McCulloch - Lets start a riot: how a young drunk punk became a pyjama-clad dad in hollywood

W inter 1991. Toronto, Ontario. The streets of the Canadian megacity are covered with snow. My then-girlfriend/now-wife, Laurie, was the manager of Brian Hartt, one of the writers on The Kids in the Hall, and we are there to visit him. Earlier in the day, weve gone to the set and watched the Kids film part of a sketch. Ive glimpsed Bruce from afar. I am an enormous Kids in the Hall fan and an especially rabid fan of Bruces, whose characters and performance style I have always marvelled at. He has a delivery unlike anyone I have ever seen in comedy before, and I am desperate to meet him.

That night, we meet up with the Kids at a bar and I am able to nervously have a conversation with Bruce for a good ten minutes. He is pleasant but aloof, distracted by both people he knows and by adoring fans. But we have a good talk, and even though its content is lost in the nervous haze I get into whenever I find myself face to face with one of my heroes, I leave the conversation feeling like Bruce and I have made a nice connection.

The next night, Brian tells us hes meeting Bruce at a different bar and asks if we would like to come. This is my chance to cement my friendship with Bruce. We arrive at the bar, and I sit at a table where Bruce is holding court. He looks at me and I say with great familiarity, Hey, Bruce, Im Paul. We hung out last night.

Upon which Bruce looks at me icily for several seconds and then says, No, we didnt hang out. We talked.

And then he goes back to conversing with the other people at the table and never looks at me again.

And that was the beginning of my long and wonderful friendship with Bruce McCulloch.

I dont remember when we actually became friends, or even why. Our paths crossed again because of Brian, and suddenly, we hit it off. It was like that moment when the big, scary dog in the neighbourhood that always chased you and wanted to kill you comes up tentatively and lets you pet him.

I havent technically petted Bruce, but I did marry him to his lovely wife. Ive holed up with him in his former house in Toronto to write, and we both drank so much Jim Beam and Coke that after a week neither of us could fit into our pants. He got me into collecting Canadian art. He turned me on to some of my favourite alternative bands. He taught me the joys of peeing off the stoop in your backyard instead of using the indoor toilet.

Weve been through several dogs together, supported each other through our various movie and TV projects, and had some of the greatest discussions about comedy, writing, directing and life in general that Ive ever been involved in.

Simply put, I love Bruce.

As I alluded to earlier, Bruce is truly unique. When we say in comedy that somebody has a voice, Bruce is the very definition of what were talking about. His take on the world, his characters, his writing, his one-man shows, the actual voice that comes out of his mouththeyre all unique.

When I sat in his Toronto kitchen in the mid-1990s and he informally read me his one-man show, Slightly Bigger Cities, I was blown away. He had me laughing, he choked me up, he made me think. I had done stand-up comedy for years but never could have conceived of communicating to an audience in that way. Hes both a reliable and unreliable narrator, a spinner of tales tall and real, a bobbing-and-weaving wordsmith who makes you burst out laughing a moment before he hits you with some truth that stops you in your tracks.

But most of all, hes funny.

So sit back, lick your thumb to turn the pages (even if youre using an e-reader) and enjoy the voice and world of my good frienda man whom I dont hang out with but simply talk tothe amazing Bruce McCulloch.

Paul Feig