The Turning Point
I think this will be the last update to the livejournal about going to see bands, because tonight was the turning point. I'm drunk while I write this, but not so drunk that I can't type. The first time I went to see Hopeful Melancholy back in Fredericton I tried to type when I got home, and it sucked. I had to retype everything 30 times before it made sense. I remember I borrowed some of Dave Jenkins' rum before we left, and it was all gone by the time we got to the Chestnut. I actually couldn't finish it all because I'd poured it into a 2 litre of coke, and I had to pass it around before we went in. I think we even threw a little bit of it out. But that's neither here nor there.
I bought a calender at the dollar store a couple weeks ago with extra large boxes to write stuff in. It was actually 3 for a dollar, so I've got a couple more calenders that are just sitting around doing nothing. So for today, Thursday Agust, I mewan June 2004, I've got two things wirtten down. One is Banned in Canada w/ Second Stall at Pic's Pub on West Pender, up near Grandville. 9:30pm, $7 at the door. That was the plan, basically just because it said "punk" somewhere on their poster. The poster actually seemed a little lame -- it was this guy at work thinking "Work sucks, work sucks, work sucks... I just farted, and it smells like punk rock." Yeha, fucking fantastic. You're punk as fuck, buddy. I hoped they'd be awesome, but I had reason tp believe that theyd suck. Jesus, my spelling it going to shit. Anyway, I wrote the info down in the little notebook I always keep in my pocket. Which Daphne said was a perfectly okay thing to do, so I don't wanna hear any shit. That was the plan for Thursday.
But the other day I decided to get a better lay of the land by walking from the internet cage I always use -- internet cafe if I had spelled that right, but "internet cage" sounds cooler anyway -- to the Tinseltown cinemas. On the way I found a comic shop, which totally sucked shit, just like every other comic shop in Vnacouver so far, and I also found the Cobalt.
I was walking down a fairly dodgy part of Main street, neat the Skyway station. The same thing happens on Broadway; once you get near the Skyway it gets real scummy, because there's so much traffic that it seems to naturally atttract annoying scumbags. But this time it was a good kind of scum -- I saw a poster for this place called The Cobalt, which was having bands play the 3rd, 4th and 5th of June, for about $5 each night. The posters made it clear that these were punk or at least metal bands, especially with the "sport a mohawk and get in free" addendum. I don't know what the fuck "addendum" really means, I just see it once in awhile and extrapolate from those instances what it almost certainly implies. That's really the only difference between me, being smart, and most people, being stupid fucks: I pay attention to things like that, and then integrate them into my day to day life. I didn't pay any extra attention in school. In fact, by the time high school rolled around, I'm willing to bet that I payed less attention than any of the rest of you. I hated that shit, but I still learned stuff. Because I payed attention. Now, I'm gonna try to write a sentence really fast without fixing the spelling mistakes.
The thing I like about drinking is that when you drink for an extented perious of time you ge tht sense that it's okay to talk to poeple anbd do what you like without have ing to be wotried all the time. I was alrwayus eorries as a kid, alwayus unsure about wherer I was should be or wha tia was doing or of I fit in with a figfvig goiven social group. It fgpot ot be a real pain in the fucking ass after ahiwlme, so it's noce fo it fto be gone. I'm writing way too fast, this is roidicuouls. I'k surprise dit's even readiable. Thjat's enpougfh.
So anyway, after I jotted down some info from this Cobalt poster, I took a look around. It was on the 900 block of Main street. I was on the 900 block of Main Street. I looked around a little more. I was at the fucking Cobalt. The place was covered in graffitti and looked like hell. For all my mouth running about being smart and knowing words, I don't know how to spell "graffitti". Does it have one f? Two t's? Who knows? Some Meriam-Webster guy, but not me. So I'm putting two of each. If that's wrong, go suck a cock. You're gonna be dead soon, and nobody's gonna care that you were a good speller.
When I got home I added The Cobalt to my calender, but there were way too many bands on different nights for different amounts of money, so across the bottom of the 3rd, 4th and 5th I just wrote "COBALT MISC".
When Thursday rolled around I decided to check out my original lead, Pic's Pub, where Banned in Canada was playing. The Cobalt seemed to have a lot of shows, and seemed like the place I should logically be going to, so I of course did what I could to avoid that. Fucking stupid sober brains, they're no good for nothing. Except coherent, rational thought, I mean.
So I jumped on a bus and travelled down Hastings, past Main, until it turned to West Hastings (a.k.a.: "Not a total crack hole" Hastings). Then I got off and walked a street over to Pender and found this Pic's Pub place.
The washing machine had broken earlier in the week at my place, and I hadn't done laundry in awhile. I've only got 3 long sleeve shirts, and I've learned the hard way that it's a good idea to bring one with me when I go out. It might be warm at 9pm, and Vancouver may be the mythical, snowless land, but by the early hours of the morning it can get pretty fucking chilly. The only long sleeve I had left was my Bad Religion "No Religion Allowed" hoodie. It was a little too heavy for the weather, but I had to wear something. I bought it originally at the Regent Mall in Fredericton, because I liked the iconography -- On the front has one of those "No Smoking" signs, except instead of a cigarette it's got a christian cross in it. Like Ghostbusters, except for religion instead of ghosts. I loved it as soon as I saw it, even though I'm only a casual fan of Bad Religion, because I fucking hate organized religion. It's done more to fuck over the world than it ever has to help it, and as time moves on that ratio is just gonna get worse and worse. So when I lost my first one, I bought another one in Montreal.
I still for the life of me can't figure out why my mother, an otherwise sensible and awesome lady, made me go to goddamn church. We didn't even go to the fun, singing and clapping and speaking-in-tongues church, we went to the old, boring, bullshit church. My brother and I got in a fight in church once, and that still didn't do the trick. We still had to go the next week. Totally baffling. I've never gotten a straight answer out of her as to why, and I probably never will. I think it was just that her social circle was based around church, and it would have been awkward if her kids didn't go, so she made us. I'm pretty sure she doesn't believe in heaven. If she does, being dead is gonna be quite a big disappointment.
I remember one day in the late eighties, after we'd gotten our Sega Master System but before we got a Nintendo, when my dad was still really into video games. He'd just gotten a copy of Thunder Blade, a game we'd all been excited to play, and he had one of those fancy Master System joysticks attached to the table with two clamps, which was how he liked to play, to maximize the arcade-like experience. We got to see the game in action for about 30 seconds before we had to go to church, dad smiling and cooking bacon and listening to music and telling us to have a good time. That son of a bitch. Talk about your long goddamn mornings.
In the end I could never get past the backview, or "3-D" part of level 3. If you could, you were either the coolest kid of the eighties, or a total goddamn liar. That shit was impossible.
Where the fuck was I? Right, I was wearing my Bad Religion hoodie. I'd just gotten my hair buzzed off a couple days earlier, and I was wearing my ever-present Undertaker Red Devil/Big Evil hat. The beauty of that hat is that once I tore off the "WWE" label, nobody could tell it was a westling hat. Jeremy of the Argentos complimented me on it once. Although I later learned that his bandmate Roger is a wreslting fan, and has a Nintendo 64 just to play No Mercy. I gave him my ECW Cactus Jack DVD before I moved. I miss seeing those guys play. They were on my "Top 3 Favorite Bands in Fredericton" list, and were number 1 for theatrics. Roger always had a face covered in fake blood, and the first time I saw them play he had made a video of all the kill scenes from the Friday the 13th movies to play beforehand, and a smoke machine. That was some class shit. Those guys ruled. The point, though, is that maybe Jeremy recognized the hat as a wrestling hat. But I think he's mostly just obsessed with Satan.
My Top 3 Favorite Rocking Argentos Songs (as of June 2004):
3) Madness Room (from the 2003 unreleased punk demo)
2) Teenage Sex Murder (from same, during which, the first time I heard it, Jeremy poured fake blood on Diana the underage Starbucks girl's breasts. That was definitely memorable.)
1) Lucifer Rising (from the 2003 Brimstone Demos)
Lucifer Rising is one of the coolest songs I've ever heard. If, through some amazing course of events, the new punk book I'm writing ever gets made into a movie, that's the song I want the protagonist to hear at his first punk show in the big city. I tend to think a ways in the future. It helps me ignore the crappy aspects of the present.
The shaved head and devil hat by themselves don't stand out that much, but when you add the "Fuck Religion" shirt, things change. I notice a difference in the way people look at me, or avoid looking at me. To the punks it's no big deal, I'm just some guy wearing a bad religion shirt, but to the populace at large, I have become part of a demographic. I am not a punk. I like hanging out with punks and listening to punk bands, but I'm not a punk. I know it, and I don't try to pretend that I am. I see plenty of lameoid bullshit punks in day-to-day life, and I don't want to become one of them. But to the populace at large, the combination of hat, shirt and haircut equals punk. They assume that I'm a punk, and they treat me as such. I gotta admit that I like it. I like having people make a deliberate effort not to meet my eye. After all, I'm a crazy punk! I might go nuts and smash them in the face! Or something!
The truth I've learned in Fredericton, which has held up in Vancouver, is that most punks are either wimps or burnouts. There's really nothing to be afraid of. But the scene keeps it's taboo fuel by the fact that outsiders don't know that.
So I got to this Pic's Pub place, and there was a small line. I stood in it for about ten seconds, long enough for me to get a look inside, and I calculated that this place was fucking lame. Everyone I saw was just some preppy university kid, and that might have been alright if I'd been dressed normally. I might have gone in and mingled. But I was affiliated, I had enough punk gear on that I wouldn't have fit in there. The question on everyone's mind, including my own, would have been "Why am I here? Isn't there some place else I should be?" In Fredericton I had no choice: If the only show was at some bullshit schoolkid bar, then that's where I had to go. But this was Vancouver; surely there were alternatives. And I knew where the alternative was: The Cobalt.
So I kept walking, down to Main street, toward this graffitti covered nightmare building that frankly kinda worried me. I should also mention that finances had become an issue, just the day before. I got my first paycheck from my shitty job and it was less than I expected. If I wanted to pay my rent next month, my lifestyle was gonna have to change. I'd blown over a thousand dollars since I got to Van, and that was no longer gonna be possible. So I hadn't had anything to drink that night, which didn't make screwing up my courage to go to The Cobalt any easier. But the cover at The Cobalt was only $5 as opposed to Pic's $7, so I was saving money already.
I had $20 set aside for Pic's, for cover and a drink, and I altered that to a mere $10 for The Cobalt. Then I took a bobby pin and pinned my wallet to the inside of my pocket, so I couldn't get at the rest of my money and it wouldn't fall out during the night. In a pit, you never know.
But the guy at the door wanted ID, so I had to unpin my wallet. Whoops. I had $80 dollars in there, and now it was free. I could have left the money at home, but I might have needed it. I might have had to take a cab, in which case you can never have too much money in Van. But as soon as I unpinned that wallet I knew that money was gone.
But it was all worth it. Inside was a fucking dream. It was deliverance, it was beautiful. Just the night before I'd written a rough draft of one of the chapters of my new book, Hate Your Enemies / Save Your Friends. That's the demo title, until I can come up with something shorter. In it our protagonist, Akito, describes the first punk show he went to after moving to Tokyo. The similarities between that fictional venue and this actual place were amazing. The Cobalt was somewhat smaller than the place I'd written about, but besides that, spot on. Really dark, disorganized, posters for old shows covering the walls, run down and dirty and fucking awesome. However, not especially well attended. There was a band playing when I got there, a really good band, but the 30 or so people in attendance were all sitting around, watching. It was just like a bad night in Fredericton, but thousands of miles away.
The trouble, as I told Youthinasia's merch guy Chad later that night, were the tables and chairs. If you give people the option of sitting down, they will. Then the only way to get a pit going is to fill all the chairs, and hope that you've got enough overflow for a crowd to form near the stage. Chad told me that he'd been talking to the chick working the bar, and she said that The Cobalt was the original Vancouver hardcore bar (as their posters also stated), but that since they'd opened about 5 years ago, 5 or 6 other similar venues had opened up, splitting the demographic. I made a mental note to try to find these places, though I really liked the Cobalt. I figured I just needed to show up on a busier night. Bands were playing the next night, a Friday, but I was already booked to go hit on Daphne from the Basement Sweets, so maybe Saturday.
I missed the name of the 1st and 3rd bands, but the other two were called Beer For Breakfast and Youthinasia, and all 4 were really good. That's what I'm talking about, $5 for 4 bands that all kick ass. That's what going to see bands is all about. The other good news was the liquor. Remember that $8.25 I paid for a double rum and coke at Richards? None of that shit. At The Cobalt I got a whole picture of beer for $7.25. I don't even much like beer, but I was trying to be economical. Lars from the T.Dot would have been proud of me. That fucker drinks beer with his meals because he likes the taste. It may just be that I've still got my little kid sweet tooth, but I hate the taste of beer. I only drink it to get drunk. But get drunk I did. Drinking a whole pitcher by yourself, that's what I call a good fucking start to a night of drinking.
Unfortunately the pit never got any larger than 4 people, but I partook for a couple minutes. There was this extremely dedicated asian guy who told me I should help him out with some spontaneous punk dancing, so I did. The funniest bit was the first two guys who tried to start a pit. They were out there, thrashing around, smashing into each other, and this third guy showed up. He got over to them and fucking fell down. How the fuck did he fall? There were two fucking guys out there! It was ridiculous, but it cracked me up. Fucking spastic.
The bathroom was especially fucking excellent. The restaurant where I work is known for its fantastic bathrooms. It's got televisions in front of each urinal, and a leather couch in the bathroom. A leather couch in the bathroom. Who sits on a couch in a bathroom? That's where you go to take a piss, not to debate fucking Aristotle. The Cobalt was the diametric opposite of that poncy shit. The door to the bathroom had a spraypainting of a mohawked guy taking a piss on it, and inside was covered in graffitti tags, people's names everywhere. It was awesome. That's what a bathroom should look like.
My friend Mark has a theory about breaking the seal: You can drink piles, initally, but as soon as you take that first piss, you're done for. You're gonna have to piss every 15 minutes. And he's right, because I drank over half that pitcher without blinking, and then I had to piss like a maniac for the rest of the night. Mark has a hilarious webpage for his drinking team back in Fredericton, but I lost the address.
During one of my trips to the bathroom I met Newfie Mike. He introduced himself while pissing, and I told him it was my first time at The Cobalt and that I'd moved from New Brunswick. No shit, he said. I moved here from Newfoundland, 5 years ago. And then he pointed out his name on the wall, next to my head: Newfie Mike. So there's my contact. Next time I come here I can keep my eyes peeled for him, and say Hey! Mike, from Newfoundland! It's Keith, from New Brunswick! And even if he doesn't remember me he'll probably act like he does, and we're all good. I got the impression that he was a regular, because the 3rd band of the night invited him onstage to sing one of their songs. "Where's Newfie Mike? We need Newfie Mike on this one!" So I think Newfie Mike might be a good person to know. I even met his girlfriend, from Nova Scotia.
Newfie Mike mentioned to me in the bathroom something that Chad the merch guy and several others have all mentioned to me: That no one in Van seems to be some Vancouver. I've already met 4 people from Newfoundland -- Newfie Mike, 2 guys from work and some random chick I met on a bus -- and a couple from Nova Scotia. Several people from Ottawa, and the bartender at Pat's Pub was from Manitoba. No New Brunswickers yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Everybody moves to BC, and everyone from BC seems to move somewhere else.
The question is, by the end of the night, how did I have only $20 left? Let's investigate now, shall we, now?
$80 in pocket
-$2 bus fare
=$78
-$5 cover charge
=$73
-$7.25 pitcher of beer
=$65.75
-$2.50 mug of beer
=$63.25
-$30 Youthinasia hoodie (reduced from $35, a $5 savings!)
=$33.25
-$5 Youthinasia EP (reduced from $7, a $2 savings! Damn that smooth talking Chad!)
=$28.25
-$5 misc junk food on the way home
=$23.25
Yep, that does it. A twenty dollar bill and some change. It seemed so mysterious at the time, but there it all is. It's that hoodie that really killed me, but it looked really fucking cool, and I needed another long sleeved shirt. I was gonna go to Value Village and grab something for $5 tomorrow, but I had just drunk and entire pitcher of beer. I didn't even use a glass, I just drank it like it was some giant orgre glass. It was great.
I should also mention that the punk demographic in Vancouver seems to be about the same as in Fredericton, which is a little disappointing. Of the 30 or so people there, I was as punk or punker than half of them, and I'm not a punk. I've just got a Bad Religion sweatshirt and a willingness to get happily devil eyed and violent when drunk. But that was enough to put me firmly in the middle of the crowd.
Now that I've found The Cobalt, the search is basically over. I can look for other, similar venues, but this is the blueprint. This is exactly what I was looking for, this is where I wanna hang out, and this is where I'm gonna draw inspiration for my punk book. So I think that means that this livejournal is finished. If something especially notable happens I might update again, but I think I'll be directing my various adventures into the realm of fiction. So when the book is done, you can all buy it and read altered and made-more-exciting-for-fiction accounts of what happened to me. It's gonna be great. May Christ be with you. Thanks for reading.
I bought a calender at the dollar store a couple weeks ago with extra large boxes to write stuff in. It was actually 3 for a dollar, so I've got a couple more calenders that are just sitting around doing nothing. So for today, Thursday Agust, I mewan June 2004, I've got two things wirtten down. One is Banned in Canada w/ Second Stall at Pic's Pub on West Pender, up near Grandville. 9:30pm, $7 at the door. That was the plan, basically just because it said "punk" somewhere on their poster. The poster actually seemed a little lame -- it was this guy at work thinking "Work sucks, work sucks, work sucks... I just farted, and it smells like punk rock." Yeha, fucking fantastic. You're punk as fuck, buddy. I hoped they'd be awesome, but I had reason tp believe that theyd suck. Jesus, my spelling it going to shit. Anyway, I wrote the info down in the little notebook I always keep in my pocket. Which Daphne said was a perfectly okay thing to do, so I don't wanna hear any shit. That was the plan for Thursday.
But the other day I decided to get a better lay of the land by walking from the internet cage I always use -- internet cafe if I had spelled that right, but "internet cage" sounds cooler anyway -- to the Tinseltown cinemas. On the way I found a comic shop, which totally sucked shit, just like every other comic shop in Vnacouver so far, and I also found the Cobalt.
I was walking down a fairly dodgy part of Main street, neat the Skyway station. The same thing happens on Broadway; once you get near the Skyway it gets real scummy, because there's so much traffic that it seems to naturally atttract annoying scumbags. But this time it was a good kind of scum -- I saw a poster for this place called The Cobalt, which was having bands play the 3rd, 4th and 5th of June, for about $5 each night. The posters made it clear that these were punk or at least metal bands, especially with the "sport a mohawk and get in free" addendum. I don't know what the fuck "addendum" really means, I just see it once in awhile and extrapolate from those instances what it almost certainly implies. That's really the only difference between me, being smart, and most people, being stupid fucks: I pay attention to things like that, and then integrate them into my day to day life. I didn't pay any extra attention in school. In fact, by the time high school rolled around, I'm willing to bet that I payed less attention than any of the rest of you. I hated that shit, but I still learned stuff. Because I payed attention. Now, I'm gonna try to write a sentence really fast without fixing the spelling mistakes.
The thing I like about drinking is that when you drink for an extented perious of time you ge tht sense that it's okay to talk to poeple anbd do what you like without have ing to be wotried all the time. I was alrwayus eorries as a kid, alwayus unsure about wherer I was should be or wha tia was doing or of I fit in with a figfvig goiven social group. It fgpot ot be a real pain in the fucking ass after ahiwlme, so it's noce fo it fto be gone. I'm writing way too fast, this is roidicuouls. I'k surprise dit's even readiable. Thjat's enpougfh.
So anyway, after I jotted down some info from this Cobalt poster, I took a look around. It was on the 900 block of Main street. I was on the 900 block of Main Street. I looked around a little more. I was at the fucking Cobalt. The place was covered in graffitti and looked like hell. For all my mouth running about being smart and knowing words, I don't know how to spell "graffitti". Does it have one f? Two t's? Who knows? Some Meriam-Webster guy, but not me. So I'm putting two of each. If that's wrong, go suck a cock. You're gonna be dead soon, and nobody's gonna care that you were a good speller.
When I got home I added The Cobalt to my calender, but there were way too many bands on different nights for different amounts of money, so across the bottom of the 3rd, 4th and 5th I just wrote "COBALT MISC".
When Thursday rolled around I decided to check out my original lead, Pic's Pub, where Banned in Canada was playing. The Cobalt seemed to have a lot of shows, and seemed like the place I should logically be going to, so I of course did what I could to avoid that. Fucking stupid sober brains, they're no good for nothing. Except coherent, rational thought, I mean.
So I jumped on a bus and travelled down Hastings, past Main, until it turned to West Hastings (a.k.a.: "Not a total crack hole" Hastings). Then I got off and walked a street over to Pender and found this Pic's Pub place.
The washing machine had broken earlier in the week at my place, and I hadn't done laundry in awhile. I've only got 3 long sleeve shirts, and I've learned the hard way that it's a good idea to bring one with me when I go out. It might be warm at 9pm, and Vancouver may be the mythical, snowless land, but by the early hours of the morning it can get pretty fucking chilly. The only long sleeve I had left was my Bad Religion "No Religion Allowed" hoodie. It was a little too heavy for the weather, but I had to wear something. I bought it originally at the Regent Mall in Fredericton, because I liked the iconography -- On the front has one of those "No Smoking" signs, except instead of a cigarette it's got a christian cross in it. Like Ghostbusters, except for religion instead of ghosts. I loved it as soon as I saw it, even though I'm only a casual fan of Bad Religion, because I fucking hate organized religion. It's done more to fuck over the world than it ever has to help it, and as time moves on that ratio is just gonna get worse and worse. So when I lost my first one, I bought another one in Montreal.
I still for the life of me can't figure out why my mother, an otherwise sensible and awesome lady, made me go to goddamn church. We didn't even go to the fun, singing and clapping and speaking-in-tongues church, we went to the old, boring, bullshit church. My brother and I got in a fight in church once, and that still didn't do the trick. We still had to go the next week. Totally baffling. I've never gotten a straight answer out of her as to why, and I probably never will. I think it was just that her social circle was based around church, and it would have been awkward if her kids didn't go, so she made us. I'm pretty sure she doesn't believe in heaven. If she does, being dead is gonna be quite a big disappointment.
I remember one day in the late eighties, after we'd gotten our Sega Master System but before we got a Nintendo, when my dad was still really into video games. He'd just gotten a copy of Thunder Blade, a game we'd all been excited to play, and he had one of those fancy Master System joysticks attached to the table with two clamps, which was how he liked to play, to maximize the arcade-like experience. We got to see the game in action for about 30 seconds before we had to go to church, dad smiling and cooking bacon and listening to music and telling us to have a good time. That son of a bitch. Talk about your long goddamn mornings.
In the end I could never get past the backview, or "3-D" part of level 3. If you could, you were either the coolest kid of the eighties, or a total goddamn liar. That shit was impossible.
Where the fuck was I? Right, I was wearing my Bad Religion hoodie. I'd just gotten my hair buzzed off a couple days earlier, and I was wearing my ever-present Undertaker Red Devil/Big Evil hat. The beauty of that hat is that once I tore off the "WWE" label, nobody could tell it was a westling hat. Jeremy of the Argentos complimented me on it once. Although I later learned that his bandmate Roger is a wreslting fan, and has a Nintendo 64 just to play No Mercy. I gave him my ECW Cactus Jack DVD before I moved. I miss seeing those guys play. They were on my "Top 3 Favorite Bands in Fredericton" list, and were number 1 for theatrics. Roger always had a face covered in fake blood, and the first time I saw them play he had made a video of all the kill scenes from the Friday the 13th movies to play beforehand, and a smoke machine. That was some class shit. Those guys ruled. The point, though, is that maybe Jeremy recognized the hat as a wrestling hat. But I think he's mostly just obsessed with Satan.
My Top 3 Favorite Rocking Argentos Songs (as of June 2004):
3) Madness Room (from the 2003 unreleased punk demo)
2) Teenage Sex Murder (from same, during which, the first time I heard it, Jeremy poured fake blood on Diana the underage Starbucks girl's breasts. That was definitely memorable.)
1) Lucifer Rising (from the 2003 Brimstone Demos)
Lucifer Rising is one of the coolest songs I've ever heard. If, through some amazing course of events, the new punk book I'm writing ever gets made into a movie, that's the song I want the protagonist to hear at his first punk show in the big city. I tend to think a ways in the future. It helps me ignore the crappy aspects of the present.
The shaved head and devil hat by themselves don't stand out that much, but when you add the "Fuck Religion" shirt, things change. I notice a difference in the way people look at me, or avoid looking at me. To the punks it's no big deal, I'm just some guy wearing a bad religion shirt, but to the populace at large, I have become part of a demographic. I am not a punk. I like hanging out with punks and listening to punk bands, but I'm not a punk. I know it, and I don't try to pretend that I am. I see plenty of lameoid bullshit punks in day-to-day life, and I don't want to become one of them. But to the populace at large, the combination of hat, shirt and haircut equals punk. They assume that I'm a punk, and they treat me as such. I gotta admit that I like it. I like having people make a deliberate effort not to meet my eye. After all, I'm a crazy punk! I might go nuts and smash them in the face! Or something!
The truth I've learned in Fredericton, which has held up in Vancouver, is that most punks are either wimps or burnouts. There's really nothing to be afraid of. But the scene keeps it's taboo fuel by the fact that outsiders don't know that.
So I got to this Pic's Pub place, and there was a small line. I stood in it for about ten seconds, long enough for me to get a look inside, and I calculated that this place was fucking lame. Everyone I saw was just some preppy university kid, and that might have been alright if I'd been dressed normally. I might have gone in and mingled. But I was affiliated, I had enough punk gear on that I wouldn't have fit in there. The question on everyone's mind, including my own, would have been "Why am I here? Isn't there some place else I should be?" In Fredericton I had no choice: If the only show was at some bullshit schoolkid bar, then that's where I had to go. But this was Vancouver; surely there were alternatives. And I knew where the alternative was: The Cobalt.
So I kept walking, down to Main street, toward this graffitti covered nightmare building that frankly kinda worried me. I should also mention that finances had become an issue, just the day before. I got my first paycheck from my shitty job and it was less than I expected. If I wanted to pay my rent next month, my lifestyle was gonna have to change. I'd blown over a thousand dollars since I got to Van, and that was no longer gonna be possible. So I hadn't had anything to drink that night, which didn't make screwing up my courage to go to The Cobalt any easier. But the cover at The Cobalt was only $5 as opposed to Pic's $7, so I was saving money already.
I had $20 set aside for Pic's, for cover and a drink, and I altered that to a mere $10 for The Cobalt. Then I took a bobby pin and pinned my wallet to the inside of my pocket, so I couldn't get at the rest of my money and it wouldn't fall out during the night. In a pit, you never know.
But the guy at the door wanted ID, so I had to unpin my wallet. Whoops. I had $80 dollars in there, and now it was free. I could have left the money at home, but I might have needed it. I might have had to take a cab, in which case you can never have too much money in Van. But as soon as I unpinned that wallet I knew that money was gone.
But it was all worth it. Inside was a fucking dream. It was deliverance, it was beautiful. Just the night before I'd written a rough draft of one of the chapters of my new book, Hate Your Enemies / Save Your Friends. That's the demo title, until I can come up with something shorter. In it our protagonist, Akito, describes the first punk show he went to after moving to Tokyo. The similarities between that fictional venue and this actual place were amazing. The Cobalt was somewhat smaller than the place I'd written about, but besides that, spot on. Really dark, disorganized, posters for old shows covering the walls, run down and dirty and fucking awesome. However, not especially well attended. There was a band playing when I got there, a really good band, but the 30 or so people in attendance were all sitting around, watching. It was just like a bad night in Fredericton, but thousands of miles away.
The trouble, as I told Youthinasia's merch guy Chad later that night, were the tables and chairs. If you give people the option of sitting down, they will. Then the only way to get a pit going is to fill all the chairs, and hope that you've got enough overflow for a crowd to form near the stage. Chad told me that he'd been talking to the chick working the bar, and she said that The Cobalt was the original Vancouver hardcore bar (as their posters also stated), but that since they'd opened about 5 years ago, 5 or 6 other similar venues had opened up, splitting the demographic. I made a mental note to try to find these places, though I really liked the Cobalt. I figured I just needed to show up on a busier night. Bands were playing the next night, a Friday, but I was already booked to go hit on Daphne from the Basement Sweets, so maybe Saturday.
I missed the name of the 1st and 3rd bands, but the other two were called Beer For Breakfast and Youthinasia, and all 4 were really good. That's what I'm talking about, $5 for 4 bands that all kick ass. That's what going to see bands is all about. The other good news was the liquor. Remember that $8.25 I paid for a double rum and coke at Richards? None of that shit. At The Cobalt I got a whole picture of beer for $7.25. I don't even much like beer, but I was trying to be economical. Lars from the T.Dot would have been proud of me. That fucker drinks beer with his meals because he likes the taste. It may just be that I've still got my little kid sweet tooth, but I hate the taste of beer. I only drink it to get drunk. But get drunk I did. Drinking a whole pitcher by yourself, that's what I call a good fucking start to a night of drinking.
Unfortunately the pit never got any larger than 4 people, but I partook for a couple minutes. There was this extremely dedicated asian guy who told me I should help him out with some spontaneous punk dancing, so I did. The funniest bit was the first two guys who tried to start a pit. They were out there, thrashing around, smashing into each other, and this third guy showed up. He got over to them and fucking fell down. How the fuck did he fall? There were two fucking guys out there! It was ridiculous, but it cracked me up. Fucking spastic.
The bathroom was especially fucking excellent. The restaurant where I work is known for its fantastic bathrooms. It's got televisions in front of each urinal, and a leather couch in the bathroom. A leather couch in the bathroom. Who sits on a couch in a bathroom? That's where you go to take a piss, not to debate fucking Aristotle. The Cobalt was the diametric opposite of that poncy shit. The door to the bathroom had a spraypainting of a mohawked guy taking a piss on it, and inside was covered in graffitti tags, people's names everywhere. It was awesome. That's what a bathroom should look like.
My friend Mark has a theory about breaking the seal: You can drink piles, initally, but as soon as you take that first piss, you're done for. You're gonna have to piss every 15 minutes. And he's right, because I drank over half that pitcher without blinking, and then I had to piss like a maniac for the rest of the night. Mark has a hilarious webpage for his drinking team back in Fredericton, but I lost the address.
During one of my trips to the bathroom I met Newfie Mike. He introduced himself while pissing, and I told him it was my first time at The Cobalt and that I'd moved from New Brunswick. No shit, he said. I moved here from Newfoundland, 5 years ago. And then he pointed out his name on the wall, next to my head: Newfie Mike. So there's my contact. Next time I come here I can keep my eyes peeled for him, and say Hey! Mike, from Newfoundland! It's Keith, from New Brunswick! And even if he doesn't remember me he'll probably act like he does, and we're all good. I got the impression that he was a regular, because the 3rd band of the night invited him onstage to sing one of their songs. "Where's Newfie Mike? We need Newfie Mike on this one!" So I think Newfie Mike might be a good person to know. I even met his girlfriend, from Nova Scotia.
Newfie Mike mentioned to me in the bathroom something that Chad the merch guy and several others have all mentioned to me: That no one in Van seems to be some Vancouver. I've already met 4 people from Newfoundland -- Newfie Mike, 2 guys from work and some random chick I met on a bus -- and a couple from Nova Scotia. Several people from Ottawa, and the bartender at Pat's Pub was from Manitoba. No New Brunswickers yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Everybody moves to BC, and everyone from BC seems to move somewhere else.
The question is, by the end of the night, how did I have only $20 left? Let's investigate now, shall we, now?
$80 in pocket
-$2 bus fare
=$78
-$5 cover charge
=$73
-$7.25 pitcher of beer
=$65.75
-$2.50 mug of beer
=$63.25
-$30 Youthinasia hoodie (reduced from $35, a $5 savings!)
=$33.25
-$5 Youthinasia EP (reduced from $7, a $2 savings! Damn that smooth talking Chad!)
=$28.25
-$5 misc junk food on the way home
=$23.25
Yep, that does it. A twenty dollar bill and some change. It seemed so mysterious at the time, but there it all is. It's that hoodie that really killed me, but it looked really fucking cool, and I needed another long sleeved shirt. I was gonna go to Value Village and grab something for $5 tomorrow, but I had just drunk and entire pitcher of beer. I didn't even use a glass, I just drank it like it was some giant orgre glass. It was great.
I should also mention that the punk demographic in Vancouver seems to be about the same as in Fredericton, which is a little disappointing. Of the 30 or so people there, I was as punk or punker than half of them, and I'm not a punk. I've just got a Bad Religion sweatshirt and a willingness to get happily devil eyed and violent when drunk. But that was enough to put me firmly in the middle of the crowd.
Now that I've found The Cobalt, the search is basically over. I can look for other, similar venues, but this is the blueprint. This is exactly what I was looking for, this is where I wanna hang out, and this is where I'm gonna draw inspiration for my punk book. So I think that means that this livejournal is finished. If something especially notable happens I might update again, but I think I'll be directing my various adventures into the realm of fiction. So when the book is done, you can all buy it and read altered and made-more-exciting-for-fiction accounts of what happened to me. It's gonna be great. May Christ be with you. Thanks for reading.