Doug Dales - 10 yr RIP
I am sad today.
A wise man said, never live in fear of the future as you will be pursued by anxiety and certainly, don't dwell in the past, as you will be dogged by anxiety.
However, it is hard to avoid the latter considering that today is the 10th anniversary of the passing of that wonderful individual - former owner of PS (Now SIM) Douglas Dales.
I was honoured to be a caregiver at his death and was a fly on the wall in the back of the hospital room when he drew his last breath.
Doug was my first boss when I came to Toronto when I was right out of University. As I look at myself now and realize the sheer tonnage of what I DON'T know here and now - I guess I must have been little better than Fat Sam when he arrived at the wall pretending to be a member of the Night's Watch.
However (with a nod to my direct superior Mike Wilder) I somehow got the job as a bottom-of-the-barrel truck-driving equipment technician - delivering gear to the likes of David Usher or Frank Singer or Marris Jansen or Jock Brandis.
This was LONG :LONG before I ventured out into the freelance production world and I was giving people like Frank Siracusa their first 3rd AD job! But - I drift (normalcy of senility. Look at Frank now. WOW).
It's about Doug. Here was this guy, a grad from the London Film School - the owner of the company. - the boss - and how he treated people in his employ was truly an inspiration - then and now.
Whenever Doug looked at you and said, "How are you?!" He really cared, how you were. As cliche as it sounds - he took me into his family and treated me like a brother - and I was a nobody.
What kinda guy was Doug? When he and his partners at Atlantis decided to build Cine Village on Heward street - they did it on a hand-shake. They never had an agreement or a contract.
What kinda a guy was Doug? He hired a handicapped employee (sorry I've forgotten his name) who was deaf. Within weeks, Doug had us all proficient in the sign alphabet - but as he always did. with a challenge or acquisition of knowledge - Doug mastered the entire sign language in no time and would have long passionate conversations without making a sound.
What kinda guy was he? Without telling a soul, he reached out into Vietnam (a country he loved - and he was kind enough to tour me around in if I ran a three-day learning lecture in Ho Chi Minh City for him) and plucked four refugee/boat people - saved their lives - and the lives of their families - and gave them jobs and a place to live - inside his home. As I said at his funeral when asked to describe and speak about him, I asked "Who the fuck does that?!" Doug did.
The only time he was angry with me (and believe me, I invented ways to fuck-up) was when we were prepping WATER in India and I promised him the equipment contract. It was for peanuts, of course. However, my friend David Hamilton got a better deal out of the UK and we switched. Doug didn't give a shit about the contract, he cared that he was counting on visiting me and watching the filming in Varanasi.
He was the kinda guy that when you went to visit his house up near Barrie - on warm nights - he and evert\yone there would lie down on the still-warm slabs of concrete in the driveway and try and pick out stars and constellations. Why? Cause Doug knew something about just about everything and loved to teach. He never made you feel small. He was the first person to introduce me to PCs and Windows and what the hell a directory was. He loved to teach.
Doug was a father figure - plain and simple. He was consistent in his kindness, his consideration and his charity.
Wendy Moss gave me a picture of Doug after his death. It has from that day hung on the wall next to my desk where I toil each day. And each day I make eye contact and just hope that one day I can grow up, learn my lessons, mend the rifts and be somewhat as good a person, husband, parent and leader as Doug Dales was.
RIP my friend.