The Interview :: One

This is Texe.

Hello, Mr. Marrs. It's Hugh Brown calling from Vancouver, Canada.

Yes, Hugh, how are you?

I am well, thanks, how's yourself?

Well, just great.

Oh, great. Well, thank you, to start with, for agreeing to the interview with me. It's a great help. What's the weather like today down in Texas? I'm just curious.

Well, it's Texas-like today -- about 65. That's usually all the way up to Christmas or so. But they say we're going to get some snow here, which is really unusual. You guys need to keep that back up north.

[Laughter]

I think the day before yesterday it was 80 degrees...We're going to get a little bit of weather. It'll last about four or five days, and it'll go away, and it'll get warm again. But it's just super down here.

Oh, gosh. Well, in Vancouver we usually don't get snow more than about once or twice a year.

Oh, that's not bad.

Oh, no. It's quite warm here on the coast.

It's just beautiful up there. I remember visiting Vancouver, and there was an island off of there.

Vancouver Island perhaps, or one of the smaller gulf islands.

Maybe it was. I thought the whole area was gorgeous.

It's a lovely place. I'm an emigre from another part of Canada myself, and I never cease to be amazed with just how beautiful it is here.

Now, what is The Loop magazine, Hugh?

The Loop magazine is sort of a general arts and culture magazine. It's a free one. There's a circulation of about 30,000 or so. It comes out 11 or 12 times a year in Vancouver, and is distributed around the lower mainland.

Okay.

And, about a year ago I found your website. I signed up for the Flashpoint newsletter, and I've always found it interesting reading. I'm with The Loop magazine on a freelance basis. I proposed the article to my editor, and he agreed to do it. So when was it that you were here in Vancouver?

I'll be honest with you, that is one of my greatest weaknesses: remembering dates. It's been, though, about four or five years, and I was up in the Seattle area, all up in that area, and then went on up into Canada. --Victoria, that's...Maybe that...Victoria up in that area?

Yeah, that's on Vancouver Island.

Yeah, okay. We were up there. That was just beautiful. And then in Vancouver, I spoke at a church downtown. I'm sorry, I just, my mind goes...it was an old area church, an old area of the city, although I noticed that the city was really quite modern and booming, it looked like.

Oh yeah. Well, the city's only about a hundred years old, and many parts are less than fifty.

Oh, well, this church must've been at least fifty. It sure looked like it. It was a nice church though, you know, one of these old style churches. I don't know if it was Episcopal or what. I just can't remember. But I spoke on a non- denominational basis. But anyway, I remember that people were very kind, and I enjoyed my visit.

Have you found that you get a lot of people subscribing to your newsletter from Canada?

We have a tremendous number. And my shortwave radio program, World of Prophecy, I know this too, a lot of Canadian listeners. I would say...I haven't seen a breakdown, but we certainly have thousands of people from Canada on our newsletter. We have a great audience. And of course, I've visited a number of cities in Canada over the last nine years or ten years...Toronto a couple times...I can't remember all the places I've been.

Do you think you might be coming back on a tour sometime soon?

I don't think so. Right now I'm just trying to get some books written. I haven't written a book for about fourteen months, and that's sort of unusual for me. I really need to get on the ball here. I've been cancelling everything that I had, and begging people not to invite me for a while so I can do some more writing.

Time to fire up the old typewriter, I guess.

Well, I write everything longhand. I'm old-fashioned. But I have a wonderful secretary here.