THE A&E BIOGRAPHY

An Iconography of a Life

The character of Tim Masterson was born on December 14, 1967, in Toronto, Canada, even though he put up a good fight. Little is known about his early life. His father, Tom and his mother, Lyn kept him warm and with them in Toronto. He was awarded no brothers or sisters, so a good deal of time was spent contemplating what it would have been like to be in a popular TV sitcom family. Most summers they took vacations in Connecticut visiting American cousins. Through a kind of ethnic osmosis he developed a passion for pasta. Mr. Masterson learned the game of tennis from his father, developed a love for it and began competing in tournaments. This gave him a rare awareness of the human condition, seeing just how horrendously parents behave while their children are in the sports arena.

When Tim was 16, his dad died and that wasn't much fun. He did what any self-supportive, self-respecting kid who wanted to be an artist of some kind would do: got hired on as an usher where CATS was playing. ("Yes, sir, your jigs are wildly entertaining, and yes it sure is mysterious how 'Macavity's a mystery cat and called the hidden paw', and all, I know, I've seen it - a lot - now would you please return to your seat and put your goddamn pants on!")

Tim's governess and truant officers informed him that he still had to be involved in some sort of learning operative, and ushering not being a career path, he figured the next best thing to bleak, ordinary schooling was an alternative High School for the Performing Arts. He attended an institution that he can only recollect as bizarre, stumbled around with a couple dozen astonishingly talent-free kids who were as lost as he was. He'd hoped it would be like 'Fame,' but much to his dismay, was far from it. Tim did find out that he was musical, and could play piano well. Not a singer though. His somber unmelodious chanting often alarmed the janitors; he's since improved. Somewhat. He was relieved to have survived the educational years. Once the scholastic death-camp was over, Tim took what little money he'd managed to save ushering, teaching tennis, and selling cubic zirconia to gullible seniors, and ventured to Cuba because he needed a vacation from all this life business.

He began to see himself as a bit of an adventurer; a junior journalist, and also developed a taste for the macabre, so he moved out of the house to reside with a girl he'd begun dating. This began an impressive 20 year run of shacking-up with various emotional train-wrecked females; each lucky enough to eventually escape Tim's morbid, inconsistent seemingly unemployable temperament. Mr. Masterson was taken on by an agent, this setting off an almost 20 year litany of frustration with less than brilliant managerial folk who just didn't get it. He managed to be cast in occasional commercials, shows and landed pointless small roles in lackluster Canadian TV and film productions.

Tim began dating the belle of the city, a girl who worked the doors at wild after-hours haunts. She seemed to know everyone, and through romantic osmosis, instantly it seemed, so did he. She introduced him to Fellini-esque late night escapades, experimenting with substances and interacting with people in strange manners. As well, she gave him the nickname Timber. He auditioned for more projects and came close on many, but never quite got those gigs. This helped enormously with his self-esteem. He learned there are no points for second place. Tim sought out more concrete work, so he got a part time job at the C.B.C as a casual, and yes he was.

In 1990 Timber moved to Hollywood, where he studied, auditioned, worked weird jobs, befriended famous people and stayed up really, really late. He made notes between doing time at ICM (long enough to realize that wasn't going to work) and lent a hand to his personal manager who had his own oddball Beverly Hills cable show. Mr. Masterson became a Screen Actors Guild member which gave him another piece of plastic to try and extract credit from, but really the new affiliation meant only that he had to pay colossal dues. Timber drove across country, back to Toronto with his tail between his legs and lived with that same gal he hooked up with in the cosmetic counters of club-land from the last paragraph. She was now clever. The pair lived on the U of T campus, and he opted to take an English equivalency course, in order to catch up to her and everybody else.

Halfway through, Timber was offered a role in a torturous theatre production that planned to trek through Eastern Canada, so he dropped the course and opted for fame. Later, he would regret this. They broke up when she suspected he was having a fling with one of the mini Liz Taylors on the tour - which (due to a law suit pending), he still cannot speak of. He moved out and began taking classes at Bennington, majoring in "Spiritual Befuddlement" with a minor in 'Magic Tricks' and 'Comedy Routines.' Tim received no scholarship or grants.

Mr. Masterson migrated to a New York state of mind, struggled American style, and began writing a lot more, still auditioning for off-beat theatre and silly soaps. He attended diverse showcases, readings and events, worked at MTV on lame short-lived shows, toiled at even weirder jobs and was even a kind of an assistant for a Party Monster murderer at Project X Magazine and its Limelight Club. (Tim reports he never killed anyone.)

He escaped back to Toronto and began writing freelance articles for whatever magazine would have him. He threw parties, lived in lofts, hosted his own goofy cable show - a la Tom Green - "Life on Timber Street," produced and wrote segments for a Vancouver-based entertainment program (Metro Café) and while working on columns for FLARE and TRIBE Magazine, "Timber" also, came really, really, really close to becoming a VJ at Much Music, this, when it still seemed like a coveted position. Occasionally, friends and acquaintances would take pity on him, offering work wherever they saw him fitting in. He was fortunate to have worked on Daniel Richler's "Big Life" momentarily as a kind of 'Research-ish think-tank-fellow', though he wasn't really needed there. So he moved on, tested more substances, lived with a couple more kookie-yet-compassionate ladies then jetted off to the French West Indies to teach tennis for a season (in French!) at Club Med, to escape the doldrums of a Canadian Winter. That jaunt propelled a visit to Paris and England to look up various rich and nutty touristas he instructed in his absurd, broken French. Tim wrote more and met an amazing lady at a film festival party in the fall of 1997. He followed her out to Vancouver and wrote a sharp and whimsical article for The Loop but that was about it. They lived together for a few months during the rainy season and Tim hated it. So, he did what any befuddled, caustic soul would do - he went to Cuba. (While he was there, he also managed to land a job as an usher, in a Spanish version of CATS.)

Tim returned to California in 2000 to pursue the beach. He taught more tennis, snuck into psych classes at Stanford, played piano and guitar in public places, dropped in at AA meetings (for the stories only, of course), performed at The Viper Club and to his recollection, never overdosed. Tim worked as a Producers Assistant at Cinetel Films while writing stories and reviews for papers mags and Aaron Spelling's web site which sold items from his television shows. ("This scintillating chaise lounge that Michael and Sidney sat on is a true gem, and can be an exciting appendage to your abode!")

In September of 2002, Mr. Masterson decided it was time to drive across country (again) to re-visit his home, check in on Mom and attend the Toronto International Film Festival. (He'd always enjoyed that.) He lucked out and found himself a muse, who, after hearing a good chunk of his memoirs, inspired him to begin writing his first novel. The time had finally come it seemed, to explain everything to everybody. He remains in Toronto.

"I see myself as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the boy in love with love, always in search of the absolute and always seeking the unattainable." (Henry Miller) Certainly, I'm proud of my minor victories, but these bouts, now seem like nothing more than a patchwork training ground for the main event, the arena where I find myself today: this writing business; the most genuine, worthwhile pursuit I've been able to hunt down since coming into this game in 1967. (Timber Masterson)

While working on his mammoth personal memoir, "Timfoolery: Tales of a Third Rate Junkie," Timber has been cleansing his mind, organizing his website and donating his imaginative talents and heartfelt jazzy epistles to online and print journals: So New Media, Word Riot, Fresh Yarn Salon, Yankee Pot Roast, Purple Prose, Ghoti, Wandering Army, The Beat, Numb Magazine, and most recently, The National Post and Now Magazine. He co-produced and hosted a monthly interactive literary series at The Drake Hotel entitled Word Substance Spatula and is a regular contributor to CIUT's talk radio show, HOWL with Nik Beat. This past year Mr. Masterson ventured to Philadelphia to ply his literary wares at The 215 Festival. "A Big Thrill", Tim says, as this was where he first saw and drew inspiration from authors of the McSweeneys collective years earlier. He's been awarded a Toronto Arts Council Grant towards his next project, a compilation of published essays and stories, "A Bizarre But Entertaining Life I Seem To Have Survived: True Imaginings From The Dementia Cul De Sac". He is not the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship or any other fancy shmancy glammarama literary prize...yet.

No one knows what the future holds for him.