Gordon Gibb is a well-known member of the Peterborough media community, currently heard afternoons on Kruz 100.5 FM and as the public address announcer for the Peterborough Petes and Peterborough Lakers.
He’s also a busy author. Since 2007, Gordon has been writing daily for LawyersandSettlements.com, a web portal serving the legal profession in Los Angeles, California. In 2006, he penned Lester B. Pearson: The Geek Who Made Canada Proud, a curriculum-based work which was published by Jackfruit Press. He is currently updating the book for a new publisher, and is editing a novel, The Fifth Season, which he hopes to release next year.
Gibberish: Tall Tales and Domestic Disasters From Beyond the Microphone is a collection of previously published newspaper columns that ran in The Peterborough Examiner from 2001 through 2009. Many also appeared nationally in Chatelaine, Canadian Living, Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Reader’s Digest, and Cottage Life.
Gordon also operates GordonGibb.com, a freelance voiceover business in which he narrates videos, commercials, and other audio projects heard across Canada, the U.S and as far away as Dubai.
“I approach narration in the same way as I approaching my writing,” Gordon says. “It’s all about telling a good story”.
Gibberish is available in paperback (email Gordo@GordonGibb.com for details) and as an ebook at Amazon.ca.
“Google This” is an excerpt from Gibberish: Tall Tales and Domestic Disasters From Beyond the Microphone by Gordon Gibb
I did a Google search the other day. No, I wasn’t looking under the couch for one of the kid’s playthings. Rather, I was on-line and trolling for information.
Most who are conversant with the Internet will recognize Google as one of a myriad of search engines tuned, torqued and ready to blast you onto the cyber highway with little more than a keyword and tolerance for the uninvited pop-up. The world at your fingertips.
But whose world?
Do a search on ‘Gordon Gibb,’ for example, and you will discover that I am a Buddhist living in California. I’m also an assistant professor at the David O. McKay School of Education, wherever that is. My grandmother would be so proud. But I digress…
Navigating the Internet is easy, but the waters can be murky. Notwithstanding the obvious nasties from which you shelter your kids (and if you’re smart, yourself…) the Internet is a fabulous gateway to anywhere. And nowhere. One can never be quite sure as to where you are, or with whom you are conversing.
Things are not always as they seem.
Over the winter I had reason to do an internet search for a magazine article I was writing. Back in March, the HBO network in the United States (Moviepix in this country) aired a made-for-TV movie that was strikingly similar to the real-life story I was working on for my article, and I wanted to find out whether the movie was fact, or fiction.
‘Normal,’ a movie starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson, was based on a play by Jane Anderson, a Los Angeles writer and director who adapted her stage play for the small screen.
I started with a Google search on Jane Anderson and immediately got lucky. While I failed to connect with Anderson directly, the search engine led me to a web site of one Tony Shultz, “Agent to the Stars.” Tony Shultz does indeed represent Jane Anderson, along with several other Hollywood luminaries and someone named Sandra Bullock. Hot diggity, methinks. I’ve hit the target with the very first toss.
After firing off a quick note of introduction to Super-Agent Shultz I was surprised to find a reply in my Outlook box that very afternoon. “I would be pleased to forward a note onto my client,” it said. My, these super agents are efficient.
The next day, I received a response from Ms. Anderson, through her agent. To paraphrase, “…yes dahhh-ling, please tell the nice fellow from Canada that indeed, my movie is not a true-life account, but rather the result of my fertile and twisted imagination.”
I excitedly e:mailed back-through Agent Shultz-to report that not only were the subjects of her fictionalized movie real, but I have slept in their guest room. To which Ms. Anderson politely replied, (paraphrase), “…that’s very nice dahhh-ling. Now please tell the nice man from Canada to buzz off.”
Ah, those Hollywood types.
Nevertheless I got my answer, thanks in large measure to Agent-to-the-Stars Tony Shultz. He dropped me a line a few days later:
“Happy to be of service,” he began. “And should you ever decide to move to Los Angeles, I can help you find the home of your dreams.”
Yep. Tony Shultz is a real estate agent. He sold Jane Anderson her house. Sandra Bullock’s too.
Sigh…
Consider this an invitation to read a fascinating story in the August issue of Chatelaine. Yes, I wrote it. Me. Not the Buddhist.
And should you ever decide to move to California, I have just the guy for you.
Epilogue: My story on the man who transgendered to a woman, who stayed married to his wife, who continued to live happily as two women, appeared in the August, 2003 issue of Chatelaine. They are a profoundly courageous and lovely couple, an inspiration to all who meet them. I have not heard from Jane Anderson, since …
