STORY DATE - Decmeber 2013 

LOCATION - the South West of Montreal Island

That morning I accidently left my cell phone in my winter coat pocket and stuffed my gloves right over it. Then routinely hung the whole thing up on the rack in the parts department back office and casually walked over to my desk near the front display counter where I serve clients. That is where I rent part of my daily life energy to my employer and do my best to run the best parts department in Canada. Is that out of pride, or just plain stupidity ?, Christ, these days I can't tell the difference anymore.

So when Toby Henderson called me on the corporate "fishstore" land line, I immediately knew something was up. Had I lost my cell phone, I thought for a brief second, - well if I did then great, now I have a real excuse to take it easy until I replace that evil device. Regardless of the cell phone love-hate thing, I hadn't heard from Toby in over two months and he is one of my most regular, and dare I say favorite clients in a twisted kind of way. Yes, he's got alot of machines (all Gottliebs) for which he depends on me to keep running properly. He does all his own maintenance work and learned it mostly over the last two years of my doing service calls for him while he watched attentively.

Met this 57 year old man after he bought his first machine, a "Surfer" which Mira Amusements wanted to charge him over 500 bucks to overhaul. After he hired me to fix it, we got talking and he said that he was going to buy at least 5 more of these things for his office. I quickly suggested a personalized maintenance program for him like other similar clients I know through Montreal Pinball in order to save him some money and by the same token guarantee me some income from these type of teenage like self made millionaire type clients. Indeed, after all, I had shown him enough tips about his machines that he would be ok for small issues. I am damn proud of what he has picked up and what he is now able to do on his own. I asked him jokingly if he wanted to be my next apprentice, but I think he has other fish to fry. Especially when he proudly answered ,¨Yeah right Robert, keep hoping.¨ He didn't seem to know that I was kidding, an overly confident man ocasionnaly misses nuances, that is their achilles heel.

But when Toby runs across something that stumps him, he is quick to call me rather than fiddle and make things worse. He has understood at least that much, but still expects me to drop everything and head over to his office where he keeps the nicest collection of 70's Gottliebs I have ever seen.

It goes something like this, - "Hello Robert, (long and drawn out) it's Toby, how are ya ? I need you to come by and have a look at my machines, it is probably nothing so it won't take you long. (pause - I do not like his manipulative assumptions) So can you come by tonight ?."

"Toby, you just can't just call me out of the blue and expect me to come over right away. Do you realize how booked I am at this period of the year, it's nutsy, I hardly have a minute to myself or my family for fucks`sake."

Pause.

"I am sorry but I really need your help."

"I have another service call tonight so I can't just drop everything 'cause you have a problem with one of your many machines, let me call you back this afternoon and see what I can do after the other client.`"

"OK", gently came the reply.

In reality, I had cancelled my Thursday night service call, too freakin`beat tired, but things have a way of seeking you out don't they ?

The priority plan was now to take it easy, I am over tired from my square job, the numerous service calls and the god-dam dentist yesterday who insisted on digging deep under my teeth for an intensive curettage that took way longer than expected. Stitches were necessary and the appointment in that chair ran longer than was anticipated. Walked out of there stunned and doped up and ended up bleeding from the gums most of the night, but still managed a pretty productive day at the "fishstore". All day long I marveled at how many things got squared away despite the headaches and lack of food, and managed to make small talk with my shipper/receiver by telling him that I was doing nothing tonight, absolutely fucking nothing - no service calls, no nothing, just having myself a decent liquid meal and then some well mixed cocktails and then straight off to bed nice and early. Well, no such luck - Toby had screwed up his Big Indian when he moved his whole collection to his new offices & warehouse. This huge unanticipated company move was caused by a family fight which led to a nasty rupture which was laced with lots of vile accusations and stuff that I won't bother repeating. When a family business breaks up after 40 years of building it, the conflicts and ugliness fly hot & cold accompanied by high priced lawyers making sure the emotions don't get out of hand along with the better part of the money & assets that are at stake. 

I walked into Toby's new office location which he was just starting to set up along with the loyal employees that decided to follow him into this new venture and were staying late tonight to help with the new set up. When I arrived I shook his hand and he led me to the new company gameroom/lunchroom) filled with pins. He offered me a beer out of a cooler and we got talking. I should have charged him for consultation at a 150 bucks an hour, isn't that what a good psychologist gets these days ? Christ, he ranted and raved about what had happened between his sibling as I listened attentively and commented very little, just mostly agreeing with what went wrong in the hard ugliness of this separation and all the consequences regarding this business and difficult emotional rupture. He spilled his guts and I just kept listening, just like I would listen to any thoughtful human being who knows that he or she is living something major, and not only because he happens to like Gottliebs.

When we finally got through a few beers and all this gut spilling we got to the machines. I adjusted a slam switch on his Big Indian that refused to start up, then reseated a few edge connectors on his Joker Poker and reprogrammed it since it had lost it's memory and made sure that it played properly. Overall a very clean Gottlieb system 1 in this condition is nice to see, and it was previously steady, so I was confident about it working well once again.

After this 15 minute repair I again listened to a very tired and exhausted Toby and his entourage about what a prick his sibling was and the nasty shit that occurred in the past months. It is tough to see this kind of craziness occur to people we appreciate, and it seems more rampant these days. Are they putting something in our water, or is the climate just bad ? Whatever the case, it must be profitable for large surface store shareholders to have split ups like this occur so often. After a separation, you suddenly need another set of everything you shared previously. It is big bucks for somebody, not just lawyers. This economy of separation is surely profiting somebody who certainly couldn't care less about what pain people go through plus all the social uneasiness these ruptures create. There must be a better way to make money than what division provides.

Because when "the man" said, "we'll make some money, lots of money, more than we need to live a good life." he didn't care about who was going to pay for this by having a harder life.

Robert A. Baraké (R.A.B.)

STORY DATE - Decmeber 2013 

LOCATION - the South West of Montreal Island

That morning I accidently left my cell phone in my winter coat pocket and stuffed my gloves right over it. Then routinely hung the whole thing up on the rack in the parts department back office and casually walked over to my desk near the front display counter where I serve clients. That is where I rent part of my daily life energy to my employer and do my best to run the best parts department in Canada. Is that out of pride, or just plain stupidity ?, Christ, these days I can't tell the difference anymore.

So when Toby Henderson called me on the corporate "fishstore" land line, I immediately knew something was up. Had I lost my cell phone, I thought for a brief second, - well if I did then great, now I have a real excuse to take it easy until I replace that evil device. Regardless of the cell phone love-hate thing, I hadn't heard from Toby in over two months and he is one of my most regular, and dare I say favorite clients in a twisted kind of way. Yes, he's got alot of machines (all Gottliebs) for which he depends on me to keep running properly. He does all his own maintenance work and learned it mostly over the last two years of my doing service calls for him while he watched attentively.

Met this 57 year old man after he bought his first machine, a "Surfer" which Mira Amusements wanted to charge him over 500 bucks to overhaul. After he hired me to fix it, we got talking and he said that he was going to buy at least 5 more of these things for his office. I quickly suggested a personalized maintenance program for him like other similar clients I know through Montreal Pinball in order to save him some money and by the same token guarantee me some income from these type of teenage like self made millionaire type clients. Indeed, after all, I had shown him enough tips about his machines that he would be ok for small issues. I am damn proud of what he has picked up and what he is now able to do on his own. I asked him jokingly if he wanted to be my next apprentice, but I think he has other fish to fry. Especially when he proudly answered ,¨Yeah right Robert, keep hoping.¨ He didn't seem to know that I was kidding, an overly confident man ocasionnaly misses nuances, that is their achilles heel.

But when Toby runs across something that stumps him, he is quick to call me rather than fiddle and make things worse. He has understood at least that much, but still expects me to drop everything and head over to his office where he keeps the nicest collection of 70's Gottliebs I have ever seen.

It goes something like this, - "Hello Robert, (long and drawn out) it's Toby, how are ya ? I need you to come by and have a look at my machines, it is probably nothing so it won't take you long. (pause - I do not like his manipulative assumptions) So can you come by tonight ?."

"Toby, you just can't just call me out of the blue and expect me to come over right away. Do you realize how booked I am at this period of the year, it's nutsy, I hardly have a minute to myself or my family for fucks`sake."

Pause.

"I am sorry but I really need your help."

"I have another service call tonight so I can't just drop everything 'cause you have a problem with one of your many machines, let me call you back this afternoon and see what I can do after the other client.`"

"OK", gently came the reply.

In reality, I had cancelled my Thursday night service call, too freakin`beat tired, but things have a way of seeking you out don't they ?

The priority plan was now to take it easy, I am over tired from my square job, the numerous service calls and the god-dam dentist yesterday who insisted on digging deep under my teeth for an intensive curettage that took way longer than expected. Stitches were necessary and the appointment in that chair ran longer than was anticipated. Walked out of there stunned and doped up and ended up bleeding from the gums most of the night, but still managed a pretty productive day at the "fishstore". All day long I marveled at how many things got squared away despite the headaches and lack of food, and managed to make small talk with my shipper/receiver by telling him that I was doing nothing tonight, absolutely fucking nothing - no service calls, no nothing, just having myself a decent liquid meal and then some well mixed cocktails and then straight off to bed nice and early. Well, no such luck - Toby had screwed up his Big Indian when he moved his whole collection to his new offices & warehouse. This huge unanticipated company move was caused by a family fight which led to a nasty rupture which was laced with lots of vile accusations and stuff that I won't bother repeating. When a family business breaks up after 40 years of building it, the conflicts and ugliness fly hot & cold accompanied by high priced lawyers making sure the emotions don't get out of hand along with the better part of the money & assets that are at stake. 

I walked into Toby's new office location which he was just starting to set up along with the loyal employees that decided to follow him into this new venture and were staying late tonight to help with the new set up. When I arrived I shook his hand and he led me to the new company gameroom/lunchroom) filled with pins. He offered me a beer out of a cooler and we got talking. I should have charged him for consultation at a 150 bucks an hour, isn't that what a good psychologist gets these days ? Christ, he ranted and raved about what had happened between his sibling as I listened attentively and commented very little, just mostly agreeing with what went wrong in the hard ugliness of this separation and all the consequences regarding this business and difficult emotional rupture. He spilled his guts and I just kept listening, just like I would listen to any thoughtful human being who knows that he or she is living something major, and not only because he happens to like Gottliebs.

When we finally got through a few beers and all this gut spilling we got to the machines. I adjusted a slam switch on his Big Indian that refused to start up, then reseated a few edge connectors on his Joker Poker and reprogrammed it since it had lost it's memory and made sure that it played properly. Overall a very clean Gottlieb system 1 in this condition is nice to see, and it was previously steady, so I was confident about it working well once again.

After this 15 minute repair I again listened to a very tired and exhausted Toby and his entourage about what a prick his sibling was and the nasty shit that occurred in the past months. It is tough to see this kind of craziness occur to people we appreciate, and it seems more rampant these days. Are they putting something in our water, or is the climate just bad ? Whatever the case, it must be profitable for large surface store shareholders to have split ups like this occur so often. After a separation, you suddenly need another set of everything you shared previously. It is big bucks for somebody, not just lawyers. This economy of separation is surely profiting somebody who certainly couldn't care less about what pain people go through plus all the social uneasiness these ruptures create. There must be a better way to make money than what division provides.

Because when "the man" said, "we'll make some money, lots of money, more than we need to live a good life." he didn't care about who was going to pay for this by having a harder life.

Robert A. Baraké (R.A.B.)