MAKICHUK: A tribute: Lessons from my brother Jim, Part I
Detroit police didn't know what to do, when the children started chanting, 'Let Bozo Go! Let Bozo Go! Let Bozo Go!'
We were in Seattle, heading south on Interstate 5 for Frisco.
It was a Friday night and raining like hell.
Jim had the weekend off from CBC, and I was visiting the coast. I was working somewhere out West, maybe Calgary, but I can’t remember.
Parts of the freeway in Seattle are grooved, and have glowing markers to separate the lanes. Both good things.
But man, it was coming down, and it was carnage.
Cars slipping and sliding, banging into each other.
I remember we passed a red Mustang on its roof!
I said, “Oh my God, that poor guy.”
Jim never took his eyes off the road, just said, “Better him than you.”
Lesson learned.
We had not always been good friends. Jim was nine years older, and, well, didn’t want anything to do with me, in our youth.
He did have a knack for the best toys, though.
And, he did tell my parents to name me David after Davey Crockett, who was super cool back in the day.
They wanted to name me Fred, for some reason.
When I was in grade school, he was in high school. Playing football for the FJ Brennan Cardinals.
Who made it to the finals that season in Windsor.
In the championship game, somebody threw him a dirty clip, and he was knocked out of the game. The injury would come back to haunt in Los Angeles, decades later.
Jim also gave me one of the coolest Christmas presents ever. I wanted the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet album. Wanted it more than anything in the world.
When it came time to open the presents, I was heart broken. It was a square box, wrapped neatly.
I tried to hide my disappointment.
I opened the box, only to see a note. “Look under your bed.”
I did, and there was the album! OMG! I played it, over, and over, and over.
“Pleased to meet you … hope you guess my name … but what’s puzzlin’ you, is the … nature of my game …”
Fantastic!
And while we are on the topic, Jim taught me to appreciate good music.
He was just the right age to see the great bands in Detroit, and he would come home and tell me about them. Often buying the album the next day.
Bands like the MC5, Rod Stewart and the Faces, Humble Pie, Iggy Pop, The Moody Blues, Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Seger, Dusty Springfield and a ton of Motown groups.
One day, he came home with Led Zeppelin I. Was raving about it, saw them the night before. I played it. I was like, yeah, it’s OK. But I was too young to appreciate it.
And then, he took me to see the Rolling Stones at Olympia, with Mick Taylor. BB King opened! A ticket in the upper deck was $8.
The concert would change my life, in many ways. Seeing Mick dancing around the stage, in a long red scarf, was epic.
Jimbo was also a hero — one day, in class at Brennan, one of those fucking psycho Brennan Catholic teachers, started pounding on the arm of a student.
“So, you think you’re a tough guy, eh?” the teacher said, as he kept punching his arm.
Jim got up, and said: “Stop it! Stop it! What you’re doing is wrong!”
The teacher then said, “Sit down and shut up Makichuk!”
Jim said, “No, what you are doing, is wrong!”
He threw Jim out of class, sent him to the principal’s office. Nothing ever came of it. Today, it was be a lawsuit.
Jim never did drugs, although he did smuggle a giant joint across the border, for a buddy, just for the hell of it.
I never once, saw him drunk, but he did hang out with his two French buddies, Dupuis and Damphouse. Two real characters, but they were good guys.
Some of the hijinks, I can’t recount, but I remember one time Jim told me they built a dummy person, and then threw it off the viaduct, as cars were passing Drouillard Rd.
All in good fun.
And while other guys were hanging out at the pool hall, or causing shit, like stealing car stereos, Jim was at home, pounding out short stories on his Smith Corona, which my parents bought him.
Also good at writing poetry, one of his poems even got published in a book.
He was a television specialist of the 1960s. Knew all the shows, directors and actors. Ironically, he would later live near many of them in Sherman Oaks, when he moved to Los Angeles and became a screenwriter.
Jim never did good in school, hated math, and leaned toward writing and literature. The nuns were evil then, and you had to study Latin FFS.
He would see an opening for the mailroom at CKLW, The Big 8, and he never looked back.
That would launch him on a four decade career that would see him do just about every media job across Canada. Windsor, Toronto, Vancouver and Regina … and then finally Los Angeles, where he mentored other Canadians into the Hollywood film biz.
But I have to tell you one great CKLW story.
Jim often worked with Bozo the Clown, Art Cervi. Jim said, when Art put on the outfit and makeup, and they heard the big flap of his boots, he became Bozo!
So, one day, Jim and another co-worker drove the Bozo fun bus to a mall in Detroit, where hundreds of kids showed up.
After the job, Jim and this fellow had to drive the fun bus back to Windsor.
Only to get stopped by Detroit’s finest, who wrote a ticket for a broken taillight.
Meanwhile, kids started to gather around the fun bus.
Jim argued with the cops, said they would promise to fix the taillight, but they had to get back to Canada.
The kids, now a huge group, started chanting: “Let Bozo Go! Let Bozo Go! Let Bozo Go!”
It was on the verge, of a kiddy riot!
Finally, the cops relented. “Get the fuck out of here and go back to Canada!”
Jim also told me, when the CBC took over CKLW, things changed. Suddenly, the doors were closed. It would be a different regime.
There is more, much more to be told, in Lessons from my brother Jim, Part II.
Stuff you won’t wanna miss!
Like the time he almost drove over Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson! And when he met Vietnam war activist Jane Fonda, or union leader Jimmy Hoffa!
(Jim Makichuk is in memory care in Calgary, and being taken well care of, by the fine folks at the Bethany.)