Paul Baker

Paul Baker - The Announcer Guy

Paul Baker, the Big Band’s “Announcer Guy”, doubles as Company Manager which means that, whenever the proverbial hits the fan, Paul is also the “Go To Guy”. He has developed an impressive ability to read his lines in pitch dark, effect a twelve second costume change, and dance an enthusiastic, if impressionistic, mambo.

1. If you were not an announcer guy what would you be?

Comedy Writer

2. If you could have a dinner party with any four figures from history whom would you invite?

Mark Twain, Walt Disney, Robert E. Lee, Leticia Baldridge

3. If you could live during any time period at all what would it be?

1920 to 2000 – in my prime in the 40’s and 50’s

4. If you could have one movie prop for your very own what would you choose?

The newel post from the staircase in “It’s a Wonderful Life”

5. Favourite movie?

George C. Scott version of “A Christmas Carol”

6. Favourite book or author?

Matters of Chance for fiction/ otherwise any Roger Angell

7. What is your most treasured possession?

My house (this assumes that one’s wife and one’s dog would both be insulted to be categorized as possessions … which of course they aren’t! Oh Boy! – I don’t think I can dig this hole any deeper.)

8. What is your motto?

Live in the moment

9. Favourite word?

Synchronicity

10. What is your most marked characteristic?

That it varies widely from one group of acquaintances to another

11. Which historical or fictional figure do you most identify with?

Robert Kennedy

12. What is your favourite indulgence?

Watching a Baseball game with 2 hot dogs and a drink

13.If you could have personally witnessed any one event in history what would you like it to have been?

Edison inventing the light bulb

14. If you could possess one supernatural ability what would it be?

Don’t want one

15. If you were to cast any actor, living or dead, to play you in a film, who would you select?

Gregory Peck with Matthew Louis Siegel playing me as a child

16. What would the title of your autobiography be?

Close Enough is Good Enough

17. If you could eat as much as you want of any one food with absolutely no ill effect, what food would you choose?

It’s the meal experience that thrills me so Lobster Bisque/Steak/Chocolate Cake with milk/repeat

18. Favourite season?

Autumn

19. If you could have a jam session with any three musicians in history who would you choose?

Roger Miller/Noel Coward/Mozart

20. If you were to have a family crest what symbols would it bear?

Sun/suspension bridge/music notes/masks of comedy and tragedy/dog tags/valentine heart

21. What television show, past or present, best represents your life?

Dick Van Dyke Show

22. If you could be on the cover of any magazine, which one would it be and what would the headline be?

TIME – Man of the Year

23. What is your best childhood memory?

Taking the train from Toronto to Niagara Falls and the surprise of meeting my Granddad from Hamilton as we got off the train

24. Pet peeve?

I refuse to have Pet Peeves – they “angry up the blood”

25. If you were to fill a time capsule the size of a shoe box, to be opened hundreds of years from now, what would you put inside it to represent your life?

Model train/dog collar with tags/baseball cards of Mickey Mantle, Brooks Robinson and Sean Casey/Announcer Mic/poppy/keys to our house/Dr. Spock ears/iron ring and slide rule/wedding ring