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CROWE
The only, and longest-lasting independent magazine for the City of Barrie
Dan Dunlop is not forgotten
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Dan worked at Rogers here in Barrie, as both a videographer for a variety of shows and the host of the premier Rogers call-in show, which is always named after the person who hosts it. Here, it was called Dunlop Live. I wanted to have my own show, too, like back in the day when the "community channel" allowed anyone to have a show. I watched the Rogers community channel, such as it was, envious of anything that was even close to what I wanted to do, and of course, I watched Dan's show.
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In the same year I started my magazine, another had started, too. It was called Crackers, and although it only lasted a few years, it was bigger than mine, right from the start, and had corporate sponsors, too. It was, for the most part, a collection of recycled internet jokes, and some original material, that was pretty funny, too. One of the sponsors it had was Yuk Yuk's. The woman who ran Crackers and the owner of the local Yuk Yuk's were both guests on Dunlop Live, and they turned it into an ad for the local Yuk Yuk's.
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I taped the show with a VCR the next time it ran, took pictures of it with a film camera, scanned the pictures and made fun of Dan, his show and his guests. That edition was published on March 20, 2002, and here are the two pages that Dan was on:
That parody, along with the rest of that issue, went into mailboxes and stores, downtown.
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Dan also did his own show, Big Mouth. It was a comedy show that had skits and used a lot of street interviews, downtown, where my magazine was, and is, distributed. Dan got a copy of my parody, and told the store owner that he got it from, that he agreed with me. We met downtown soon afterward, and became friends. I put him in the next edition, published on April 20, 2002, with a story titled "Dan Dunlop can take a joke."
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I then had Dan in the magazine, off and on, for the next ten years.
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On October 9, 2012, Dan was in an automobile accident, suffering a crushed heel, a broken shoulder, a collapsed lung and broken ribs.
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There was a fundraiser set up for him the next month, on November 11, 2012. I went and talked to him briefly on video, and posted it, the same day.
The first several years of the magazine were not made as PDF files. If you want proof that they were made, I spoke with Dan on the video, above, and he noted that he had been in my magazine, at that time, in 2012, for ten years.
Six days later, Dan died, on Saturday, November 17, 2012. The paper said Dan had died after "succumbing to injuries he sustained in a serious crash."
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That was not true. Dan had taken his own life.
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Dan had been struggling with depression for years. He did not have his show on Rogers anymore, and had very recently lost his job at the downtown nightclub, The Rock Mansion.
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His passing took place on National Survivors of Suicide Day, which was started in 1999, and has since been renamed International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day. That day always falls on the Saturday before American Thanksgiving.
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Dan's best friend, Larry Hurd, organized a Celebration of Life at The Rock Mansion. Money was raised for a bursary to be created in Dan's name, to be given away every year to artists in need.
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Dan wrote and performed The Barrie Song. It is a love letter to Barrie, and meant to promote it. The video is on YouTube, here.
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I made a tribute website for him, here.
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What follows are all the pages of the special edition of the magazine I made for him, which was published on October 10, 2014, which was also the 14th anniversary edition:
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