisco, my wife and I, and I think it was then that I realized, "Oh, shit, these things shouldn't be traveling and being stored in, you know, variously unprotected circumstances any longer" and that I should, yeah, at least get them on to to if, yeah, another tape format at first, was the answer that went to VHS.

Yeah, and then we digitized them. I mean, if you did them yourself, the thing about, that I learned from different media formats and archiving them is that, video, like if you did it yourself by just hooking up a video, you know, machine a a camera to your VHS machine, like, it would be pretty much the same as sending it out to be done professionally, like there's there's really not much loss. So it's it's only the digitization part that was important to get done professionally, but like---

I definitely didn't, yeah, I definitely didn't send them anywhere and pay money to get it done.

Does the original tapes still exist? The the Super 8, or the the Mini DV? Do you know? You might as well ask.

I don't think so.

When we talked last, you sounded more sure that they didn't, but.

But but where would they go? This is the trouble.

Maybe Drew does have them, who knows.

I got this blank space.

Just in case, just might as well, because I mean, i'll be curious. and the reason why it's not necessarily because of quality, because I mean we'll have what we have. The question is, I'm curious about the first organization of those tapes, because now now we have sometimes 5 events in one tape, and I wonder if how that decision was made.

Oh, I'm pretty sure I tried to stick to the chronology of the event. Yeah, I don't think I, yeah, there's nothing just sort of thrown in there randomly. God damn it, you know, maybe I've got all those Mini DV tapes still. Not Mini DV but---

Super 8 sorry.

It's a process, and like part of it is just like sometimes you come across something that you didn't realize you had, or maybe you're like, "I'm pretty sure have it," and you're like "Nope that's gone," like it's lost to history.

Well, i'll just say, Lee

[Begins speaking.]

Oh, well, sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you, but like we will be moving towards establishing like a Lee, Lee Gotham fonds in the special collections at Concordia where we're going to deposit the actual tapes, and they're gonna also have all preservation copies of the digitization digitizations, but it'll be open for you if you ever want to add things to it. It's just a cool place for you to know like they'll keep it in perpetuity, so they'll hold these things forever.

And that's what i'd hoped, you know, that's amazing.

And and documents and posters and other things, not necessarily all the video, but (?) supplement (?), maybe on like, maybe you have the notes of bill bissett from the day, whatever you want to like, make a copy and deposit somewhere so that could be, for example.

That's the reason we have all those Yawp posters is because Billy, Billy has been starting to deposit all of his posters and stuff that relate to the scenes, you know, so they're really like the it's a cool, yeah, collection.

It's great that they're growing around the same time. Yeah, shall we show show like some snippets? Some final goodies that we have?

And this is just a a first, like we we have 4 little, very short keeps that just wanna show we don't even have to go for all of them. But just where I'm sure you're curious. And the way we set up, we have like a hard drive, where we have a few copies where we put internally for Faith, Jason and I online, just for Concordia, so we have to do a few things to be able to open up outside of Concordia for you to take a look at the videos, and we'll do soon. But for now a a I just we just wanna share our screen with you and show you a a few clips,

Just to get your reaction to like, sheerly just like the "Oh, wow!" moment of---

Oh, yeah. So hold on. let me stop share and do it again. Yeah, let me yeah, share sound. I wonder, why didn't they make this automatic just like I always want to share sound. But okay, thanks, Jason, for that. Oh, No don't make me do that. Jason? You might---

Don't forget to share computer sound as well.

Just a really last technical provenance question, because we know that the the Super 8 videos were then transferred, right, to VHS. So if we, cause we do include sort of technical information on the actual material artifact so, any information you could tell us about that media migration and sort of yeah, when that happened, and who did it? Did Drew transfer them, or it was someone else?

You might have to do it, Jason.

Or, or, I didnt, Jason, it's actually asking us for the admin password of here to be able to share his own device, but I don't know if it's the Zoom admin, or it is the computer admin.

I think the computer admin is asking.

Oh, I can just pop over I'll be there in a sec, yeah?

Thank you, perfect, perfect.

So, of course this happens with Zoom, but in the meantime I will share the the screen with you so you can, can you see, Lee? Yourself?

Yeah.

Okay, so let me. kay.

So before audio, at least you get to, see your hat.

Yeah, I can see your hat, as I mentioned. So if I play you're not gonna be able to hear right now but, I don't think you would be able to hear right?

I cannot.

Okay, that's okay, Jason's coming to rescue us in a second but at least you can see this is the very first---

Sam!

---recording we have.

Yeah, that's Sam Shalabi.

Yeah.

And and also I feel like you didn't even have set up this stage yet. I feel like it's one of the first, trying to still figure out how to use this space, and then later (?) Jason is here Well, what, I'll just stop share, Jason share again, because what they say is this. Share sound and then it asked me for this. Let me see if this works.

It is so funny to see how Sam Shalabi manages just to be in every single scene.

How do I get to the password?

Oh, sorry. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I had the mouse on me. Let's see if this is gonna work. Perfect.

Yay!

Do you want us to take the head? Do you want to go back there or stay here?

No, I'll just go back.

Is it okay if we start playing?

Yeah yeah, please start.

Can you hear that Lee?

Um.

Can you hear now, Lee?

Let me see. I'll try, let me see this, maybe it's just too low, your screen share. Let me see, one second.

I'm doing a lot of introducing, but.

But yeah, it's too bad that it's not playing. Should I try again? Do you think this is gonna get saved?

Yes, it will.

Okay.

So maybe try one more time.

I'll try one more time, because and stop and stop.

Also, if we have to turn this off.

Yeah, because we have this set up with the headphones, so Jason we're trying again. Let's see. Okay, share sound, I don't know.

Maybe dropdown, here? (?)

I'll just do whatever it gives us, let's try one more time.

Maybe crank it.

[Recording plays of Lee Gotham addressing audience at the 1994-12-19 Gotham Diamond edition of Enough Said.]

Yes!

Yes! Yay! Great!

Because we don't want to make too loud, otherwise we are going to suffer here.

So this was just before, I think, the the holidays, cause you do a little bit of a a kind of "Merry Christmas happy holidays" to folks at the end, and you're talking, you talk a little bit about do the series that year, and kind of gratefulness which is really it's really interesting. There's like, there's already kind of like, you know, a sense of rapport, or something between like the audience and you, like a sense of like this is a recurring event. Yeah.

And and this is a this is another video I want to show real quick, I think this is Fortner Anderson doing a interesting introduction here.

For for you, for a reading that you do.

Oh, yeah.

Let's see, and let's hope this is gonna work, too. I'm gonna make this larger for you. Oh, excuse me.

Oh, a young Fortner.

Yes.

So, you see, this is this is also an example of our timestamping that we, we are still working through this, but we can share with you that as well.

[Recording plays of Fortner Anderson introducing Lee Gotham at the 1995-03-25 Performance Poetry Party edition of Enough Said.]

You pop up.

If this is the event I think it is. It is too. Oh, you guys are going to give me a flashback.

Flashbacks are good!

If you want us to pause, we can pause.

Oh, yeah.

If you miss a line in a poem, or a song---

[Recording plays of Lee Gotham performing a poem at the 1995-03-25 Performance Poetry Party edition of Enough Said.]

---nobody's gonna notice right. But if you miss the full song.

What is remarkable about this though is just like the confidence, and---

Confidence?!

---like really truly, until there's a point where you're like (?) yeah, I think that's all good, like

(?) I'm waiting to check my underwear.

Like I, until you go, "Yeah, that's not coming to me, I think I'm gonna try something else," like it I was like certain like, "Yeah, he knows exactly what he's doing right now."

It's the single most traumatic event I've ever been on stage for, I can tell you that.

Oh, I, it's it's so, funny too, because I think, what what comes out to me, and, of course I'm not the person on stage, just how comfortable you look? And also like, the the kind of chillness in the room, though, like you know, you come back later, and you you say the poem from a piece of paper, and you're like, "Yeah, like, this is just the way it is," which I think like, that is very commendable and definitely shows your---

I can remember Ian Stephens dressing me down on that occasion. Like, "What are you even doing behind a microphone?"

Oh no!

You can't remember the fucking material where do you think you're going with it?

That's particularly harsh because Ian Stephens' performances are brilliant. I feel like people don't even breathe.

And just like his, I'm sure there would be a whole interview that's almost dedicated just to Ian and Ian's memory and, oh, yeah he's he's in he's an incredible performer.

Oh, yeah, no, and we have 2 more short clips, if you don't mind, one that is one of my favorites and one that is Faith's favorites. This is one of my favorites, I also like Faith's favorites as well, but this one is just for me it's like very, it's amazing. So let's see if we can.

[Recording plays of Lynn Suderman entering Bistro 4 through the front windows with a chainsaw running at the 1995-05-01 Stephens, Suderman, Diamond, and McGrail edition of Enough Said.]

Remember this.

(?) [Asks a question.]

It's Lynn Suderman, right?

Oh, Suderman.

Suderman, and and then Suderman goes on to read an amazing piece about the the the field and the city, like the urban in the rural areas and in between. And it's a and I don't think it has ever been published. It's like it's just incredible so, but like, if anyone goes, comes through the window with a chainsaw nowadays, you would run, but this somehow makes perfect sense. And then and then Suderman goes on to show like a little one, say like this is my keychain chainsaw. I saw, I just I just think it's amazing and yeah.

I just, it's looking (?) the clip, I'm just like that really just goes to show some of the, what feels like the halcyon days, or something of like the referendum poetry scene or something in Montreal.

Did you know about the referendum event? No.

Oh, we talked about, there's there's a bit of talk throughout the series about the referendum at the time and like the kind of you know, it's upcoming, it's loomingness, and some Quebec politics that are happening. Especially like for example, I I was the one who transcribed the Performance Party, Poetry Party one that has you and Fortner Anderson, Ian Ferrier, Ian Stephens, a few other folks, and there's Endre Farkas is in it. Endre Farkas talks very, you know, in his very classic no bullshit style about is his feelings about the referendum, and also talking to some other people who, you know, moved Montreal all the time. Oh, wow!

[Laughter and exclamations of "oh" and "wow."]

Oh, please, we need a scan of that. That is so cool.

It never happened.

Yes, exactly!

This was this was an event that I I basically approached the city, I got a permit to do an outdoor event in the St. Louis Square in Parc St. Louis, you know. Between between St. Denis and St. Laurent there's a little park down just above Sherbrooke. Anyway, I had applied, I jumped through all the bureaucratic hoops, you know, I'd gotten this arranged. And yeah, it was supposed to feature Michelle Lefebvre, Norman Nawrocki, Helene Monette, Todd Swift, and and they nixed it right at the 11th hour. They they said, "No, you're not, you're not gonna do this." Like they got they got this, I, you know, sense that you know politically it was not, you know, Koscher and I shouldn't be able to do this. They never gave me a, like a decent explanation. But I've got but I've got the all the you know, this is what they

The paperwork.

I almost want (a file?) with a blank tape, if it never happened, you know.

Ville de Montreal, service de loisirs et du developpement communautaire.

Yeah, we didn't know about that at all, Lee. That's super incredible.

[Everyone speaking simultaneously.]

Because there is the build up towards it, as you mentioned Faith, and we noticed (?) part of a whole like, big, I like can talk so much about it and it'd be so interesting to follow up on that as well.

Yeah, it's like the it's it's funny the the kind of like, there's like a a meta-nymic quality or something, and like the event that doesn't happen, and then the referendum that passes as a we, we stay. And then---

Barely!

Yeah! And then and then things just move on. And like, and it's it's interesting to know that, too, when it's it there is a quality that seems to, when I when I talk to writers who who moved to Montreal all the time or writing, went through all the time, that there's this kind of wild west quality to the poetry scene. And maybe that is part of the nostalgia, but it's, I think it also has to do with like the uncertainty and the people are willing to experiment in that sort of uncertainty. So that's that's always really interesting.

And to connect that I feel like your curation which we talk briefly, I feel like talk about the origins of what influenced your curation style, but even though it's a moment of great division, linguistic division, some degree, right, but at the same time I feel like the approach, even though was primarily anglophone, I mean there was so much diversity that you brought to the table, or to the stage in this case, that that that feels very different from other series that I that we we archive.

Certainly.

I would think it was, yeah, somewhat unique in its way. Because yeah, I remember, you know like, Njacko Backo and and people like that who just you know, they they were seasoned performers who just didn't have a venue, you know. They they they had a venue if they wanted to do something, you know, for a francophone audience, but not if they wanted to, you know, access our people, you know, you know this is too, too rich a resource to just, you know, overlook.

Absolutely.

And in Mitsiko Miller, as you mentioned, comes in and does a bilingual performance, and you brought people from Toronto and and then but there is, there is a something intentional about it that shines through the series. That is not about control, it is really about something else, giving back (?) community, I would say, that comes across very clearly to to us watching it.

My intention was bringing a lot of people together, you know. I've always identified as the "lover not a fighter" guy, you know. So yeah, there was a lot of controversy, and there was a lot of, you know, pitched battles, if you will, you know, on the on the linguistic front at that time. Because language is at the center of any political, you know, division and, I just I just couldn't help feeling that my genuine love for the city, love for the bilingual culture as of as a phenomenon, you know, was not, it wasn't exclusive to me. It was it was felt by, you know, most of everyone I knew who wanted to come out and and and you know, participate in a creative manner. So it was just a natural to to include as much, you know, from both sides of the fence as possible.

Hm, absolutely. We do have this one other clip, though I'm not sure if you were there for this, but if this might be thing that Drew Duncan was there for. But it's just one of those things that I think is so, such a rich clip, just because it kind of shows how people are kind of fucking around like---

Right outside the door!

Yeah, this is also a hangout.

Ian!

And there there's Ian. And then this tape just ends like this.

Oh, God, Love him.

Look at those cargo shorts.

Scott Duncan. Fluffy Pagan Echo over there.

That was Scott, that was Scott Duncan?

Yes, actually great to know. I'm going to write that down.

Because the cargo shorts obliterated the the the personality of Scott Duncan.

And then you can see the the doorway in the background.

The whole venue was so open to the to the city, you know, like. Those big sliding windows right behind where you know, we we pretended we had a stage. It was just classic, I mean I can remember several occasions when I had to interact with Montrealers that weren't altogether on board with what we were doing, were, you know, really you know, doing their best to distract or obstruct it and it was just so fun. It was a little bit unnerving, you know, at first, but when i'd reflect on it at the end of the night, I'd just go, "Jesus I hope he got all that, that was great." There were almost, you know, like punch-ups outside that window a couple times. It was just crazy, you know, like people, you know, mental health issues, people who just had too much to drink, people who were just bound and determined to get their little piece of the limelight, what they saw, as you know, like a celebrity moment.

Yeah, it really, it really is like, you know. I I guess part of what our job is is we, we try and put these pieces of, you know, just what was daily life for people together, and some kind of grand narrative which always feels so strange, or we analyze it. But one of those things that feels like, without making it seem too analytical, but just fun, is that quality of like, you know, this this series that feels so diverse and unique for the time, and still like for us, really stands out as something different from what even what we're used to is frequent poetry goers. Like, there is also this, such a funny quality in how the city really like penetrates the actual space actively.

The background is literally the city. The stage is the background is literally the city passing by, cars, people, bikes.

There's like a one person named "Larkey" another is "Guy," and like, you might know who Larkey and Guy are.

It's active, it's engaged, yep, people looking in.

Dogs, there's a dog that looks in in the middle of one one one (?). I think is a dog you can only see the ears, it could be a cat, I guess, and because it's a little bit below ground, right?

That's right, (?) step or two down.

Yeah, that was that such an interesting kind of like, aspect. And yeah, so when you see Lynn come in with the chainsaw, it really is like, one of those moments again where the city is penetrating into the space, like that overlap.

Yeah, I mean that was that was pretty stagey, but I get what you're saying, and I'm sure there were at least a few people in the audience that were like, whoa.

No, they weren't expecting that! Yeah.

And the piece is brilliant. It's one of my favorite pieces I've I've heard in the series so far. It's fantastic like I want to, I was, we should interview Lynn.

I like, I just, I'm so grateful. I'm I'm looking toward you guys in case there's anything else you want to ask but maybe i'll just start off to say before we get there. I'm so so grateful for this time today, Lee, this was really---

My pleasure.

---phenomenal, it's been it's been so great to hear to hear this series fleshed out, and it's a real real joy of ours to be working on it and exploring it with Jason. And yeah, this is just so phenomenal. Thank you for this this treasure trove of stuff.

i'll just echo your words real quick, and then also say that we will, of course we will save this video or from the recording from today, and the transcript, and we'll put all together with the recordings we already have, and share an online Drive with you. These are these are fairly huge recordings. We will share the compressed form with you, and each will be like about 8 gigabytes, because these these are just small files, HD is just like 8 GB so, but you it works well, even playing them online from the Concordia server. But we'll try to figure it out, because it's a little bit tricky to to share the Concordia stuff outside, but we'll figure that out in the next few days.

Yeah, we might, I think what we might end up doing is putting them on a key and mailing them to you.

Mailing it.

That work that will work as well, but we will include the recording from today, and a transcript of whatever, the digit(?) itself, the automatic generated transcript that is probably screwing up my accent right now. But so, just so you can can see. And any other business that we forgot, Jason, that were about follow-ups that that---

No, I mean yeah, like just to echo everyone's thanks for your time and generosity, Lee, it's been really great. And and we will follow up, I mean they all have a lot of very specific questions about particular videos like 'cause you'll be able to identify people and stuff, and that's extremely useful, because we try to, we have we have "contributor," and you know, and "role" categories in our metadata, and we'd like to tag as many people as possible, so that they are identified and get credit for that for that.

Larkey and Guy, I can't say I do.

We'll have faces, perhaps so that maybe that will trigger something, yeah.

Yeah, I'm absolutely at your disposal, this has been a pleasure, I'd love to do it again and, you know, fill in as many blanks as I can, for, you know, whatever whatever ultimate posterity will (?).

Yeah, and we'll keep you involved, we will be interviewing other people from the series too, and then at a certain point, once we've completed processing the collection, and we'll have to work on permissions so think about the approach we want to take to permissions. Even if you have the legal right yourself, like to show them because you are the recordist, or you have the, you know, we we usually like to reach out and and get consent from as many people as possible, and then also have a take down notice if we are going to make them accessible, so if anyone sees that they're up there and don't want to be up there, they'll let us know, and we can take it down.

Yeah, that's, you know, that's really the only way you can go about these things right. There's so many years have gone by, some people, you know, more touchy about their image than others. So you have my blessings, you know, to to you know, get it out there as far and wide as possible, because I do feel like it was a significant event. It is something I've reflected on with great pleasure and and pride, even, over the years so, I've never done anything similar since. So the fact that you guys got got it all down, it's all preserved I'm, phew, great.

Yeah yeah, exactly, we got it and, yeah. So when you, when you have a chance, send back that, the consent form, and like, basically just to let you know the things we would end up doing with the videos, like. Ideally, we like to make these accessible for use in research and teaching as widely as possible, like, you say. But we also have a podcast series, and so, if there are students, or if you know, Faith and Carlos want to work on a podcast about the series and use some of the audio, that's a possibility as well, or use some of the audio from this interview, you talking about the series. Like that, that's pretty much like the kind of thing we would do with it.

Or invite me back.

Oh, yes, exactly. I mean we we haven't spoken too too much about this without, because we don't want Jason to be like, "There's so much to do before that," but we were already like, "So what about an Enough Said reunion?"

Yeah yeah, well that's what I was going to get into. So I said like once the process is done, like, what we usually like to do an event. So like when we finished processing Ian's Words and Music collection, like at least up to 2019, we had a kind of launch event, and we invited, you know, 3 like I guess we had, like Tanya Evanson and Cat Kidd and Sam Shalabi, you know, like, perform at it like. So we had, like a mini performance, and then also like an unveiling in a sense of the vernissage of the site that showed the materials, you know. So we'll aim towards doing something like that and hopefully bringing you in for that, you know, to to be there for that, so that'll probably be in the spring, or something like that you know.

That would be fun. Revisiting these things, you know, all this time later, it it it's a it's a great great pleasure and you know like yeah. I I mean I used to edit a a little magazine, and we have a final issue that never made it to this stand and it's complete, you know, cover to cover.

Well, maybe that's that's what we're gonna launch at the, at this event.

I could bring "Pawn to Infinity," yeah. Well, the yeah, the last one.

That would be so cool!

I have some copies of "Pawn to Infinity."

Well, the last one would have been called "Pawn" without the "to Infinity" and it had, you know, great stuff in it. I can't remember if if I know, Cat Kidd, her her maybe first and last ever, you know, fiction, you know, she'd written a novel, and I was all about I thought it was great, actually, she read from it in Enough Said, and she just decided, "Oh, no, this is no good," and I go, "Are you kidding? You don't wanna"

She did publish a novel actually in the end, hey?

Yeah, it wasn't the one I'm talking about, it's called "The Leaning God," I think she called it. She probably didn't complete---

Yeah, she published one that's sort of about Noah's Ark, actually. Yeah.

Let me think about Lynn Suderman, the same thing, I mean, do I cannot find anywhere Lynn Suderman's piece. I doubt it was published, but Lynn Suderman's piece was absolutely brilliant. And it kind of makes makes the record is unique. And then I'm thinking also, as you think, Jason and Lee, about permissions I mean, think about, there are some labels out there that might help us think the way we want to think about copyrights and the way this will be open for research. Like Creative Commons could have, that has different degrees of openness that you can think about, and I don't know if that's the direction you're thinking Jason, in terms of licensing and in permissions.

Very cool. Yeah.

But thanks again, Lee, for all your time.This was a long interview. So thanks for your time.

I I told the wife, "It'll probably only be an hour you know (?) stuff, you know, we carved this 3 to 5 out, but you know it'll probably be more like, I could talk about this stuff forever.

We are all poets. We're all poets. We don't have no sense of time.

We're considering this just part one, right, so we'll we'll get back to you on more. To be continued.

You guys take very good care.

Thank you so much. You too. Hope to talk soon.

Thanks a lot, Lee.

And Jason before you sign sign off, recordings, savings and those.

Yeah, I'm gonna save the transcript now and, i'll save everything yeah.

We'll come visit you, Jason, at your office.

Jason, the release form, can I, can I scan that and send it to you digitally, or would you rather I send it---

Yeah, either way is fine for sure. You you can't sign it digitally on the one I sent you? It's not? Oh, sorry about that. I I think I saved it wrong then, because you should be able to.

If you've got a way of sending me something I can---

I'll try to figure it out and send you another one, well, that---

We can help to have Acrobat here, too, Jason, on the on this computer.

Alright, we'll talk to you soonly. Thanks a million.

Take care.

I don't know how to sign off.

[End of recording.]