BRIAN LORD'S RADIO STORIES
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Part 6 of My Good Old Days In Radio:

Frosty the Hypnotist, Dave poops on Lord Recording Epic, Landa's own words.

by Brian Lord

Before we get into the intriguing story of Brian Forst in Mystery-land, I gotta mention a thing that Frost and I did prior to his ventures into hypnotism. Jerry Lee Lewis, having been drummed from the record charts for marrying his 13-year old cousin -- they did that kind of thing in Faraday Louisiana -- tried to sneak back into the business in 1961 by releasing the old Glenn Miller hit 'In the Mood' recorded in an instrumental piano version. It was straight boogie-woogie and he used the pseudonym "The Hawk". We loved it at CFUN and Dave McCormick made it a CFUN 'Twin Pick-Hit of the Week'. Lewis fooled no-one, however; every DJ in North America recognized the piano style, many refused to play it and the record never got off the ground, not really even in Vancouver.

On the flip side was an old tune called 'I get the Blues When it Rains' and I knew the words. So Frosty went into the recording booth while I sang the song in the big studio. Forst laid down a track of me singing along with The Hawk. We made an acetate and gave it to Dave McCormick to play on his 2-6PM shift. Dave decided to ask the question "Does anybody think Brian Lord should try and have a singing career?' and then played my song. I was heartbroken; he could have given it a plug and said nice things, although in retrospect the record was a piece of crap. Unfortunately and not surprisingly his audience response on the telephones was less than gushing. My singing career lasted as long as it took us to make the acetate.

Brian 'Frosty' Forst got into hypnotism. Now, I wanna tell you, hypnotism is a very real practice and one that people shouldn't fool with, however Forst had read books and studied from a guy who understood the phenomenon. Don MacDonald, our Sales manager was auditioning women to undergo hypnosis. Some big theater that was running a horror film had bought an ad package on CFUN and Don's idea as a promotion for the movie was to lay this woman out on a slab with blood and whatnot all over her in the theatre lobby while she stared into a vast emptiness.

One day, Don grabbed Frosty, who was in the aisles at the station, asked him to come in and witness the hypnotizing of one of these woman; that's the law, you have to have a third person in the room in case there's a freak-out or some such dismal mess. The whole thing intrigued Brian to the point that he took it up himself. As I said -- he read books, given him by McDonald, who also gave him instructions. Forst went home and practiced on his wife.

A coupla years later when I was in California, Frosty and his wife visited my wife and I and the evening's subject turned to hypnotism and Frosty gave ME the treatment. He put me "under" by saying I was getting sleepy (which I was); he had me stare at a candle and told me I'd say "Call the Fire Engines" or some fool statement every time one of the other three said some innocuous phrase like 'It's warm in California". My wife and the two Forsts kept slipping this phrase into normal conversation and I'd yell: "Call the Fire Engines" like a goof.

The next afternoon Forst's wife had a headache and Frosty offered to get rid of it by means of hypnosis. However he threw in a little something extra. He told her I was Harry Belafonte who happened to be her favorite singer at the time. She was crazy about "Jamaica Farewell", "Come Back Liza", "The Banana boat song" etcetera. I was sitting at the opposite end of the couch from her and as Frosty brought her out, he motioned my way and said "Look who's here".

She turned to look at me and I have never seen a transformation come over a person's face as I did that day. Her eyes opened wide as manhole covers and her face, as I smiled at her, went from normal to a bright, beet red. You simply cannot fake that kind of reaction. She got all fidgety and kept looking at Frosty and making little squeaks and pointing at me. What was I supposed to do? get up and yell "DaaaayOooooh…" or "highleee deadleee black tarANTULA….", "Brown skin girl come home and mind babeeee". I sat there grinning like a boob, said, "Hello" while she was all-a-twitter and my wife and Frosty were suppressing giggles. I tried to imagine myself as a Jamaican with billowing sleeves and curly hair and failed. Didn't matter. Frosty's wife thought I was freakin' Harry Belafonte. I finally got up and left the room paying her a fond farewell, and Frosty, bringing her out of hypnosis told her she'd remember nothing of what happened. Thank goodness … I had visions of some awful Caribbean fish for dinner.

As an addenda to this, I talked to Brian and learned the basics and tried it out on a friend one day, much later.

I put her under, told her she was going back (regression) to a time when she was 4 years old and to draw a house. She picked up a pencil, and, tongue between her teeth, drew a perfect 4 year olds idea of a house … with the chimney sticking out at an angle. Hypnosis works. And it can be dangerous. Let your mind wander to all the things that could transpire-- although Frosty told me: people, when in a hypnotic state will seldom do anything drastic -- things they would not do normally.

Okay, Jerry Landa DOES dye his beard on St Patrick's day. His rambling prose, awhle ago, bless him, had led me astray. I was under the impression he dyed his beard on March 2nd. Following are Jerry's words sent after my last column:

"I have a comment on "The Beard" turning green. March 2nd is the anniversary of the last time I saw my "naked" chin, free of whiskers … but, it first turned green on Saint Patrick's Day, 1958 and every subsequent 17th of March, in honour of my Irish mother. March two is the day my pointed chin last saw a razor. Ur welkum. Later. I must get back to curling". (Jerry is an award winning Curling announcer)

Next time. McCormick and the Everly Brothers, Cam Bell tries to tell Brian Forst a joke and Jordan throws a fit.

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