"Yeah." I heard her push herself up into a sitting position, so I turned my head and looked over at the clock she was no longer occluding. I'm not sure why, I already knew what it was going to say: "4:00AM."
Four o'clock in the morning is an unholy hour to be rising for the day. Especially for an unemployed slob like me. But they started serving breakfast at 6:00 at the corner of Yonge and Dundas Square, and we had an invitation to be there.
The occasion is called Breakfast with Derringer. It is an (intermittent) monthly, live, on location broadcast of the Q107 morning show featuring John Derringer, and open, by invitation only, to fans who have signed up on the radio station's web site. Which I had done.
I hardly even remembered. It wasn't something I really cared about going to one way or another, but they have all these contests on the web site, and once you're registered, it's one simple click to enter them, so I entered this one along with all the rest. And early this week I received an e-mail informing me that my name had been drawn, and I was invited, along with a guest, to join Derringer, and the rest of the morning crew, for breakfast at Club279, upstairs at The Hard Rock Cafe, in downtown Toronto. "Cool," I thought, but didn't really think the wife would let me go. Turns out she was more interested than I was.
They say it's always darkest before the dawn. Standing in my driveway at 4:28AM trying to find the keyhole in the door of my black car, I was inclined to believe them. Gino Vanelli said, "black cars look better in the shade," but I'm pretty frickin' sure he didn't mean this.The plan was, my wife and I would drive separate cars down to her work, where we would leave her car, and drive downtown in mine. I could then drop her off at work on my way back home. I was surprised by the number of cars on the 404 at 4:37AM, and at the music the overnight DJ plays. I don't know how many years it has been since I heard American Pie on the radio. Hopefully, it will be a good number of years before I hear it again. I'm not sure, but I think there is probably something of a safety hazard about tooling down the highway at a quarter to five in the morning shouting out that'll be the day that I die at the top of my lungs.
The invitation said the doors opened at 5:00, and breakfast started at 6:00. Our first clue that this breakfast was more than what I had envisioned came as we approached the location at 5:20 to see a line up waiting to get in. People were obviously getting impatient at the fact that the doors were still closed. The one legged lady in the wheelchair who was first in line told us she had been there since 4:00.
Our second clue that I had misinterpreted the scale of the event came when we moved to join the end of the line...and couldn't find it. It hugged the front windows of the Hard Rock Cafe, looking into the streetside broadcast studio, turned the corner, threaded between the wrought iron railing of the bar's patio and a couple of Q107 vans parked on the side street, and meandered down the sidewalk into the darkness away from the main drag. A couple of security guards sitting on the side of the fountain in the square smoked cigarettes and watched us make our way along the facade of tie-dyed shirts, black jeans, and pony tails. The young kids were dressed even stranger. My wife's eyes met mine, and we shared a silent understanding that we were far away from our world here; she in her business pant suit, and I in my khaki shorts, golf shirt, and deck shoes.
Just as we took our place at the end of the long line, it started to move, so our timing was pretty good, we figured. We would later find out how wrong we were. At the door, we gave the nice lady my name, which she checked off against her guest list, perused my photo ID with some care, and we were directed to a staircase up to Club279, which sits perched atop the Hard Rock Cafe, and is littered with rock and roll memorabilia. Guitars from Eddie Van Halen, Lou Reed, and Jimi Hendrix, a hat worn by John Lennon, a black leather bustier worn by Madonna, a pair of leopard spotted gloves worn by Shania Twain...OK, mostly rock and roll memorabilia.
At the top of the stairs, we ran into another line. The nice gentleman at the end of it informed us that it was the line up for breakfast, and that we might want to find seats first. He was right, but it was far too late for that. In my estimation, there were between 150 and 200 people present, and seating available for about 75. The rest of us had to crowd around the bar, and along the drink ledges mounted on the walls. The wife and I managed to find a spot where we could see the stage if we squinted up our eyes, and peered through a double thickness of glass divider wall.
For the next three and a half hours, we stood, eating cold scrambled eggs and bacon, stale Danishes, and drinking multiple cups of, thankfully, steaming hot coffee, while the Q morning crew did their thing. Granted, it was entertaining. During short breaks while they were off air due to commercials, or a song being played, they joked with the audience and their studio crew, and drew tickets for door prizes. During longer breaks, while the news was being read from another broadcast location, we were treated to live music by Michael White and Animal House, a local live band fronted by the founder of The White, the world's first and foremost Led Zeppelin cover band.
It was fascinating to watch them work. Derringer, the main host, spent almost the entire four hours of his shift flipping back and forth through the morning newspaper, looking for things to riff on while on the air.
A highlight of the show came when he was joined by local personality Maureen Halloway who does a syndicated feature called The Last Word. Maureen is a very funny lady, and listening to her and John work off each other is always the high point of the show. Unfortunately, her segment has not been heard much lately due to her fight against breast cancer. She confided in us that today was her first ever public appearance without a hat or a wig covering her now bald head. John commented that she had a singularly nice melon, and Maureen, being Maureen, cleverly misunderstood him, and confirmed the fact that she did have only one melon left. Her courage and her strength were inspiring, and I was moved to think of the several J-land friends currently engaged in their own battles with illness. Maureen received extended applause at the end of both of her segments, and she was visibly moved by it.
Our knees and backs were getting significantly uncomfortable from standing for almost four hours when 9:00AM finally rolled around. The on air crew squeezed in one more live traffic report, and then John Derringer asked, "is that it, are we done?" He stood up, pulled off his headset, shrugged on his jacket, and was out the door before anyone else in the room knew what was happening. He obviously had absolutely no interest in doing any schmoozing with the fans.
While we did enjoy ourselves, my wife and I both agree that we would not get up at 4:00AM to do it again. There were some things about it that were disappointing. I was really hoping for a more intimate and interactive experience, with more audience participation, and the chance to actually meet and say hello to the on air personalities. Even given the format they used, I think they should have invited about fifty per cent fewer guests, so everybody would have been able to at least have a chair, and maybe even a view.
The end of the story is simple. I drove my wife back to her office, then drove myself home. The wife had to work until 6:00 that evening, and was completely wiped by the time she got home. She had trouble even staying awake for dinner. I was home, and back in bed by 10:30AM. I know she's going to make me pay for that later.
