INTERVIEW WITH SIGN MAKER DIZZY MINOTT by Kurt Kraler
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:44 am
Kurt Kraler: Let's start with your origin story and how you ended up with your name, Dizzy Minott.
Dizzy Minott: You know, this is information nobody has, right? (laughs)
KK: This is the exclusive!
DM: All through high school I was known as Paul Minott, so right away, I lost half of my peers. They didn't know me as Dizzy. Dizzy was my nickname from playing basketball and my tricks on the court, like Globetrotters and Magic Johnson. I made people dizzy on the court. Then I got into music in junior high school, playing trombone and Dizzy Gillespie played trumpet at the time. So I’m thinking “Dizzy Minott’s on trombone” sounds good. I come from a musical family anyhow. My cousin is Sugar Minott. He passed away in 2010 but if you Google the name Sugar Minott, he’s one of the pioneers of reggae music in Jamaica.
In high school, I was interested in architecture from watching the Brady Bunch. As you know, the dad, Mike Brady, was an architect and he had the tools with the blueprints and I thought, that's so cool. I went to George Harvey Secondary School back in the 1980s and I got into the drafting program. That's where they taught us hand lettering and fonts, because your drawings had to be legible. I really enjoyed it. I was always into my artistic creative side. I was into photography, painting, illustrations, and stuff. In school, I would decorate all my notebooks, with colors, drop shadows, all these things that were totally unnecessary. The smartest kid in the class, he said to me, “Paul, you’re wasting your time. You'll never get a job and get paid for doing that stuff.” I’m still looking for this guy today and I just want to tell him, “Look at me now!”
When I left high school, my dad left home and I had to give up my pursuit for University. I was planning to go to Ryerson [now Toronto Metropolitan University] but I had to go and get a job. I ended up at the Hilton Hotel washing dishes.
From there, I was heavily involved in a church. In our culture, Jamaican culture, we have to go to church on Sundays and the church presented after school programs with activities for the youth. In the summertime, we do parades and marches for Jesus and they asked me to make placards and posters. I remember I did the Pepsi logo, “The Choice of the New Generation”, and then had the Pepsi logo but with the word “Jesus” in the middle, things like that. One day one of the church members says, “you can get paid to do that.”
I had never thought about the sign business. As a little boy, I used to watch Sesame Street and there was a guy going around town with a paintbrush painting numbers randomly all over the city. There was an appeal to the stroke of the lettering and stuff that caught my attention. Sesame Street, Brady Bunch, Bugs Bunny, Sanford and Son - I was influenced by television.
KK: Right, so pop culture really influenced your interest in the sign business.
DM: Yeah. This gentleman told me to check the Yellow Pages and look up sign companies. I was living up at Jane and Finch at the time and there was one in the area. I called him and I said, I'd like to start working in the sign business if you're hiring.” He says, “We're not hiring.” And I said, “Well, can I come work for free?” And he said, “Sure, why not start tomorrow.” The gentleman’s name was Ed Marquise and the company was called All Signs Canada Limited. I went in there and I started working. He was sharing a spot with a sign painter, a guy named Bob Lane who did hand lettering for like over 40 years. Just painting.
KK: And what kind of signs was he doing?
DM: He was doing all kinds. He was doing billboards, show cards, window lettering. He'd even do the weekly specials in the store windows of the supermarkets. They had a big poster paper and the big fluorescent letters “Artichokes, Three for $1. No witnesses” right? Here, those of us who paid so he was teaching me how to use the ball stick and practice stroking letters. I learned that the paint brushes are made with the finest camel hairs and quills and stuff like that. I learned all that stuff, but he says to me, “This is easy. Don't waste your time.” I said, “Why not?” and he says, “This isn't the future of the sign design business. It's technology, computers.” And he says, “Ed the guy you’re working with, that’s the guy to learn from.” And I thought, computers making signs?
So in the late 80s, Gerber came up with the 4D lettering, vinyl cutting computer. It was the biggest thing and there'd be lineups to see this thing work. It was a rectangular steel frame machine. Just looked like a slab of steel with a computer keypad, a little LED screen read out, and then some sprockets, and an arm with a knife. And you can change a knife to pen and it worked on an X-Y axis. Just plotting and cutting.
KK: It was like an early laser cutter, right?
DM: Even before that - it was the biggest thing. And you know how printing companies, they'll send you the printer for cheap, but then just totally massacre you on the inks? Same thing. The vinyl film wasn't expensive. But the fonts were like $500 USD back then for one font. So Helvetica medium was the standard. If you wanted Times Bold or Gaudi or Cooper you would have to pay. What I used to do is - Gregory Signs, he’s still operating today. He had the largest collections of fonts in the city. If a customer wanted a certain font, I'd go to him and buy the individual letters from him. Or buy a paper drawing of the wording I wanted and then take that paper drawing and lay it on top of Plexiglass to hand cut the letters with an exacto knife.
Anyways, that old gentleman with the hand lettering, he took me to the side and he says, “Dizzy, go work for yourself. You're not gonna get any satisfaction working the way you do. No one's gonna appreciate how hard you work. They're not going to pay you for the extra things you do. The only satisfaction is to work for yourself.” I said, “But I don't know enough.” He goes, “You'll learn as you go. With your motivation and drive, things will work out.”
And I said, “I don't know how to how to charge the customers.” He grabbed his coffee cup of whiskey and said, “Charge them by how they live.”
KK: So if you knew if they had the money, you could charge them more?
DM: If they drive up in a Mercedes or drive up in a little Pontiac, you know, right. So I took his advice and I got a suit, briefcase, new car and went out. Nothing, no takers. Couldn't get an order. You know what the problem was? I had a boyish face, number one. They thought I didn't have any experience. And number two, I looked like I was successful. People are not sympathetic because Toronto was a city of immigrants, of people trying to make it. And I looked like I'm ahead of the game. People had no sympathy and like wow, so much so much thought has to go into this thing. So I had to scale it down. Wear like work clothes, blue collar, right? And presented myself as if I was working for someone.
KK: Did you have to make up a name for the company?
DM: Yeah, that was my next biggest mistake. I named it - well, I'm proud of my heritage. I was born in Jamaica and I immigrated to Canada. So I called my company CanJam, right. Well, my white clients told me to change it. And I said, “No, I'm not ashamed.” But they said, “No, it’s not about that. It's too ethnic.” People like to deal with things they're familiar with. And honestly, I was wondering if I should bring this up in the interview. But honestly, the racism I faced…
KK: Well yeah, I imagine you were one of the only Black men in the industry, right?
DM: Yeah. I got it from every angle. I went to the bank for a business loan and the manager told me “What? Why don't you go learn a trade? You people are good workers.” It was like, forget this dream of owning your own business. Just get a nice job and be a good worker.
I didn’t understand about systematic racism, the long history. I did not get it at first. They didn't teach it to us in school. Everything was just like an avalanche of information hitting me all at once. What's going on? I thought we're all the same but we're not all the same. Yeah, and the world isn't gonna change overnight.
KK: So that became apparent when you started your business, that this would be a big obstacle that you had to overcome.
DM: Right, like I’m trying to make a contribution to society. If I got a job, my profit margin had to be so much lower than the other guy just to get the job.
KK: You had to undercut your competition.
DM: I had to do it for a while just to build up a resume portfolio because they want to see what work you've done. I was getting hit from all angles. The banks, they wouldn't take my cheques unless they were certified. Imagine, I'm living in Toronto and a guy gives me a cheque. But his home branch is in Oakville or Hamilton where he lives when he does business in Toronto. I had to drive wherever the address was on this cheque to go certify it. When I did certify it and brought it back to my bank, they would still hold it for seven to 10 business days because of all the fraud that was going on.
And then my business name was CanJam for Canada-Jamaica. I remember it got to a point where they wanted to know where the shop was, where I lived. Once I made the sign and delivered the sign, customers would be surprised and say, “Wow, this is really good. It wasn't what I was expecting. It's better than expected. Where did you steal it? Did you steal the material?” And I'm thinking, it'll just never end. I was friends with other sign companies and their work wasn't scrutinized as much as mine.
My one client took a ladder and climbed to the top of the first storey. He went over the sign frame and says, “Oh, Dizzy. There's a scratch there. And there.” There were things you couldn’t even see from the ground level. My work was always run over with a fine-tooth comb. I've had to work hard to be good, to be on par with my competition.
KK: Were they expecting discounts if they found things?
DM: Yes. Some of them saw that I was young and they would dictate the discount. And I'm like, “what am I gonna do?”
Then I learned about exterior signs and interior signs. Well, I learned the hard way. A lot of people wouldn't pay me and I'd get upset and say, “If you’re not going to pay me, I’ll take back down the sign.” I remember one guy, he said, “No, let me call my wife. She'll bring the cheque book.” He actually called the police. The police arrive and he says, “This gentleman is trying to remove this sign from my building.” And the police said, “You can't remove that sign without a court order. Even if he owes you money, you have to take him to court.” And I’m like, court? So then I’m learning about court.
And the guy says to me, “Let this be a lesson to you that you’ll never forget.” At that point, I decided, well, if somebody doesn't pay me, and my signs are on the interior, I can't go in there to retrieve the sign. I decided to do storefronts and focused on storefront signs instead. I learned never to get emotional with the customers, never to show anger. If they don't want to pay. No problem. I’ll send a crew at 1am.
KK: In the middle of the night! So that’s how you would do it.
DM: We removed the signs and by the morning, they would come in, and go “Where's my sign?” Because they don't have a final bill of sale to show that as their property. But they're right in that I needed permission to go on their property to remove it. But if there isn't any friction, there's no need to call the police or alert anyone. I’d keep them smiling and laughing. “Oh, don't worry, buddy.” And then I’d send a crew out there and rip that sign down.
KK: You had to learn quickly how to run the business and navigate the industry.
DM: Right. But they had no intention of paying and I had to implement certain policies. I gotta get a deposit upfront to start. And then whatever payment arrangements they want, like when I did the El Mocambo. They couldn't get anyone to do the original restoration. They got me to do it because I was a musician and a sign guy. They had a series of concerts to raise money for the project. My band's performance brought in the biggest results but in the two months, they only had us on for one show. They were bringing in bands from Japan, spending money and not making anything. When the sign went back up, they had a big show and the owner said to me, “Okay, Dizzy, I will pay you somehow.” The agreement was Cash on Delivery (COD). And the owners were not going to pay me.
Actually, the El Mocambo sign that I restored is inside the building now. It is a double sided sign so each face is on the left and right of the stage.
KK: I didn't realize that. They recreated the signage on the exterior but they kept the originals.
DM: When I did the restoration of the original the City told me, “Don't take it down.” Because it has to conform to today's bylaws and it wouldn't be allowed. I said, “Okay, I won't touch it.” I sent the crew there on a Sunday night with two crane trucks and took it down. Then they brought it to my shop and they left it out back. The next day, the maintenance guy calls me and says “Dizzy there's a whole bunch of junk on your back door. You want me to call the scrap guy and toss it out?”
I said, “Are you crazy, do not touch that thing! It’s the El Mocambo!”
Once I got it inside and ripped it open, there were raccoon nests, pigeon shit, just piled up raccoon shit. It ate through all the wiring, it corroded. The acid in the poop corrodes the metal, it was a total disaster. So I did a wash with muriatic acid and water with all the metal to get the immediate rust stuff off. Then I primed it over right and I used everything from TREMCLAD for that whole sign, the rust paint.
DM: And you know, the El Mocambo was a strip joint at one point in its history.
KK: I didn't know that.
DM: Yeah, so when I was doing the original restoration, one of the bar staff told me to make sure you put the nipples back on the coconuts. So I put neon nipples back on the coconuts when I did it to reflect that time. But now it’s all weird, the coconuts are purple and I don't get it.
KK: That was probably one of your most high profile projects, right?
DM: Right, and the racism was still there. As high profile as that job was. They didn't mention my name, in any of the interviews. The CBC, everyone was there. The only proof that it was even me was the Toronto Star took a picture of me connecting some wires and the caption said, “A worker makes final completions on the sign”. Never any spotlight on me. The booking manager for the club, Dan Burke, got more shine than I did. [show photo from Toronto Star] At the bottom of the sign it even says CanJam.
It was even worse for Zanzibar. David Cooper saw me working on the El Mocambo sign and he called me. He would have a series of meetings and at the first meeting he said, “You don't have a chance of getting this job, you’re too small.” But he kept calling me to come down and we'd have meetings. And I thought, “Why is this guy wasting my time?”
He’d say, “I just want to ask you some questions.” And for each question he’d ask me, I answered it right there. The other salesmen he was dealing with, they couldn't answer his questions. They’d have to go back and forth and he said there's something wrong.
The way the business is structured, the guys and most companies who are salesmen aren't the guys who do the hands on work. It's very rare that the guy that has the hands on work is involved. But because I worked in small companies all my life, I had to do everything myself.
KK: So you were having these conversations with the owner. How did you end up landing the job?
DM: Well, I think with everything he asked me, I wasn't uncomfortable, I wasn't squirming. He'd ask me straightforward. “Can we do this?” And I just said “No, you can't do that. It's not practical for neon.” He'd go away to Vegas and come back and we'd have lunch, and I know it sounds cliché, but on the napkin, he would sketch what he saw in Vegas.
He says, “I have this image of stars all over the wall, cascading down and around.”
So I said, “Okay.” And I go back and I’d design it and show it to him. He’d say, “Yeah, but the star is so rigid, make them animated like they're flowing.” So I’d pick the points of the stars and distort the points.
He knew what he wanted. He said, “In these stars, I want every neon color available.” And he came to my workshop to see if I had the space. He saw that.
He’d go to Vegas and come back with the designs and then sit down and we would sketch it. I would tell him, this can work or that can't work and that's what he liked. At no point did he give me the impression I was gonna get the job. But he kept picking my brains - it was frustrating.
And those obstacles to the job like the big star in front of the building, because of the foyer that was originally there at the front of Zanzibar, there was no structural steel to support the sign. Yeah, we had to crawl into the ceiling. I've never told anybody, but we had to go in there with an arc welder and weld steel supports onto the structural steel that's projected out to the front of the exterior of the building that supported the sign. I did all that engineering myself. When I was welding, we had a guy there with a water hose. Because the building’s old, some of it is wood. Just imagine what kind of kind of nerve I would have to go in there and start arc welding in a wood building. It was the craziest thing. But you want to say, “Yeah, go ahead, do it.” And then [David] told me I got the job. But he's very clever because it wasn't all encompassing, it was in phases.
First, we did the cascading stars and the vertical sign that projected out. That was basically the first phase. But he wanted the big stars. And then it got crazy. He wanted each letter to have individual bulbs. And “Zanzibar” is eight letters, that’s 1001 incandescent bulbs I installed. Oh my god, right? They're almost nothing but when collectively they all lit up, you can feel the heat coming from the filaments. But then he wanted to do an animation sequence.
KK: That’s right! Each letter turns on at a different time.
DM: Yeah, I remember it was like six sequences. He wanted it to spell out each letter. Then he wanted it to curtain and open from the center. Then he wanted a vertical cascade. And then he wanted it to scatter random. Then he wanted to flash the word “Zanzibar”.
So that was my assignment and it didn't exist. I had to source everything which is fascinating because if you work for a company, you’re just stuck in one department. This project was all encompassing and I had to source out computer software designers. The Markle Brothers had a guy, Robin was his name. And I sat down and I said, this is what I need you to create a controller for. This is back in 1999 and that thing cost $6,000 just for the controller. Then I have to get with the electrical contractor and just explain to him how many circuits, how many lines. We ended up putting up its own electrical panel in the building just for the sign.
Then those channel letters, they have the transformers, they're huge and they're behind the bulbs - everything is self contained. The letters have to be vented so the transformers can cool and then the face of each letter that has the bulbs is removable. Well, how do I take the face off to get to the transformer? I had to find appliance cords. They're coiled electrical cords that can stretch so when I take off the face of these letters, there's this coil that lets me pull the face that like about four feet out without any damage being done. It was like a lot of precision thinking.
KK: You were thinking ahead about maintenance and how to access these transformers. Are you regularly maintaining the sign?
DM: They will not let anyone else touch it. They have the maintenance guy that cleans the building, he'll replace light bulbs. The next problem was how to put a ladder against the sign when it's full of neon. I put a bar across the front of Zanzibar. It's painted in camouflage. There's a steel ladder bar that runs across the entire length of the sign so that workers can place their ladder against it to go up and change the bulbs.
I remember when the sign was finished. He said to me, “This is gonna put you on the map. This is Vegas right here on Young Street.” Nothing happened.
KK: Really? It's one of my favourite signs.
DM: It's everybody's favourite. See when I'm fixing it and talk to some of the people staring at it. People come here and stare at it. A guy from Nova Scotia, he says he comes to Toronto once a year and on his to do list is just to stare at that sign
KK: You got talking about the creative process for the Zanzibar sign. I'm curious about what it's typically like for other signs. Do owners typically come to you with an idea of what they want? And then do you work with them based on that idea? Or do you usually propose a design for the owner and they review the different options?
DM: I'd say it's 50/50. Where some people are very passionate, they have their own logos or insignia that they're passionate about. They want to incorporate it into a sign. And I will tell them, it's not practical for a storefront sign. I'd explain the different criteria, the setback from the street, the speed of which traffic is flowing. Does someone have time to read all that? People only have two seconds to look at your sign for a quick landing. If you do script or cursive letters, people can't read that. I explained to them color combinations. People don’t understand that the brightest color at night is white, so whatever part of your sign is white, that's what stands out. So if the background is a white field and then you have these skinny black letters, all you’re going to see is the white overpowering the field. We convinced these owners to go with a coloured background and make the letters white - white for the contrast. And then there are certain combinations that are work well. For basic signage. That's why we see a lot of colors repeated. Pastels always look like they're in the sun too long.
KK: Yeah, it looks faded.
DM: I stay away from that. I implement all those things, those elements into my designs. My signs are always kind of popping out, they're impactful. People say “Oh, yeah, that's Dizzy. You can tell he made that one.” And it was never a case of just give me your money. Let me just throw something at you. No, I wanted to be impactful, I wanted to have meaning, and I wanted it to be relative to the business. I did one for a variety store and they’re a Korean family. They want to do just plain black letters on yellow. I said, “You’re a variety store. Make each letter a different color, like a variety.” And they said, “You think so?” I said, “It'll look like Party City. It'll create fun and happiness, right?” And they took my advice and every time I go in there from my lottery ticket, they're like, “Oh, Mr. Dizzy. You’re so professional - beautiful sign.” Everybody loved it and business picked up for them.
KK: Nice! Which store was this?
DM: It's at Keele and Sheppard, it's just a convenience store. It's called De Havilland Variety. [SHOW IMAGE] If you go to the Plaza at Keele and Shepherd Avenue West, that's been my stomping ground for the last few years. I've created a lot of the signs there.
KK: How do you get most of your business now? Is it word of mouth, like people that all know each other in the same area?
DM: I don't advertise. I don't have a website. I don't need it. Each one of my jobs is so customized. It won't ever be the same as the next. I don't do the cookie cutter, mass production stuff. I get called for custom work and I'm fine with that. It means I don't make a lot of money because I'm worrying about details and fixing this and that. I've never been like money hungry. I think it's to my detriment because people with my abilities tend to go for the big bucks. And I'm like, “Yeah, but I sleep good at night.” The best feeling for me is driving through the city and seeing my signs. But then I’m like, “Wow, I need to go change that light bulb.”
KK: You’ve also worked in the film industry for a bit. How did you get started there?
DM: As the technology changes, neon is one of those things that are fading out. It's gone back to a novelty type of product. The film industry was embracing the new technology, the LED lighting. It's fine to look at. But once a camera hits it, you'll see hot and cold spots. You familiar with the LED modules?
KK: Yeah.
DM: If you see the hot and cold spots on the gels, you can see the individual like bulbs - the diodes. LEDs, Light Emitting Diodes. You'll see them light up and it's bright, hot and cold. It didn't translate well on film, so the problem in the industry now is like, they need things quick, lickety-split. You have a couple of shops that will rent them stock signs, beer signs, Budweiser - all these things for the background. People collect them and rent them to production companies. But when they need something custom made; the group of people who do that now are smaller and smaller. The advantage for me is I got into it when I was younger. Yeah, so you know, that's the key to longevity, right? So when Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk (2008) was filmed, they filmed that on Yonge Street so I was called to help with the neon signs. Because your name gets around who still does it all; Dizzy and this guy and that guy? Oh, we all get along and you know we all pass our name around. There's glass shops if I need a certain tube that I don't have, I can get it off of another shop. Do you have any of this or any of that, can I buy some off of you? It's networking like that.
KK: Yeah, because it's a very small field, so you have to work together.
DM: And then one day I remember I got a call from Netflix and they said they needed a neon sign for one of their series, “Titans.” I don't watch Netflix and I didn't know what that was. If they had said “Teen Titans,” I would know that.
Anyhow, I remember when I got to the site where the set was – it was up in Orangeville. I get to the set at 10 o'clock at night. And the crew, they think that I'm not coming. But to the art director, I'm like, “Don't worry, it'll be taken care of.”
So I pull up and they're all staring at me from head to toe. Brah. They’re like, you’re the guy? You're on this multi-million dollar production? And you're the guy we’re relying on.
And I’m like, “That's right, bitch.”
So all of a sudden, it started raining and everybody's scrambling. And they’re like, we're getting out of here. “Dizzy, you going home?” No, I'm in my raincoat – I’m prepared. I'm up in the cherry picker. I'm up in the sky, it's raining. I've never seen rain sideways, hitting me hitting me from one side. And I'm working and I'm laughing. I'm like, rain? What’s rain! It’s no problem when you work in minus 30.
Because when you go on the lift to wire neon, your shoulders lockup. Then you get the headaches from the tension in your shoulders. And you can't make connections with gloves - that has to be done with your bare hands. So had those peel back gloves. Peel back, make connections.
KK: But then how does it work in the rain, wiring an electric sign?
DM: Well, basically, all the connections are made with the primary power off. All the connections are there, they're not waterproof, but they can get wet and still function. That’s the thing, it's outdoor use, right? We seal a lot of things with silicones and weatherproofing. With neon, there's certain laws that you have to follow, almost mathematical, if you want the neon to work.
The things I made would work, they go three to five years without servicing, because I followed those laws of neon. The other companies don't do that, on purpose, because they have service crews, they need to keep busy.
They'll sign a service contract with the company, our guys, we'll be out there twice a year. The guys will do things that they know will be problematic down the road, so they can keep their guys busy. Well, I'm a one-man gang. I can’t keep fixing things so I've made signs that never broke down.
KK: What are those laws of neon?
DM: Okay, the thing about neon is it gives off heat and heat needs to be dissipated. Transformers need to be vented.
The wires for neon - if they're bent if they doubled back, there is a kind of electrical field around high voltage wire. So when it's bent back on itself, the current jumps from wire to wire and actually eats through the wire and starts an electrical fire. You never want to bend high voltage wire for neon like that.
You want to balance the electrical load. The transformer should be in the center of the sign so that the wires from the transformer going to the load and the current travels the same distance. If one side is a shorter distance, it's getting a higher volume of electricity and the longer side is not balanced. Then the transformer is not working the way it should be.
And the other thing, the most important one, is not to overload the transformer. There's a voltage rating on each transformer and you should never have the transformer work at 100%. The manufacturers suggest 85%. And I believe in this. The transformers are just chilled, doing their thing. Not pushing, pushing, pushing.
KK: It's like a motor, you don’t want to push it to its max. You want to stay within the safety range.
DM: Other companies would have the transformer maxed out for six months. Like ever seen Sam the Record Man? I don't think there was ever a time where everything was completely working on that sign.
KK: You know how you were talking about how neon has shifted over the years and how it's more of a novelty. At one point, it was the industry standard. I wonder how that affected your work. When did you notice that neon was becoming less popular and was switching to other types of technology?
DM: I think I was prepared, in that, the big companies would steal our neon products, their workers were segregated and allocated to different departments. And the workers just stayed there for 10, 15 years. They never got to learn everything about the industry, because they're stuck in one department.
Because I was self employed, I had to do every aspect of it. I never was tunneled into just one aspect. It prepared me to be flexible and to accept change. And not to be afraid of change. That change is normal and to go with the flow. It was a mental adjustment and I think the hardest thing to learn as a young man was patience. Society, TV, everything, tells you that everything now, now, now, qiack, quick, quick. Life isn't like that. Just imagine busting your back and then being told, you're not getting a dime for this for the next 60 days. How do you eat? How do you budget? How do you survive to learn all these survival things?
And seeing neon phased out, I knew it would happen because there were a lot of fires. A lot of electrical fires with the storefront windows, because in the 90s, it was really popular. Everybody and his uncle was selling neon, the borders around windows. But nobody was adhering to those principles of neons. So what happened was, you'd have all those fires. It got a bad name. “Neon causes fires.” If you don't respect the principles of neon, it's a fire hazard.
Basically, the designers, the cities, they moved away from the box signs as storefront signs, the large box signs. They were fluorescent lamps. Those ballasts are also high voltage too. So architects, designers, city planners, they wanted to go with individual letters instead, which is channel letters. For neon, when we needed a channel letter, the traditional way was to have a two and a half inch diameter housing that goes through the wall. Once you pulled the old letters off, you're left with these big gaping holes in your façade. The LED eliminated all that. We still make the channel letters but with the LED inside, it's only 12 volts. The fire hazard is taken away.
KK: Right, so that would work for signs where you don’t see the light source.
DM: And now, I don't know if you've seen wedding designers with the imitation neon script everywhere? Those are LEDs and they're sourced from China. I can't even make them. I worked out the pricing. If you want me to make something, that looks like neon, it’s actually cheaper for me to order it from China and have them make it and ship it. That's how things have changed. Manufacturing is just through the roof in Canada. It's just how is it cheaper to have it made across the world put on a ship brought over and they still make a profit. Cheaper than me making it here. Overseas manufacturing, that's a big thing.
KK: What's the bulk of your business now in terms of the types of lights.
DM: Storefront channel letters with LEDs. That's the most popular thing. There’s still not your everyday, custom jobs. And also building signs to withstand the Canadian elements. For example, we had a windstorm the other day. When I make channel letters, I make little clips that hold the plexiglass on the cans. Other companies don't do that because they want a repair job. They can, but they're not going to do it. But I'll do it because I'm only one guy, I can't be bothered. I would say the cost of manufacturing is the biggest change, cost of labor. Young kids are not learning the trade at all, they have no desire to work with their hands. Which is too bad, because even if you have the computer aspect of it, you still need some sort of metal cabinet to house your computer aided device. There will always be welding, some sort of fabrication.
KK: Yeah, there still needs to be people that will do the work. Since you had mentioned that after you did your tour in the US, you came back and you were working as a contractor for other signage businesses. When did you decide to open your own business again?
DM: So basically when I came back, I still had my list of clients that called me and they were recommending me to other people. Then these sign companies, I would make deals with them and say, “Look, I got my own clients. Can I use your facility to build such and such sign?” They said, “Yeah.” and that was going good for a while. Until they saw how quickly I made everything and how I did everything myself. And they didn't like that. They said, “We can't stand to see you make money.”
KK: They thought you were doing they were doing you a favor. So then you started your own business again, after that?
DM: Well, I was still independent, working for the different companies. I wasn't on their payroll and was just doing piecework. I'd go in to build a sign and I never needed to do everything. I never had to install it, collect the money. I just built whatever they needed and their in-house staff would finish it to completion. And then I'd just invoice them and they would pay me for that work I did. They just pay the company that I had registered under my name and that's how it worked. I’d just go around from business to business as a sole man. I had to have my own WSIB and liability insurance and all those things that a big company would have. I still needed to have all those things.
KK: What’s the name of your company?
DM: The company's called Retail Signs. I registered Retail Signs when I got the Lowe's contract in 2010 because I needed something that didn't sound ethnic. I couldn't go down that route again. And Retail Signs sounds big. Right?
KK: Sounds like a huge company.
DM: Yeah. I had to explain that to Revenue Canada!
KK: As you know, this is a book about the signs of Toronto, and we're doing different features on different neighbourhood and different iconic signs from around the city. I was wondering if there were any iconic signs that that you would say are your favorite signs of Toronto, that really define Toronto for you?
DM: I really like Fillmores. I don't know if it's torn down yet but it's destined for demolition because their putting condos there.
Also going up 400 towards Finch for years, it’s weird but Allied Plastic Skylights. It was just channel letters. It had a yellow face but with red tube lights inside. It's yellow during the day and red at night. But for years it never worked, there was always something burning out. I wanted to tell them that I can fix it, but they said “Oh no, we have our neon guy.” But yeah, he’s terrible.
So I went to them because I had to do a pan face, which is where they take a sheet of acrylic and clamp it, blow heat into it and expand it into a mold. GM and those big car dealerships use those types of signs – the molded plastic faces.
KK: Yeah, they have those big plastic sign and then the letters kind of pop out.
DM: Yeah and it's all one piece. Burger King used to do that, vacuum form case faces. I was doing a custom job for an car dealership and they wanted this diamond shaped pan face. So again, 90% of this stuff is sourcing, so I went to allied plastics and they were able to do it for him. But I never got their sign job.
KK: So they basically got your business but you didn’t get their business.
DM: And some of those animators too, flashers and spellers. I can't get them in Canada and I have to order them from Texas because they just don't make them here anymore. Manufacturing is gone. Replacement parts for the Zanzibar sign now comes from Texas. And you have to pay import taxes, duties, fees, tariffs. And the cities made it harder to service. Gotta have police on site for the big crane trucks, permits for everything - so much red tape. Like even now with the Zanzibari, when it needs servicing, the owners wait for business to pick up because you know, just to get a truck down there is 1000 bucks. I haven't done anything yet. They don't want to pay that.
And you know, and back then we never thought about having three floors neon. But you need to crane truck for the third floor - a 65 foot crane. And that takes up our whole curb lane. Then they want you to have police supervision. You know, everything. It's quite expensive now just to service a broken piece of glass.
KK: Right, so businesses wait till there's multiple broken pieces of glass before they fix it.
DM: And then go overnight when there's less pedestrians. People love walking on the ladders. Anyways, it's sad to see the city change. It's sad to see the signs go. When I was a kid, I never dreamed I would work on the El Mocambo. That’s got to be up there for iconic signs. The Brass Rail was a hotspot. It's owned by the same family that owns Zanzibar. They didn't do a lot of neon, they just a lot of billboard type, pictures, photos.
KK: Do you know why they went with that?
DM: It's two different brothers; two different concepts. They wanted the visuals because they were further north. Being closer to Yonge and Dundas, I think the city is more particular about the pictures and the imagery they create. As a little boy in the 70s when I was on Yonge Street, they’d have the TV monitors outside the bars showing the dancers on stage. And then there was a shoeshine boy that got murdered on Yonge Street and that changed a lot of things, scaling back. And Zanzibar was in that hot zone. But what else was there? The Silver Dollar Room.
And what also fascinated me about the city was the amount of billboards along the Gardiner. When I was a kid, it was fascinating to watch. There was Sony and there was one called Inglis with the colors and the vertical tubes. They would change colors. That was one of my favorites. And the tri-visions that would change images and rotate. I loved those. Gardiner would look like Vegas at night. I loved driving down there before all the buildings went up, it was just like billboard city. Tip Top Tailors along the Lakeshore there was another one, I grew up seeing that.
Yeah, the ones that incorporated the different textures of lighting. The bulbs and the neon tubing right then the channel letter, anything that that had those different layers. Right? I just found fascinating. I try and do that when the customer has the budget. I give them the most for their money.
And then you have you have customers that just needed the sign to work for a year. Because they're only going to be in business for a year. I never want to do those jobs. They're like a pop-up shop. Like I need a banner or I need a sandwich board. I don't want to do it.
MUSIC CAREER
KK: Have you ever played at the Lula Lounge?
DM: Oh, yeah! I made their marquee. The first time they asked me to play there, I said, “I'm not playing at your bar.”
They said, “Why not?”
I said, “Because you don't have a marquee. How do you advertise the bands?”
And they said, “Oh, we never thought about that.”
I said, “I know a guy who can make you a marquee.”
He's like, “Listen, we can’t afford it, we have no money.”
Get your alcohol supplier, they have the budgets! They’ll pay for it!
So they called up one of their alcohol suppliers and they sent me one of their logos. It was Havana Club. It was no problem for them. We upgraded the sign in 2018. They wanted the marquee to curve.
And I go, “I can't do that.”
They said, “We want it!”
You’ve got to do the tracks and the changeable letters that are curved. But I did it and I put the bulbs around.
KK: So the actual Lula sign, has that changed over the years?
DM: No, they made that themselves. I didn't make the actual Lula sign. That's just plywood letters, in sections. I think a local artist did it. And they went to IKEA and got the little bulbs. And put them in there. Yeah, so I just did the marquee but they think I did the whole thing. I didn't.
KK: I can't believe they made that themselves. Well it still works!
DM: They put me on their summer flyer one year, on the front cover. I got a lot of love from them. It's nice.
KK: It seems like there's some jobs that you got through your work as a trombone player. There’s a connection between signage and nightlife.
DM: Yeah, some of my biggest shows are at the Harborfront during the Caribana weekend. I'd have the crowd in a frenzy. And then the next week, I'll be on a ladder at Zanzibar. And people would be driving by saying, “Hey, look! Isn’t that Dizzy.” And the conversation be like that, “Nah, that wouldn't be him. He’s a big musician. Why would he be on a ladder fixing lightbulbs?”
KK: It's fascinating, the connection between your career as a musician and your career as a sign maker.
DM: I would incorporate that into my shows. I always have graphics, visuals, because I'm a sign guy. I’ll have signage behind me. During the pandemic, I started a YouTube channel called “Reggae & Groove”. I started just producing music videos, learning how to edit and stuff. And I started putting signage in the videos. I’d have my banner which has reflective lettering on it so that when you take a picture with a flash, it glows and it looks like neon. I also put that reflective film all over my trombone. I tell people, when you take a picture of my horn, please use the flash to get a nice surprise. The horn glows and it looks like a neon trombone. It’s a really cool effect.
KK: You even left the signage industry for a while to pursue your career as a musician, correct?
DM: Yes. In 2005, I said, “Okay, that's enough.” I was getting calls for movies, backgrounds, acting stuff, tours, and I was turning it all down for the sign business. And, I thought, I'm just not getting ahead.
You know, I'd have white workers/staff and customers would come in to the shop and they'd be rude to me thinking the white guy is the boss. Right? Anyways, I shut it all down and grabbed my trombone. And I went touring the US. I was just shut everything down and I thought, I'm just gonna go be a musician.
You know, like I said, word of mouth. People knew me as a horn player, so I got gigs. I was on a couple of tours. I was on Jimmy Kimmel, playing in a band, toured the whole US. In the one tour, I was in an opening act for John Legend. I opened for Snoop Dogg in Vegas.
It was really good because it was a change from the sign business. I was getting paid for being creative in another way. Then I came back and I decided not to open another warehouse again but just to be a contractor. I contacted all the big companies - they all knew me. And I said, whenever you get a contract that your regular staff can’t do, call me; I'll come in and do it. So that's what I would do, I'd go into their warehouse, at midnight. They'd give me the security code and a fob and I just be inside all night, building.
KK: So if they needed a neon sign specifically, they would call you?
DM: It's not necessarily just neon, just anything custom. Because, for example, Lindt chocolates. They have a dragon for their logo and it's got claws and all this. They wanted a 3D version of that that would light up and be made out of aluminum. But nobody could do it. They tried all over Canada, nobody could do it. But there's this voice in the background, “Dizzy can do it!”
And the guys would make bets, saying this can't be done. But I never show them how I do it, but I do it.
KK: Okay, so you keep those trade secrets to yourself.
DM: Yes. I have seven sons. I always thought I would have a sign shop with my boys learning the trade. None of them were interested in it. None of them wanted to do signage. They saw how hard I worked and they said hell no. They saw the cold and the rain. But I still do it, I like it.
KK: How do you think you'll pass on your knowledge. Do you think you'll be a mentor to someone?
DM: I have been over the years because when I started, I was based out of Jane and Finch. I'll go to different community centers and if there were guys hanging around and I’d say, “Hey, you want to come work?” I always brought in and mentored young guys. During Black History Month, I'll go to the schools and do little lectures and encourage people. My band would play at the Metro West Detention Center during Christmas time. I was always involved in community stuff. And every time somebody was around me, I was always teaching, sharing my knowledge, always. And it's funny, because I've run into some of these guys, they come up to me, and they're like, “Dizzy. I want to thank you. You taught me how to make an honest buck. And I have my house, family, kids. And it’s because of you, man, what you taught me. My dad was never around.” A lot of them would come and say that.
KK: Wow, that's so special. That's the important thing, you've built a career for yourself and then being able to share that with other people. And putting those stories out there, I think is a valuable part of your legacy; that you've been able to teach and mentor people within the community.
DM: It’s still, not as intense but It's the racism that's passed on. I don't understand. You know, because people aren't inherently born with that. They're taught. And I've had people telling me that they were taught to look for the differences. I’d say, “That's too bad, man.” Because you miss out on a lot. You know, there's really a lot of good in people. You know, when people don't work with me, I think it's their loss.
KK: For sure. Because you do great work. I've been an admirer of your work and just so glad to be able to talk with you about your experience in the industry and hear your stories. Thank you!
Dizzy Minott: You know, this is information nobody has, right? (laughs)
KK: This is the exclusive!
DM: All through high school I was known as Paul Minott, so right away, I lost half of my peers. They didn't know me as Dizzy. Dizzy was my nickname from playing basketball and my tricks on the court, like Globetrotters and Magic Johnson. I made people dizzy on the court. Then I got into music in junior high school, playing trombone and Dizzy Gillespie played trumpet at the time. So I’m thinking “Dizzy Minott’s on trombone” sounds good. I come from a musical family anyhow. My cousin is Sugar Minott. He passed away in 2010 but if you Google the name Sugar Minott, he’s one of the pioneers of reggae music in Jamaica.
In high school, I was interested in architecture from watching the Brady Bunch. As you know, the dad, Mike Brady, was an architect and he had the tools with the blueprints and I thought, that's so cool. I went to George Harvey Secondary School back in the 1980s and I got into the drafting program. That's where they taught us hand lettering and fonts, because your drawings had to be legible. I really enjoyed it. I was always into my artistic creative side. I was into photography, painting, illustrations, and stuff. In school, I would decorate all my notebooks, with colors, drop shadows, all these things that were totally unnecessary. The smartest kid in the class, he said to me, “Paul, you’re wasting your time. You'll never get a job and get paid for doing that stuff.” I’m still looking for this guy today and I just want to tell him, “Look at me now!”
When I left high school, my dad left home and I had to give up my pursuit for University. I was planning to go to Ryerson [now Toronto Metropolitan University] but I had to go and get a job. I ended up at the Hilton Hotel washing dishes.
From there, I was heavily involved in a church. In our culture, Jamaican culture, we have to go to church on Sundays and the church presented after school programs with activities for the youth. In the summertime, we do parades and marches for Jesus and they asked me to make placards and posters. I remember I did the Pepsi logo, “The Choice of the New Generation”, and then had the Pepsi logo but with the word “Jesus” in the middle, things like that. One day one of the church members says, “you can get paid to do that.”
I had never thought about the sign business. As a little boy, I used to watch Sesame Street and there was a guy going around town with a paintbrush painting numbers randomly all over the city. There was an appeal to the stroke of the lettering and stuff that caught my attention. Sesame Street, Brady Bunch, Bugs Bunny, Sanford and Son - I was influenced by television.
KK: Right, so pop culture really influenced your interest in the sign business.
DM: Yeah. This gentleman told me to check the Yellow Pages and look up sign companies. I was living up at Jane and Finch at the time and there was one in the area. I called him and I said, I'd like to start working in the sign business if you're hiring.” He says, “We're not hiring.” And I said, “Well, can I come work for free?” And he said, “Sure, why not start tomorrow.” The gentleman’s name was Ed Marquise and the company was called All Signs Canada Limited. I went in there and I started working. He was sharing a spot with a sign painter, a guy named Bob Lane who did hand lettering for like over 40 years. Just painting.
KK: And what kind of signs was he doing?
DM: He was doing all kinds. He was doing billboards, show cards, window lettering. He'd even do the weekly specials in the store windows of the supermarkets. They had a big poster paper and the big fluorescent letters “Artichokes, Three for $1. No witnesses” right? Here, those of us who paid so he was teaching me how to use the ball stick and practice stroking letters. I learned that the paint brushes are made with the finest camel hairs and quills and stuff like that. I learned all that stuff, but he says to me, “This is easy. Don't waste your time.” I said, “Why not?” and he says, “This isn't the future of the sign design business. It's technology, computers.” And he says, “Ed the guy you’re working with, that’s the guy to learn from.” And I thought, computers making signs?
So in the late 80s, Gerber came up with the 4D lettering, vinyl cutting computer. It was the biggest thing and there'd be lineups to see this thing work. It was a rectangular steel frame machine. Just looked like a slab of steel with a computer keypad, a little LED screen read out, and then some sprockets, and an arm with a knife. And you can change a knife to pen and it worked on an X-Y axis. Just plotting and cutting.
KK: It was like an early laser cutter, right?
DM: Even before that - it was the biggest thing. And you know how printing companies, they'll send you the printer for cheap, but then just totally massacre you on the inks? Same thing. The vinyl film wasn't expensive. But the fonts were like $500 USD back then for one font. So Helvetica medium was the standard. If you wanted Times Bold or Gaudi or Cooper you would have to pay. What I used to do is - Gregory Signs, he’s still operating today. He had the largest collections of fonts in the city. If a customer wanted a certain font, I'd go to him and buy the individual letters from him. Or buy a paper drawing of the wording I wanted and then take that paper drawing and lay it on top of Plexiglass to hand cut the letters with an exacto knife.
Anyways, that old gentleman with the hand lettering, he took me to the side and he says, “Dizzy, go work for yourself. You're not gonna get any satisfaction working the way you do. No one's gonna appreciate how hard you work. They're not going to pay you for the extra things you do. The only satisfaction is to work for yourself.” I said, “But I don't know enough.” He goes, “You'll learn as you go. With your motivation and drive, things will work out.”
And I said, “I don't know how to how to charge the customers.” He grabbed his coffee cup of whiskey and said, “Charge them by how they live.”
KK: So if you knew if they had the money, you could charge them more?
DM: If they drive up in a Mercedes or drive up in a little Pontiac, you know, right. So I took his advice and I got a suit, briefcase, new car and went out. Nothing, no takers. Couldn't get an order. You know what the problem was? I had a boyish face, number one. They thought I didn't have any experience. And number two, I looked like I was successful. People are not sympathetic because Toronto was a city of immigrants, of people trying to make it. And I looked like I'm ahead of the game. People had no sympathy and like wow, so much so much thought has to go into this thing. So I had to scale it down. Wear like work clothes, blue collar, right? And presented myself as if I was working for someone.
KK: Did you have to make up a name for the company?
DM: Yeah, that was my next biggest mistake. I named it - well, I'm proud of my heritage. I was born in Jamaica and I immigrated to Canada. So I called my company CanJam, right. Well, my white clients told me to change it. And I said, “No, I'm not ashamed.” But they said, “No, it’s not about that. It's too ethnic.” People like to deal with things they're familiar with. And honestly, I was wondering if I should bring this up in the interview. But honestly, the racism I faced…
KK: Well yeah, I imagine you were one of the only Black men in the industry, right?
DM: Yeah. I got it from every angle. I went to the bank for a business loan and the manager told me “What? Why don't you go learn a trade? You people are good workers.” It was like, forget this dream of owning your own business. Just get a nice job and be a good worker.
I didn’t understand about systematic racism, the long history. I did not get it at first. They didn't teach it to us in school. Everything was just like an avalanche of information hitting me all at once. What's going on? I thought we're all the same but we're not all the same. Yeah, and the world isn't gonna change overnight.
KK: So that became apparent when you started your business, that this would be a big obstacle that you had to overcome.
DM: Right, like I’m trying to make a contribution to society. If I got a job, my profit margin had to be so much lower than the other guy just to get the job.
KK: You had to undercut your competition.
DM: I had to do it for a while just to build up a resume portfolio because they want to see what work you've done. I was getting hit from all angles. The banks, they wouldn't take my cheques unless they were certified. Imagine, I'm living in Toronto and a guy gives me a cheque. But his home branch is in Oakville or Hamilton where he lives when he does business in Toronto. I had to drive wherever the address was on this cheque to go certify it. When I did certify it and brought it back to my bank, they would still hold it for seven to 10 business days because of all the fraud that was going on.
And then my business name was CanJam for Canada-Jamaica. I remember it got to a point where they wanted to know where the shop was, where I lived. Once I made the sign and delivered the sign, customers would be surprised and say, “Wow, this is really good. It wasn't what I was expecting. It's better than expected. Where did you steal it? Did you steal the material?” And I'm thinking, it'll just never end. I was friends with other sign companies and their work wasn't scrutinized as much as mine.
My one client took a ladder and climbed to the top of the first storey. He went over the sign frame and says, “Oh, Dizzy. There's a scratch there. And there.” There were things you couldn’t even see from the ground level. My work was always run over with a fine-tooth comb. I've had to work hard to be good, to be on par with my competition.
KK: Were they expecting discounts if they found things?
DM: Yes. Some of them saw that I was young and they would dictate the discount. And I'm like, “what am I gonna do?”
Then I learned about exterior signs and interior signs. Well, I learned the hard way. A lot of people wouldn't pay me and I'd get upset and say, “If you’re not going to pay me, I’ll take back down the sign.” I remember one guy, he said, “No, let me call my wife. She'll bring the cheque book.” He actually called the police. The police arrive and he says, “This gentleman is trying to remove this sign from my building.” And the police said, “You can't remove that sign without a court order. Even if he owes you money, you have to take him to court.” And I’m like, court? So then I’m learning about court.
And the guy says to me, “Let this be a lesson to you that you’ll never forget.” At that point, I decided, well, if somebody doesn't pay me, and my signs are on the interior, I can't go in there to retrieve the sign. I decided to do storefronts and focused on storefront signs instead. I learned never to get emotional with the customers, never to show anger. If they don't want to pay. No problem. I’ll send a crew at 1am.
KK: In the middle of the night! So that’s how you would do it.
DM: We removed the signs and by the morning, they would come in, and go “Where's my sign?” Because they don't have a final bill of sale to show that as their property. But they're right in that I needed permission to go on their property to remove it. But if there isn't any friction, there's no need to call the police or alert anyone. I’d keep them smiling and laughing. “Oh, don't worry, buddy.” And then I’d send a crew out there and rip that sign down.
KK: You had to learn quickly how to run the business and navigate the industry.
DM: Right. But they had no intention of paying and I had to implement certain policies. I gotta get a deposit upfront to start. And then whatever payment arrangements they want, like when I did the El Mocambo. They couldn't get anyone to do the original restoration. They got me to do it because I was a musician and a sign guy. They had a series of concerts to raise money for the project. My band's performance brought in the biggest results but in the two months, they only had us on for one show. They were bringing in bands from Japan, spending money and not making anything. When the sign went back up, they had a big show and the owner said to me, “Okay, Dizzy, I will pay you somehow.” The agreement was Cash on Delivery (COD). And the owners were not going to pay me.
Actually, the El Mocambo sign that I restored is inside the building now. It is a double sided sign so each face is on the left and right of the stage.
KK: I didn't realize that. They recreated the signage on the exterior but they kept the originals.
DM: When I did the restoration of the original the City told me, “Don't take it down.” Because it has to conform to today's bylaws and it wouldn't be allowed. I said, “Okay, I won't touch it.” I sent the crew there on a Sunday night with two crane trucks and took it down. Then they brought it to my shop and they left it out back. The next day, the maintenance guy calls me and says “Dizzy there's a whole bunch of junk on your back door. You want me to call the scrap guy and toss it out?”
I said, “Are you crazy, do not touch that thing! It’s the El Mocambo!”
Once I got it inside and ripped it open, there were raccoon nests, pigeon shit, just piled up raccoon shit. It ate through all the wiring, it corroded. The acid in the poop corrodes the metal, it was a total disaster. So I did a wash with muriatic acid and water with all the metal to get the immediate rust stuff off. Then I primed it over right and I used everything from TREMCLAD for that whole sign, the rust paint.
DM: And you know, the El Mocambo was a strip joint at one point in its history.
KK: I didn't know that.
DM: Yeah, so when I was doing the original restoration, one of the bar staff told me to make sure you put the nipples back on the coconuts. So I put neon nipples back on the coconuts when I did it to reflect that time. But now it’s all weird, the coconuts are purple and I don't get it.
KK: That was probably one of your most high profile projects, right?
DM: Right, and the racism was still there. As high profile as that job was. They didn't mention my name, in any of the interviews. The CBC, everyone was there. The only proof that it was even me was the Toronto Star took a picture of me connecting some wires and the caption said, “A worker makes final completions on the sign”. Never any spotlight on me. The booking manager for the club, Dan Burke, got more shine than I did. [show photo from Toronto Star] At the bottom of the sign it even says CanJam.
It was even worse for Zanzibar. David Cooper saw me working on the El Mocambo sign and he called me. He would have a series of meetings and at the first meeting he said, “You don't have a chance of getting this job, you’re too small.” But he kept calling me to come down and we'd have meetings. And I thought, “Why is this guy wasting my time?”
He’d say, “I just want to ask you some questions.” And for each question he’d ask me, I answered it right there. The other salesmen he was dealing with, they couldn't answer his questions. They’d have to go back and forth and he said there's something wrong.
The way the business is structured, the guys and most companies who are salesmen aren't the guys who do the hands on work. It's very rare that the guy that has the hands on work is involved. But because I worked in small companies all my life, I had to do everything myself.
KK: So you were having these conversations with the owner. How did you end up landing the job?
DM: Well, I think with everything he asked me, I wasn't uncomfortable, I wasn't squirming. He'd ask me straightforward. “Can we do this?” And I just said “No, you can't do that. It's not practical for neon.” He'd go away to Vegas and come back and we'd have lunch, and I know it sounds cliché, but on the napkin, he would sketch what he saw in Vegas.
He says, “I have this image of stars all over the wall, cascading down and around.”
So I said, “Okay.” And I go back and I’d design it and show it to him. He’d say, “Yeah, but the star is so rigid, make them animated like they're flowing.” So I’d pick the points of the stars and distort the points.
He knew what he wanted. He said, “In these stars, I want every neon color available.” And he came to my workshop to see if I had the space. He saw that.
He’d go to Vegas and come back with the designs and then sit down and we would sketch it. I would tell him, this can work or that can't work and that's what he liked. At no point did he give me the impression I was gonna get the job. But he kept picking my brains - it was frustrating.
And those obstacles to the job like the big star in front of the building, because of the foyer that was originally there at the front of Zanzibar, there was no structural steel to support the sign. Yeah, we had to crawl into the ceiling. I've never told anybody, but we had to go in there with an arc welder and weld steel supports onto the structural steel that's projected out to the front of the exterior of the building that supported the sign. I did all that engineering myself. When I was welding, we had a guy there with a water hose. Because the building’s old, some of it is wood. Just imagine what kind of kind of nerve I would have to go in there and start arc welding in a wood building. It was the craziest thing. But you want to say, “Yeah, go ahead, do it.” And then [David] told me I got the job. But he's very clever because it wasn't all encompassing, it was in phases.
First, we did the cascading stars and the vertical sign that projected out. That was basically the first phase. But he wanted the big stars. And then it got crazy. He wanted each letter to have individual bulbs. And “Zanzibar” is eight letters, that’s 1001 incandescent bulbs I installed. Oh my god, right? They're almost nothing but when collectively they all lit up, you can feel the heat coming from the filaments. But then he wanted to do an animation sequence.
KK: That’s right! Each letter turns on at a different time.
DM: Yeah, I remember it was like six sequences. He wanted it to spell out each letter. Then he wanted it to curtain and open from the center. Then he wanted a vertical cascade. And then he wanted it to scatter random. Then he wanted to flash the word “Zanzibar”.
So that was my assignment and it didn't exist. I had to source everything which is fascinating because if you work for a company, you’re just stuck in one department. This project was all encompassing and I had to source out computer software designers. The Markle Brothers had a guy, Robin was his name. And I sat down and I said, this is what I need you to create a controller for. This is back in 1999 and that thing cost $6,000 just for the controller. Then I have to get with the electrical contractor and just explain to him how many circuits, how many lines. We ended up putting up its own electrical panel in the building just for the sign.
Then those channel letters, they have the transformers, they're huge and they're behind the bulbs - everything is self contained. The letters have to be vented so the transformers can cool and then the face of each letter that has the bulbs is removable. Well, how do I take the face off to get to the transformer? I had to find appliance cords. They're coiled electrical cords that can stretch so when I take off the face of these letters, there's this coil that lets me pull the face that like about four feet out without any damage being done. It was like a lot of precision thinking.
KK: You were thinking ahead about maintenance and how to access these transformers. Are you regularly maintaining the sign?
DM: They will not let anyone else touch it. They have the maintenance guy that cleans the building, he'll replace light bulbs. The next problem was how to put a ladder against the sign when it's full of neon. I put a bar across the front of Zanzibar. It's painted in camouflage. There's a steel ladder bar that runs across the entire length of the sign so that workers can place their ladder against it to go up and change the bulbs.
I remember when the sign was finished. He said to me, “This is gonna put you on the map. This is Vegas right here on Young Street.” Nothing happened.
KK: Really? It's one of my favourite signs.
DM: It's everybody's favourite. See when I'm fixing it and talk to some of the people staring at it. People come here and stare at it. A guy from Nova Scotia, he says he comes to Toronto once a year and on his to do list is just to stare at that sign
KK: You got talking about the creative process for the Zanzibar sign. I'm curious about what it's typically like for other signs. Do owners typically come to you with an idea of what they want? And then do you work with them based on that idea? Or do you usually propose a design for the owner and they review the different options?
DM: I'd say it's 50/50. Where some people are very passionate, they have their own logos or insignia that they're passionate about. They want to incorporate it into a sign. And I will tell them, it's not practical for a storefront sign. I'd explain the different criteria, the setback from the street, the speed of which traffic is flowing. Does someone have time to read all that? People only have two seconds to look at your sign for a quick landing. If you do script or cursive letters, people can't read that. I explained to them color combinations. People don’t understand that the brightest color at night is white, so whatever part of your sign is white, that's what stands out. So if the background is a white field and then you have these skinny black letters, all you’re going to see is the white overpowering the field. We convinced these owners to go with a coloured background and make the letters white - white for the contrast. And then there are certain combinations that are work well. For basic signage. That's why we see a lot of colors repeated. Pastels always look like they're in the sun too long.
KK: Yeah, it looks faded.
DM: I stay away from that. I implement all those things, those elements into my designs. My signs are always kind of popping out, they're impactful. People say “Oh, yeah, that's Dizzy. You can tell he made that one.” And it was never a case of just give me your money. Let me just throw something at you. No, I wanted to be impactful, I wanted to have meaning, and I wanted it to be relative to the business. I did one for a variety store and they’re a Korean family. They want to do just plain black letters on yellow. I said, “You’re a variety store. Make each letter a different color, like a variety.” And they said, “You think so?” I said, “It'll look like Party City. It'll create fun and happiness, right?” And they took my advice and every time I go in there from my lottery ticket, they're like, “Oh, Mr. Dizzy. You’re so professional - beautiful sign.” Everybody loved it and business picked up for them.
KK: Nice! Which store was this?
DM: It's at Keele and Sheppard, it's just a convenience store. It's called De Havilland Variety. [SHOW IMAGE] If you go to the Plaza at Keele and Shepherd Avenue West, that's been my stomping ground for the last few years. I've created a lot of the signs there.
KK: How do you get most of your business now? Is it word of mouth, like people that all know each other in the same area?
DM: I don't advertise. I don't have a website. I don't need it. Each one of my jobs is so customized. It won't ever be the same as the next. I don't do the cookie cutter, mass production stuff. I get called for custom work and I'm fine with that. It means I don't make a lot of money because I'm worrying about details and fixing this and that. I've never been like money hungry. I think it's to my detriment because people with my abilities tend to go for the big bucks. And I'm like, “Yeah, but I sleep good at night.” The best feeling for me is driving through the city and seeing my signs. But then I’m like, “Wow, I need to go change that light bulb.”
KK: You’ve also worked in the film industry for a bit. How did you get started there?
DM: As the technology changes, neon is one of those things that are fading out. It's gone back to a novelty type of product. The film industry was embracing the new technology, the LED lighting. It's fine to look at. But once a camera hits it, you'll see hot and cold spots. You familiar with the LED modules?
KK: Yeah.
DM: If you see the hot and cold spots on the gels, you can see the individual like bulbs - the diodes. LEDs, Light Emitting Diodes. You'll see them light up and it's bright, hot and cold. It didn't translate well on film, so the problem in the industry now is like, they need things quick, lickety-split. You have a couple of shops that will rent them stock signs, beer signs, Budweiser - all these things for the background. People collect them and rent them to production companies. But when they need something custom made; the group of people who do that now are smaller and smaller. The advantage for me is I got into it when I was younger. Yeah, so you know, that's the key to longevity, right? So when Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk (2008) was filmed, they filmed that on Yonge Street so I was called to help with the neon signs. Because your name gets around who still does it all; Dizzy and this guy and that guy? Oh, we all get along and you know we all pass our name around. There's glass shops if I need a certain tube that I don't have, I can get it off of another shop. Do you have any of this or any of that, can I buy some off of you? It's networking like that.
KK: Yeah, because it's a very small field, so you have to work together.
DM: And then one day I remember I got a call from Netflix and they said they needed a neon sign for one of their series, “Titans.” I don't watch Netflix and I didn't know what that was. If they had said “Teen Titans,” I would know that.
Anyhow, I remember when I got to the site where the set was – it was up in Orangeville. I get to the set at 10 o'clock at night. And the crew, they think that I'm not coming. But to the art director, I'm like, “Don't worry, it'll be taken care of.”
So I pull up and they're all staring at me from head to toe. Brah. They’re like, you’re the guy? You're on this multi-million dollar production? And you're the guy we’re relying on.
And I’m like, “That's right, bitch.”
So all of a sudden, it started raining and everybody's scrambling. And they’re like, we're getting out of here. “Dizzy, you going home?” No, I'm in my raincoat – I’m prepared. I'm up in the cherry picker. I'm up in the sky, it's raining. I've never seen rain sideways, hitting me hitting me from one side. And I'm working and I'm laughing. I'm like, rain? What’s rain! It’s no problem when you work in minus 30.
Because when you go on the lift to wire neon, your shoulders lockup. Then you get the headaches from the tension in your shoulders. And you can't make connections with gloves - that has to be done with your bare hands. So had those peel back gloves. Peel back, make connections.
KK: But then how does it work in the rain, wiring an electric sign?
DM: Well, basically, all the connections are made with the primary power off. All the connections are there, they're not waterproof, but they can get wet and still function. That’s the thing, it's outdoor use, right? We seal a lot of things with silicones and weatherproofing. With neon, there's certain laws that you have to follow, almost mathematical, if you want the neon to work.
The things I made would work, they go three to five years without servicing, because I followed those laws of neon. The other companies don't do that, on purpose, because they have service crews, they need to keep busy.
They'll sign a service contract with the company, our guys, we'll be out there twice a year. The guys will do things that they know will be problematic down the road, so they can keep their guys busy. Well, I'm a one-man gang. I can’t keep fixing things so I've made signs that never broke down.
KK: What are those laws of neon?
DM: Okay, the thing about neon is it gives off heat and heat needs to be dissipated. Transformers need to be vented.
The wires for neon - if they're bent if they doubled back, there is a kind of electrical field around high voltage wire. So when it's bent back on itself, the current jumps from wire to wire and actually eats through the wire and starts an electrical fire. You never want to bend high voltage wire for neon like that.
You want to balance the electrical load. The transformer should be in the center of the sign so that the wires from the transformer going to the load and the current travels the same distance. If one side is a shorter distance, it's getting a higher volume of electricity and the longer side is not balanced. Then the transformer is not working the way it should be.
And the other thing, the most important one, is not to overload the transformer. There's a voltage rating on each transformer and you should never have the transformer work at 100%. The manufacturers suggest 85%. And I believe in this. The transformers are just chilled, doing their thing. Not pushing, pushing, pushing.
KK: It's like a motor, you don’t want to push it to its max. You want to stay within the safety range.
DM: Other companies would have the transformer maxed out for six months. Like ever seen Sam the Record Man? I don't think there was ever a time where everything was completely working on that sign.
KK: You know how you were talking about how neon has shifted over the years and how it's more of a novelty. At one point, it was the industry standard. I wonder how that affected your work. When did you notice that neon was becoming less popular and was switching to other types of technology?
DM: I think I was prepared, in that, the big companies would steal our neon products, their workers were segregated and allocated to different departments. And the workers just stayed there for 10, 15 years. They never got to learn everything about the industry, because they're stuck in one department.
Because I was self employed, I had to do every aspect of it. I never was tunneled into just one aspect. It prepared me to be flexible and to accept change. And not to be afraid of change. That change is normal and to go with the flow. It was a mental adjustment and I think the hardest thing to learn as a young man was patience. Society, TV, everything, tells you that everything now, now, now, qiack, quick, quick. Life isn't like that. Just imagine busting your back and then being told, you're not getting a dime for this for the next 60 days. How do you eat? How do you budget? How do you survive to learn all these survival things?
And seeing neon phased out, I knew it would happen because there were a lot of fires. A lot of electrical fires with the storefront windows, because in the 90s, it was really popular. Everybody and his uncle was selling neon, the borders around windows. But nobody was adhering to those principles of neons. So what happened was, you'd have all those fires. It got a bad name. “Neon causes fires.” If you don't respect the principles of neon, it's a fire hazard.
Basically, the designers, the cities, they moved away from the box signs as storefront signs, the large box signs. They were fluorescent lamps. Those ballasts are also high voltage too. So architects, designers, city planners, they wanted to go with individual letters instead, which is channel letters. For neon, when we needed a channel letter, the traditional way was to have a two and a half inch diameter housing that goes through the wall. Once you pulled the old letters off, you're left with these big gaping holes in your façade. The LED eliminated all that. We still make the channel letters but with the LED inside, it's only 12 volts. The fire hazard is taken away.
KK: Right, so that would work for signs where you don’t see the light source.
DM: And now, I don't know if you've seen wedding designers with the imitation neon script everywhere? Those are LEDs and they're sourced from China. I can't even make them. I worked out the pricing. If you want me to make something, that looks like neon, it’s actually cheaper for me to order it from China and have them make it and ship it. That's how things have changed. Manufacturing is just through the roof in Canada. It's just how is it cheaper to have it made across the world put on a ship brought over and they still make a profit. Cheaper than me making it here. Overseas manufacturing, that's a big thing.
KK: What's the bulk of your business now in terms of the types of lights.
DM: Storefront channel letters with LEDs. That's the most popular thing. There’s still not your everyday, custom jobs. And also building signs to withstand the Canadian elements. For example, we had a windstorm the other day. When I make channel letters, I make little clips that hold the plexiglass on the cans. Other companies don't do that because they want a repair job. They can, but they're not going to do it. But I'll do it because I'm only one guy, I can't be bothered. I would say the cost of manufacturing is the biggest change, cost of labor. Young kids are not learning the trade at all, they have no desire to work with their hands. Which is too bad, because even if you have the computer aspect of it, you still need some sort of metal cabinet to house your computer aided device. There will always be welding, some sort of fabrication.
KK: Yeah, there still needs to be people that will do the work. Since you had mentioned that after you did your tour in the US, you came back and you were working as a contractor for other signage businesses. When did you decide to open your own business again?
DM: So basically when I came back, I still had my list of clients that called me and they were recommending me to other people. Then these sign companies, I would make deals with them and say, “Look, I got my own clients. Can I use your facility to build such and such sign?” They said, “Yeah.” and that was going good for a while. Until they saw how quickly I made everything and how I did everything myself. And they didn't like that. They said, “We can't stand to see you make money.”
KK: They thought you were doing they were doing you a favor. So then you started your own business again, after that?
DM: Well, I was still independent, working for the different companies. I wasn't on their payroll and was just doing piecework. I'd go in to build a sign and I never needed to do everything. I never had to install it, collect the money. I just built whatever they needed and their in-house staff would finish it to completion. And then I'd just invoice them and they would pay me for that work I did. They just pay the company that I had registered under my name and that's how it worked. I’d just go around from business to business as a sole man. I had to have my own WSIB and liability insurance and all those things that a big company would have. I still needed to have all those things.
KK: What’s the name of your company?
DM: The company's called Retail Signs. I registered Retail Signs when I got the Lowe's contract in 2010 because I needed something that didn't sound ethnic. I couldn't go down that route again. And Retail Signs sounds big. Right?
KK: Sounds like a huge company.
DM: Yeah. I had to explain that to Revenue Canada!
KK: As you know, this is a book about the signs of Toronto, and we're doing different features on different neighbourhood and different iconic signs from around the city. I was wondering if there were any iconic signs that that you would say are your favorite signs of Toronto, that really define Toronto for you?
DM: I really like Fillmores. I don't know if it's torn down yet but it's destined for demolition because their putting condos there.
Also going up 400 towards Finch for years, it’s weird but Allied Plastic Skylights. It was just channel letters. It had a yellow face but with red tube lights inside. It's yellow during the day and red at night. But for years it never worked, there was always something burning out. I wanted to tell them that I can fix it, but they said “Oh no, we have our neon guy.” But yeah, he’s terrible.
So I went to them because I had to do a pan face, which is where they take a sheet of acrylic and clamp it, blow heat into it and expand it into a mold. GM and those big car dealerships use those types of signs – the molded plastic faces.
KK: Yeah, they have those big plastic sign and then the letters kind of pop out.
DM: Yeah and it's all one piece. Burger King used to do that, vacuum form case faces. I was doing a custom job for an car dealership and they wanted this diamond shaped pan face. So again, 90% of this stuff is sourcing, so I went to allied plastics and they were able to do it for him. But I never got their sign job.
KK: So they basically got your business but you didn’t get their business.
DM: And some of those animators too, flashers and spellers. I can't get them in Canada and I have to order them from Texas because they just don't make them here anymore. Manufacturing is gone. Replacement parts for the Zanzibar sign now comes from Texas. And you have to pay import taxes, duties, fees, tariffs. And the cities made it harder to service. Gotta have police on site for the big crane trucks, permits for everything - so much red tape. Like even now with the Zanzibari, when it needs servicing, the owners wait for business to pick up because you know, just to get a truck down there is 1000 bucks. I haven't done anything yet. They don't want to pay that.
And you know, and back then we never thought about having three floors neon. But you need to crane truck for the third floor - a 65 foot crane. And that takes up our whole curb lane. Then they want you to have police supervision. You know, everything. It's quite expensive now just to service a broken piece of glass.
KK: Right, so businesses wait till there's multiple broken pieces of glass before they fix it.
DM: And then go overnight when there's less pedestrians. People love walking on the ladders. Anyways, it's sad to see the city change. It's sad to see the signs go. When I was a kid, I never dreamed I would work on the El Mocambo. That’s got to be up there for iconic signs. The Brass Rail was a hotspot. It's owned by the same family that owns Zanzibar. They didn't do a lot of neon, they just a lot of billboard type, pictures, photos.
KK: Do you know why they went with that?
DM: It's two different brothers; two different concepts. They wanted the visuals because they were further north. Being closer to Yonge and Dundas, I think the city is more particular about the pictures and the imagery they create. As a little boy in the 70s when I was on Yonge Street, they’d have the TV monitors outside the bars showing the dancers on stage. And then there was a shoeshine boy that got murdered on Yonge Street and that changed a lot of things, scaling back. And Zanzibar was in that hot zone. But what else was there? The Silver Dollar Room.
And what also fascinated me about the city was the amount of billboards along the Gardiner. When I was a kid, it was fascinating to watch. There was Sony and there was one called Inglis with the colors and the vertical tubes. They would change colors. That was one of my favorites. And the tri-visions that would change images and rotate. I loved those. Gardiner would look like Vegas at night. I loved driving down there before all the buildings went up, it was just like billboard city. Tip Top Tailors along the Lakeshore there was another one, I grew up seeing that.
Yeah, the ones that incorporated the different textures of lighting. The bulbs and the neon tubing right then the channel letter, anything that that had those different layers. Right? I just found fascinating. I try and do that when the customer has the budget. I give them the most for their money.
And then you have you have customers that just needed the sign to work for a year. Because they're only going to be in business for a year. I never want to do those jobs. They're like a pop-up shop. Like I need a banner or I need a sandwich board. I don't want to do it.
MUSIC CAREER
KK: Have you ever played at the Lula Lounge?
DM: Oh, yeah! I made their marquee. The first time they asked me to play there, I said, “I'm not playing at your bar.”
They said, “Why not?”
I said, “Because you don't have a marquee. How do you advertise the bands?”
And they said, “Oh, we never thought about that.”
I said, “I know a guy who can make you a marquee.”
He's like, “Listen, we can’t afford it, we have no money.”
Get your alcohol supplier, they have the budgets! They’ll pay for it!
So they called up one of their alcohol suppliers and they sent me one of their logos. It was Havana Club. It was no problem for them. We upgraded the sign in 2018. They wanted the marquee to curve.
And I go, “I can't do that.”
They said, “We want it!”
You’ve got to do the tracks and the changeable letters that are curved. But I did it and I put the bulbs around.
KK: So the actual Lula sign, has that changed over the years?
DM: No, they made that themselves. I didn't make the actual Lula sign. That's just plywood letters, in sections. I think a local artist did it. And they went to IKEA and got the little bulbs. And put them in there. Yeah, so I just did the marquee but they think I did the whole thing. I didn't.
KK: I can't believe they made that themselves. Well it still works!
DM: They put me on their summer flyer one year, on the front cover. I got a lot of love from them. It's nice.
KK: It seems like there's some jobs that you got through your work as a trombone player. There’s a connection between signage and nightlife.
DM: Yeah, some of my biggest shows are at the Harborfront during the Caribana weekend. I'd have the crowd in a frenzy. And then the next week, I'll be on a ladder at Zanzibar. And people would be driving by saying, “Hey, look! Isn’t that Dizzy.” And the conversation be like that, “Nah, that wouldn't be him. He’s a big musician. Why would he be on a ladder fixing lightbulbs?”
KK: It's fascinating, the connection between your career as a musician and your career as a sign maker.
DM: I would incorporate that into my shows. I always have graphics, visuals, because I'm a sign guy. I’ll have signage behind me. During the pandemic, I started a YouTube channel called “Reggae & Groove”. I started just producing music videos, learning how to edit and stuff. And I started putting signage in the videos. I’d have my banner which has reflective lettering on it so that when you take a picture with a flash, it glows and it looks like neon. I also put that reflective film all over my trombone. I tell people, when you take a picture of my horn, please use the flash to get a nice surprise. The horn glows and it looks like a neon trombone. It’s a really cool effect.
KK: You even left the signage industry for a while to pursue your career as a musician, correct?
DM: Yes. In 2005, I said, “Okay, that's enough.” I was getting calls for movies, backgrounds, acting stuff, tours, and I was turning it all down for the sign business. And, I thought, I'm just not getting ahead.
You know, I'd have white workers/staff and customers would come in to the shop and they'd be rude to me thinking the white guy is the boss. Right? Anyways, I shut it all down and grabbed my trombone. And I went touring the US. I was just shut everything down and I thought, I'm just gonna go be a musician.
You know, like I said, word of mouth. People knew me as a horn player, so I got gigs. I was on a couple of tours. I was on Jimmy Kimmel, playing in a band, toured the whole US. In the one tour, I was in an opening act for John Legend. I opened for Snoop Dogg in Vegas.
It was really good because it was a change from the sign business. I was getting paid for being creative in another way. Then I came back and I decided not to open another warehouse again but just to be a contractor. I contacted all the big companies - they all knew me. And I said, whenever you get a contract that your regular staff can’t do, call me; I'll come in and do it. So that's what I would do, I'd go into their warehouse, at midnight. They'd give me the security code and a fob and I just be inside all night, building.
KK: So if they needed a neon sign specifically, they would call you?
DM: It's not necessarily just neon, just anything custom. Because, for example, Lindt chocolates. They have a dragon for their logo and it's got claws and all this. They wanted a 3D version of that that would light up and be made out of aluminum. But nobody could do it. They tried all over Canada, nobody could do it. But there's this voice in the background, “Dizzy can do it!”
And the guys would make bets, saying this can't be done. But I never show them how I do it, but I do it.
KK: Okay, so you keep those trade secrets to yourself.
DM: Yes. I have seven sons. I always thought I would have a sign shop with my boys learning the trade. None of them were interested in it. None of them wanted to do signage. They saw how hard I worked and they said hell no. They saw the cold and the rain. But I still do it, I like it.
KK: How do you think you'll pass on your knowledge. Do you think you'll be a mentor to someone?
DM: I have been over the years because when I started, I was based out of Jane and Finch. I'll go to different community centers and if there were guys hanging around and I’d say, “Hey, you want to come work?” I always brought in and mentored young guys. During Black History Month, I'll go to the schools and do little lectures and encourage people. My band would play at the Metro West Detention Center during Christmas time. I was always involved in community stuff. And every time somebody was around me, I was always teaching, sharing my knowledge, always. And it's funny, because I've run into some of these guys, they come up to me, and they're like, “Dizzy. I want to thank you. You taught me how to make an honest buck. And I have my house, family, kids. And it’s because of you, man, what you taught me. My dad was never around.” A lot of them would come and say that.
KK: Wow, that's so special. That's the important thing, you've built a career for yourself and then being able to share that with other people. And putting those stories out there, I think is a valuable part of your legacy; that you've been able to teach and mentor people within the community.
DM: It’s still, not as intense but It's the racism that's passed on. I don't understand. You know, because people aren't inherently born with that. They're taught. And I've had people telling me that they were taught to look for the differences. I’d say, “That's too bad, man.” Because you miss out on a lot. You know, there's really a lot of good in people. You know, when people don't work with me, I think it's their loss.
KK: For sure. Because you do great work. I've been an admirer of your work and just so glad to be able to talk with you about your experience in the industry and hear your stories. Thank you!