In the second term of first year, this strange little man appeared on campus one day, spinning tales and making promises.
I remember him having a tweed jacket, maybe a small grey motorman’s cap, thick wire-rimmed glasses, and maybe a cane. Somehow, he’d gotten the attention of me and a few of my classmates with stories about his connections in the movie and television industry.
His name was Martin Smith (or maybe Smythe). I recall a few of us standing around his chair in the ECCAD caffeteria while he told us how young artists who could use computer graphics and video would be in big demand. He said he had lots of money and connections, and could set-up a state of the art production studio and bring in all kinds of contract work. It made my head spin a little, imagining the possibility.
He also said things that made me skeptical, like “We’ll need all the latest video equipment. All I have to do is make a call to Mister Sony”, and then he waved his hands in front of his body – a flourish that meant “ta da!” It seemed too good to be believed: I knew that SONY stood for “Standard Oil of New York” – it wasn’t the name of the company president. Maybe he was just being metaphorical, but it did manage to turn my head for a moment.
Right then, I was the archetypal “starving art student”; I usually had less than fifty bucks in the bank at any time, and I lived hand-to-mouth, steeping myself in a home-brew of hope and optimism to get out of bed every day and push ahead into my own future. I was young, hopeful, and wishful, looking for a dream to latch onto which would lift me up to wherever my next level might be.
So, I probably got taken in by the fantasy that this strange little man had spun to us. Part of me really wanted to believe the possibility of some kind of rock star artistic success, but it didn’t sound plausible. I asked my computer graphics instructor Dennis Vance about the situation, and he told me “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I’ve had to work hard to make every thousand dollars I’ve made.” Dennis’s plain practicality made a lot of sense to me.
A few days later, I got a phone message from two classmates who said they’d made some enquiries about our strange would-be benefactor, and warned us that any so-called riches he claimed were actually from an ICBC accident settlement, and that we should not take his promises of fame and riches very seriously.
The next day, I visited the college’s Audio-Visual technology room (the “AV Crib” as we called it) and asked the manager Mike about the situation. As he wound a long microphone cable around his arm, his eyes went up to the ceiling for a moment to recollect (multitasking was the only way with Mike; he was always in the middle of either fetching or storing some piece of equipment or information). He stopped winding his cable for a moment and said “You mean Martin “Hollywood” Smith? Hmph. That guy promised to buy my truck from me years ago, and then I never heard from him again. I don’t know. Be careful.”
Sure enough, Mr. Hollywood never returned to the college, and we never became rock star artists in his magical state-of-the-art video playground.
We all need dreams of one kind or another, whether to motivate us to improve ourselves or our lot, or maybe just to distract us if we can’t make things any better.
