I Comic

It's raining in Toronto right now. It's cold and dreary and chilly, not exactly winter weather, but enough to make you crave a hot chocolate and to avoid going outside. It's the exact opposite of the warm and sunny day in Santa Monica when I met Joe Bodolai and had lunch with him and he reminisced about his career in TV and film and expressed frustration over his life in LA.

I didn't know Joe back in the day. He produced Comics and The Kids in The Hall. He wrote for Saturday Night Live. He produced the Gemini Awards show here in Canada and also wrote the first draft of Wayne's World. He was prodigious and funny and generous. Without Joe, Toronto would not have the Blue jays. I didn't know Joe then.

I met Joe Bodolai over Twitter. We were virtual friends for over a year and I didn't know who he was but he was funny and encouraging and we chatted over Twitter and over Facebook. He was always engaging and interested and at more than one point he apologized that he couldn't do anything for me. I honestly had no idea what he meant by that.

When I went down to Los Angeles last summer for a few months, Joe insisted on meeting up with me. We went for lunch, on a warm and sunny day, to a cafe in Santa Monica. They knew Joe there. They obviously appreciated the fact that he was a customer, but I don't think they had any better idea of who Joe was than I did. Joe's star had waned and Los Angeles is cruel to people who are not on the A list.

Over lunch, Joe was charming and funny and we shared stories about how good life was. That's all you do in LA. Talk about how good your life is and about how shitty and yet wonderful everyone else. Or about how well you are doing and about wonderful and shitty everyone else is. Joe seemed to be in good spirits but how can you tell in LA where the dogs are carried around in baby strollers and a hangnail is a cause for a fund raiser?

Joe did complain about living in LA. The problem is, who doesn't complain about living in LA? He did say that he felt that it was the worst thing that he had done in his life. That living in LA was a huge mistake. Again, because of the local hyperbole, who can tell how he really felt? I was told by several people that living in LA was a terrible mistake. Joe really meant it.

I can identify with Joe in the sense that I was a fellow Canadian in LA. Joe's success in the industry far eclipsed mine and I am certain that he felt that returning to Canada as anything but a conquering hero would translate to failure. It's not that he couldn't return to Canada. It's that he didn't have anything in Canada to return to.

His Canadian success didn't translate to LA. Joe was terribly frustrated by this but that did not deter him from helping and encouraging others. I know he was working on a web project when he died and that he was always encouraging to me. When we parted ways after lunch he again expressed regret that he couldn't help me.

When I got the news this morning I was completely shocked. I still am very numb. 

We didn't talk a lot after that meeting. Joe complained about health issues. He became more reclusive. Joe's last blog post stated that he would be helping to serve Christmas dinner to the homeless. Then, with a bottle of gatorade and anti-freeze Joe Bodolai took his life.