Teenage Wasteland
1989, June 24
My friend Jeff B. and myself are underneath the Bathurst Street bridge at Fort Blvd trying to find a decent spot to take a piss. We are surprised to find hundreds of homeless people have already claimed the location as their own village. I continue to solidify my argument with Jeff.
Only an hour or so earlier I had convinced him that the rock band 'The Who' was for old people. He had to trust me on this one. I've been there and done that already. Yes... I agreed it would have been amazing to see Townshend perform the closing Woodstock solo in 69. However, that was twenty years previous, and it was a different world now. Somewhere in some shitty Toronto bar that night could be the next mega superstar band, and perhaps that would be the story I would write for my children in some dumb book years later. I saw the artist "...so and so..." at the very beginning of their career... Not the dying end... It took me a while but I had Jeff sold.
For some historical context on this strongly held belief of mine. At the time an almost unknown band called Nirvana was set to play Canada for the first time ever on July 20, 1989 in some shitty small Toronto club.
Earlier in the day while shopping at the Record Peddler I had grabbed us tickets for Verbal Assault; Uniform Choice and The Fearless Iranians From Hell. That show at the Siboney Club in Kensington Market, of course I knew would never be "...THE..." concert to end all shows. Still looking back at 'The Who's "...final..." concert in 1982, I knew I just couldn't relive that rock and roll bullshit all over again.
Yet... we were still heading in the direction of the CNE. Jeff's mother at the time worked at 'Peterborough This Week' and scored us some free tickets to see the show. Since it was still early in the evening before the club on Augusta would open we both decided that we would experience the atmosphere of the crowds and give away the tickets so they wouldn't go to waste.
"...Free tickets... Free Who tickets..." we yelled as we walked along Front Street near the Princess gates mingling through the crowd. Made up of mostly old rockers admiring each other's very, very, very faded concert T-shirts from a time long before I was born.
A few couples stopped to see if we had better seats than them. It took three or four groups of people before we found someone that had really crappy seats. They were a little apprehensive at first but they finally took our good tickets in trade for theirs.
It was getting dark... I didn't want to miss Fearless Iranians opening. I had picked up their 'Holy War' album the year previous. I got a total kick out of their S.O.D. - Stormtroopers Of Death type of offensive satire. Loved their song 'Iranian Hash' It was time to go and head on up to The Siboney Club.
Just as we were leaving and walking past the former Molson Brewery building at Lake Shore Boulevard and Fleet Street Jeff, myself and an unrelated stranger got jumped from behind by these two big ass dudes. It took a moment or two to figure out just what the fuck was going on. These huge football jock types were really rough and were using their best wrestling team moves to pin our arms behind our backs. Then it finally came to me...
Fucking undercover cops!!!
They pulled us up off the ground and tossed us into some bushes out front the Molson factory. They told us they had been watching us for the last hour and knew that we were selling drugs. One cop began searching through my bag of records that I had purchased earlier in the day. They told us to drop our pants down. First thing the unknown stranger does is take his penis out of his pants, starts waving it around in front of the face of the cop kneeling down searching my bag. He says to the cop... "...You want me naked so you can blow me like the queers you are..." Terrified, I look at one of the cops and say. "...Ya... [long pause], …we're not with him...". "...Pants off..." the cop repeats looking at me. I remember putting both my arms in the air and saying these exact words loud enough so that anyone walking past on the sidewalk near the brewery could hear me. "...If you want my clothes off, you're going to have to take them off yourself..."
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| M.E.A.T. - Issue #1 |
The two cops both ignored my comment as a crowd that heard my strange words began to gather. One of the cops pulled out a stack of free Toronto heavy metal magazines out of my bag called M.E.A.T. [Metal Entertainment Around Toronto]. Why do you have so many of the same magazines, did you steal them? "...They're free..." I continued. "...I'm taking them back to Peterborough to put in our local record store...". At the time the first issue of the legendary magazine had been released only a month earlier and I thought it was a really cool idea that I wanted to promote in our neck of the woods.
With my arms still in the air waiting for the officer to undress me, I must have given him way too much data for his pig mindset to comprehend. Just as the two cops turned their attention away from me to Jeff, a bunch of kids on skateboards and bicycles came up to the two cops in the bushes and started pointing out people in the crowd. "...Guy with yellow shirt and woman with Rolling Stones shirt, and that guy with AC/DC on the back of his jean jacket..." then they took off again. What the fuck... Using young kids as rats in the crowd. That was some next level crazy undercover shit that until that day I had no idea went on behind the scenes. We had been wrongly accused by a couple of thirteen years old's on bikes looking to get some hero cookies from the cops.
Turns out me and the guy waving his dick around were both free to go, except before they let us on our way they took all of our concert tickets and drew a slash / on them with a thick black marker. Perhaps to indicate something to security at the gate. Maybe for them to not let us in at all? Even wrecked the Verbal Assault / Uniform Choice tickets so that they were illegible. Both shows would be a wash out. Didn't matter anyways, since Jeff had just been arrested for having the tiniest piece of hash in his front pocket. Later he told me that he had forgotten that it was even there.
Afterwards... I was kind of in a daze trying to process the whole event as I walked north. Not really knowing what to do. Doing my best to lose the stranger dude who still wanted to talk to me about waving his member in front of the cops. I travelled back over the same Bathurst Street bridge wondering how many people realize that there is a very huge homeless encampment underneath. To this day I wonder if it's still there?
I was mad about being tackled to the ground for no reason. Just because of the accusations of a couple of children who they themselves were probably trying to work off their own bullshit charges.
Mad because the exact same thing had happened to me in June of the previous year when Toronto held the G7 summit. That weekend the city vice squads were tasked with "...cleaning up the city streets...". They basically do a coordinated crackdown on sex workers, the homeless, gays and lesbians, transgender people. Oh ya and freaky looking long haired metalheads getting off the bus to see some anarchist punk show on the same weekend. Again I got off very lucky but both the violations leave a very sore taste to this day.
At these globalist meetings, organizations like the RCMP and CSIS justify increased security measures by pushing a bunch of "unsubstantiated truth" through so-called "experts" in the corporate media. In doing so they pump up the fear among the public, as well as with the hotheads in the lower police ranks. I think that year it was the Chinese 'Red Army' and the 'Irish Republican Army' were going to attack the summit or some such bullshit. It's always the same script every time, often magically finding a car load of weapons in the days leading up to the summits. I can't believe after all these years we are still falling for the same fear equals tyranny routine.
Anyways, I digress back to Jeff and our adventure.
I had no tickets and no idea where the police would be taking him. I figured the best thing to do would be to take the bus back to Peterborough, and look for his parents phone number to tell them the story if he hadn't yet been in contact with them. So I headed up to the old Toronto Coach Terminal at 610 Bay Street to catch a ride home.
Who should I see sitting inside by the front entrance smiling from ear to ear. "...What they hell?..." Before I could ask him more or continue on.
Jeff couldn't wait to tell me how the adventure ended. "...I kicked that fucker right in the balls and then made a run for it..." We laughed all the way home just thinking about that one. I still smile about it to this day...
