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Rockin' Rhonda: Here comes Peter. Here comes Dave. Oh, listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing, spinning tales in the hot podcast cave. So laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat.

Peter McCully: Welcome back to The Pulse Community Podcast. I'm Peter McCully. And here on mid-Vancouver Island, the blackberries are ripening on what seems like almost every fence line and back road.

Dave Graham: And I'm Dave Graham. Peter, I believe you are referring to the Himalayan blackberry, which is the one we see the most growing in those huge bushes with its thick canes and massive thorns, also known as the Armenian blackberry, and it is an invasive species. I know this because it has invaded my backyard. So let me get this right. You've got a yard full of berries, and yet you haven't dragged in a pail or two to share? At my place, it's strictly pick your own, and when you're done, I hand you a pair of loppers so you can pay me back with a little hacking and slashing. And I'm not talking about the inevitable injuries that come with facing off against the formidable Himalayan blackberry. So when would you like to book a time for picking? Oh, I should add, your first bandage is free.

Peter McCully: Well, let me get back to you on that. As for today's podcast, Dave, we've got a guest with no shortage of fans here on the island.

Dave Graham: Award-winning comedian Brent Butt will be touring Vancouver Island in September, and he'll be joining us today on the podcast. Brent started stand-up in 1988, spent years on the club date circuit before creating and starring in Corner Gas, one of the most watched sitcoms in Canadian television history.

Brent Butt: People come up and just say jackass, right? I get called jackass a lot. Because of Oscar calling Brent jackass all the time. I always say to Eric, I said, "That's my biggest regret, is giving you that word," because I wrote it in because I loved saying jackass. I always said jackass to all my buddies all the time. It just seemed like a good old-timey, old guy thing to call a buddy. You jackass. And so when I was writing the script and I wrote it in that Oscar said it, just because it was something I liked.

Peter McCully: For those of you looking for a unique shopping experience, check out our conversation with Veronica Zick, your host for the Parksville Wine Walk.

Veronica Szick: We are an amazing wine-growing region on Vancouver Island. Does that make it why Parksville as opposed to Nanaimo or Duncan or Ladysmith? What it does make the difference is that Parksville is accessible. It's able to get the wines. So from Cowichan to Saanich to the Comox Valley, I have all those options to be able to bring you wines from these very good wine-growing regions. If Vancouver Island only had not so great wines, this wouldn't really be a thing, and we'd only be going to beer festivals.

Dave Graham: The new generic semaglutide is hitting the market, and pharmacist Aki Shah will drop by to talk about this and the new generics on an upcoming episode.

Peter McCully: When it was cleared for use in Canada five years ago, semaglutide was considered a game-changer in the world of weight loss. This will be a good conversation about what's changing and what it means for those already using it. Also coming to the podcast, the Route 19A Arts Festival Festival involves a fine art exhibition, many live music performances, and an artist studio tour. Sheena McCorkadale will join us to tell us more.

Dave Graham: We have another festival to mention, the Salish Coast Music Festival. It's coming up, and we'll be joined by Chris Fry of the Vancouver Island band The Bills. They're celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, and they'll be closing out the festival

Peter McCully: Hi, is this Christina Zanchetta?

Christina Zanchetta: Yes, it is.

Peter McCully: Peter McCully calling from The Pulse Community Podcast.

Christina Zanchetta: Hi.

Peter McCully: Can you guess why I'm calling you today?

Christina Zanchetta: Did I win some tickets?

Peter McCully: As Dave Graham says, you've won the last two tickets in the universe to see Blue Rodeo in Parksville.

Christina Zanchetta: Awesome.

Peter McCully: So thanks very much for entering our contest. I see that when you entered the contest, we had asked folks what their favourite Blue Rodeo song was, and you said Bad Timing.

Christina Zanchetta: Yes.

Peter McCully: I have to say, this is pretty good timing, Christina.

Christina Zanchetta: Yes, it is.

Peter McCully: You will be the winner of a general admission pass for two, two folding camp chairs, and a $100 Thrifty Foods gift card for some munchies.

Christina Zanchetta: Sounds good. Thank you so much. Bye.

Marilyn: 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.

Peter McCully: We have a new contest that you can check out on our website, thepulsecommunity.ca, or our social pages on Facebook and Instagram.

Dave Graham: It's a giveaway celebrating Roy Henry Vickers' recent birthday. This world-renowned First Nations artist turned 80 years of age recently, and we have four books to give away, including The Best of Roy Henry Vickers: 80 Selected Works.

Peter McCully: It's a beautiful collection and a wonderful way to mark a milestone for one of the province's, and the country's, most celebrated artists.

Dave Graham: He is a member of both the Order of British Columbia and of the Order of Canada. Heck, this guy even has a Grammy nomination to his credit. And here's another significant occasion on this man's remarkable timeline. It's the opening of his own gallery on the west coast of the island in the quaint little town of Tofino, and that was 40 years ago. Head to our website or our social pages for details on how to enter our Roy Henry Vickers books giveaway. Now let's get to our first guest. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Joining us today is Veronica Zick, a Nanaimo-based sommelier and event planner, and the host of the Parksville Wine Walk. With a background in business and years of experience curating community wine events, Veronica has helped turn downtown Parksville into a showcase for island wineries, cideries, and craft producers.

Peter McCully: Welcome to the podcast today, Veronica.

Veronica Szick: Well, thank you, Peter. I was really happy I stumbled across the podcast on the McMillan Art Centre's newsletter. Yes. They've been a great supporter of the podcast, and it's reciprocal. And of course, you're involved with the McMillan Art Centre, as

Peter McCully: The Parksville Wine Walk is just a short time away. I did wanna ask you before we get into the details of the Parksville Wine Walk, what drew you to becoming a sommelier?

Veronica Szick: The love of wine. Let's start there. So I was shopping and buying wine and in time drinking it, had spent an exorbitant amount of money on wine in Napa Valley and decided that maybe I should learn something about what I've just spent a small fortune on. So I went to the International Sommelier Guild's Sommelier Program in 2004. I have some certification level one, two, three, four. If you've seen things in movies where they're tasting blind, not necessarily to that degree. A little bit blind and a little bit of knowledge. Oh, more than a little bit. It was a year of Mondays. A lot of information about wine and why I stuck with it is because it's so different and it changes every year. It's an organic product in that it's like a tomato. You got grape and what you do with a grape, and a tomato and what you do with tomato sauce changes each time, and I'm really excited about the differences and changes each year.

Peter McCully: So Veronica, I'm curious, why did you start a wine walk in Parksville?

Veronica Szick: I live in Nanaimo. I have done a wine walk in Nanaimo, but I haven't found the region or the shops as cool or walkable as in Parksville. I also haven't been as welcomed anywhere else as much as in Parksville. There's a whole bunch of elements that came together to do a wine walk in Parksville. The shops are unique, super cool to visit. They're family-owned and run, so they're not chain stores that I have to go up the food chain and look for a regional manager. I can look the owner proprietor in the eyeballs and say how this is gonna affect them. The guests are going to be able to go back again and know they can also speak with the owners. So that's one element of it. The other element is the wine. We are an amazing wine-growing region on Vancouver Island. Does that make it why Parksville as opposed to Nanaimo or Duncan or Ladysmith? What it does make the difference is that Parksville is accessible. It's able to get the wines, so from Cowichan to Saanich to the Comox Valley, I have all those options to be able to bring you wines from these very good wine-growing regions. If Vancouver Island only had not so great wines, this wouldn't really be a thing and we'd only be going to beer festivals.

Peter McCully: So tell us about the upcoming Parksville Wine Walk. When is it? How did it get started? And how long has it been running?

Veronica Szick: This will be our fifth wine walk in Parksville. It's Friday, August 28th. VIP admission starts at 4:30 with a sparkling wine reception, and you're admitted into the shops an hour early at 5:00. General admission starts at 6:00, and the whole event goes till 9:00. Everything starts at the McMillan Art Centre, where you'll pick up your tasting glass, your tasting tokens, your wristband so that we know you've been ID'd and you're not bothered at each stop, and we give you a map. There's 10 stops. We give you a number suggesting where you start so that nowhere is congested, and then you go and it's a self-guided tour.

Peter McCully: And how many businesses are involved?

Veronica Szick: There'll be eight to 10 stops, mostly retail stores where you'll be able to shop. The stores are closed to the general public and only open to the guests of the Wine Walk, so you get an exclusive experience. The shop owners are there specifically catering to the event.

Peter McCully: You mentioned you're in your fifth year now. What has the community response been, and how has that shaped how the event has grown?

Veronica Szick: The response has been awesome. A couple of the sites that are always in and always will be part of it, if I did it for another 100 years, they would be in Sandy at Close to You Boutique is a super supporter of the event I'm likewise a supporter of her shop It's all local. It's all independent stores, all with the owners that you can look eye to eye and meet them while you're out in the world. It's grown by there's a little bit more recognition, but I haven't done it in Parksville for two years, so it ebbs and flows of who remembers and doesn't remember. The shop owners certainly remember because 2 to 400 people in their store tasting is not the norm for a Friday evening.

Peter McCully: I was going to ask you what the economic or the visibility impact an event like this would have on downtown businesses that participate.

Veronica Szick: Years ago, there was one shop that isn't downtown any longer, but I can remember going up to them and saying, "Hey, would you like to be part of the Wine Walk again?" They looked up the date, they looked up their numbers, and they're like, "Holy cows, of course, we're in again." So it makes a big difference because the event is targeted and focused on wine tasting and shopping. It's, "Hey, there's gonna be some really cool promotions or deals going on while you're out tasting, so take part in that as well."

Peter McCully: For someone who is attending their first wine walk, and maybe they feel out of their depth a little bit with wine in general, what would you tell them to focus on?

Veronica Szick: Certainly focus on having fun. Focus on maybe not being exposed to the wines that you're gonna be exposed to during the event. Most stops will have a red, white, and rosé. Some will have some sparkling wine. There'll be some cider, some beer, some distilled spirits. This year I'm gonna have Esquimalt Vermouth there, so you'll get to taste some interesting vermouth. What will new people or seasoned people learn? They might not be exposed to these specific wineries, or I call them boozeries, so that's my term. So the boozery that you're gonna visit might not be something that you've tasted at before. I haven't got confirmation, but one of the breweries you would not have access to traditionally, those are the ones that I try to have at the event. And even if you know nothing about beer or spirits or anything, pourers are either representatives from the winery or hired pourers, so they'll know, have the tasting notes for each wine, and you'll be able to read a little bit about what it would go with. But don't focus too much on, "Oh my gosh, I need to remember all this." There's no test. It's just fun and meant to expose you to the fabulous wines we have on Vancouver Island and in BC.

Peter McCully: Veronica, I heard you say VIP program. That always puts my ears up

Veronica Szick: Yes, this year there is a VIP experience. I wanted to make it something super unique that maybe it would be a bit different than other VIP options anyone has seen before. So, and I wanted to start out with a bang. Swain Creek Cidery, the owner Claire will be pouring so sparkling cider at the event. I will have a sparkling wine as well. It's a surprise, but it will be a BC sparkling wine for sure. I might actually be the one pouring it, or the producer. VIP experience will start with this super cool sparkling wine reception where you get to come in, you get your wine glass, your wristband, your tokens, and your map before everyone else. You get to head out when you like so that you can be at the shops at five o'clock. You can be there before everyone at six o'clock, so you will have significantly less competition for your tastes starting an hour early. There's only 100 VIP tickets sold. I'm about a third in of those, so there's still ample for you to get your friends together and see how that'll go. I also got a commemorative corkscrew, so if you've seen my pink colours, they are a bright pink corkscrew that say Wine Walk Parksville Edition. You do have access to the grazing tables along the way, but you will have your own personalized charcuterie board in a box as well. So should you not want to partake in the grazing table or you want extra, you get your own charcuterie board.

Peter McCully: Is there a designated driver program?

Veronica Szick: Yes, there is. So everyone can participate. You can bring that person along with you. They get the commemorative glass and the map. They can go along with you. They have access to the food. They will have a different coloured wristband, which will alert the pourers to not pour to the people with a designated driver ticket. You will not be given any tokens, and you will not be able to give them tokens even if you have them. So if your guest gave you a token and you have a different colour wristband, you will not be served. There will be water at every stop, so you can have water. There might be pop somewhere along the line. I'm still currently looking into a non-alcohol option for tasting. You can certainly participate, be part of all the fun, see all the people, be in the throngs in the shops when they're closed to the public, and have as much fun as your drinking counterparts

Peter McCully: Veronica, what is a common misconception that people have about sommeliers?

Veronica Szick: We are not snobby wine people. One of my greatest quests in life is cheap, yummy wine. You might find that is something that's consistent over a somm population, is that people are looking for an amazing bottle of wine that isn't $100, that isn't necessarily $30. The best value wines are what we are on the hunt for. We might drink a little more than the average bear or not, but we're discerning in a balanced wine, but not in spendy wines. And we're not super judgmental, except sometimes. There's many people that have said, "Oh my gosh, Veronica, red wine gives me a headache," or, "Some rosés give me a headache." What that usually is residual sugar in wine. So if you're drinking too cheap wine, then you're drinking excess sugar, and that's masking the faults in wine, so that's what's giving you a headache. If you think that wine is not for you, maybe up your budget a little bit.

Peter McCully: When you're building a tasting flight or a pairing list for an event, what's the process? What are you looking for?

Veronica Szick: I'm looking for things that showcase the area. In wine, the term is terroir. Terroir is more than just the dirt. It's the area, it's the weather, it's the growing season, and how uniquely vinified the wines are. I want a wide range of what there is in the area. Vancouver Island is considered a cold weather region. Our best wines are whites and then sparkling wines. The reds tend to be super young, but some are way delicious, and the rosés are all excellent. So at most of the tastings, there's three wines from each winery, a red, white, and rosé, or a sparkling and a red. I don't try to make them all the same. I try to have unique wines from the different areas on the island. On Vancouver Island in the Cowichan Valley, they make a champ de l'il. We'll call it proprietary blend of grapes that grow in cold weather regions, which Vancouver Island is one of. I try to have several versions of champ de l'il so that you can see what is available from several producers. That being said, not everyone makes one, so we can't have many of them. But I do try to make a wide variety and see what will appeal to every palate.

Dave Graham: Thanks to Veronica Zick for bringing the goods on the Wine Walk. For more info and to purchase tickets, go to themcmillanartscentre.com. You'll also find links in our show notes. That's an event worth putting on your calendar. We wish the Wine Walk in Parksville every success. We have added to our website links for Vancouver Island webcams and to other podcasts from up and down the island. Check it out at thepulsecommunity.ca. Otherwise, you can find us on Apple, Amazon, iHeart, Spotify, TikTok, and YouTube. Oh, we're also on Facebook and Instagram.

Peter McCully: If you have someone in mind that you think we should be talking to, then please speak to us. You can reach us and leave a voice or text message. Head to our website and click on the contact link. You'll find us at thepulsecommunity.ca.

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Dave Graham: Peter, while we are enjoying those invasive, but yummy Himalayan blackberries, I want to share with you a little Vancouver Island berry picking secret, but don't tell anyone about this, okay?

Peter McCully: Well, okay. I'm not making any promises. What do you got?

Dave Graham: We have a native blackberry species that many believe to be sweeter and more flavourful. It's called the trailing blackberry. Now, they are smaller berries. They grow on smaller vines closer to the ground, but you gotta keep it to yourself, man. Between us, the birds, and the bears, there are only so many berries to go around. Okay, back to the matter at hand, and that would be our next guest. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Award-winning comedian Brent Butt grew up the youngest of seven kids in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, a farming town of about 3,000. He started standup in 1988, spent years grinding out club dates before creating and starring in Corner Gas, one of the most watched sitcoms in Canadian television history.

Peter McCully: Thanks for joining us on the podcast today, Brent.

Brent Butt: Oh, it's my pleasure.

Peter McCully: I was checking out your website prior to our chat, and there's a video of you welcoming folks to your website, and in the background is your rec room. And as a former goalie as a youngster, I spotted a collection of goalie masks hanging on the wall. There's probably a story there, right?

Brent Butt: They're not actual masks. This is just a print. It's a long, vertical poster, basically, that you hang on the wall, and the way the print is made, it's made with shadows. So from a distance, it does look pretty real. I can see why it may have fooled you. But if you were here in person, you would see it's just flat printed. There's Ken Drydens, Tony Esposito, Gerry Cheevers, that kind of thing.

Peter McCully: Were you a goaltender or fan of goalies?

Brent Butt: I was. I was a goalie. I was a short, little fat kid who couldn't skate, so Coach had very few options. But I was very interested. I don't know what it is about that. Like, when I played baseball, I liked to be the back catcher. When I played hockey, I was the goalie. And I first started playing football in high school, I was the centre. There's something about being squat and stopping things that appealed to me. I wasn't fleet of foot, so I played to my strengths.

Peter McCully: Marilyn mentioned in the introduction today that the Butt name was known in Tisdale, Saskatchewan while you were growing up. What businesses were your family into?

Brent Butt: There was one business. It was my favourite sign in all of signage, and it was in my hometown. My cousin had a store. It was originally my uncle's, and then when my uncle passed away, handed down to my cousin. So when you drive through town, you'd see that sign, Butt Jewelry. If you know there's a family named Butt, you think nothing of it. It must have seemed weird to people just driving through, Butt Jewelry. Why would you? What scenario would you need that? Yeah, I come from a long line of jewelers. A lot of my father's brothers were into jewelry and watchmaking and watch repair and that kind of thing. I said to my dad, "Why didn't you get into it? It's such a family thing. Why didn't you get into it?" He said, "I wouldn't have the damn patience for that." My father was like logger, coal miner, farmer. He liked to be outdoors lifting and pulling things.

Peter McCully: Now, was he a funny guy? Because I wonder where, with all your brothers and sisters and your parents, where the funny comes from for Brent.

Brent Butt: My father and mother were both funny, and they were funny in different ways. My father was very much a showman. He, he loved to be the centre of attention. Geez, I wonder where I got that from. He loved to tell a story. He loved to tell a joke. He loved to do a song and dance. He had a whole thing. And my mother was very quietly funny. She was, like, with the aside. She'd be like, "Oh, check out the shirt on this guy." That kind of thing. I had the best of both worlds, the training ground of being subtle, but also seeing a real showman at it. And so all my siblings, I'm the youngest of seven kids, they could all make me laugh. My parents could make me laugh. We didn't grow up with money, and so we really had to entertain ourselves. One of the best ways to do that was to just tell a funny story, make each other laugh.

Peter McCully: Was Tisdale a very big place?

Brent Butt: It's about 3,000 people when I was growing up. It might be a little bigger now. It's been in the news lately because they discovered this huge deposit of alumina. They figure that my hometown sits on one-third of the world's reserves of alumina, the known reserves anyway. I believe that's gonna alter my hometown a little bit. But yeah, it was always about 3,000, farming community, the hub of the Carrot River Valley, they called it. A lot of little towns, Sylvania, Elderslie, Crooked River, the Star City. Tisdale's a place where you'd come get your groceries.

Peter McCully: Now, you built your career on clean, deadpan, coffee shop style humor. Do you think that style came from small town living or from the family, or was it just trial and error on stage?

Brent Butt: I think part of it was just really how I made myself laugh. I loved to play with the language, and I just found it was more interesting to me to find funny, unique ways of saying things or to phrase things than just using everyday cursing, which I love. I'm a big fan of in my regular life. I love to string some filth together. And also early in stand-up, I had no qualms. If I thought of a joke that was dirty or had required foul language, I had no problem doing it on stage. For the most part, what I was drawn to was playing with the language in a fun, unique way. I was more drawn to subtleties and nuances, and those don't really exist as much in the toilet humor world. So it just developed naturally. And then when Corner Gas came along, it was a show that people sat down and watched with the whole family. We would always hear people say, "This is the only show that my grandkids and my grandparents look forward to watching." People would sit down with their little kids and watch the show. Because of that, people started bringing their kids to my shows. I would come out on stage, and I would see an 11-year-old in the front row. I started to curb myself. They're probably not wanting me to say anything filthy in front of their little kid, and I have the ability to work clean, so it just sort of evolved that way. I've always said that there's no correlation between funny and clean or dirty. As long as it's an original twist that the audience wouldn't have thought of themself, I think it's valid. And so some of my favourite comedians are just the filthiest guys you'd ever imagine.

Peter McCully: You did 17 years on the road before Corner Gas came along. Perhaps you have a story or two from those early days on the road?

Brent Butt: I absolutely do. I have all kinds. Would you like me to relay one? Is that what we're getting at here? A common question that people ask me is, "What's the worst experience you ever had or the toughest show?" And I always think of this one night, it was somewhere in the woods between Toronto and Hamilton. It was myself and another comedian named Chris Finn. This other comedian was booking this room, and this'll happen sometimes. A comedian will call you up and say, "Look, I'm doing this room and I need a guy." So he called me and Chris Finn, a buddy of mine. He said, "You guys wanna do this show that I book?" Gave us directions. This is pre-GPS days, so it was just he scribbled down the directions. And really didn't tell us much about it other than it's a bar. We're driving there. We get off the highway, off the secondary highway. We're on some kind of gravel road now, grid road, and it's getting worse and worse. We're really going out into the woods. My buddy Chris said, "We get there, it's probably going to be a Confederate flag on the door." There wasn't. When we walked in, a Confederate flag was the backdrop of the stage, and it was just an ocean of Harleys out front. So we had been booked into this biker bar, and we didn't know that that's where we were going to play. Chris is in a suit. I'm wearing a green sweater that my mom gave me for Christmas, and we just stand out like sore thumbs. So we go in the place and we're nervous. We know this is gonna be hell on Earth. We flip a coin as to who's supposed to go up first. He loses, so he's gotta go up first. We're supposed to do 45 minutes each. He bails at 15 minutes because they wanna kill him. He introduces me. I go up. It goes equally poorly. This is how bad it was. At one point, this big dude, about six foot five, bald-headed guy, comes walking up towards the stage. I see him coming from the back of the room. He walks towards the stage. He gets to the front of the stage. He pulls a bowie knife from a sheath that's strapped to his leg, and he points it at me and he drags it across his throat. I was so far gone by this point, I said to him, "Really? You're gonna kill me 'cause you don't think I'm funny? That doesn't seem like an overreaction to you?" I bail after about 15 minutes too. So now Chris and I are huddled in a corner. The owner of the place comes over. The only type of guy that could own a place like this. He's about six foot eight, long ponytail, just wearing a vest, tattoos, and clearly a killer. He walks over to us and he's some kind of mad, and he says, "You two, my office now." So we scuttle in behind him. We think we're gonna be dead, and he's striding back and forth, huffing and snuffing, and finally he says, "If I don't do a full day's work, I don't expect a full day's pay." And I'm like, "This is about the money?" So I said to him, "Look, this isn't about the money for us. We're the wrong comedians to have here. If we'd stayed on stage, you'd have the police here investigating a double homicide." And that changed his attitude. He said, "Oh, so you don't expect the full pay?" I said, "Whatever you wanna pay us is fine by me." He said, "All right. You did half the time. I'll give you half the money." We didn't do half the time. A little quick math will tell you. I said, "Yeah, absolutely. Whatever you think." So he paid us. Now he was fine. He just thought we were trying to rip him off and he was going to break our necks. And so he paid us half the money, and then I saw a door down a hallway by his office. I said, "Does that door go out the back?" And he chuckled and he said, "Yeah, that's probably a good idea." And so we scuttled out the back, hopped into our vehicle and drove off into the night.

Peter McCully: For a time, Brent, you were in the United States trying your hand at comedy and I was looking at your IMDb page. Imagine Peter's surprise when I saw your name in the credits for one of my all-time favourite movies, Duets. I'm a huge Huey Lewis fan, and you played a hotel clerk. I went back and watched the movie and there you were.

Brent Butt: There I was. Young with a full lush head of hair.

Peter McCully: I didn't recognize you at first.

Brent Butt: I wouldn't blame you, yeah. So my scene was with Paul Giamatti and Andre Braugher. Not bad for your first movie. And they were both really cool guys. Andre Braugher especially was very sort of chatty. He'd hang around in between takes and on the camera turnaround and stuff, chatting. Paul Giamatti was also very nice, but he had a lot of dialogue in the scene so he was going off and going over his lines. True pro. But they were both really nice guys. And the thing that I learned from that more than anything was, if you recall the scene, there's gunplay. Paul Giamatti's character pulls a gun on me and then the gun goes off and shoots the fax machine behind my head. The special effects guy, I'm not sure who it was, came over and said to me, "Okay, we, the squib is gonna blow up the fax machine behind your head, the blank when it goes off from the gun. Do you want ear protection?" I said, "No, that's okay." I'd been around guns before. I'd heard guns fire and I said, "No, I'm okay." That squib was about nine inches from my head. I couldn't hear out of that ear for about a week and a half. That's the thing I learned. If anybody ever says to you on set, "Do you want ear protection?" Yes, please.

Peter McCully: Just the fax, ma'am.

Brent Butt: Yeah. The old fax machine took a bullet, and my right ear was just whistling for a good six, seven days.

Peter McCully: I wanted to ask you about Corner Gas and the characters. Really great characters on the show: Oscar, Emma, Hank, Lacey, Wanda. Were they fully formed in your head years before you ever cast anyone for the show? And when you finally met the actors who were gonna play those characters, did anyone turn out completely different from how you thought they might?

Brent Butt: There's archetypal characters. When I wrote the initial treatment for this and when I wrote the first couple of scripts, I knew what type of character they were and I knew how they talked for the most part. I knew in what way they were funny. When you cast the people, you cast these quality actors, and that was one of the learning things for me, was I had comedic professionals in mind for each one of these characters. I ended up not hiring any of them because when you get really good actors that can really make the character seem like a real person, everything is just better. The comedy is better, the drama of the scene is better, the conflict is better. The more that you can believe that these are real people in the real world, the better everything is. These people came in, these trained actors who really know what they're doing, talented actors. That's who I ended up hiring for the thing. None of my comedy buddies got the gig. It's just the power of acting became evident to me. The other thing that these actors bring to the table, they start breathing their own life into the character, and they start inhabiting the character, and the character, doesn't matter what you put on the page, the character becomes the person that's stepping into their skin. As a writer, you start writing towards how the character is now. So once Gabrielle became Lacey, once Eric became Oscar, how we wrote for the characters changed over the first half of season one to the rest of the season. You start writing to the voice of the people who are now breathing life into these characters. TV and film, as opposed to being a greasy nightclub comedian, is such a team sport, and nobody can take credit for anything. You just rely on each other's talents and abilities. And so for me, I had the best of both worlds. I could go out and be a stand-up, real lone wolf, just whatever I wanna do, I do, even if it's just changing something in a moment's notice, I do it. When we would get back into production, I would step into driving a machine that is populated by all these talented people. And there's also levels of bureaucracy that don't exist in stand-up. There's executives you have to appease and advertisers and all these kind of things, and it was fun for me to navigate both those worlds.

Peter McCully: You had some really great characters and actors, obviously. You met your wife, Nancy Robertson, on the set. She played Wanda at the gas station. Brent, at what point did you know that this person was the one that perhaps you would want to cut your hair if ever there was a pandemic?

Brent Butt: Isn't that the question, right? We all ask ourselves growing up, "When a global pandemic hits, who will cut my hair?" And I got my answer. Yeah, we just kinda hit it off. And first of all, we made each other laugh, and we both like old movies. I don't think I'd ever met somebody who knew more about old movies than I did. We had a frame of reference that was unique to us. That was the start of it, and we just found that we were really looking forward to doing scenes together, and then it all evolved from there.

Peter McCully: And if folks are wondering why I asked about cutting your hair, it's because there's a YouTube video of your hair being cut during the pandemic.

Brent Butt: Yeah, I needed my hair cut. Despite being bald on top, it still gets a little haranguy on the sides. I couldn't go to the barber, and so I just thought, "I'll get Nancy to cut my hair, and I'm gonna film it and make a video of it." And so that's one of the most-watched videos on my YouTube channel.

Peter McCully: Now, is there a scene of hers from those early seasons that feels different to watch now, knowing where things ended up?

Brent Butt: Not really, 'cause we were always very able to compartmentalize. Brent and Wanda were always very different from Brent and Nancy. We had a working relationship first, so we were always able to flip that switch. She's a trained actor. She's amazing at what she does, and she could leave Nancy behind to become Wanda much easier than I could. It's the reason I made my character basically the exact same as I am. I always said the biggest difference was, in real life I wore a square watch, and on TV my character wore a round watch. Otherwise, we were exactly the same.

Peter McCully: Over the years, you had some stellar guests making appearances on Corner Gas. I think my favourite was Bro Jake from Rock 101.

Brent Butt: Oh, yeah, doing kind of a Dukes of Hazzard narrator, Waylon Jennings kind of a thing. That was a lot of fun to do. That was a fun scene to write. Once I wrote that scene, then I just thought of Bro Jake's face and his voice, and I thought he could play this sort of Waylon Jennings Dukes of Hazzard-type thing pretty well. Season One, it was tough to get cameos because nobody knew about the show, and you're trying to convince people to come on and do a guest star on this show about a gas station in Saskatchewan, and they're like, "What? No." Then the show was a big hit, and millions of people watching, and then it became like Batman in the '60s. It was like people calling up and saying, "Yeah, I'm gonna be in town. I could do a cameo if you want."

Peter McCully: I'm sure that fans still walk up to you when you're in your favourite coffee shop or wherever you happen to be, quoting their favourite episodes or their favourite lines. What's one of those lines from the show that gets recited back to you the most, do you think?

Brent Butt: Usually it's not even my line. People come up and just say, "Jackass," right? I get called jackass a lot because of Oscar calling Brent jackass all the time. I always say to Eric, I said, "That's my biggest regret, is giving you that word," because I wrote it in because I loved saying jackass. I always said jackass to all my buddies all the time. It just seemed like a good old-timey, old-guy thing to call somebody. "You jackass." And so when I was writing the script and I wrote it in that Oscar said it just 'cause it was something I liked. Eric as Oscar is such a fascinating character. When he said it, it was just like, that's his now, and we just made it sort of his hook. Yeah, he still says people come up to him in the street and they say, "Will you call me a jackass?" So that's probably the thing I get the most. This just happened the other day. I was in a coffee shop having a sandwich, and somebody said, "What, they don't have any chili cheese dogs on the menu?" I get that a lot.

Peter McCully: Yeah, I bet. Brent Butt is a published author. Your novel Huge was huge. It was about touring comedians, became a number one bestseller in Canada. It was a dark thriller, not a comedy. Now I understand you're well into your second novel, which is unrelated to Huge, but also a thriller with show business overtones?

Brent Butt: Yeah, that's what I'm working on now. It's another dark psychological thriller, which is what I like. I like to read scary books. I like to read supernatural thrillers, and I like to read dark psychological thrillers. I like books that give me a little bit of a scare, a little bit of a tingle, you know? I find that fun to read. When I decided to write a novel, I knew that was going to be the genre, but comedy is the world I knew. So Huge is a dark, violent psychological thriller set in the world of comedy. The next one is set in the world of television. Without giving too much away, but it's about a guy who hires a writer, and the writer starts systematically destroying his life. The writer just knows how to manipulate and create scenes, and it's all about perception. It's the concept that perception is reality. Reality doesn't matter so much as what people perceive reality to be, and it tackles that theme and also the theme of gratitude and being happy with your lot in life versus rapacious ambition.

Peter McCully: Hey, Brent, you just put out your debut comedy album, Easily Distracted. It's almost 40 years into your career. What took so long to actually record one?

Brent Butt: Comedy albums became a thing again in the mid-20 teens. Part of it was just the ability to make an album. The recording equipment became small and affordable, and you didn't have to just have a big studio tie you in. So comedy albums became a thing again, and the Juno Awards, thanks to the driving force, comedian Graham Clark, the Juno Awards put a comedy album back on, and it just became a real thing again. So I started thinking, "Well, I should do a comedy album," but I'm always busy doing other things, and it's one of those things you always think, "There's nobody screaming for a Brent Butt comedy album." It's just something that I could do, but I did have actual deadlines in the real world, publishers and networks and things. I had stuff people were paying me to do, so I had to do them. But it was always on the horizon. It was always one of those things that I thought about doing, and then finally I just got approached by a company that said, "We think you should do an album, and we think we're the company to do it." It's a company called Counterfeit Pictures. They're good people. They know what they're doing, and I'm clearly never gonna do this on my own with my own production company 'cause I got other stuff going on. I was already booked on a run of shows, so we picked a date, this fantastic venue in Calgary, the Bella Concert Hall, and I was booked to play there, and we just decided, "Well, let's record that show." They were a great crowd and a ton of fun, and yeah, I'm really happy with the album.

Peter McCully: Before we let you go, I understand you and your wife added a dog to the family.

Brent Butt: We do have a dog. My wife and I have a dog. It surprises me that I would grow up to have a dog. I never thought that would happen. I grew up afraid of dogs. I had a lot of bad dog experiences growing up. I grew up in the 1970s rural Saskatchewan. There were a lot of dogs with ill intent walking around town. Just loose dogs roaming around. Nobody trained their dogs. Nobody was walking around picking up their dog's poop, I can tell you that. Nobody was training their dog not to eat children, apparently. Terrifying way to grow up. You have any idea what it's like trying to shimmy up a lamppost with these short little legs? So I grew up afraid of dogs. Even well into adulthood I was afraid of dogs. You ever be walking down a sidewalk and a guy's coming towards you and they got their German shepherd with them or whatever? As soon as the guy sees you, he starts wrapping that leash around his hand a bunch of times. You're like, "Why are you doing that? Why you gotta do that?" Because he's a lunger, that's why. His favourite food is Adam's apple. So I never thought that I would grow up and have a dog, and then the way it came together was, one day my wife said, "We're gonna get a dog." So that's how that happened. But I fell in love with this dog. Oh, fantastic. Great dog. His name is Oliver. Good sized dog. He's like a 75 pound dog. When we got him as a pup, we didn't know what he was gonna be, 'cause he was a mixed breed. Like, his mother was a mix of a few things, and nobody knows who his father was. It sounds scandalous when I say it out loud like that. I hope he doesn't listen to this and get embarrassed. But he's a mix of stuff, and we don't know what, and that pisses people off too. People don't like... He's a good-looking dog, and they say, "What breed is he?" And they get chapped if you don't know what breed your dog is. People can't stand it. They can't stand that you don't know. They're like, "Well, you could do a swab now. You can take a swab and send in his DNA." And I'm like, "He's not a suspect in a murder trial." He's got an alibi. He was with me his whole life. But I've grown to love the dog. Oh, I love this dog. He's a big galoot of a dog. I knew he was gonna be a big dog, so I wanted to raise him properly, 'cause you don't wanna be a year and a half into it and be like, "Oh, whoopsie, we've raised a killer. Sorry, neighbours. Count the kids." You don't wanna be that guy. So I read everything I could about how to raise a dog properly. I read online articles, blogs, pamphlets, looked at books about how to raise a dog. There's a lot to it. I didn't realize. Things I never even thought about. You're supposed to brush your dog's teeth. Did you know that? Brush your dog's teeth. Does anybody do that? I think the vet might've been screwing with me. I think the vet was like, "I think I can get this guy to brush his dog's teeth. I'm serious. I think he'll do it. Look at him. I think he'll do it. I'm gonna tell him if you bathe the dog, it has to wear a shower cap. I'm gonna tell him." I'm like, "Okay." But yeah, apparently you're supposed to brush your dog's teeth. They gave us a little special doggy toothbrush, gave us special doggy toothpaste. Said poultry flavour on there. That pissed me off. I was like, "Why can't we have poultry flavoured toothpaste?" Come on. Why do I gotta have that mint garbage? I would love some savoury toothpaste, man. Barbecue flavoured toothpaste, sour cream and onion flavoured toothpaste, Big Mac flavoured toothpaste. Come on. "You've gotta stop brushing your teeth, Mr. Butt. Your cholesterol is through the roof."

Peter McCully: How about a speed round of questions, Brent?

Brent Butt: Sure. I'm known for my speed. That's what I'm known for famously, me and, Usain Bolt. I almost said Uriah Bolt. I

Peter McCully: think it's Uriah Heep.

Brent Butt: Yeah, I got my Heeps and my Bolts mixed up there.

Peter McCully: Best comeback you've ever landed on a heckler.

Brent Butt: I can't repeat it here. It's off-colour, but it was a beauty. I still think about it. It was one of those, "Man, that worked out great."

Peter McCully: Corner Gas or The Ruby, where are you eating lunch?

Brent Butt: Oh, The Ruby, morning, noon, and night. You're limited to chips and whatnot. Now, I love cheesies, don't get me wrong, but if I'm gonna have a meal, I want it to be a proper meal. That's where the chili cheese dogs are, is at The Ruby.

Peter McCully: Favourite line you ever wrote for yourself on Corner Gas?

Brent Butt: There were lots, but the one I keep coming back to is early on, I think it was the second episode, the taxman episode, where I'm trying to explain to the taxman that, "Look, this isn't you. This is the way my father is. He's angry at everybody." And I said, "I saw him yell at a butterfly once, called it a son of a bitch, and told it to get out of the garden."

Peter McCully: Ferry or bridge?

Brent Butt: Ferry. Bridge, I have to keep driving. Ferry, I can put my feet up. Anytime I can step out of control, I'm happy.

Peter McCully: Sunshine Breakfast or the buffet?

Brent Butt: Sunshine Breakfast for me. I just like to get it over with and move on.

Peter McCully: Hank or Oscar, who would you actually wanna grab a beer with?

Brent Butt: Hank, absolutely, all day long. Oscar's hard to deal with.

Peter McCully: Longest drive you've ever done between two gigs?

Brent Butt: Yeah, that's a good question. I remember driving from Toronto to Thunder Bay one time thinking, "Why is Ontario not nine separate provinces? That's a big chunk of dirt." Yeah, driving to Thunder Bay is soul-crushing. It feels like you're never going to get there.

Peter McCully: One thing you always pack for the road.

Brent Butt: I always travel with a little binder clip because oftentimes hotel curtains won't close all the way, and so you pull them closed, and then you clip them, and now you can sleep late.

Peter McCully: Favourite city you've always looked forward to touring back to?

Brent Butt: I love going to Newfoundland. I've been there probably a dozen times in my career, and every time I get booked to play in Newfoundland, I'm just jazzed and pumped, and it's always a blast.

Peter McCully: Sense of humor is extraordinary.

Brent Butt: Yeah. I always say the toughest part about being a comedian in Newfoundland is everybody in the crowd is funnier than you'll ever be.

Peter McCully: Whistler or Tofino for a weekend getaway?

Brent Butt: I enjoy Tofino more, but Whistler's a lot easier to get to, so there's that conundrum.

Peter McCully: One thing outsiders always get wrong about British Columbia.

Brent Butt: I think that they think we're high all the time. Most people, if you say you live in Vancouver, you live in BC, they assume you're high on mushrooms or pot as you're talking to them.

Peter McCully: This fall, you're playing four Vancouver Island stops back to back in September. You've got Courtenay, Duncan, Campbell River, Sidney. It's been a while since we've seen you on the island. So what can we expect as far as material or perhaps an overriding theme?

Brent Butt: I rarely have such a thing. One of the things I love about stand-up comedy is that I'm standing in the wings waiting to be introduced, and I'm not 100% sure what I'm gonna be talking about. I usually know how I'm gonna start. I decide how I'm gonna start, but then it really becomes a dialogue. Even though I'm the only one talking, it becomes a dialogue between myself and the crowd. How they respond to certain things shapes the direction that I take the show. And so each show is different in that regard, and it's the thing that keeps it fresh for me. Here we are pushing 40 years into the business and standing in the wings waiting to go on. It's so fun to me. It's still my favourite thing to do, and it's because I don't know what's gonna happen.

Dave Graham: Brent Butt will be playing four dates on the island. For dates and tickets, go to brentbutt.com, or you'll find links in our show notes.

Peter McCully: Brent was the youngest of seven. I bet that explains a lot about comedic timing.

Dave Graham: I've heard that about the youngest of seven. They're always the funny ones. We here at The Pulse Community cater to the youngsters with our Skookum kids stories, featuring Captain Dave and the crew of the Mellow Submarine, and Peter and Gracie, the Eskimo dog. And our kids stories now offer colouring pages to go along with each new episode. In this week's episode of Peter and Gracie, it's a day in the life of Gracie. And our Radio Archaeology classic radio series features original episodes of Dragnet, featuring Sergeant Joe Friday, and Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke.

Peter McCully: As part of our Pulse Community podcast, join Cindy Thompson of Parksville for A Resilience Project.

Dave Graham: Also this week, another episode of Too Old or Movie Gold. This week's edition is about one of those, eh, relatively rare kinds of movies, a romantic comedy sports movie. Tin Cup, starring Kevin Costner. Is it too old or movie gold?

Peter McCully: You'll find these podcasts and more at thepulsecommunity.ca. And while you're on the website, sign up for our weekly newsletter. It'll keep you up to date on the latest podcasts, our guests, and contests.

Dave Graham: Okay, that sounds like we've reached the end of another podcast. I have to go. Got an appointment with a jar of jam.

Peter McCully: Yes, folks, that's a wrap on another episode of The Pulse Community Podcast, and we thank you for spending some time with us. So Dave, by any chance would that appointment of yours be with some blackberry jam?

Dave Graham: Not just any blackberry jam, Peter. Someone recently gave me a small jar of homemade trailing blackberry jam with lavender.

Peter McCully: Ooh, that sounds really good.

Dave Graham: Oh, I shouldn't have said anything. But yeah, I can say without reservation, it is the finest jam I have ever tasted.

Peter McCully: Well, bring some of it next time to the studio. I'd love a sample.

Dave Graham: You heard me say that it's a small jar, right? Oh, don't give me that look. Okay, I'll let you have a taste. I'll bring some in next time. You bring the crackers.

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. All right, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.