Kill at least ten roaches before bed, and the last one to turn out the lights had to reset the mousetraps. Those was the only rules in the loft. A few weeks before I moved in, while I was still in New York, my dad showed up in Toronto with a truckload of lumber and tools and built out three bedrooms for me, Rich, and our roommate Parker.
It all looked a bit wonky and homemade, but we all had our own rooms now, with a ladder and space up on top for a couch and the TV. It wasn’t perfect—none of my dad’s projects ever were—but it worked. We had twelve hundred square feet, a bar fridge, a hot plate—and roaches. We had a big cockroach problem. The space sure wasn’t pretty, or well maintained at all, and technically we weren’t even allowed to live there—the guy my brother swung this deal with was happy to take our money, but it wasn’t legal, so we had nobody we could complain to or ask to fix things when they broke or fell apart. Every pair of socks I owned was soon covered in holes because the floors had nails popping up everywhere, and we were missing so many windows that in the winter you could stick your arm right out and catch snow if you wanted to.
We rented out half the space on Tuesday and Thursday nights to an art school for nude life drawing classes, and shortly after I moved in Parker started making extra cash by running an “erotic massage for women” business out of his room. The life drawing classes offset our rent by a few hundred dollars a month, so walking in a few nights a week to an impressively cocked naked male-model standing on a stage in our living room quickly became normal. There was very little in the way of privacy, which meant that when Parker had a “client” over, the faint hum and muffled buzz of vibrator mixed with unmuffled shrieks and orgasms also became normal. This was not an easy place to bring a date.
The only thing I knew about cockroaches was that they were punishingly hard to kill, and they gravitated to dark, moist places. I slept in underpants every single night in that place. But for $333 a month each, what did I really have to complain about?
I quickly realized that an internship on The Howard Stern Show opened more doors for me than a second year of college ever could. I got an in-person interview for every single job I applied for—even ones I had zero chance of getting. The Stern Show was at the very top of my resumé for years because people would bring me in for interviews just to get the dirt. I was never fully truthful or forthcoming. I’d entertain them, make shit up, tell them what they wanted to hear. I kept everything I actually learned to myself.
Within a week of landing in Toronto, I found a student-run salon to chop all my hair off for twelve bucks plus tip, and I did my best to reinvent myself. I wanted to try to be as New York as I could. I’d spend whatever cash I had at Black Market Vintage on Queen West, buying up old T-shirts, leather jackets, and as many pointy-toed shoes as I could afford. I had thrown out all my old jeans, all the ones left over from my high school days, and started exclusively wearing women’s jeans. They were tighter in the ass and the thighs and usually had a little flare on the bottom. Other times I’d leave the house in pyjama bottoms, cowboy boots, and an undershirt. I did my best to look cool with what I had. I was a fashion-backwards work in progress. In the loft, we all kept all our clothes in garbage bags—nothing ever got hung up or folded away in drawers. Everything I owned went from the dryer straight into a garbage bag with a double knot tied at the top. That gave me the best shot at walking out of the house roach-free after I got dressed every morning.
The three of us lived in the loft for just over a year, but I don’t remember cooking one single meal in that place. I don’t ever remember bringing groceries in, or even using the fridge. Everything Rich and I ate was takeout or delivery. When we were growing up in Acton we didn’t have delivery. Nobody delivered anything. I had never once picked up a phone and had food show up at the door thirty minutes later. This was all new for us. On weekends, we’d split a large pizza, six pieces of fried chicken, and a box of fries from this joint called Double Double. We’d order at ten in the morning, right when they opened, eat half for breakfast and save the rest for a late lunch. It was eighteen dollars for everything. Then, at around eight, we’d order the exact same thing for dinner. We did the math, and three meals for two people at thirty-six dollars was a deal too good to pass up. Sometimes we’d get the same delivery guy for round two. He’d see all the empty boxes on the counter from the first round of the day, grab them for us, and throw them down the chute on his way out. My brother and I were finally together again. We were happy—and bloated.
My first job—as in actual paying job—in radio was chase producing for a news and public affairs show, making $18,900 a year. I remember the exact number only because of how happy I was after my first raise, which bumped me up to an even $20,000. A chase producer’s job is to book the show. I’d be handed stacks of articles, newspaper clippings, and press releases all cut up and highlighted with the names of the people they wanted booked for interviews. Then I’d go to work on the phone. I’d track people down all over the world—celebs, authors, academics, criminals, politicians—and book them all. I made it look easy. I was great on the phone. I don’t know if it was all those anonymous nights on the chat lines in college, but I could convince anyone to cancel whatever they were doing and come on our show. I was comfortable on the phone, and it was the only time I really felt like I fit in, when I looked like I knew what I was doing. Every other interaction I faked and fumbled my way through.
Anytime I booked a big star, I’d always call my dad to tell him. He thought it was just the greatest. The idea that his boy would be hanging with all these legends, and doing a great job, really made him proud, and there was nothing like that feeling. I never shattered his bubble, though. I never told him when someone was an asshole. At least, not until I met Mickey Rooney. I’m normally not one to talk shit about the dead, but Mickey Rooney was an asshole. I didn’t really know much about him, other than my dad telling me he was a huge fan when I told him I’d booked Mickey on the show.
Mickey was in town and came in to promote his one-man show, or play, or something else totally forgettable. My job was to get the guests comfortable in the green room down the hall from the studio and go over the rundown of the show with them. It was a speech I’d given a hundred times, but I was always nervous doing it. I wasn’t great when I had to do face-to-face. Mickey was flopped in the corner of the couch, feet dangling off the side, with his head back and his eyes closed. I got about halfway through telling him how things were going to go down when I started to think he legit just fell asleep while I was talking. I didn’t know whether to walk out, poke him, or keep going and just say it all. I was just about to tell him I’d be back in ten minutes to bring him into the studio when his head shot forward, his eyes wide open staring a hole through me. He was pissed off.
“How. Old. Are. You?” he asked, with a long pause between each word.
“Uh, I’m twenty,” I answered.
“Yeah,” he said. “It shows.” I’d never seen someone so disgusted to be in the same room with me before. “Out,” he said, pointing to the door with one of his little feet, before closing his eyes again.
Now, what I should have said was, “Get bent, you old little crotch.” What I did say was, “Yeah. I know. No problem.” I was crushed.
I walked back into the office to tell my supervisor what the hell just happened. I was shook, but Paul, who’d hired me for this job, was always great in these situations.
“Fuck that guy,” he said.
“Yeah, I know. But that dude’s a legend. He’s been in like three hundred movies. One of the most famous actors ever.”
“First off all that guy is barely famous anymore. You want to be famous? I’ll tell you what, in thirty seconds you could easily become just as famous as that asshole. All you have to do is take this pencil, walk back into the green room, and jam it into Mickey Rooney’s eye. You’ll be one of the most famous people in the world by dinner, you’ll be on Larry King tomorrow night. Fame doesn’t mean you can just be a dick to whoever you want, and if you are, then don’t be surprised when every now and then you get a pencil in the eye.” Paul said all of this in one single breath and without even looking up from his typewriter. Which is how most of our conversations happened.
Paul saw something in me all those years ago that most people, especially me, didn’t: potential. This job was the absolute definition of starting from the bottom. I was the hardest-working, and lowest-paid, person in the company, and I ate a ton of shit. The rest of the staff on the show could be diabolically cruel. Humiliating and abusive. But I wasn’t going to quit, no matter what. This was an opportunity I wasn’t going to fuck up. I was preparing for whatever was coming next. No matter how awful I felt at the end of each day.
I did not stab Mickey Rooney that afternoon. But I did tell my dad what happened, and for me, knowing that my Pops spent the rest of his life telling anyone who would ever listen that Mickey Rooney was a huge asshole was good enough.
I’ve worked two jobs at the same time since I was twenty. Even today, I work two full-time jobs, sixty-five hours a week, for two massive and competing companies. I was never the smartest person in the room, but I sure as hell could out-work anyone. Working long hours got me out of my own head, reduced my anxiety, and became the perfect distraction from anything or anyone that could hurt me. Especially myself. In 1994 minimum wage was eight dollars and ninety-five cents, so working seventeen hours a day was also the only way I could survive and keep working at the radio show. I was desperate and driven, and I found myself a second job for every night and weekend so I wouldn’t have to quit the industry.
That’s how I became, without question, one of the most successful telemarketers Toronto has ever seen.
I answered an ad in the back of the Toronto Sun for a job with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra subscription department. It was evenings, the office was right around the corner from the loft, and it was all on the phone. I could do this. I could sell symphony subscriptions and raffle tickets to old people.
Now, I don’t care how wonderful your organization is or how well you think your business is run, I can guarantee you that your telemarketing department is one of the saddest and sleaziest rooms in your building. This one was no different. I sat beside a woman with thick glasses and thick hair, big home-perm curls, who spent most of her time complaining that we didn’t have hands-free headsets, so before every shift, she’d reach into her purse, pull out a granny-style knee-high beige stocking, tie it around her head, pulling half down almost to her cheek, and jam the ear end of the phone receiver up under it. This was her way of problem solving while also protesting.
Our boss was a whole other story. He’d spend his time power-tripping, barking orders, and pretending to look natural and inconspicuous as he rubbed his dick on things. I don’t know if it was a nervous tic or if he was dealing with something serious down there, but he couldn’t stop pinching, squeezing, and pressing it up against anything he could reach with it. All the pants of his cheap grey suits had started to wear thin around there, and by the end of our shift each night, that little spot on the front would be wrinkled and covered in stains from the grease and dirt off his fingers.
It was the weirdest thing. If he was standing in front of us for any long period of time, say giving instructions or a pep talk, he’d eventually try to incorporate something like the photocopier or the filing cabinet into what he was saying just so he could walk over and mash his crotch up against the corner of it. There was a bell at the front of the office that if you made a sale you’d have to walk up and ring. Anytime that happened, he’d run up to celebrate with you, and after a few high-fives he’d turn around and casually slide his penis across the bottom ledge of the whiteboard we wrote our sales numbers on. I was the only one in that room who noticed, and anytime I did try to point it out to anyone, like the guy who sat across from me who made all his calls in a fake English accent and wore a cape to work every night, no one had any clue what I was talking about.
I made almost double my radio salary in that room that year.
One morning in the loft, around six, I got up to go pee. I walked into the bathroom, like I did every morning, and stood in front of the toilet, groggy and a bit hungover. As I pulled the front of my underpants out, I watched a cockroach fall from the inside of my waistband right into the toilet. I’m not sure how long it was in there, trapped between the thin strip of elastic and my stomach while I slept, but it was long enough to almost kill it.
“Rich!” I yelled, loud enough to wake him up on my first try.
“Yeah?”
“Can we move?” I shouted.
“Okay.”