By Don Fiorvento

Frank   Ogden   once claimed that a machine was destroying his sex life. Today, he uses technology to get a rise out of people throughout the world.

As I enter the gate to the marina in Coal Harbour this Friday morning, I am greeted by a man who has obviously spent a good portion of his life seduced into dark rooms by virginal techno gadgets. He leads me towards his "floating electronic cottage," that at first blush appears to be in the shape of a whale. It is here that Dr. Tomorrow navigates the world in search of the latest technological advancements; information and products that will cause patrons of his lectures and viewers of his Internet show to reel back on their heels in shock, disgust, or thrill at the thought of how the world around them is likely to completely change within a few short years.

For those who appreciate the status quo and the comfort it offers, Ogden is a messenger to be shot. The West Van resident notifies them that their education is useless, that their jobs will be obsolete and that the handful of books they've read will not suffice for a successful life in this new information era.

But for Ogden, each new scientific and technological advancement is cause for celebration. His bionic eyes light up when he explains that the contents of the Central Vancouver Library can be held on one disk. Or, that stem cell research will allow us to grow a new heart and pop it into our body much like a mechanic drops a new fuel pump into a car.

Oh yes, did I mention bionic eyes? For the past 11 years Ogden has walked around   with   surgically implanted, intra-ocular lenses. The 81-year-old has 20-15 vision and regained his helicopter and parachute licenses at age 72. He's hoping to get a zoom lens in his left eye:

"Wouldn't it be great for the beach?"

While the thought of having an eye lens removed and replaced with   plastic would terrify most, Ogden jumped at the chance to be one of the first to undergo the cutting edge surgery.

Ironically, understanding the psyche of Dr. Tomorrow comes from an analysis of his past. Rarely did he dwell on the present, except as it pertained to the future.

While 19 and working as a car jockey and valet in Miami Beach during the early months of the Second World War, Ogden decided he wanted to learn how to fly. He went to the Bahamas first, thinking the    British colony might have an air force that he could join, but was told to go to Canada. He did, and was a member of the RCAF for six years.

His time with the air force laid the groundwork for what would become a life-long passion. "When I was in the airforce you got technologically proficient or else you're dead."

For someone who contends that he lived his life on a whim and did whatever pleased him, it is difficult to briefly document a life's worth of experiences.

Dr. Tomorrow, a name he was given by Toronto Star editor Sandy Ross in 1972, and since trademarked, landed a job at the Hollywood Hospital in New Westminster from 1961-68. As a resident psychedelic therapist he introduced patients, a number of them Hollywood stars, to the mind-altering benefits of LSD, psycilosybin and mescaline.

The treatment healed one-third of the hospital's patients from alcoholism, Ogden asserts, but more importantly, it released their minds from unnecessary inhibitions and therefore unleashed their creativity.

"It gave people the sense that they could do anything. It showed them that the thing that holds most people back is fear."

Ogden says he took three such acid trips and in his first outing experienced death 21 times. "After that, death is just another ballgame in a different park."

Ogden's comments in a magazine article about how he was helping Hollywood stars expand their creativity caught the attention of Montreal radio station owner Geoff Stirling, who came to Vancouver to visit Ogden for a week before asking him to become the president of CKGM AM/FM (now CHOM FM) stations in Quebec.

Despite having no experience in radio, Ogden took the job, and from 1969 to 1971 made several maverick moves that displeased broadcast regulators but earned the radio station unrivaled publicity and notoriety. The station endeared itself to John Lennon by erecting billboards that read "Make Love Not War." Lennon in turn provided free promotional clips to CKGM.

Ogden also decided to have the station operate from midnight to 6 a.m. because   although   the Bureau   of   Broadcast Measurements said nobody was listening at that time, he knew the hippies were tuning in to U.S. stations via shortwave radio.

And while other stations shut down when the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ) tried to hijack the airwaves, Ogden allowed the radical separatists to read their manifesto on air. When the federal broadcast regulator sent him a chastising letter, Ogden responded that he was just fulfilling the regulator's mandate of allowing as many diverse voices from Montreal on air as possible.

Ogden contends that the radio station's reporters pretty much had carte blanche throughout the city after that, even gaining entry to private FLQ meetings.

By 1980 Ogden, at the suggestion of lan McLellan, deputy director general of the Expo pavilion, tested the public speaking circuit. His unique presentation of the future, even with insulting comments about how PhDs are a waste of time because those who obtained them have focussed their lives on a certain issue or area and much of the information they have ingested may already be obsolete, proved an instant success.

He has since given 700 talks throughout the world, commanding fees of $5,500 to $7,500 per lecture, and travels some 200,000 miles per year.

As beeping   noises emanate from one of his six computers to alert us to regular updates on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, Ogden says that just last year he decided to add a

couple of new careers — digital photography and speaking  aboard  cruise ships. While those luxurious boats provide him with pleasant experiences, it was the introduction of the SeaBus that nearly ruined his sex life. Ogden says the NDP government of the day rushed the service through and ignored his concerns that the SeaBus' wake was rocking his Coal Harbour floating home. He in turn threatened a suit and later settled out of court.

"When I got the settlement cheque that really improved my sex life."

Of course the notoriety he has gained since from being Dr. Tomorrow has helped in that department as well. The 81-year-old techno geek appears to be as sexually desirable as ever.

"I get propositioned by women who ask me to father their children."

It appears that some members of Ogden's audience have a strong grasp of the value of modern science and technology even before they attend his lecture. Can you say Viagra? ®

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