by Bif Naked
I was tired of the stress and what I believed to be the oppression of my songwriting. I have always been sensitive, maybe even a touch dramatic, with my lyrics. I loved writing; it was my escape, and my very personal, intense, and melodramatic poetry is what I used for lyrics—or desperately wanted to if only the guys in the band would let me. But now I had finally realized that it was just not going to work for them or for me. My girl-slanted lyrics were just too personal, emotional, or feminine for the testosterone-driven band. I could stand up there on stage night after night and more than hold my own with any band, in front of pretty much any audience, yet the limitations on the songwriting I couldn’t get past. It was my biggest battle with being in the band. I fiercely held the lyrics close to my heart, and I felt that the guys in the band always sided with Brett, whom I resented for our failed marriage. In fact, I also resented anyone who had one ounce of sympathy for him: they instantly went on my bad list, not to be spoken to. I was incredibly long on memory and short on tolerance and forgiveness.
The tour had gone well. We were gaining an audience and selling merchandise, like cassette tape demos with handwritten contact information on the back and T-shirts printed by hand in the guitar player’s garage, as well as doing press. Great shows, great turnouts, great fans. But I was losing my inspiration both for my writing and for my performance on stage.
During club shows there was no security, and stage divers would continually try to grab a feel of my breasts. This was getting tired, and I had begun punching these guys before they could get back in the pit at the foot of the stage. I’d wrap my microphone cord around my knuckles and whap these assholes on the nose. I’d kick them in the balls like I used to kick the Kentucky bigots. These idiots were embarrassing me with their misogyny and the sheer stupidity of it all.
It was the height of shaming me for my gender and I resented it. I had always worked so hard at not being a girl on stage—I was such a deliberate tomboy. Their behaviour was draining and I was weary of it. The only fun for me was performing the Screeching Weasel covers we peppered the set with.
Although I had no intention of leaving Gorilla Gorilla, I was looking for something more that would stimulate me. Chrome Dog’s advertisement was for a male vocalist. I was a female front man, and I was pretty sure I was setting myself up for something that would go nowhere, but I had nothing to lose so I called anyway. It was James who answered the phone.
After a brief conversation we agreed that I should go to a Chrome Dog rehearsal and jam with the band. The minute I got off the phone, I felt anxious and self-conscious about trying out for a new band—I so badly wanted to simply do a good job, to be approved of, to be validated. This was the start of my secret anxiety. For one thing, I am not a jam type of person, on any level. I can excel at improvisation on the stage, absolutely. But unstructured, undefined, in-the-moment jamming with a group of strangers who most likely had never jammed with a girl before was stressful for me. It still is. I’m much too neurotic and self-conscious.
The introductory Chrome Dog jam was my secret. I didn’t tell anyone lest the Gorillas find out that I intended to cheat on them.
Chrome Dog had hung velvet paintings and posters of naked girls and porn stars all over the rehearsal room. At the back of the room, on stools, sat three menacing, growling alpha girlfriends, the loyal audience, and they gave me the evil eye the minute I walked in.
Any girl in her right mind should have taken it all as a big, fat red flag, but I simply overcompensated and complimented each girl on her shoes or dress or earrings. “I like your boots! Are they ever cool!” I squeaked at one of the simmering hiss-makers. I felt as insignificant as one could and knew I was talking too fast. I tried to cave in my shoulders and hunch, lest I be thought to be sticking out my chest. I rubbed my lipstick off in between sips from the water bottle, lest I be accused of wearing too much makeup.
I had been dealing with insecure chicks like this since ballet class in grade one. People never outgrow insecurity. Despite the girls’ best death-stares and hexes, I got the gig. I became the new singer for Chrome Dog, replacing the male singer.
The next thing you know, Chrome Dog was opening for Bad Religion. I had been with Gorilla Gorilla when we opened for that band on its same tour some weeks before. Opening for them now with Chrome Dog, I believed, was fate.
That I was singing for both bands proved scandalous. The war was on between Gorilla Gorilla and Chrome Dog. I couldn’t see how this delicate situation could not work out. It was poised to be a brilliant juxtaposition for me creatively and emotionally. Chrome Dog’s successes were yet to unfold, but there was so much promise in every note, there was no need to hope: the writing was on the wall.
TWENTY
Heroin, My Heroine
PEOPLE GET CRUSHED IN LIFE. WE GET DEFEATED. I get defeated. It’s a part of being human.
My mending from the breakup of my marriage to Brett was helped along considerably by my new consoling boyfriend, nicknamed Captain. We had been friends first. He was a gentle person, and made me laugh constantly. He wore his cowboy boots and a dirty Cap’n Crunch T-shirt to bed every night, and we would fall asleep twisted together like a pretzel. “Aw, Biffy,” he would whisper, “I loves you so much, little lady,” and he’d snort like a pig into my cheek. I’d squeal on cue. Captain was my favourite person. He was just so much fun, and we had a lovely relationship.
Captain and I never fought, except about the drugs, mostly heroin, and usually when he was drunk at parties. I never understood why we couldn’t just all drink beer.
But Captain liked heroin, and some of his friends did too. I, on the other hand, did not want him to do heroin. It was as simple as that. I asked him again and again not to dabble in it with his friends. Eventually, Captain agreed to stop, but much to my disappointment, at a party a few weeks later, I caught him doing smack with his buddies. This was the last straw. I was furious. To my crazy way of thinking, there was only one thing to do: I demanded he include me if he was going to do heroin. Of course, Captain quite happily said “Sure!”
We immediately left the party, going straight back to my apartment to do heroin together. This was extremely romantic, I felt.
Since I had never given myself an injection before, I asked Captain to shoot me up. I considered this to be the ultimate commitment between us, and after everything I had just gone through, I was desperately missing commitment. Trusting someone else with your life, trusting your high boyfriend with your life—genius.
He sterilized the needle in a pot of boiling water on the stove while we shared a beer and talked, sitting in our underwear. The little yellow bird belonging to my roommate was out of her cage, as usual, and flew around and around the kitchen, chirping and crapping all over the place. Really, the whole thing stunk: the idea, the intention, and the bird crap.
We only ever used the same one dull, jagged needle. I don’t know why we bothered to boil it. Part of the thrill I got from sharing a needle and having my boyfriend shoot me full of drugs was the blind faith, the blind trust, I had in him. A commitment, as I said. I believe this was completely lost on Captain; he was just trying to be helpful. I don’t think it occurred to him that I had placed this responsibility on his shoulders; if it was he who shot me up with drugs, I didn’t have to take responsibility for the use or the outcome.
No one in the Gorilla Gorilla camp did smack, it just wasn’t cool. I hated pot, hated drugs. I didn’t get the rock ’n’ roll smackheads and band junkies. It was a different scene, a different crowd from mine. A few of the punks in some of the older bands did heroin, but not those in my generation too much. We were skate punks and listened to lots of reggae, ska, and California bands, and the vibe was positive and natural. We knew lots of skinheads and hardcore kids, but even they didn’t like junkies so much. That was until Mother Love Bone and the whole Seattle thing.
Suddenly the grunge people of the Pacific Northwest fell in love with smack, and in love with bands that did smack. It w
as glamourized. I loved holding my arm out and letting Captain, cross-eyed and drooling, inject me with our only needle, and then counting to twelve and feeling like I’m peeing and sleeping and batting my eyelashes all at the same time. That too was the romance of heroin for me.
I called my mother to announce what I had done. My poor mother.
“Hello, Mom?”
“Hi, Beth! How are you?”
“Mom, I did heroin. Shot it into my arm.” I had always told my mother every single detail of my life. She was my priest, and I confessed all.
I strained to hear her reaction, hear her horror. But there was only silence.
“Mom?”
She was calm and quiet, no longer surprised by my proclamations. She simply sighed. “Well,” she said, “get it out of your system, Beth, so you can get on with your life.”
I thought this was the most practical advice I had ever heard.
I knew a gifted photographer, a yogi, and the divinity in me saw the divinity in her, or maybe it was the other way around. She was magic. I first met her when Gorilla Gorilla was on tour with legendary punk band The Wongs and I was still married to Brett.
We had rolled into Toronto, booked to play a sold-out show at the Apocalypse Club. Mr. Chi Pig, the singer for The Wongs, was a star. Not only that, he was a hero of mine. It was a great shot for Gorilla Gorilla. We played a memorable show and gave everything to the moment and the performance. It was a triumph.
In the women’s washroom after the set, I waited in line with all the other punk chicks who had to use the stalls. This was common, since as an opening act we rarely got a dressing room, and if we did, there would most certainly be no toilet in it. You were lucky if you were able to use one of the toilet stalls, as they were usually plugged and icky, or occupied by people having sex or druggies shooting up. At the Apocalypse, I was waiting my turn along with everyone else.
That’s when a woman said to me, “Didja come?” She sneered, hand on hip, then started smiling like the Cheshire Cat.
“What?” I was startled. “How rude,” I thought. “What? Did I what?” I said.
“Did you come?” Her eyes went wide as she peered from behind the brim of a purple velvet hat. She demonstrably rubbed her nipple to make a point. “You looked like you came up there on stage, sweetheart! It was fabulous!” And then she cackled a laugh that sounded like my grandmother’s.
“Um, well, I didn’t.” I just shrugged. Her words were completely lost on me. I was too distracted by her confidence, her boldness. I looked at the dirty floor, trying to avoid further conversation. She was mind-blowing and I loved her instantly.
“Name’s Louisa,” she said. “It’s Spanish.” She cackled some more. “And today’s my birthday party.”
Later that night, during The Wongs’ set and the resulting pandemonium—the Toronto crowd eager to see Mr. Chi Pig as the front man in this new band instead of for their beloved SNFU—Louisa was front and centre, screaming obscenities and shouting gleefully at Chi. They exchanged some banter, and then he bent over to moon the audience. And she bit him, right on his ass. I was stunned, and now madly in love. Louisa was the most amazing woman I had ever met next to Lola. She was so bold, so brave, so cool, so sensual, and so very Spanish.
The next evening, my band was invited to Louisa’s apartment for birthday cake—she was turning twenty-four, I think. I hung on to Louisa’s every word the entire evening, and held my breath as she held court, sitting on the laps of men and women alike. She extended her celebratory birthday tongue-kissing with everyone. My mind was on fire; I felt as if my brain itself were the birthday cake, with all those burning candles. I had never met anyone who was like Lola doing dirty dances or “doubles” with the other strippers, or a threesome with another woman at a boyfriend’s prompting, coming the closest. And my experience with lesbians was limited to a girl from my grade-ten class, and a grade-eleven girl with a blonde moustache who French kissed me and then got mad when I kissed back out of courtesy because she said I kissed like I had been kissing boys. Which, of course, I had been. Who else would I have been kissing? But suddenly, here was Louisa, older and wiser than me, beautiful and worldly, exotic, cultured, and openly bisexual.
The Gorilla Gorilla tour wound its way back west. Louisa’s boyfriend, Rupert Dawg, rode with us, all the way back to Vancouver. Apparently, he was leaving Louisa. I wanted no part of it, but the rest of the band didn’t mind Rupert tagging along with us. Louisa followed her lover back to the West Coast, reuniting with Rupert for a brief time and then staying in Vancouver long after Rupert had returned to Toronto. It was meant to be. Artistically, Louisa was thriving. We became great friends, and we began to explore life together as budding artists.
Louisa was a promising photographer and started to apprentice with Alex Waterhouse-Heyward. This was a huge opportunity for her. Alex was her mentor and teacher, and he said she was gifted. Having modelled for a few workshops in Winnipeg for a Hungarian painter who lived next door to the Gorilla Gorilla jam space, I considered myself an experienced art model. Naturally, I volunteered often to be Louisa’s subject. We did many long, erotic photo shoots, and Louisa and I became physically and mentally closer because of them. Things were magnificent. And Louisa’s art was ravishing, like her personality, and her signature red lipstick. She was the epitome of timeless beauty.
For a time we were inseparable and could often be found drinking Iron Butterflies—we had heard it had been Marilyn Monroe’s favourite drink—long into the night, seated at tall barstools in hotel lounges, in the company of an adoring audience of pretentious art-scene adults.
Louisa’s apartment overlooked the North Shore mountains and on one occasion we had our boyfriends join us there quite late at night. For the second time that night, I fell out of my chair and hit the floor. The chair’s steel legs and the kitchen floor felt so cold. With my cheek pressed into the floor, I watched the others finish my share of the drugs while talking among themselves. I couldn’t believe they were doing my drugs, and I couldn’t ask them to stop—I was paralyzed, overdosed. I couldn’t speak or breathe or blink, or, eventually, care. I just got sleepier and sleepier, eventually falling asleep. Later, I realized I had been close to dying on that floor. They had all passed out that night, Louisa and her new boyfriend snuggled in the bed, Captain asleep on the kitchen chair beside me. I should have croaked, so I was greatly relieved that I hadn’t. Afterward, I felt tired but utterly euphoric that I had defied death. I took it as a sign, and it motivated me to change the course my life was on. I simply knew that doing drugs was not my destiny.
I moved away from my beloved Captain, and Louisa moved in with her boyfriend, and we both stopped drugs. We laughed a lot about our tomfoolery, and if we ever considered flirting with the opiate again, well, we never spoke about it. As time went on, we lived our lives as if we had never done them at all.
TWENTY-ONE
Day Jobs
BACK IN THE NINETIES, WE DIDN’T GET A PER DIEM for daily expenses on tour like bands do nowadays. Instead, we withdrew cash out of the bank before leaving home. I had no credit or debit card to bring with me for added comfort, just the hundred bucks or so that I hid in my duffel bag and which usually would have to last me three weeks.
All the band members had day jobs. We were starving artists, after all. At one point, I was a dishwasher, choosing to apply for that position despite the restaurant manager asking me to apply as a server. “Honey, you’ll make more money waiting on tables,” he said. He didn’t even look at my completed application.
“Beth. My name is Beth, and I want to apply for the position of dishwasher, it’s listed here,” I said, showing him the ad circled in my newspaper.
“Yes, I know, but we are hiring for all positions. Waitresses too.”
I smiled. “Thank you, but I would like to apply for the dishwasher position.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
I started the next day, and I was ecstatic. I wore a hairnet and
rolled my smokes up in my short-sleeved white T-shirt under my apron and used the big sprayer and was left alone. There was no pressure. I didn’t want to have to act particularly respectably or feel stressed; I just wanted to make some money. This was before Gorilla Gorilla was to go on its first tour, and we all had to make a bit of money to sustain us while on the road. I thought dishwashing was the ideal job because I could have my shaved head, my tattoos, and my lip rings, and be content just doing some honest work.
The waitresses there were nothing like me. They were all very pretty, and very blonde. They would each ask me about two or three times a week if I spoke English. “Yeah, do you?” I’d ask them wide-eyed, spraying the greasy plates amid spaghetti-smelling steam. They would nervously giggle and say, “Sorry, but, well, you know, like, why would you be in the kitchen if you spoke English?” and they’d snap their chewing gum. Obviously, I had to be an immigrant, a special-needs employee, or a parolee. I’d fight to keep a straight face. Generally, I didn’t pay much attention to them. We were a different species. I couldn’t relate to them, and that suited me fine. What did I care? I just needed the money.
Within a couple of months, me and the rest of the band would give our notice and then get ready for touring. We were always in pretty bad financial shape by the time we returned from tour and would have to look for work again.
Later, after Gorilla Gorilla returned to Vancouver from a national tour with The Wongs, I applied for a job at the print shop of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. It produced the multiple listing books that realtors used to find properties newly on the market. It was busy and loud in the shop as the pressmen printed and cut pages, and the girls working there assembled them, all day long.
The first day on the job as a collator, I had a ring in my septum and a shaved head, save for my bright pinky-red braids. The boss, Bob Kuznarik, had hired me on the spot. Brett’s skater buddy Shakey Jake had told me about the job and had put in a good word for me—he worked the night shift there. Three other women worked there, and about a dozen men, all working on the presses.