Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996, marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment, and project development real estate. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Rockin' Rhonda & The Uptown Blues Band: Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. Alright, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.

Dave Graham: Welcome back to the Pulse Community Podcast. I'm Dave Graham. Oh, I have to say, this is a special time of the year here—

Peter McCully: —on Vancouver Island. And I'm Peter McCully. Let me guess, Dave, is this the fall leaves or the pumpkin spice that has you all revved and ready to go?

Dave Graham: Well, I admit the leaves and pumpkins are all good. I'm also looking forward to stocking up on Halloween candy, knowing full well I haven't had a child come to my door in years, but that's not it either. No, at the top of my mind is the next event on the calendar, and that's Thanksgiving.

Peter McCully: Of course, the time to express gratitude and to be with others and to share the occasion with family.

Dave Graham: Oh yeah. Well, that's good too. I was really thinking of the quality time with the turkey and stuffing, cranberries, et cetera, and then that sweet, sweet post-meal lethargy. Uh, hey, we have a guest today who isn't likely too familiar with—

Peter McCully: —any kind of lethargy. That's right. Peter Kent of Qualicum Beach was a stunt double for Arnold Schwarzenegger for 15 years, including those Terminator movies. Looking back, he says he wouldn't change a thing.

Peter Kent: I was actually DOA in a car accident when I was 17, and I think, you know what? If I avoided that moment, then maybe I wouldn't look like Arnold, 'cause it reshaped my face. I went through the windshield face first and I was laying dead in the ditch and they started me up. And you think, okay, maybe if that didn't happen to me in life, if I could go back and relive that and miss that point, but then who knows what the other outcomes are, right?

Dave Graham: Kelly Hobbis is organizing Parksville's first annual Light the Night, October 11th. It is to support those affected by blood cancer.

Kelly Hobbis: The first Light the Night we went to was in October of 2010, two months after my husband was diagnosed. We went to Stanley Park in Vancouver and we were amazed at the number of people that were there. Everyone carries a crepe paper, battery-operated lantern. It just looked like a sea of blood cells carried by people walking to make a difference.

Peter McCully: We'll hear more from Kelly shortly here on The Pulse podcast, and we are watching the deadline approach for entering to win new music from 54-40. The prize pack includes the new album, "Porto," on vinyl and signed by the band, plus a copy of "La Différence: A History Unplugged" on CD, also signed by the band.

Dave Graham: But wait, there's more. Yes, we're going to include a 54-40 t-shirt as part of the deal. Here's how to enter to win. Go to our website, thepulsecommunity.ca, or our Facebook page, the Pulse Community, and tell us your favourite 54-40 tune. That's it. We have two of these prize packs to give away, with the draws happening—

Peter McCully: —October 9th. We have some other news to share. In the coming weeks, we're adding more content produced here on Vancouver Island. We'll be offering a few other podcasts you can catch. Pulse Community's website options will include a series on municipal politics and another on the NFL.

Dave Graham: We'll also be featuring a series we call Radio Archaeology with original radio serial shows, Dragnet and Gunsmoke. You know, years ago I worked at a radio station that set aside some time once a week to play a couple of those old radio programs. They called it Theatre of the Mind, which to me just says it all. The old radio shows require listeners to do some of the work, but the result is a program unlike anything they've seen before—or is it not seen before?

Coombs Candy Walk: Hello, Sandra here from the Arrowsmith Community Recreation Association, ACRA for short. The 56th annual Coombs Candy Walk will take place at the Coombs Fairgrounds on Friday, October 31st, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. This year's theme is Midnight at the Library. Come trick-or-treat through child-friendly storybook-themed rooms. Try out the old-fashioned cakewalk. Admire the pumpkins. Take your picture in the photo booth. Grab a snack at the concession and stay for the fireworks. At 8:00 p.m., there will also be a haunted barn for those looking for something a little spookier. Admission is by donation. This event is only made possible through the incredible effort of community volunteers, with support from ACRA, Arrowsmith Agricultural Association, the RDN, and other local businesses. For more information or to sign up to volunteer, check out arrowsmithrecreation.ca. I hope to see you at the annual Coombs Candy Walk on October 31st.

Thrifty Foods Parksville: At Thrifty Foods, we love to help non-profits, charities, and schools. Our Thrifty Foods Smile Card bulk program allows organizations to immediately save up to 6% on the purchase of Smile Cards in bulk, allowing you to keep more money in your organization's pockets. Ask for details at Thrifty Foods in Parksville.

Peter McCully: Future guests to the Pulse Community podcast include Roy Henry Vickers. This First Nations artist, owner of the world-famous gallery in Tofino that bears his name, joins us for a chat about his new colouring book. It's for colourists of all ages and contains some of his most popular images.

Dave Graham: Next month marks a year since the passing of John Horgan, born down Island from here in Victoria. Horgan's final posting was as ambassador of Canada to Germany. But before that, of course, he was, among other things, the premier of British Columbia, and now we have his story in print. Rod Mickleburgh co-authored "John Horgan: In His Own Words," and Rod will be on a future edition—

Peter McCully: —of the podcast. Also be listening for a visit with Shannon Sinn, author of "The Haunting of Vancouver Island." Shannon will tell us about the wild people of the woods, otherwise known as the Sasquatch. For now, here comes Marilyn to introduce our very first guest.

Marilyn: In the green room is Kelly Hobbis, whose family has been deeply affected by blood cancer, but has turned their experience into powerful community action. After years of supporting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and travelling to Vancouver for Light the Night walks, she is organizing Parksville's first annual Light the Night, October 11th.

Dave Graham: Thank you for taking time for us on the podcast, Kelly. Pleasure to meet you.

Kelly Hobbis: Nice meeting you as well.

Dave Graham: Can you start by telling us about your personal connection to blood cancer and how it has shaped your family's journey over the—sadly to say—years?

Kelly Hobbis: Absolutely. In 2010, my husband was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He was told by our family doctor that it was kind of a nice cancer to have if you needed to get cancer. So he would take a few years before he'd need chemo, and he'd probably do very well. Within two years, he needed his first chemo. He reacted to that chemo. He got very, very ill. Treatment had to be adapted. A year after that chemo, his cancer had returned with a vengeance, back to stage four. He was then put on immunotherapy. He was put on four different medications that didn't exist when he was first diagnosed in 2010. So research is so important. He continued to deteriorate. In 2018, it became apparent that he needed a stem cell transplant. So luckily he has six brothers and sisters, and of those, one was a match. His sister donated her stem cells, and my husband had a stem cell transplant. It took a month for that to be successful, and he started producing his own neutrophils, which was really good news. For two months, he felt great. After two months, he started to develop what is called GVHD, graft-versus-host disease, and his body was rejecting the transplant. He suffered from GVHD of various organs at various degrees for six years. Two months ago, in July, he was discharged from the bone marrow transplant program because of the success he's doing now. He has been through a lot. That's just a little bit of what he went through. I could go on for days about what he actually did, but that's not necessary.

Dave Graham: I think we get an idea that there's a whole lot more to that story. And from that, if I might be so bold to ask—and I don't mean to be flippant in using the language—but what were your takeaways from all that?

Kelly Hobbis: Well, we live each day to the moment. We celebrate something every day. When he was in chemo, we would put a red checkered tablecloth on the over-bed table of his hospital bed, and we'd bring out the wine glasses with grape juice, and he might not be able to drink it, but we toasted, we celebrated something every day. There was always sunshine every day. That's our takeaway.

Dave Graham: I'm learning that your family, sadly, has more stories of experience with cancer, and then all of this has obviously been hugely motivational behind you doing what you're doing now.

Kelly Hobbis: Absolutely. My husband's mom and dad both died of the same type of blood cancer. He had a cousin who passed away from the same type of blood cancer, another cousin who is living with it right now, but he has surpassed the age that you can have a stem cell transplant. So he continues to have treatment every day. The very best man at our wedding 45 years ago also has the same type of leukemia, and he is struggling every day right now.

Dave Graham: Can you talk about Light the Night? What is that event?

Kelly Hobbis: Light the Night is an event that supports the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada. There are walks all the way across the country. Some are corporately sponsored and others are volunteer-run. This one in Parksville, the first annual Light the Night in Parksville, is volunteer-run by myself and a very small group of us trying to make a difference.

Dave Graham: When was your first Light the Night experience and where?

Kelly Hobbis: The first Light the Night we went to was in October of 2010, two months after my husband was diagnosed. We went to Stanley Park in Vancouver, and we were amazed at the number of people that were there. We were amazed at the lanterns. Everyone carries a crepe paper, battery-operated lantern. It just looked like a sea of blood cells carried by people walking to make a difference. We have participated in eight of those events. Some, we only did a few steps when my husband was not well. Others, we walked through the pouring rain, the thunder, the lightning, and we continue to support Light the Night.

Dave Graham: Yes. Here we are talking about the next one. What's the most challenging thing facing you right now, putting this together?

Kelly Hobbis: Well, the most challenging thing is to get enough participants. We really want people to register and raise whatever they can, whatever is a meaningful amount in their life to donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada. We have only 19 participants right now. I was hoping to get to at least 50 for the very first event. I am committed to spending the next few years to make significant money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. It's just a very touching walk to be involved with. It's not strenuous. This one is about 1.6 kilometres, and we'll be meeting at the covered picnic area at the Parksville Community Park.

Dave Graham: Obviously there's a great deal involved, lots on your plate, as they say, in getting something like this together. And you mentioned a little bit in terms of what the event is going to be like, but in terms of the experience, what would you like people to be able to experience when they participate in this?

Kelly Hobbis: I'd really love people to know that they're not alone, that there's a whole community out there. You have no idea who's suffering from blood cancer because most people with blood cancer look pretty good. The biggest comment they hear is, "Oh, you're looking really good," almost like it's denying what they're going through. When there are people walking with blood cancer or in memory of or support, then you just know that your community is there.

Dave Graham: For those unable—who just cannot attend in that sense—how else might they be able to help?

Kelly Hobbis: Well, donations are always lovely. You can actually go to lighthenight.ca and look for the Parksville event, and you can donate generally to that Parksville event, or you can pick a team member or an individual.

Dave Graham: Drawing from all of your experience, do you have any nuggets of wisdom that might rise to the—occasionally if I ask—what you might like to share with anyone else that might be experiencing anything close to what you've been through?

Kelly Hobbis: My husband and I both strongly believe that everyone's diagnosis is their own journey to go through. Never listen to people who say, "Oh, I know someone who had blood cancer, and they're just fine." Everyone's journey is their own. It's their own reality, really. We wish everyone well. Check out what Leukemia & Lymphoma Society does. They have amazing support. We learned about what to expect with a stem cell transplant. I was a nurse, so I thought I knew that. I didn't know that. It just is really, really touching, very heartwarming, and a wonderful organization to be involved with.

Dave Graham: Is there anything else you'd like to talk about before we wrap it up here?

Kelly Hobbis: Well, just one more thing I wanted to mention is people with blood cancers require a lot of blood transfusions. It's not unusual to need dozens or more. My husband was on a treatment called immunoglobulin therapy. It takes 15 donors to come up with one dose, and he was on that for six years. So if you don't have the finances to support this cause, but you want to do something and you're healthy and strong and you'd like to donate blood, get out and donate blood. Every ounce is needed.

Peter McCully: You can find details on the Light the Night event in Parksville on the Light the Night website and Facebook pages.

Dave Graham: Yeah, I was inspired by that conversation I had with Kelly. It's quite a story. We wish them well, of course, in general, and especially with the fundraising walk coming up. Kelly reached out to us to share her story. We appreciate that and we encourage everyone to—

Peter McCully: —feel free to do the same. Click on the Contact Us link on our website and speak or type your message. Find us online at thepulsecommunity.ca. We're also available on Amazon, iHeart, Apple, TikTok, YouTube, plus Facebook and Instagram.

PQ Foundation: Hi Peter and Dave, and hello to everyone tuning into the Pulse. I'm Charlene Smith, the executive director of the Parksville Qualicum Community Foundation, and I'm here with a reminder that the fall 2025 Neighbourhood Small Grants are now open from September 15th until October 31st. These grants are for everyday residents of the Parksville, Qualicum Beach, and surrounding Oceanside communities. Anyone who's looking to make their neighbourhoods stronger—you don't need to be part of a non-profit or have any special experience. All you need is an idea to help people connect. Some examples of past projects include things like community meals, block parties, emergency preparedness, art workshops, cultural celebrations, neighbourhood gardens, and skill-sharing events. If it brings people together, helps neighbours get to know each other, builds belonging, then it's a great fit for Neighbourhood Small Grants. You can apply now for up to $500 for your project, and the process is simple. Just head to parksvillequalicumfoundation.com, click on Neighbourhood Small Grants, and create an account to fill out a short online form. And don't forget that we're here to help along the way. Please reach out if you have any trouble. Applications close on October 31st, so now is the time to share your idea. We can't wait to see the creative community-building projects that our Oceanside community members come forward with this fall. Thanks again to the Pulse for helping us spread the word.

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996, marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment, and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally, as well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both RE/MAX International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Windsor Plywood French Creek: Windsor Plywood in French Creek specializes in hard-to-source interior and exterior home finishing products, including flooring, doors, and mouldings. Windsor Plywood French Creek carries high-quality, responsibly sourced products and is committed to providing outstanding value and personalized one-on-one service to all of our customers: homeowners, do-it-yourselfers, renovators, builders, designers, craftsmen, and contractors. Regardless of the type or size of your project, Windsor can help you bring your vision to life from start to finish. Let Windsor Plywood in French Creek help you with your renovation, new build, or building project. Call 250-752-3122.

Dave Graham: Peter, I know that before becoming a podcaster, you were in the newspaper biz, and before that, the radio biz. I can't help but notice that those are all jobs that require sitting in a chair in a relatively safe environment. I take from that that you passed up on the idea of being a movie stuntman.

Peter McCully: Listen to you with all your deductive reasoning. And yet, Dave, you chose radio over police work.

Dave Graham: Well, yeah. I also like chairs and safe environments. As for our next guest, well, I'm sure he appreciates safety like the rest of us, but he might have a different tolerance level when it comes to handling fear. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Peter Kent of Qualicum Beach was a stunt double for Arnold Schwarzenegger for 15 years, including the Terminator movies. He is the first Canadian in the Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall of Fame. A former municipal councillor in Squamish, Kent is the father to twin boys.

Dave Graham: Peter, I want to say first it's a pleasure to meet you and thank you for being part of the Pulse Community Podcast.

Peter Kent: Oh, you're more than welcome, and thanks for inviting me.

Dave Graham: Let's start at the beginning, or thereabouts, and your childhood in North Vancouver. Was there a foreshadowing of what you would become in your favourite childhood activities?

Peter Kent: Well, my mom just let me be a wild child—out the door, not back until sunset basically. And it's funny because I lived near the banks of the Seymour River, and I was hardly a swimmer when I was little, and I think back now and I'm like, there were drownings in that river and I'm sure I could have been one of them, but I was just out running wild in the open woods in North End, which was totally undeveloped at that time up there. So I guess a little of that spirit carried over.

Dave Graham: Yep. I'm told you had some pretty tough jobs up and down Vancouver Island. Care to expand on any of them?

Peter Kent: It's just the usual run-of-the-mill jobs, I guess—pun intended. I worked in all the sawmills. I worked in Harmac. I worked in commercial fishing for a couple of summers on a big 78-foot seiner up in Alaska and in the Charlottes. I worked on paving crews. I think just a young man's whatever-catch-catch-can with work.

Dave Graham: Was it from there to Hollywood?

Peter Kent: No, I spent about five years on the road with bands and stuff doing sound. I've always had an interest in that, so I was actually—I'd moved to Victoria at that time. I was working at the legendary A&B Sound on Yates Street. And the economy started to slide about 1983, and I thought, I want to do something else. This isn't working. And it was commission sales. I just looked around and said, I've got nothing to keep me here. What do I want to do? I had been doing a lot of acting in theatre groups, et cetera, so I thought, I'll go to Los Angeles—naively, just get on a plane and go and be an actor. That's right. I'll do that.

Dave Graham: Tell me about meeting James Cameron and—was it that that evolved into your first movie?

Peter Kent: My first movie was background stuff. I think the first one was a background character in a thing called "Kentucky Fried Movie," which was made by the guys from "Airplane." And I was living in the YMCA in Hollywood 'cause that was the only place I could afford to stay—like $20 a night in my room. Every morning I would go down and make phone calls and try and find myself some work, not really even knowing what direction to look for that work. I wasn't seasoned at all and I had no wits about me for Hollywood. However, my head shots, which were actually Polaroids, went out to a couple of small casting companies that requested them, and there was a message for me at the desk of the Y one morning and they said, call us, James Cameron wants to see you. And I had no clue who Jim Cameron was at that point. He was relatively unknown. He'd only done Roger Corman's movie "Piranha" by then. Anyway, they said he wants to see you for this Arnold Schwarzenegger thing as a stand-in. And he's over at the ABC Television Centre, which luckily enough was just around the corner from the Y, so less than six blocks. So I got over there right away, and I don't know if there was anybody else that was supposed to meet for that part, but as soon as I walked in, Jim saw me and he just said, "You're here for the Arnold thing?" And I said, "Yeah." And then we began chatting and he realized we were both Canadian. He just said, "Great. Sign him up," to the production manager, Donna Smith. And so I was signed up as a stand-in, which is for lighting. So you take the actor's marks, you stand there while they adjust the lights and the sound and all of that stuff. But as he was turning away after saying that, he said, "By the way, have you ever done stunts before?" And I thought, yeah, sure. I—I think back because he had to know: how would I have gotten any stunt experience in Vancouver, Canada in 1982, '83, when there really was no industry there? But in any case, the bluff worked for a short time.

Dave Graham: How many movies have you done?

Peter Kent: I did 14 with Arnold and then about a hundred-and-something other TV series and feature films. So I've got—my resumé runs about 180 items.

Dave Graham: And of those, on how many occasions were you asked to do something either new to you and/or new to the work of stunting?

Peter Kent: Pretty much everything was new to me, and a lot of times I was so naïve that I didn't even know what they meant. They would say, "Okay, you're gonna do this," and I had this clueless look on my face and I'm sure people were like, "Okay, this kid's clueless." The acting stuff I was fine with. I interspersed the acting roles with the stunt stuff. So I would do a job with Arnold and then I had agents by that point, after the second film with him, and so they would send me out. I did six episodes of "Baywatch," all of the usual stuff like "Knots Landing," all of those eighties TV series. So I did all of those. So the acting was fine because I had myself a coach in Zena Vindey, who was the head acting coach at MGM for 26 years. And I was very grateful and very lucky to have her take me on, even though she said no. She called me back about a week later and said, "You're stuck in my mind, dear, and I just—I think you really need to come in and work with me." So I was really blessed to have her. Every day on the stunt community, though, was a different story.

Dave Graham: Now you have me curious. What do you think it was about you that got the attention of the acting coach?

Peter Kent: I really don't know. She never divulged that to me. She had a whole roster of clients that she was working with, young actors—Peter Michael Hall and a whole bunch of people. They're relatively well-known in Hollywood, and she was busy with those. But as she said, she just thought that there was something there that was untapped in me and had me back in and worked with me once a week.

Dave Graham: Yeah, I'm very grateful. Were there any stunts that you performed that could not be replicated today, whether by regulation or whatever limitations there might be?

Peter Kent: Well, here's the thing. A lot of the stunts today—in fact, almost all—are not practical any longer. They're done on a green screen stage or against a CG-generated backdrop. They are not the practical stunts that we did back in the day. So the practical stunts are the ones that will get you killed, because you're actually physically doing them. So if you look at those stunts—me running across the truck bed in T2 from the little pickup truck to the hood of the big rig—you can tell it's real. It's somebody doing it. Now, the funny part with that particular gag was that Jim said later on—and I never heard this on the day, and I wish I had—but he said on the making of T2, when they were doing the section about stunts, he said, "Now watch this here. This is actually Peter doing this stunt where, at 60 miles an hour, he gets out, runs across the hood." He goes, "He could have been killed at any moment." And I knew that at the time when I did it because I had this—it wasn't inherently really dangerous, and if you fell off, there was no way to save yourself. You'd go head-first onto the cement. But it was nice of him to say that later on and acknowledge that. Yeah. He said, "I would never do this stunt nowadays. It was far too dangerous."

Dave Graham: What other aspects about you beyond physical resemblance, do you think, made for such a long-lasting relationship with Mr. Schwarzenegger?

Peter Kent: Yeah, it was my sense of humour, and I do believe that. The funny thing is when I told my mom that I'd got my first job with Arnold on "The Terminator," she didn't really know who it was, but she knew through my insistence that he was someone famous. And she said, "That's very nice, dear." Then she said, "Now just don't kowtow and just treat him like everybody else." And so I guess I took that to heart. So I never treated him like anybody special. I would tell him he was an idiot if he was acting like an idiot, and he would do the same for me. And I think we had that camaraderie.

Dave Graham: It grew to much more, it seems, than the—may I call it a one-dimensional stuntman-star relationship. How far did it go?

Peter Kent: He realized in the process of doing the stunts for him that I was also an actor, because I would take these breaks away and he'd go, "Peter, what are you doing here today? Come to the gym." And I'm like, "No, I'm on set today." "Well, doing what?" And I would tell him I was acting. So then he said, "I want you to start reading the script with me." So when I was off, we would go to the gym, we would go to breakfast, and we would go back to his place up in the canyon on Sunset Boulevard, and we'd take a script and sit in the hot tub and rehearse the lines. So I would read all the other dialogue for him, and then that became me doing that for him in the trailer when we were on set, polishing the lines before we went. Then he found out that I could cook, because my mother and I had run a boarding house in Nanaimo with 15 people in it. So I learned how to cook and be the domesticate at a very young age. So he would have me cook, and his favourite was my spaghetti sauce.

Dave Graham: So I can't imagine through this, you didn't sit down and enjoy a cigar or two together?

Peter Kent: Oh yeah, many. I was smoking cigars before I went to Hollywood, but they were the old Port Colts, the wine or rum dipped or whatever they were, with a plastic tip on the end. And I remember the first time I pulled one of those out in front of him and I would snap the plastic tip off and just smoke it without the tip on it. But he looks at me with this look of disdain and he goes, "Peter, what is that crap you're smoking there?" And he took it out of my mouth and threw it on the ground. And then he said, "Go to the trailer and get a decent cigar from the box." So I went in and grabbed a Havana. And once I started smoking those, I realized my previous mistake of smoking the very inferior Old Port. And so I became the guy that ordered cigars for him too. And you have to understand at this point too, Cuba was closed to Americans, and yet he still had, because of his celebrity status, his connection with all of these Cuban cigars. So we always had boxes and boxes of Cuban cigars, and he made friends with a lot of guys like in Tampa that had the great cigar factories in Tampa that would ship stuff up. So there was never a shortage.

Dave Graham: Is there anything you are able to comfortably share with us—something about Arnold that might surprise us in relation to what we know of him as his public persona?

Peter Kent: Well, he's a bit of a comedian. I don't say that from the comedian side of having done comedy like with Danny DeVito in "Twins," but he's a bit of a comedian. I think a lot of people see the person for what he really is. He's also very direct with what he's attempting to do with his life and always has been. Yeah, but I don't know. There's nothing really that I can disclose. I think the thing with the maid is finally out of the box and the illegitimate son, so I don't need to go there.

Dave Graham: Did you find that you inspired one another to raise the bar in whatever?

Peter Kent: Well, you know, in training together, obviously I had not even really been a bodybuilder, and so I'm now asked to emulate a five-time world champion. I had to put a lot more effort into my workouts once I met him and once he dragged me to the gym, and there was a level of competition there where he would always try and push me. One of our partners and Arnold's friend was Sven-Ole Thorsen from "Conan the Barbarian," the guy with the big mallet, right? So Sven was always a training partner with us. And so between the two of those guys, they used to abuse me quite heavily in the gym and add extra plates and when I was trying to do squats, kick me in the butt when I was at the bottom and, you know, that kind of thing, in an effort to push me. We just pushed each other along. Yeah, and there were times too when Arnold wanted to get cardio. I would meet him at his house at 6:00 a.m. up in the canyon and we would hike to the top of the hill of the canyons and then run back down on these dirt gravel trails that were quite steep. One time I was running and he kicked my feet out from underneath me and dumped me into the bushes on the side of the track. So I thought, okay, fine. So the next time I did the same to him. I fell back, let him get ahead of me, and I booted his feet out from underneath him. And then it became like every time we did that, it was like, you gotta make sure that the other guy doesn't get up behind you and doesn't close that space.

Dave Graham: Are you still in touch?

Peter Kent: I talked to him from time to time and he's got his own things he's doing now. And the funny thing is I speak more to, I think, his secretary Lynn, whom I've known for probably 40 years almost, than I do with him. So I know of his whereabouts and what shenanigans he is up to.

Dave Graham: Yeah. Just to touch back on the CGI thing, obviously it's the safe response to the ongoing demands of audiences for more, better, faster, bigger. But do you think the art of what you did has somehow been lost? Has the translation to computer-generated imagery amounted to a negative for the industry in some sense?

Peter Kent: The aspect of seeing a gag that's being done practically and recognizing it, like I did a wire drop down the side of the Long Beach Hilton, which was 20 storeys. Nowadays that would all be done on a green screen. They would be superimposed over a building, which they would somehow CG as the fall, and then they would drop the body on a wire commensurately in the opposite direction and it would look like they were really falling. But you look at that image and you can tell that it's not real. Maybe some of the younger folks these days can't, but for guys like me and old-school guys, you can definitely tell that it's not real. You look at what I did in "Last Action Hero," you know that's real. So I don't know that it's a negative, but it's also in the interest of safety, because there were numerous lawsuits. I had friends that died. I've had friends that have been paralyzed. So somewhat in an effort also, not only with the technology side of CG, but in an effort to mitigate some of those injuries and stuff. It's safer if you go on green screen stage where you have pads down that are also green. So if the guy falls or a wire breaks or any of that stuff, they go to a pad. In my case, had the wire broken, I would've gone 20 storeys to the concrete. There was no pad.

Dave Graham: If you were mentoring young folks hoping to become stunt performers today, would you have any advice to share or would you try to dissuade them?

Peter Kent: I ran a school called the School for Hard Knocks in Vancouver for almost a decade with three of my partners. We had a lot of young folks in there, and what we tried to do was, you know, avail them of some of the toolkit that they would need if they were gonna go out into the stunt community. So these were all young guys and girls. We taught them fighting techniques, wire flying, stair falls, car hits, and fire burns even. I would never dissuade anybody. You know, the funny thing with my career was I think back to the time that I left to go to LA and I talked to my mom and dad, and neither of them mentioned a negative word to me. They just said, "Okay, good luck." And so if somebody's got a dream, you never want to stamp on that or inject any negativity into it. Let them flesh it out for themselves. Let them find out for themselves whether they're suited for it, and if you have some knowledge to impart based on that subject, then give it to them. Because for me, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did without the guys that took care of me. So I believe in paying it forward.

Dave Graham: You transitioned from Hollywood to municipal politics in Squamish. How did that go?

Peter Kent: It was an interesting transition. My wife and I, and we had our sons and we were living in Squamish, and I was a vocal advocate for some of the things that were going on in the community, and people just said, "We like what you're saying. Would you run for city council?" Eventually the pressure mounted from a bunch of different avenues and I said, "Okay," and I did. The first time I didn't get in. That was a very narrow margin. And then the second time I did get in, it was a very rewarding experience and enlightening. The wheels of politics, municipal or otherwise, grind very slow. And that's the funny thing—that you go in and you think, "I'm gonna make all these changes. I'm gonna do this, and we're gonna start right here." And then you come to a screeching halt against the wall of bureaucracy. But it was an interesting time and I really enjoyed it.

Dave Graham: And thanks, Squamish. Yeah. What kind of transferable skills were there between the two worlds?

Peter Kent: Oh, I don't know that there were any. Yeah, I don't think there was much of anything there. Using your wits basically, 'cause there's nothing physical about the politics side, but you definitely have to have some smarts to be able to—you know, you're balancing a budget for a community, so it's not your money. I was always very aware and conscious of the fact that we're spending money on fixing infrastructure. We're working on this, we're doing that. We're giving out money to these various different groups, but it's not ours, and therefore you have to go, "Okay, let's take a step back from this and realize, is this something we really need to do? What really needs to be fixed? And what really needs to be worked on right now as opposed to this?" And so balancing all of that out in a budget was a bit harrowing actually, the first time when I got handed this massive set of binders and said, "Here, we have XXX million dollars and we have to figure out how to spend it."

Dave Graham: How would you rate your performance as a politician?

Peter Kent: I really don't know. All I did was like everything I do in life, I just tried to do it to the best of my ability, and if I didn't, well, to those that think that way, I'm sorry.

Dave Graham: You were the first Canadian to be invited to join Hollywood's Stuntmen's Hall of Fame. Tell me about that and what that experience was like for you.

Peter Kent: Well, I knew the head of the Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall of Fame, and he reached out to me and he just said, "We haven't acknowledged you." And I was like, "Okay, well—" and my wife was like, "Yeah, you should go after that." There was nothing really to go after. It was just to turn back and go, "Okay, then whatever." And then they came back to me and they said, "We'd like to welcome you in." And it's not any massive fanfare. It's not—you don't get to print your hands in concrete or anything or your face. But it was a nice honour because there's a lot of really famous folks in there, like Yakima Canutt, the first of John Wayne's doubles. He's the grandfather of stunts, basically. The cadre of guys that I worked with very early on are all in there, and I'm the only Canadian that's alive to this moment anyway. And now I work as a real estate agent, which is a lot safer than doing stunts and very enjoyable. I work out of the mid-Island, so Qualicum Beach, Nanaimo, basically the whole Island. I drive the whole Island. But it's one of those things like when I went into politics that I thought, you know, what can I do that's entertaining? I don't want to retire. That's hard on the body 'cause my body's taken more than enough abuse over the years. And I just thought real estate's fun, and I think that really came about when I sold my place in Squamish and we moved out. I was—and my wife were—very dissatisfied with the realtor that we had. It was not a good experience. And that was all due to communication. Couldn't get him on the phone, couldn't get a text from him, couldn't find out what was going on. And it was extremely frustrating and actually really stressful. You're thinking of the price of a home and your home and you're trying to move, and all of these things impinge on one another and tie together. And so when I finally got through that experience, I thought, if I ever do this, that's exactly how I'm not gonna be. I'm gonna be the guy that communicates all the time. I'm gonna be the guy that gets the documents right the first time. I'm gonna be the guy that's there for my clients always. And so I've tried to transition that into my real estate experience and I feel pretty confident that I have.

Dave Graham: Did I get this right, that you met your wife literally the day after your mother passed in a coffee shop in Parksville? Do you think there was something extraordinary about that in terms of timing or anything, or is it just the way life is?

Peter Kent: No, I think it's the way life is, and I think it was also the timing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure my mom had a hand in it somewhere. It was the coffee shop she used to go into all the time before she passed away. It's funny because you think about that, it's the butterfly effect, right? You think if I was to change one item, like I was almost killed in a car accident. I was actually DOA in a car accident when I was 17. And I think, you know what, if I avoided that moment, then maybe I wouldn't look like Arnold, 'cause it reshaped my face. I went through the windshield face first and I was laying dead in the ditch and they started me up. And you think, okay, maybe if that didn't happen to me in life, if I could go back and relive that and miss that point, but then who knows what the other outcomes are, right? So every time you get through something, you think, "Oh, maybe if I went back and didn't have that happen," but then you don't know how that would change the other outcomes. So I think you just basically have to—well, you have to live with it because you can't do that. So, you know, I wouldn't change anything. I mean, I experienced things in the stunt world that no human gets to do. I know that in my heart that I've done stuff that nobody's done before, and so there's some gratification, and I don't take any ego away with that, but it's the thing that I can look back on with some pride and say, "I did that in my life." It's a separate chapter now. It's behind. But there are things that I've done. I think all of those things—if I look back at my life, it's sort of those kinds of chapters. The millworker kid and the stereo sales kid and the road trip kid and the stunt guy and all of those. So you know, you close one chapter in your life, you open another. Now it's the real estate chapter, and my boys who are 16-year-old twins who are just all over the map—one in professional hockey starting now, and the other one's working towards his boxing. And a lot of driving and—yeah, so the madness hasn't slowed down for me, but I think the good thing with that is I don't get a chance to get sedentary because my boys won't let that happen.

Dave Graham: This has been a real treat. Thank you so much for spending some time.

Peter Kent: Thank you. I appreciate it. Cheers, everybody.

Peter McCully: An interesting guy, Peter. I know sometimes he misses the stuntman life. I saw him last week in Qualicum Beach riding on the hood of a truck.

Dave Graham: No way. Really?

Peter McCully: I'm kidding, Dave. I'm kidding. Although with his background, I wouldn't put it past him.

Dave Graham: Oh yeah. Had me wondering for a second there. Although listening to his story, it does make you think about how unexpected turns in life can present new opportunities.

Peter McCully: Indeed. And speaking of unexpected turns, let's talk about our kids' stories.

Dave Graham: Oh wow. I did not see that coming. But yes, we have two stories for kids and we call them Skookum Kids Stories. There's "Gracie, the Eskimo Dog" and "The Mellow Submarine."

Peter McCully: These are stories that feature familiar places and events, and they have themes that touch on the value of friendships and teamwork among other things. And you'll find them at thepulsecommunity.ca, skookumkids.com, Apple, Amazon, Spotify, iHeart, and YouTube.

Dave Graham: What do you say, Peter? You want to go out and do something crazy? Maybe a little dangerous?

Peter McCully: Dave, are you talking about skydiving kind of thrills or maybe just ordering gravy with your fries?

Dave Graham: Oh, all right. Let's start with the gravy. We can work out from there.

Rockin' Rhonda & The Uptown Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave, oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So to speak. Laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat. Peter and Dave. They're on the mics alright. Join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.