Jesus said, “Have you discovered the beginning, that you search for the end? In the place where that beginning is, there the end will be.”

And you may ask yourself-Well... How did I get here?

Illustration by Andreas Hykade. Courtesy of Chris Robinson.

Well… here we are. The Pimp has come to the beginning of the end of a beginning.

Summer ‘91. Just came back from — get this — Sheridan College. Media Arts. Dropped out. Too commercial. Wasn’t all worthless. Phil Hoffman was a great teacher. D.D. remains one of my bestest friends. And that twin from the animation dept. She was so sexed up she scared me. Just a little boy. Wrote some absurd stories for an Ottawa weekly. One was about a guy who wore pylons on his arms and thought they gave them superpowers. They weren’t so good. Had fire-colored hair. Only job I could get was working at a parking lot. They actually griped about my hair color but let it go. Best job I ever had. I can back up a car better than most can drive forward. Took coins from cars as tips. Left there and worked at Greenpeace for two weeks. Went door-to-door trying to convince people that saving whales was a good thing. They only paid you if you got a minimal amount of cash. Scam. I got chased from lawns. Fuck the whale. Best thing about the summer was going to a clothing store to buy a hat and meeting K.N.

Fall ‘91. Before Sheridan, I had taken a year or two of film studies at university — yes, film studies is like political science; you take it when you’ve no clue what you want to do with your life. Animation is NOWHERE near the map… or at least I didn’t see it on the map just yet. It never was near me. A sort of friend at school (Nathalie) helps get me a job ripping tickets at a cinema for the Canadian Film Institute (CFI). Working as a class projectionist and skipping film class at university. Living in a claustrophobic downtown shithole on a fold up cot writing bad songs skipping rent drinking nightly (most memorably, a 48 hour bender with this gal from school) and getting stoned to the point where I thought someone was shooting at me. Taking bus rides to Toronto just to get laid. Doing the dishes in the tub. No idea where things are going.

Spring ‘92. CFI organizes some animation festival. This short-bearded guy appears in the office one day. His name was Not or something. He gives me work typing names and dates and places into the computer. I loved this place. There were maybe five to six people working there. The CFI was near the end of a tailspin that saw it drop from as many as 30 employees to a handful. They had a cinema dept (where I was working under McSorley), non-theatrical division (where this big guy named Brian spent the day getting his furniture fixed), and animation. There was dir. of development (John) — really funny and smart guy… and, I still can’t believe this, a full time accountant. There’s a funny story there. It happened before my time.

During Ottawa ‘90, they needed someone to run over to the National Arts Centre to deliver some invitations. The only person available was the accountant’s sister. John asked her to go and she said, “will there be big dogs?” A startled John said, “Big dogs?” “Yes, big dogs. Big dogs bite. Big dogs bite,” she replied with her French accent. John assured the woman that there would unlikely be any big dogs on her route since most of it was through the shopping mall. But she kept mumbling, “Big dogs bite. Big dogs, they bite.” John quietly turned, walked away and delivered the invites himself. He didn’t meet any big dogs. In fact, I don’t think any of us ever encountered a big dog along that route. She’s dead now. It’s sad really. So I worked part-time taking cinema tickets and once the school year finished, did the festival by day.

During the parking lot job, I watched this cute gal go to work everyday. She was stylish. Wore red rubber boots. She was a waitress at the restaurant next to the lot. I never had the courage to ask her out. Out drinking with some classmates one night. We’re getting flooded. Vaguely remember seeing red rubber woman at a nearby table. Next thing I remember is waking up next to her. She asked me if I knew her name. That was awkward. We did nothing but fuck for about a month. Then she dumped me. I got angry. Smashed a guitar and left the pieces on her doorstep. Tried to kill myself. Police busted in that night to make sure I didn’t. How embarrassing. I never took rejection well.