His most enduring turn of phrase might be a six-word slogan for a department store chain, but these days Doug Moen is more likely to be writing about international terrorism than pricing promises.
About 15 years ago Moen, who penned the classic slogan “The Lowest Price is the Law” for Zellers back in the 1980s, ditched a globe-trotting lifestyle working with high profile advertising firms to pursue his passions: writing and fly fishing from a home-base in the Fergus area.
Moen was born and raised in Saskatchewan. He first moved to Ontario to work as a laboratory chemist in the mining industry in Sudbury, then returned to his home province to attend the University of Saskatchewan, where he obtained a degree in art and philosophy.
Moen experienced some success as a sculptor and several of his works can be found on display at university galleries in Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Mendal Art Gallery in Saskatchewan, and several private collections.
“Though I did fairly well at it, there’s only so much you can sell; I was doing large metal sculptures – I realized I had to make a living,” said Moen, who at the time was 23 years old and living in a small log cabin near Peterborough.
So he took a train into Toronto, although he was “not quite sure what to do.”
He initially attempted to land work with the CBC, where he was “passed on from producer to producer to producer, until finally even I realized that wasn’t going to happen.”
While travelling around the city on public transit, Moen was inspired, in a way, by studying artwork on subway advertisements and “how horrible it was.
“I decided I could do a better job,” he recalls.
Moen started knocking on the doors of advertising agencies, with little success until he wore down a manager at Vickers and Benson, “by calling him so often I think he just gave up and hired me.”
Starting out as a junior writer, Moen soon moved up to senior writer and eventually found himself assigned to some major accounts, including Gulf Oil.
For Gulf, he wrote copy for commercials which featured Canadian comedy icons Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster. He credits the comedians with helping his parents accept his career choice.
“They never really understood what I did in advertising,” he said of his parents.
However, Wayne and Shuster were at one point dispatched to the western Canadian town where Moen’s parents were living to open up a new Gulf facility, and wound up in the same pub as his father.
“He asked them if they knew Doug Moen and they sat down and had a beer with him,” said Moen. “I think my dad’s friends were very impressed, so after that they were pretty proud I was in the advertising business.”
During a 30-year career, Moen worked with four or five different advertising agencies, including McCann-Erickson, a major international firm.
“They flew me to Sydney, Australia to work on the Levi’s account,” recalls Moen, who also travelled to London, England to work on the Black Label beer account, and visited Los Angeles to help with his firm’s pitch for Honda motorcycles.
Moen was working with Padula Advertising in Toronto when he took on the Zellers job.
“We had landed the account, but still didn’t have a slogan,” said Moen. “I went down to Arizona for a week of holidays and I had to come back with a slogan,” which turned out to be “The Lowest Price is the Law.”
“Six months after it came out, it became one of the most well known ad lines in Canadian advertising history – and I suspect it still is,” said Moen.
About 15 years ago, Moen had an opportunity to sell his share in Padula to another partner. At 52, the timing jived with his retirement plans, so he took the offer. He flew out to Alberta, planning to “buy some land so I could fish and write.”
However, with both his daughters living in Ontario, Moen and his wife Lynn chose to stay in the province. The Moens’ daughter Nicola lives in the Fergus area, while their daughter Sarah has followed her father’s footsteps into the advertising industry as a producer of commercials.
“My wife suggested we come out to Fergus and have a look,” he said. “I had only fished the Grand twice here, but we absolutely fell in love with it.”
Originally the couple took up residence in a big brick home on St. Andrew Street, before finding their current residence, a small cottage along the Grand at Aboyne, about seven years ago. From his back yard, Moen can sit in his hammock and “see if there’s any fish” before deciding whether or not to hit the river.
“For a fly fisherman, this is as close as it gets to paradise,” he states.
Moen has fished around the globe, from South America to the Arctic.
During the season, he currently spends much of his time working for Wilson’s Fly Fishing of Fergus as a guide and a fly fishing instructor.
“I’ve caught enough fish that catching fish is not as important to me as the actual fishing. I love teaching people to fish,” he notes, adding that teaching and working as a guide helps him remember much of what he has learned over the years.
Moen says fly fishing is more demanding than most other types, “in that there is an art to casting the line. It requires some physical skill, like hitting a golf ball.”
To exercise his mental skills, Moen turns to writing. The same rustic setting that makes a great fly fishing base is also ideal for a writer, with an inspirational view of the Grand River available from home at any time.
Moen took up novel writing about the time he moved to the Fergus area. He has published four novels in e-book format, all of which are thrillers. It’s a genre he enjoys, but feels is often handled in unrealistic fashion.
“I write stories that could be true. I’ve read some thrillers where the plot is so outrageous you just knew there is no reality to it,” he said.
Moen, who lists Graham Greene and John Steinbeck among his favorite writers, says most of his stories come from News items he runs across.
“Then I Google the crap out of it,” said Moen, adding, he also reads at least two English Newspapers a day.
“I research my books endlessly,” he states, noting each book typically involves about eight months of research and six months of writing.
He decided to publish his books through Amazon in e-book form because of the difficulty in breaking into traditional publishing.
“The market is saturated,” he notes. “Traditional publishers right now don’t want to put out books in hardcover and paperback format when they’re not selling.”
With e-books filling what he estimates at 20 to 40 per cent of the market, Moen said, “I decided I would just go that route.”
Moen says he hasn’t done a lot of work on marketing the books, pointing out some writers spend two or three hours a day just promoting their books in various online formats.
“I like to spend that time writing or on the lake,” he says.
However, for his latest novel, The Extraordinary Rendition of János Farkas, Moen decided to try connecting with readers online in an unconventional and fairly time-consuming way: daily chapter-by-chapter YouTube video readings.
“I really thought that would garner some interest,” he said, adding, “I really enjoy doing it.”
For Moen, the thrill of writing remains the challenge and journey of discovery that comes with the unfolding of a good tale.
“You start with a blank page and the last page is blank until you fill it,” he said.
Below is a sample of what fills some of those blank pages in The Extraordinary Rendition of János Farkas:
They went into an interrogation room that had been modeled after one someone had seen on an English cop program. There was a simple table, chairs and a high window that let sunlight in through a geometric Islamic grate. The pleasant shapes played on the cream walls and made the whole place seem ‘not half bad.’ It belied the real interrogation rooms that lay below.
Carpenter gave the guard the keys and the prisoner’s shackles were removed. Next, the orange jumpsuit was roughly pulled from him. The orange jumpsuit earmarked America and that was not wanted here. The prisoner stood before them wearing only the hood and his diaper.
“Let’s see what we have here now,” said Col. Abbas.
He walked over and pulled the black hood from his head.
“Ah, it’s János Farkas, the great Bosniak actor, or should I say terrorist!”
János’s eyes blinked and squinted in the unaccustomed light, searching the room for form, facts, information. They settled on the man with the walrus mustache, the one he had heard called Carpenter.
“Look at me!” Abbas commanded. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
The tape sealed János’s lips.
“I can’t hear you!”
János’s eyes focused on the Syrian. Abbas stared back. He wanted fear, deep-seated cowering fear. There was none. He reached up and ripped the heavy tape from János’s mouth. Some of the 12 hours growth of beard came with it. There were blood speckles on his cheeks. His lower lip was split and torn where the tape caught it.
Whatever Abbas expected it didn’t happen. János neither yelled nor brought his hand up to his wounded face. He sucked the blood from his lip and cleaned it with his tongue. Turning his head to the side he spit the blood to the floor, gently and without aggression, as one might spit watery blood into a bowl in a dentist’s office.
Abbas clenched his fist, and if Carpenter had not still been present he would have given János much more blood to spit. Instead, he stepped back.
“I am surprised you are still here, Mr. Carpenter. You have my acknowledgement that we now have János Farkas in our custody.”
Carpenter himself was surprised that he was still there. Anonymity was his stock in trade and without it his job would be much more difficult, but he had the distinct feeling that this János Farkas was not going to get out of here alive. And that was not the plan.
“My day is not done here, yet” he said to Abbas. “The other package you are expecting is arriving later this morning. It’s on a different plane. When I bring it to you I would like only you and I in the interview room.
“Certainly,” Abbas replied.
“And …” Carpenter continued.
“Yes?”
“Any rough stuff with the second package and the Corporation will be most displeased. Understand?”
“I will make sure that Abdullah is on his best behavior.”
“Can he be trusted?”
Abbas smiled and Carpenter retreated through the door. He didn’t need to be shown the way out.
In addition to The Extraordinary Rendition of Jonas Farkas, Moen’s novels include: Dead No More, The Rat Trap and The String Puller. For more information go to www.douglasmoen.com.
