The Universe Does Not Fuck Around…It’s Listening, You Guys.
Those FACEBOOK memories.
Those FRIGGEN FACEBOOK MEMORIES.
In short? Fuck them. And god bless them.
I’ve a love/hate relationship with those GD FACEBOOK memories.
They can be a joy OR kryptonite…and until you scroll down on your phone, past the heading, you just NEVER know which thing it will be.
While I don’t go on the FACEBOOK nearly as much as I used to OR post on there for anything other than work (OR to share dog adoption posts)…I DO go on and have a little lurk around sometimes, a little poke about, a little look-see.
Don’t tell anyone, you guys.
I like to see whose zooming what and who.
Well, let’s be honest, WHO doesn’t?
Well, today, this pic came emerged in the lurk-ie, pokey scroll to my FACEBOOK memories…and I just…well, I smiled.
The day featured here in this picture was part of the last week of May 2017.
The last week of May 2017 was a very big week for me…and NOT because of this show at 54 Below in New York, though that was a lovely night.
May 27th, 2017 was my second visit to perform at 54 Below in NEW YORK CITY, my third cabaret performance in NY, and it was a costly, strange and exhausting endeavour…one that went well in the end, but was fairly unremarkable in a jam packed (if I do say so myself) cabaret career, but one that I’m still glad I did.
Mostly, I was and am glad that I did it, because my sister Gwen accompanied me to NYC for the week leading up to the gig, a week during which I would be doing promo gigs and trying to sell tickets…which was a hard sell, it turned out.
You see, I’d made a rookie mistake with that show, one that I STILL all these years later, find it very hard to forgive myself for… but JUST NOW, as I really began to think about it while staring at the FACEBOOK MEMORY, I realized with a gut punch that it’s a pretty stellar mistake that eventually led to me directly to where I am today.
So, I booked my NY show on Memorial Day Weekend 2017.
I know. If you know, you know.
When I USED TO book shows (which oddly seems like a million years ago, now) I always checked the dates to see if they were holidays.
People go away for holidays, visit family on holidays…you CANNOT count on them coming to shows on holidays…especially NY in the spring or summer…I knew this fact VERY well…and still, somehow, I fucking booked it…fuck.
I have NO idea or crystal ball to remind me how THAT fucking happened.
AS I said, doing a show in NY is costly and I fucked up by SOMEHOW not checking the date, and when I FINALLY realized the pickle I put myself in, the venue would not let me change it, or some such noise…I was stuck.
Fuck.
So, there I was, from May 20th to the 27th, dragging my 48 year old ass around NY with my sister, doing promo gigs, handing out flyers for a fairly doomed date…and sightseeing with her like a mad person.
The sightseeing part was fun…somehow, between gigs, I found the energy and we went everywhere.
We really did.
We stayed out late for the promo gigs, and my sister always struck up chats with the patrons at these gigs and got herself many free drinks, and then we’d usually end up at a pizza place at 1:30am.
SIDEBAR: One night, VERY LATE, we were standing at the pizza place beside our hotel, which was our fave joint for a slice, and Gwen (who was a few sheets to the wind on free drinks, if I’m being honest) struck up a conversation with a dude with a very large dildo sticking out of his pocket who was holding a tiny chihuahua…who happened to also be waiting for pizza…the guy, not the chihuahua…or the dildo.
Gwen saw the dog, not the dildo.
I, being a cabaret entertainer, saw both.
To my sister’s chagrin, I brought it up for DAYS after. Years even. END OF SIDEBAR
Aside from the dildo moment, this NYC trip was a really special time with my sister…although, now that I think of it the dildo moment was pretty special…Gwen’s a breath of fresh air, a curious human, a friendly traveler, a stubborn supporter and a pitbull protector all in one over-60 frame of steel.
It was the first time we’d done this kind of trip together.
She came with me because I was going to NYC alone, and working on the show with a Canadian guitarist (the AMAZING Kevin Ramessar) who lived in NYC.
It was going to be a bummer and a slog to be there by myself that week, and my sister picked up the slack…for which I’m forever grateful.
These sorts of trips were the kind that my ex used to come on with me all the time, but he’d fairly shocked me by telling me he was not going to travel with me to this gig.
His decision to not accompany me set off all my spidey senses…but I ignored them because, well, I had work to do and it SORT OF made sense as to why he could not come (he took a slow drive out to the east coast for his upcoming gig…the east coast…yes, I know, it’s not lost on me…but this story is not about him)…but honestly, I didn’t know WHAT to do with his decision, really.
WE used to always do these sorts of trips together no matter the logistics…I could NOT for the life of me figure out what had changed?
Hindsight, right?
In TRUE MATTHEWS SISTER FASHION, GWEN picked up the slack, and became my trip partner.
That fateful week in NY Gwen and I painted the town MATTHEWS SISTERS RED!!
We went to the village, walked the HighLine, we went to Marie’s Crisis and Gwen thought she’d landed in heaven, singing all of I DREAMED A DREAM with the rest of the packed crowd inside, telling them ALL that I’d been in Les Mis…oh wait…I have proof….
…magic, right?…I fucking love this video and the smile on her face.
We saw cabarets, shows…oh ya, we saw HELLO DOLLY with Better Midler…
…tickets that were given to us by Fucking Debbie, who I NOW realize passed them on because she felt VERY guilty…and so she should.
If you know what I’m talking about, you know.
If you don’t? Go back and read THE SMILE.
: )
Even with the worry about the ticket sales for my show and the promo gigs, being with Gwen in NYC made the week really something special.
Obviously, I have extremely fond memories of it, though, oddly, I cannot even remember the show…but I know it went well. You remember THOSE kinds of things…because you can never FORGET the alternative.
The VERY triumph of the week was that I still managed a decent audience (all my other NY shows had been sold out..so not being sold out this time kinda stung…it just did), and the mighty audience that May 27th night was joyous, AND they sat with my sister as she (my biggest artistic supporter growing up) watched her little sister who she encouraged to audition for Guys and Dolls back in grade nine, kill it in NYC on Memorial Day Weekend, 2017.
After the show that night, she, Kevin Ramessar, myself and JP Doherty (who I played Mme. Thenardier opposite for a year or so on the North American tour of Les Mis) went out for late night New York City drinks.
That night JP tried over and over again to shock my sister, and she just laughed.
Gwen is good in the van.
Again, if you know, you know.
There is NOTHING like drinks after an evening like that, a week like that, a big show like that.
Every muscle is loose…every joy is present…it’s a body high and a singular relaxation that I cannot compare to anything else in my life.
Then the week was just done.
The worried over show in the can.
We got into my KIA, and drove back home over the George Washington Bridge with the sun shining down on us as we traveled onward through the Catskills.
I was SO relieved to be done.
Gwen and I talked and talked about…well, everything as we drove.
But most important to me and my future, after a long, sweet, easy silence, I said something like the following:
Me: You know what? I’ve decided that I’m giving myself two more years on this cabaret road. I just…I cannot keep handing out flyers when I’m 50 and schlepping my backpack with all my shit in it to every promo gig in the world. I can’t. I…I just won’t. I love where I’ve gotten to, I love what I’ve accomplished but I feel like I cannot keep coasting at the same level, the same speed. I need a break that helps me go higher, go further, takes me somewhere new, that helps me push to the next level or a new place. I don’t want to bleed for this work anymore. I need something new to happen.Two years. I just need the universe to give me a sign that I’m on the right road.
Suddenly, it felt so good to say out loud the thing that’d been percolating within me.
It was a proclamation and a truth that needed to have air to be true and real.
And I was serious as hell.
Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you need to beat it into the ground and keep doing it at any cost.
My sister thought for a moment and then told me that she understood…
She: Maybe you’ll get that TV show that you did the self taping thing for…the audition in the hotel room last week…when I went to the MET that day.
In the middle of the previous week my agent called, telling me that while she knew I was SUPER busy, she had a self tape for me.
Between sightseeing and promo-ing, I was exhausted as fuck, I told her I did not have the time for it, and she insisted that I read it.
She does not often insist on anything that isn’t important, so I took note, opening the file with the sides and scenes on my computer…and I liked the script AND the character.
Sometimes when you get scenes and read the description, you think, “Oh, I could play this”…and other times you read them and think, “Oh, this is me…this is totally for me”.
This character made total sense to me.
So, I sent my sister on a day trip to the Met and set this up in our tiny hotel room…I took a picture at the time to show my agent…
…the suitcase, backpack, wire-cage tower was where I put my phone to tape the scene…it was precarious to say the VERY least.
I taped it and sent it off, continuing on with the promo work.
Later that day, my agent called again to tell me that I’d been asked to come back from NY for a call back for the part.
What!? Why now!?! WHY RIGHT NOW!?!?!? THIS was the kind of possible break I’d been hoping on forever. Where was this kind of action when I was actually nearby and ready?
What a thing.
After a lot thinking, of course I KNEW that I could NOT do that…I had to stay my course.
Sadly, I let it go.
I did my best to just try and forget about it…as we do.
Honestly, I’d too much going on to dwell on it, so I let it go into the ether.
Driving back in the car, I told my sister that I probably was NOT going to get that gig.
About four days later, after I was home for a few days, I was driving my KIA around Stratford, doing errands, and my agent called me to tell me that I got the job…from a self tape.
I would get six days on a new TV show.
Six days.
That was/is a very lot.
My agent told me that in lieu of a call back, since I did NOT have a reel yet, she’d found an episode of NBC’S TAKEN that I’d shot the year before, that had JUST aired, taped it off her computer onto her phone, and sent that off to the casting director.
I mean, my agent is the shit. Just sayin’.
Then, as I basked in this good news, twenty minutes later the phone rang again, and after campaigning for it for MANY years, Just For Laughs called and offered me a slot in Montreal for a WEEK.
I felt like I was drunk when I’d had not a drop to drink.
I was SO intoxicated on abundance that I had to drive home…slowly…after pulling over to the side of the road to deep breathe for about 35 minutes.
I could NOT believe that I was allowed this much goodness.
It was one of the best days of my life…during one of the hardest times of my life.
THAT was the day I got Flo on Frankie Drake Mysteries.
AND those six days turned into four seasons and SO much more.
Without me knowing it, that week was actually the true beginning of and foundation for the rest of my life…and I’m grateful as FUCK for that day of good news…for that week in NY with my sister, to my agent, and to that last awesome show at 54 Below on Memorial Day Weekend that I cannot remember.
I decided to be bold, and asked for a sign.
I proclaimed, even.
And I’m so glad I did because the universe answered loudly.
I am so glad that I decided to be bold.
NOW, as I sit here and think of that seemingly doomed NY trip, that joyous, precious time with my sister, that relaxed drive back from NY and the proclamation that I made, of that day in the car in Stratford, I can SEE the straight line through all of it, through the place where my marriage and life was and went, STRAIGHT to today.
And that, as they say, is that.
You just fucking NEVER know where something is leading.
Even though the NY show was nothing more than a show in the end, the stay with my sister, and our love and sisterhood, is the part I really remember.
It’s almost June again, my favourite month…be well humans..and let us ALL do some more proclaiming.
We GET to have good things.
We get to.
May 31s, 2022. – S.M.
Toronto, ON
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We all could use a cosmic affirmation , once in a while!
That trip was so worth it for you. Your time with your sister. Exploring & enjoying NY. Now I know how you got the role of Flo. I often wondered how you did get that role. Everyone has a story. You have more in you. Keep going, we will see you shining somewhere else where this world takes you!
🌼Your openness and willingness to share so much of yourself with us means so much. Wishing you all the good things this universe has to offer…….. and then some. 👱🏻♀️