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8pm Friday, August 1, 2025 THE PUBLIC ENEMY aka THE CINEFORUM, 463 Bathurst, M5T 2S9. 416-6032-6643.
To boldly go where none have gone before…
It is safe to say most chart their lives. They have a plan. They follow it.
The best, however, follow no chart.
“The new Messiah will tear up the money,” Al Aronowitz wrote me. Who he? Google him.
I wrote back, “Here’s a $100. I have not the heart to tear it up. You do it.”
Al sent me a copy of his self-published book, THE BLACKLISTED MASTERPIECES OF AL ARONOWITZ.
He also called to ask if I was going to drink poison as I had quoted from Mark 16, “If they give you any deadly thing it will not harm you.”
I said, “Of course not. That is Scripture.”
Al said, “Good. I’ve written a book. No one will give me a reading.”
I said, “Come to Toronto. I will give you a reading.”
That reading was sparsely attended however it opened the door. Al got readings everywhere.
Al died August 1, 2005.
Shortly before his death he called to ask if he could do a reading here. He said, “Your place is my favourite place.”
I said what I always say, “Sure.”
August 1 is a Friday this year.
Al was a Crime Reporter for THE NEW YORK POST in the 1950s.
His editor’s son was hanging out with some crazy young poets in Greenwich Village all of whom were homosexuals who smoked pot and flashed switchblade knives. Al was sent down to write a hatchet piece that would get the cops to bust them.
He didn’t.
“I realized that for the first time in my life I was meeting living poets,” said Al.
Al Aronowitz wrote the first positive press about Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.
“Come with me,” said Al to a young kid he met. The kid went. Al introduced the kid to Ginsberg. The kid was Bob Dylan.
Al introduced me to New York from the Stage of The Thalia Theatre (now The Leonard Nimoy Theatre) in New York in 1992.
Al won’t be here August 1. His words will be. I will be reading them. Like Al, I will be wearing a cowboy shirt.
These pictures of Al at The Public Enemy aka The CineForum were taken by my long time friend Bernard Hashmall.
As for that deadly drink, The City of Toronto gave me that cup. I drank it dry. I’m still standing. My Dad says it is the City of Toronto’s turn to drink from the cup.
There’s a fire coming.
Nothing of value will be harmed.
The evening will be capped with a screening of my film documenting Toronto poet Steven Leckie’s 2015 performance at The Phoenix.
No cover will be charged however contributions to help me pay off the bills arising from the City’s desire to burn my ass will be appreciated.
It ain’t paranoia when people really are trying to kill us.
Their day is done.
–Reg Hartt

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