The Bloody Doors Off

In 1994, I was:

• Working at CIBC Wood Gundy nee CIBC World Markets (freelance, hadn’t been upped to full-time yet)
• Had produced my first Toronto Fringe play, “Live at the Apocalypse” (that later became a much superior “The Promised Land“)
• Heavily involved with TheatreSports Toronto

It’s amazing how much I’d forgotten until I saw this flyer posted on Facebook by my friend Chris Hayward. This was the year I’d met Joe (from the NY TheatreSports team) and we became instant friends (after being so sure we already knew each other). He extended an invite to jam with their troupe if and when I visited the Five Boroughs. I went the following spring (or late winter, I remember it was cold) and while they were between seasons on stage, I sat in on a workshop where I learned the Coming Attractions game that I brought back to Toronto.

(This was also before Times Square had been sanitized and made family-friendly. I took a trip there. It was… eye-opening. And it fit me like a glove, so what does that tell you?)

I crashed at a friend’s fourth floor walk-up in Lower Manhattan (and where I learned how you afforded New York City rents; rent out every fucking room and put in at least one bunk bed). I stood outside the Today Show studio with its glass wall so people could look in (and for the cameras to look out at the idiots trying to get on camera… I think I was spotted, but as the show was live, who knows?). I loved riding the subway to Brooklyn. The graffiti was iconic, to me at least. I think Letterman was at the Ed Sullivan Theatre then; I have a memory of staring at Rupert G’s deli (didn’t order though).

All this from a flyer posted on a social media website. Stuff I’d buried/forgotten until now.

Memory is a fucked up thing.