This time of year the club would be pretty quiet. People would be partied out, spent all their money over the holiday. We would be getting ready to close for February, some of us would have booked our holidays to Jamaica, Mexico, the DR.

It was a lot of extra work for me. Paying out vacation pay, laying a few people off, getting the T4’s ready. I was remembering this time of year in those days and Richard doing his thing in the office - kind of cleaning up his act after holiday excesses, kind of grumpy, kind of restless. But not so many distractions, people, parties.

Miss you big guy…

-arnie

I only knew Richard when he was at TVO and would visit my brother, who also worked there. I was doing my undergrad at York university at the time.

I was amazed by the irreverence Richard had for life. Nothing was too frightening or too “big” for him. He had knowledge of business, entertainment and just plain life that seemed to render him capable of doing anything, connecting with anyone and making things (events), happen. I was awe-struck.

I remember being at Bamboo when it first opened because I could visit Rick, (as I knew him).

I also remember seeing half of the Blue’s Brothers at Palais Royale when Richard threw
fantastic parties there.

I love events and Rick was the one who threw the biggest. He was a like a glimmer of Hollywood for me.

I’m glad I knew him and I am sorry Richard is lost from our time now.

May he rest in peace and venture off into new adventures as he begins his next life-cycle anew.
-Stephen H.

Islanders….
Richard’s funeral last night was at a Catholic chapel, way out on Weston Road at Lawrence, nearly the 400 and 401… because of the O”Brien family being located nearby. Patti had great pictures of Richard posted all along the hallway into the main room, a lot of them surprisingly thin pictures of Richard, which got a lot of comment. She also had a table with the Ferry Dock proposal on it for all to see, and a pile of BamBoo Cookbooks for anyone to have. The place was packed with the original BamBoo gang….now older, elegant hipsters…it was a very warm family reunion. Graham and Mitch were there from the Island. There were not enough seats in the chapel for the actual service, so the hallways were full as well. The priest, a simple, youthful looking confused man, waited for the music to start. Unfortunately it was ” He Ain’t My Brother”…we all thought it was a Richard joke. The priest looking somewhat startled the whole time, began, ” Well, by the amount of people that have turned out tonight, I would guess that this was a good man, one who has done less sinning in life, one who had made important decisions about living a good life.” Well, we couldn’t hold it in any longer. There was a huge guffaw, which flustered the poor man into rhapsodies of meeting other famous people…he had quickly surmised this one was somehow ‘famous’. It reminded him of..” the life of Elizabeth the First and also Gregory Hines.” (??!!?) And so he carried on, with more patches of his non sequitur remembrances mixed with the congregation following those Catholic prayers. It was pretty much a surreal spectacle.

Luckily Patti took over, and said the right stuff, with great humour, about Richard, where they had met, which was at the CBC, and how they had started the BamBoo, and a few other stories. Then she introduced other family members to speak, and there were two nieces who said, tearfully, the most amazing things about Uncle Richard, how good he was to take them to galleries, etc, even in his wheelchair. Very touching stories. A few friends had more stories. What was interesting was, they all said Richard was a curmudgeon, or slightly insulting, or cheap, but that he had also allowed them to be their very best at whatever they did: music, cooking, etc. We all were nodding in agreement. I had a turn and said similar things, but mostly how very thankful I was, in my life, to have had the chance to do so much artwork for such a knowledgeable guy and his inspiring projects, including that 23 year gig, the BamBoo. We all had been mentioning that there were weird co-incidences happening in the last few days, (for example that Richard died on Eric Gamble’s birthday) so I thought I would mention that it was rather amusing that the Ferry Dock project was titled “Terminal Art”.

After the speeches, everyone wanted Mary Margaret to sing something, but she was too shy to go up to the podium, so finally she sang, in her magical, unique voice-breaking way, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from her seat. If we weren’t crying by then, that definitely turned on the waterworks.

Patti invited all to continue on at an Irish pub on the Danforth, Dora Keogh, which served an utterly divine Irish Stew for us all, and we partied until midnight. The weather was foggy and warm, so the celebration, including spontaneous duets, were inside and outside the pub. It was one of the best parties ever, with even more stories about Richard, and all of us saluting him for the best, most absurd, FUNeral ever.

And we all knew Richard was absolutely there, hovering over the whole thing, laughing with the gods.

-B. Klunder

(Ed. - Candace, who spoke at Richard’s funeral, is not his niece.)

My fondest and most recent memories of Richard is of our script-meetings at Loblaws on Queen’s Quay.  The meetings were  extraordinarily colourful affairs in which Richard, looking not unlike Francis Ford Coppola, would go off on extreme tangents and pound away at ideas,  that upon reflection,  were damned good  - even if he did say so himself!

At Richard’s insistence we always sat at the same table!   I would often go early in order to “reserve” a table, (sometimes even asking people who were quietly sipping their morning coffee to move to another table)  then at the agreed upon time, Richard would whirl in on his wheelchair…offer a couple of smart remarks…order a special brew - and our meeting would begin!

And, oh yeah, he  always scheduled the meetings before 10:30 so we could take advantage of the coffee and muffin special!

Loblaws will never be the same!

I’ll miss you Richard and do whatever it takes to make our screenplay a movie…or I know I’ll never hear the end of it - especially when it thunders!

God’s speed, big guy.

-Peter Cresswell

Thanks so much Patti for the photos – it so so great to have this little memento of how glorious that little bit of time was and how perfect that he had “his” family – rag tag and odd as we all are – we were his family – you and alex, paul, arnie and craig, and the fourth dimension all at the same table… PERFECT and some ice-cream to boot.

He had so much fun on the way up there in the RV (thank god that Brent built those steps) – laughing and joking and ordering up breakfast while we moved down the road “this is perfect, this is perfect” – having Candace and I wait on him – which got him thinking we should all go on a road trip together in the RV – as soon as he got his money which was on it’s way… telling us he was going to get his hands on 10 grand that he was going to invest in a house for us which would have a studio in it and making Brent stop at several places to look them - in case they might be “the” place – we were going to buy together… And when Brent would protest stopping another time… “Well Bart, you never know” Saying what do you think Liam? Candace? Should we think about this one? Well Cheryl, put it on the list. Always the eternal optimist.

Liam had the guitar out and Richard was calling out songs from David Lindley and the Beatles and Neil Young and Liam would sing them for him and he would nod along going “Yeah… Yeah that’s it – you got it”… With his had in the air keeping time. In between saying “Cheryl, Now if you could just let me I would have some more of that coffee and another piece of that chocolate. What kind of cheese is that? St Andres’ - Oh, that’s good isn’t it? Gotta love a continental breakfast. Look at this… Look at that… Oh the lion place is coming up here on the right just past the Dutch place that makes a great breakfast - I took Alex there – I bought Alex something else over here. Patti doesn’t believe in spending money – I do… “etc., etc… But totally totally HAPPY – it makes me thrilled to know he got up there one more time - he loved that country so much. -Cheryl

If Terminal Art happens, and I certainly hope it does, I think we’ll have to put a subtle rainbow in there somewhere….this was the song I heard just after hearing of Richard’s dying, from one of the excellent subway violin players… I started crying, public-be-damned…. then to have Mary Margaret choose that very same song….it was spooky!

I also wished I had said at the funeral, and I had meant to, but forgot, what a lesson he was to all of us about being disabled…. if there was any pity about his condition, he would stop it by saying “It’s better than the alternative, Barb…” He was more active recently than he had ever been, I felt…out and about, at different things…
-Barbara K.