The hidden life of Eric Pyle E
We see people every day. People we notice, assess, ignore. Neighbours, cashiers and fellow bus riders receive a nod, perfunctory smile or brief eye contact. “Whadda Ya At B’y?” aims to open hearts to our common humanity.
ric Pyle busks in the Skywalk at the end of Jets games. Passers-by dismiss him as a homeless beggar.
Eric was born in Rivers, Manitoba in 1954, the sec-
ond in a family with two brothers and a sister. His dad was in the military. The family moved to Shilo when he was young, then they moved to Winnipeg, where Eric attended Greenwood School and Charleswood Col- legiate.
The son and nephew of great athletes,
family pride saturates conversation with Eric. His parents came from coal mining in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. Mom was Scottish. Dad was a Cape Breton-born Barbadian.
His paternal grandparents were Mc-
Donald and Elisa Pyle. His grandfather was born in Barbados, his grandmother in France. “She was a powerful woman stand- ing behind a black man in 1917.” Eric’s dad, Charlie Pyle, was famous for
Eric asserts the Pyle children got their artistic sense
from dad, Charlie. Eric’s deceased brother was a visual artist and worked as a roadie for 20 years. As a Win- nipeg chef, his sister is an artist with food. Eric was the front man for indie rock band, The Ludwigs, in the 1980s and 1990s. He’s performed on stage as Eric the Great. Spirituality permeates Eric’s conversations. He
Aengus Kane Whadda
Ya At B’y?
how fast he knocked opponents out in a boxing ring and the speed he ran in the 100 yard dash. A one-man track team, he excelled at 60 and 100 yards, pole vault, javelin, and discus. Charlie’s brief career as a middle weight boxer lasted from 1946 to 1949 (four bouts, 1-3 record with two TKO losses). He received a medal from each of the Queens of Holland and Eng- land for his athletic achievements. Eric’s Uncle Joe is in the Canadian Boxing Hall of
Fame. His career was longer (1945-1950) with a 26- 16-3 record in the welterweight division.
bought his first guitar in Vancouver when he was 35. He says he never learned to play guitar as God moves his fingers. He emphasizes that God is not about the Bible or the Crusades. “God is a fact beyond comprehen- sion.” Eric noticed while performing street music that half the crowd want- ed Johnny Cash. He adapted and be- came known as the Ring of Fire Guy. He hears the comments after Jets games: remarks about needing a new song, getting cream for his hemor- rhoids. People questioning whether he is a homeless drug addict. From Eric’s perspective, people who regard him as a homeless beggar “don’t hear the mu- sic.” He wonders aloud if people who stand in judgement of him understand they are standing alone spiritually. Eric eschews money and believes
too many worship the paper idol. “Music is for the heart and soul… You don’t need an industry to make music. You need a heart.” He exhorts people to see life as about living, not the size of a bank account or how many others have been trodden down on the path to success.
As for being a homeless drug addict, he lives in an apartment above a store in Osborne Village. He’s on Facebook. He has a studio in his apartment. His girl- friend sings while he plays guitar. She’s from Benito,
MB, on the Saskatchewan border between Swan River and Roblin on Hwy #83. And she has the same birth- day as one of his brothers – another Capricorn in his life.
Eric declares that he doesn’t drink, do drugs or take psychiatric medication. He concedes that he wasn’t al- ways at peace and that his outlook on life wasn’t always so positive. He allows that he had lower points in his life and jests, “There’s nothing better than breaking a knuckle on a knucklehead, but then I missed the op- portunity to meet a beautiful woman.” Eric laments being an ungrateful son, alluding to deaths at Dieppe and Normandy. He only heard Char- lie talk about WWII twice. Dad cried both times and son told him the war was over. He now acknowledges they died so we could live the way we do. He expresses strong opinions on scientists, clergy and politicians, “All idiots and clowns.” He softens his stance when pushed, admitting they aren’t all bad peo- ple. Still, he wonders why a scientist would create a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, not be able to shut it down, and then tell him how the universe started. Civilization is a misnomer to Eric. How does a civi- lization drop bombs on people, bankrupt them, force them out of homes, have an internet full of toxic peo- ple, and endure feminists focused on career and cor- porate women while forgetting the single, teenaged mothers?
He feels the school system squeezed him out. He squeezes love back through music to tell the real story of who he is and how he sees the deeper meaning of life. There’s more to know when you see the Erics of our world. We should all look harder and listen more closely. Aengus Kane was born in Newfoundland. “Whadda Ya
At B’y” means hello in his home province. He volunteers both behind the scenes and on air at CJNU, as well as delivering the Friday morning news.
Mark Kolt proves the “art of sport” in his play “Bombertown”
This article is part two of two.
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was, after all a very new (ad)venture.
C history Mark Kolt
considered the musical just completed, “Joseph…” and thought, “Hmmm...I can write songs. I could maybe do that.” And so, the seed was planted and the search began for a story to write. Kolt has always been a buff
and actually
reads voraciously so it was not a surprise that he was enchanted by the
history
and stories of Flin Flon. A colleague at City Hall lent him a copy of the Canadian Magazine, which used to come free with the Saturday edition of a city of Winnipeg newspaper. The ar- ticle she wanted him to read was titled, “The Town Where Everybody Plays” and was about the 1957 Memorial Cup win. It was highlighting rule changes in junior hockey that would make routine line changes mandatory, meaning that every player on the bench would even- tually see ice time. The Flin Flon Junior Bombers were on the leading edge of this strategy and it was Kolt’s introduc- tion to that aspect of Flin Flon history. He had found his story. Kolt had never written a play before so even though he felt reasonably com- fortable with the creation of music and lyrics, he was quite anxious about the book. Even now, looking back in an interview for this article, he says he is not confident that the story at the centre of ‘Bombertown”, of the hockey player destined to travel in pursuit of a career
Elly Spencer The arts from up here
rystal Kolt wanted to produce more Broadway-style shows but was cautious with funds as this
and the girl singer who had a scholar- ship to a music school far away from Flin Flon has real ‘legs’. We can say with certainty that it has
all of the elements of a Canadian clas- sic; in the same way that “Come
From has reached Away” audiences
near and far yet still re- tains those images of the people of Gander, NL, “Bombertown” evokes the people and places of Flin Flon while telling a universal
story. Like
“Fiddler on the Roof ” or even “The Sound of Mu- sic”. It takes an extraordi- nary event that happened at a moment in time and tells the story of the peo- ple who were there, on the periphery, and were
impacted for better or for worse. Bombertown’s protagonists are being buffeted by threats of mine closure and everyone they know and love losing their jobs but they are being buoyed by the phenomenal success of their small town hockey team. They are driven by dreams of personal future greatness and drawn together by their love for each other and ultimately for their little northern town. So, they stay. Kolt is concerned that “Bombertown”
is more of a historical pageant than a stand-alone theatrical production and so it has only been mounted nine times, in 1999 and again in 2000, for the ultimate Homecoming celebration in Flin Flon. We say, let a professional director have
at it and let’s get it back on the stage. We know it can sell out in Flin Flon, it has done that already. It could play to houses anywhere and share the magic that is Flin Flon.
August 2019
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