Lots of us own miniscule slices of the Fringe Festival, bought in for various reasons and thus it matters a lot to us.

But it was Jeremy's baby. I can remember him, vaguely, when the founders were still in charge, some guy running around doing things. The founders interest didn't last that long, five years, moving on as their lives moved on. At the 20th anniversary, they were contacted (assuming it wasn't something staged) and said "Is that thing still going?", which surely indicates their lost interest in the event. Their handpicked replacement lasted only a year. Then Jeremy took over, initially co-producer with Shannon Webb, then sole producer but with Patrick Goddard co-producer in effect if not name.

Which means for most of the Fringe's life, Jeremy has been in charge. He took it over when it might otherwise have faded, rescued it from a debt, he changed it, not all for the good, but he made it mostly sustainable.

I don't want it forgotten that other people started the Fringe, but then it was Jeremy's.

One day in 1996 I was waiting at the info booth and Jeremy shows up with some volunteers, the Snapple truck had arrived with new beer and to take away the empties. The "Black Maria". So I spontaneously added myself to the group, and yes, probably because "the boss" was actually helping to do the work.

I started taking the Fringe down in 1997 and one reason I kept doing it was because Jeremy was there, not just bossing but doing the work. Sometimes too much, I recall one time when Bill Brownstein was waiting around to interview Jeremy, the latter was wiring up the Beer Tent with extension cords, as if some of the rest of us couldn't do it ourselves. For a long time, and even when I started putting the Fringe up, we could have used more volunteers. One time, late in the day after the Fringe had closed, we had most of it put away and the remaining task was to pick up the garbage at the park. It had rained, which made the task worse, but also it's not fun doing it alone. I told him I didn't want to do it, at which point he said he'd do it, and then I couldn't let him do it himself.

I am the bad volunteer, never signing up (except that time in 1998 when the volunteer coordinator never got back to me), but always the last day of the Fringe I'd say to Jeremy in the late afternoon "10 O'clock tomorrow?" and he'd say "9 is better, to relieve the overnighters" and while I always went home early the last day, I never quite made it before 10am.

When he took over, I remember him as being "gruff" but it seemed to me to be a reflection of the state of the Fringe. Things weren't well balanced then, no real float so if beer sales were down, and it wasn't really the same level as today, it could be a problem. It was a different festival, virtually no staff. It took us 2 days to put things away in 1997.

There is the long forgotten matter of the debt about 1996/87, the way I remrmber it being reported was some of it at least was due to out of town troupes not paying necessary taxes, so the Fringe got hit. In that period, I suggested to another group that needed to do fundraising that they could do worse than ask the Fringe, not realizing until later that it was really Jeremy who had reduced the budget and raised money to take care of the debt. The debt was not when he was in charge, though I suspect in retrospect that may explain how he got to be in charge in 1997, when we all thought the previous producer, David Gobeil-Tayler, would be back again.

Back then, it was only Jeremy and Shannon followed by Patrick on salary all year around. As the Fringe approached, the staff grew, then faded when it was over.

The Fringe got bigger, the staff slowly started growing (but of course, there was more to do, so it balanced out). I remember the year there was no pre-Fringe benefit (usually a previous "hit" would be restaged in May. or a show at the Comedy Nest would be held) and Jeremy said "Frankly, we don't nred it". I can't remember which year that was, but maybe as early as 2000. Even the traditional late on the last Sunday of the Fringe restaging of a "hit" show to benefit the Fringe stopped at some point, though logistics perhaps affected that, no empty venues and the Frankie awards taking place.

I even remember going to a Fringe garage sale circa 1996, though later in the day, not much left. I have no idea if Jeremy was behind that, if he was the guy in attendance.

(Of course, in more recent years there have been some benefits, perhaps not visible, and the state of the Fringe was only rumours.)

In 1997, we took chairs and risers back to Loyola, and then had to screw the chairs down with straps. A hot day in that basement venue. I have no idea if those chairs were rented or loaned. Or rushing around McGill to get things back to the AV department before they closed, or else face a penalty.

The bigger budget meant the chairs were rented, brought to the site rather than we go to the chairs. Even last year, a truck came from the sound equipment company, when I remember the Fringe used to have to take it back. There has to be a tradeoff, likely renting is a premium, but offset by the initial cost of buying, and the continued cost of storage space. Really simple things changed, like an ice freezer at the Beer Tent so we didn't have to make endless trips to the grocery store.

It took a few years, but then the Fringe was back on St. Lawrence Blvd, and Jeremy was firmly in control. The infamous SoloFest took place in the fall of 2000 (infamous because after the first year, a second year was announced, then cancelled without explanation, never to be heard of again), a minifestival in the fall of solo acts. I seem to recall TJ Dawe came for that, somewhere I have the flyer. But the announcement of that SoloFest also brought "Mainline", rather than the previous "Montreal Fringe Festival Corporation". Still non-profit, it seemed like an attempt to erase the past, though perhaps there were legal considerations.

It had to be 1999 where a column in a paper, I think Bill Brownstein in the Gazette, said something about Jeremy leaving, "maybe to run another Fringe". One of these days I'll find the folder with that article, but I dont' think it gave much detail. And then nothing more was said, other than being surprised that Jeremy was back the next year, that was the end of that story.

I have no idea where the original office was, I suspect it was someone's home. Not much budget those first few years. But the first time I was in the office, the address was kind of out of view, it was a tiny room up narrow stairs in the block just above Prince Arthur. The wall was caving in. It was a good thing there wasn't much staff, because there wasn't much room in there. So that esplained the need to rent some space during the Fringe, there was no room for the overflow. At some point, we learned the Fringe office had moved, some fancy new building in the block below Mount Royal. That didn't last that long, once Mainline became a theatre, the office moved there (so at least some of the cost of the space woudl be needed anyway).

The legend of Jeremy appearing as a volunteer and working his way up is somewhat misleading, since I'm pretty sure there were few or no paid positions in the first few years. Is a "volunteer coordinator" someone who coordinates volunteers, or a volunteer who coordinates? I remember thinking that in the early days. Even when Jeremy took over, the story went that the pay wasn't enough to really sustain someone. Wait, I remember, David Gobeil-Taylor appeared suddenly in the spring on the Mirror's Babylon computer bulletin board system, and I said "where've you been" as in "why not be posting throughout the year" and he replied "working". And then certainly when Shannon Webb left, the story went that she couldn't continue at the wage level the Fringe offered, moving over to the Playwright's workshop. Like I said to Helen some years later, Jeremy didn't really get paid, he raised the money himself. And he did do that, making the Fringe sustainable, and able to be paid a decent salary.

For a long time, the Board of Directors was pretty invisible, and then mostly a rubber stamp for Jeremy. We never heard from them, except to add weight to some letter to the Mirror or two, to correct something someone had written about the Fringe. Then that stopped, it was just Jeremy and Patrick on the letters, like that time they chastized someone for not knowing when the call for submission deadline was, my letter about the same issue right under it. Whatever happened to Jane, I can't remember her last name, who was in the counting house, and actually was on the board of directors for some years? In 1998, she turned an overly large Fringe tshirt into a dress, for the first Frankies. I can't remember, I know at some point I realized she had disappeared.

Then eventually the Board of dIrectors became a more balanced thing, a volunteer on board, an actor on board. But the first time we ever heard of a decision they'd made was last December, about the no alcohol at Mainline. What a shock, I was talking to someone and she didn't even know there was a BoD, so quiet it was, but then she didn't know that "Mainline" was the non-profit company name, not just the name of the theatre.

Nobody remembers Jeremy's dog, he'd bring it to the Fringe, and someone on staff or a volunteer would have to walk it. I even showed up with dog biscuits one time, pulling them out by accident when it was time to feed the volunteers. The dog disappeared after Fringe 1998, I remember asking him about the dog the next year, and he just gave me a look as in "That's none of your business".

Or, during that period when the office was just below Mount Royal Avenue, they were accumulating theatre seats and lights. Castoffs from other companies that got upgrades I think. I can't remember what I thought at the time, but in retrospect, it seemed planning for the day when the company owned its own theatre. So maybe it was just a matter of finding a space.

I know when Theatre St. Catherine opened and the Fringe kept sending out announcements of shows there, I assumed it was the Fringe's venue. They didn't tell us anything about it, it just suddenly appeared. It was only a later article that revealed the truth. And whether or not the Fringe/Jeremy had plans for its own theatre, it must have been galling for someone else to start up a "Fringe-like" venue before the Fringe. And it wasn't that long before Mainline began (which had been a theatre for years already, The Dummy's Theatre had at least two shows there, one year the Playright's Workshop or some associated company had a Christmas show there and the Fringe had used it as a venue for a number of Junes). A dream come true for Jeremy, I imagine.

I remember saying to super volunteer Maev that I was going to try to get the Fringe website active throughout the year "to keep the Fringe alive in everyone's hearts throughout the year" or whatever that line from "A Christmas Carol". I failed at that, but having the Mainline Theatre certianly chnged things. At a time of growth, it seemed like if you were't part of it, you weren't part of the Fringe.

Jeremy was too dictatorial, expecting things his way, I was ignored but certainly challenged him (or tried to) to some extent. I wasn't always happy with the changes. And he was someone who basically grew up in the Fringe, 19 years old that first year he apparently volunteered. No wonder I was ignored, I had a longer worldview than he did. I have a soldering gun that's as old as he is, though he's in better shape than the gun after me dropping it so many times.

But I showed up every year to put away the Fringe, because he was there. He said I was always complaining, but I wanted things to be better, and if I'd hated the Fringe so much, I would have stopped coming years ago. My belief in the core of what he was doing was shown completely in my coming back each year to help. There's no sense criticizing things you don't like, lots of reason to be critical about the things that matter to you.

The idea of bringing WIlliam Shatner to the Fringe was not a joke. One year, he was quoted in Hour in an article about sponsorship of the smaller festivals. And he said something about how he'd change his son's name if it broughtin a sponsor (or something along that line). I realized his son'sname was "JT" and then I realized Jeremy would really like William Shatner (aka James T Kirk) to come visit our festival. Way back in the early nineties, Jeremy had done a show that was basically a script from Star Trek. We'd used the Shatner building at McGIll for venues. We'd even had a venue for a couple of years in the back of the High School of Montreal, where Shatner had apparently gone. It just fit together nicely.

It was only once I figured that out that I realized he'd already come to the comedy festival, I think twice, and he's come back. How could we lure him to the much smaller festival when there was no budget? I pictured maybe Shatner the Guest of Honor, presiding over the Frankies, and Jeremy giving WIlliam Shatner a tour of the Fringe, to show him how far it had come. I made a gold key to the Fringe to give to Shatner, I guess it should go to Jeremy now. We could have given Shatner a golden superpass, making him "000" (In 1999 when we were clearing up, I found Jeremy's superpass, number "101"). The idea was for Jeremy, not some promotion for the Fringe. Now it's too late.

I'm sorry about that, Jeremy.

1999 wasn't the only time it seemed like Jeremy was thinking of leaving. There was the year Ira Dubinsky was "assistant producer", and rumors alternated between "he's being groomed to take over" (and he'd been a rover, and worked the computers and did the website, he was had more Fringe experience than most staffers by then) and "he's planning to take over". I have no idea which was most likely. And he was expected back in that role the next year,, but shortly before the Fringe, he suddenly wasn't back. That's a story never explained, but it almost seemed at the time that perhaps Jeremy was looking for a replacement.

There was a time when Jeremy seemed the largest consumer of the cookies at the Fringe. I remember one time, we were in a car to go somewhere (I can't remember where, something Fringe related, and I don't know who's car) and Jeremy said "wait, wait" and came over and grabbed a fistful of cookies, not the only time it was that many. But it varied, there were times when he'd want some, other times, just shrugging me off. It seemed like a reflection of the state of the Fringe at that point, though I could never tell which was an up time and which was down. I suspect that's the real reason he tolerated me.

I have no idea what really happened last December, it sees a horrible thing that he left, but also I can see him just being tired of it all. When the announcement came that Jeremy was handing the Fringe over to Amy, it seemed like Jeremy suddenly had less purpose. Running Mainline caused two jobs when one had been there before, if he wasn't doing the Fringe, what was his role? And since there were two jobs, of course, there had to be a bigger budget. I do wonder how there was argument with the Board of Directors, since they seemed hand picked by Jeremy and Patrick. How could they suddenly differ so much on some unspecified matter? But once he gave up the Fringe, it likely becamse easier to leave. The Fringe was his baby, it wasn't anymore. He'd been at it since he was about 19, his age had doubled while doing the Fringe. When do you leave? When do you give up something that was part of you for so long? What replaces it? How could we have tossed him out? Yet really, I'm also sure he wanted to go. He never would have given up the Fringe until he felt it could survive. It's not the same Fringe that it used to be, so much bigger (and not necessarily better), but in getting it to that place, there is less challenge.

I don't think Jeremy liked me, I don't think he trusted me, he certainly ignored me while bringing in his pals. I don't like that one bit. But despite all that, I'm sorry he's gone. We weren't friends, but I knew him for a few weeks each year for a long time. If he had bothered to ask, I would have done a lot of things I'd not take on otherwise.

I saw Jeremy's father a few weeks ago (who was routinely called on to go and buy the cans of soda for the beer tent, he once told me "I've offered to do more, but I'm not wanted" or something like that), and he said something about Jeremy managing a comedy club. No details (just like that time in early 2012 when I saw him at a booksale and he said something about a Fringe debt, in retrospect that provides some background to what happened later in the year). But, we were in the Old Forum at the time, so maybe it's The COmedy Nest.

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