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Pinup Boy

A YEAR AFTER WE MARRIED, Kelly and I bought a home in the west end of Toronto and I really started to feel that I was on the road to recovery, mentally speaking. I began to embrace the social outings with Kelly’s friends.

At social functions, barbeques, or dinner parties, when women found out that I was a Toronto firefighter, they would always ask if I was in the calendar. Yes, I was … back in the 1900s. Not only that, I was one of the Toronto Sun’s “Sunshine Boys” — a daily feature with a beefcake photo of a local resident. Not once, but twice!

The first Sunshine Boy appearance came as a result of my bodybuilding. At the risk of appearing too humble, I have to say that I used to be a fairly good-looking man. During the 1990s most of my off time was spent in the gym working out, chasing my dream of one day becoming Mr. Canada: Champion Bodybuilder. I was making my way up the ranks to where I was at the provincial level of competition — a big step up from the beer-league bodybuilding competitions I had been competing in.

Back in 1990, to promote the upcoming Provincial Championships, the first provincial level competition in which I was to compete, the organizers teamed up with the Sun to feature some of the contenders, and I was asked to participate.

The shoot was a quick, efficient affair in a downtown photo studio where I was made to pose like I was casually ripping off my Bodybuilding Ontario tank top to show my rock hard abs. My brother Adrian said that when he was a fire inspector at Canada’s Wonderland, the resulting Sunshine Boy photo was pinned up on the bulletin board in the fire prevention office by the girls in the office.

It was a good way to help promote bodybuilding, but resulted in the inevitable ribbing when I arrived at the fire hall for my next shift. “Rat, Rat, Rat, you’ll never live it down,” I was told.

But it wasn’t my last time as a Sunshine Boy. The next time, it was for the benefit of firefighters.

It came as no surprise to me that when the subject of a charity calendar featuring Toronto firefighters was broached, the committee suggested me as one of the models. My ego would accept nothing less. Especially after the Sunshine Boy ribbing I’d had to endure.

The Toronto Fire Department had never done a calendar before. If you have ever seen the spectacle that is a calendar competition, you know it can be, shall we say, cheesy — certainly not becoming to a career firefighter in the city of Toronto. But a new regime was in the “Big House” after the city amalgamated with its five surrounding municipalities in 1998, and they didn’t think it was unbecoming. Cheesy or not, we were going to have a calendar.

Firefighters don’t participate in these things for the sake of vanity. Calendars raise a lot of money for charity. And there’s no shortage of willing firefighters ready to step up to the plate for a chance to help raise money for a worthy cause, whether it be a charity for Muscular Dystrophy research or, in this case, cancer research at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.

Montreal had called up Toronto to suggest combining our two charities and coproducing a calendar. The Montreal people had already shot six portraits and they asked Toronto to contribute the same.

MY SHOOT TOOK PLACE IN the apparatus bay an hour before I was to start night shift, standing on a makeshift set dressed up with fire extinguishers and axes. The lights were adjusted. Polaroids were shot to get the colour and lighting just right. I was a competitive bodybuilder at the time, so I did my best to pump up my pecs and pipes for the photographer. I did that by eating dried fruit to carb up and puff out my muscles, but I ate too much; it gave me cramps.

They needed something to highlight my physique — body oil — but I had forgotten to bring any. I had dropped the ball, but my fire hall brothers, wanting to help out, dug under the kitchen sink for the jug of old vegetable oil we used to fill the deep fryer. I smelled like fish and chips, but I looked great. I was Mr. October. To promote the calendar, images — including mine — were printed as Sunshine Boys by the Sun, and that’s how I made my second appearance in that feature.

The calendar-signing appearances were phenomenal. Women went nuts! It didn’t matter if you were in shape or good-looking, as long as you wore your fire duds. Hell, even Elmer Fudd could have gotten laid if he wore suspenders and a fire hat.

Women went crazy at the signing appearances. I felt as if I were Michael Bublé, Donny Osmond, or Guy Lombardo, depending on the age of the woman who wanted her calendar signed. Most guys signed their name with a suggestive cliché. I’m hot for you, signed Bernie. I’ll make you wet, signed Jed. The women loved it.

I tried my best to be original with each calendar. The lineups were long and we had to keep things moving; there really wasn’t a lot of time for originality. Since I was signing literally hundreds of them, it wasn’t long before I started doing the whole cliché thing myself: You burn me up. I’ll ride the pole for you. And those were my best ones. Some didn’t even make sense, come to think of it. You’re so good-looking, you take my cramps away comes to mind. The fluorescent lighting in the malls was starting to cook my brain.

Many men came by as well to buy calendars for themselves or as a gift for their partner. Some women bought them for their gay son or brother. Good — a break from the assembly-line sentiments I was spewing for the better part of a week leading up to Christmas.

A co-worker — let’s call him Peewee — arrived at one of the signings. He wanted me to sign a calendar for a gay family friend who was a chef in an upscale restaurant. He said the chef thought Mr. October was the best-looking hose boy of the bunch. I did my best to be sincere. After all, this was a very well respected chef in a very chichi restaurant. So Mr. October signed To Charles: BONE APPETIT. My yellowing image is still taped in a couple of lockers across the city.