Meeting up with Chris is usually half business and half pleasure. It wasn’t always that way but I guess when you are a parent, you have to make the best use of your time, especially social time. This particular night we met about a project we have in the works. It might possibly be the fiftieth project Chris and I have tackled together over the last twenty years. It’s hard to put into words the influence this relationship has had on me, my career, my art, my taste, my opportunities. From meeting in school in 1991, Chris and I lived through some pretty exciting times, often he was creating the excitement on stage and I was documenting it on film. I did well in that role and I honestly think it set me up for who I am and what I do now.

The east coast will always inform our secret handshake though we’ve both been in Toronto for over a decade. There’s a group of us here carried over from the old days. Some people call us the Halifax Mafia and say we’re hard to penetrate. I would hope that’s not true but it’s also not hard to understand. Through a shared experience we created that sort of mutual understanding short hand that’s at the same time comforting and stupid. It was our high school and it’s easy to sometimes feel like you are still in it especially on a night like this. Truthfully I don’t see Chris nearly as much as I used to now that he has an awesome family, and never one on one, so when we do hang out it is fun to indulge.

On this night our meeting involves a lot of memory work, back to 20 years ago as the said project is all about looking back. Nothing makes you feel more like an adult then not being able to remember things you did when you were already an adult. Fortunately Chris and I are supreme documenters which is another reason our friendship has lasted this long. The difference is without his obsessive productivity my photographs would stay in their fireproof cabinet. Instead I’m soon going to get to share them with the (very small) world (of people still into collecting 90s Cancon indie rock).