by Bif Naked
Donna, in her forties, was completely deaf. She was the first one to say hello to me that day, and showed me how to sign “hi.” Emily was an older woman with dark hair and big eyes. The third was a beautiful young woman with long blonde hair, big blue eyes, and expensive jeans who refused to look at me. “You can’t work here,” she said as Mr. Kuznarik placed me at her worktable. I looked at her and she mumbled to the boss, “Dad, don’t put that in front of me.” She thought she was being quiet, but I heard her. She looked like a supermodel and had the whitest, most perfect smile I had ever seen.
I started assembling the pages together. Donna came over to help. She grabbed my hands and gently showed me a better way to do it. I thanked her, having learned the sign for “thank you” just moments before.
Donna and I often took the bus home together, as we were both headed down Broadway to East Van. I liked Donna a lot, and I really liked learning a new language. American Sign Language, or ASL for short, was a great way to communicate. It seemed easy enough, like anyone could learn it. Donna even taught ASL at a local community college one night a week, and brought me workbooks and flash cards.
Finally, after about two weeks, Kari, the boss’s beautiful daughter, spoke to me, having overheard me say to someone that I had a husband.
“You’re married? How old are you?” she asked, her blue eyes twinkling.
“Twenty, just turned,” I almost shouted, so thrilled was I that she had asked me a question. I was very curious about her and stared at her constantly. I wished I was more like her.
She studied me for a moment, her eyes focused on the ring hanging between my nostrils. “I’m twenty-one. I’m Kari,” she said. Then, pointing to the shop’s office, added, “And that’s my dad.”
I already knew that, but I said, “Cool. My dad’s a dentist.” And from that moment, we practically never stopped talking with each other—every weekday for five years, we worked at that same table, like Laverne and Shirley at their bottle-capping station at the Schlitz factory. We became fast friends.
One summer night—I had been at the print shop for about three years by now—Donna was hit by a car and killed. I felt devastated. I loved Donna and learned a lot from her. She was good person, an affectionate friend, and I missed her a great deal. Kari began to give me a ride home from work—in her brand-new Cabriolet convertible—in the hope that I wouldn’t feel sad about no longer taking the bus with Donna. She continued to give me a ride home after work for the duration of the time I worked there.
Her father was a wonderful person and showed it in many ways. He often secretly paid me for time I hadn’t worked. When I returned from tour, he would quietly and nonchalantly say, “You forgot something when you left,” gesturing toward an envelope on his desk. Inside, my full paycheque, as if I had been there the whole time.
When Bob Kuznarik died of a heart attack, the spirit and energy of the shop died also. I left shortly after. No boss was ever as kind to me as Bob had been, and I never took another day job after that. Nothing could ever be as good.
TWENTY-TWO
Bus Fever and the Famous Hollywood Director
MY MANAGER, PETER KARROLL, CALLED IT BUS FEVER. After approximately two to three weeks on a tour bus, a phenomenon previously nameless to musicians engulfs the band members. Their world turns completely upside down. The big picture becomes the little picture, and the little picture becomes—you guessed it—the big picture. What does that mean? A band goes on tour with the goal of making its mark, blowing away audiences, destroying headliner acts, and even becoming legends. When bus fever hits, this lofty goal becomes insignificant and things like a fellow musician drinking a beer that you stashed, or eating some of your cereal, or using more than their share of towels after a sweaty show, or playing their favourite obscure band on the bus’s sound system, or—the worst offence of all—farting in an enclosed area, such as the dressing room or on the tour bus, take on huge proportions, with the potential of causing catastrophic damage to a previously tight group. Badmouthing, throwing clothes and personal effects onto the street, trying to jump off the bus while it’s in motion, leaving the tour, quitting the band, or firing the offending musician—you name it, we’ve experienced it.
My goal in life was for no one to get mad. As long as the boys were happy, I was happy. I was a non-confrontationist or, as some see it, a doormat. I didn’t care. Despite ongoing discussions with my managers on how not to and when not to ass-kiss or overcompensate, the message never took hold with me. I never shook my complete and utter need to please; for me, self-sacrifice is easy. It isn’t about disassociating; it’s about keeping everyone happy.
Bus fever is deadly and could kill a man, a band, a driver, a crew. But it never affected me, and usually not other female band members either. With the bands with girls in them, either all-girl bands or bands with one or two females, one of two things generally happened: the girls got into fist fights with each other or the girls fucked their fellow band members. I frowned upon this former behaviour especially, deeming it the height of anti-feminism because the females were not being supportive of each other, but so was overcompensating. Of course, not all the females I met in bands back then behaved like this, but quite a few did. Maybe it was just the circles I ran in, as Gorilla Gorilla and later Chrome Dog often got thrown on the same bill as touring chick bands just because I’m female. I wasn’t impressed by this common tactic of promoters; I thought it lazy. These girl bands were often very drunk at shows—free alcohol was frequently available in the dressing rooms. Combine this with the typical camaraderie between musicians and you have a backstage dating pool. I did my best not to be grouped in with these band chicks, so I usually ditched the backstage action as quickly as possible after the show was done, either heading to the hotel or straight onto the tour bus.
And, of course, my band wasn’t immune to the dreaded bus fever once they were on a tour bus—or, in the case of Gorilla Gorilla, on a Ford Econoline with a blown engine. Brett later revealed that the blown engine was why he proposed to me in the first place. The tour offers were starting to come in, and we needed to replace the van’s engine. In Manitoba, it is not uncommon for a wedding invitation to have the words “presentation only” printed at the bottom. This means the couple prefers an envelope of cash to other gifts. At our wedding, with its punk rocker guests, the envelopes typically held only a ten- or twenty-dollar bill. But we did receive enough for Brett to not only contribute to the replacement van engine but also buy a new drum kit and a nice whale tattoo, which he had inked on his chest. This was apparently to commemorate the big day. I also got a wedding tattoo, on my right arm: the Chinese character for Dao or Tao, for “The Way” or “The Path.” I thought this was quite spectacular, and read several books about Taoism at my new husband’s suggestion. But no amount of Lao-tzu teachings or even the Hare Krishna mantras we were familiar with could help us when it came to touring.
Chrome Dog was enjoying a growing reputation up and down the west coast of both Canada and the United States. Many of our tours took us south, and we were gaining ground, opening for Bad Religion, Mudhoney, NoMeansNo, Screaming Trees, and even Sublime. We had a new drummer, Brian O’Brien. Like me, he was a pacifist. He was also an artist, painting whenever there was some downtime, just sitting in the van with his sketchbook and watercolours or coloured pencils. The poor guy, having to endure a van-full of guys acting like juveniles. But I loved the guys, and enjoyed playing in Chrome Dog immensely.
The Satyricon in Portland was a great joint, and all the bands wanted to play there. After a show in Vancouver, we’d leave on tour down the West Coast, playing the next night at the Showbox or the Crocodile in Seattle, then travel on to Portland. This three-day run rid us of our sea legs; we’d get our bearings and really start to jell together on stage.
James, the guitar player, and Rich, the bass player, were meticulous about arriving in the bigger markets well rehearsed and into our groove. We were trying our best to break into the
next level, and for them, it was all about the riffs and the solos. I didn’t care. Whatever made them happy made me happy. It was not quite the same the other way around. I had been told to write lyrics that were “more representative” of the band, not girl songs. This hurt my feelings, but I tried my best to be a team player and make them happy. I failed, of course; every song turned out to be about my personal sadness and heartbreak.
The Satyricon was in downtown Portland, in a bit of a rough neighbourhood. George the Greek was the infamous local promoter. The show on this particular night was not well promoted, but in fairness to George, we were not that well known. But great bands can play an intense and powerful show in front of ten people just as they can in front of a thousand people. So, determined to be discovered, the band played a great show for George and the nearly empty club.
Completely Grocery, a Portland band, was scheduled to come on after us. The guys in the band were good people, not like some of the cutthroat, over-competitive band members who would be looking to fight us; these guys were genuine and thoughtful. They felt so sorry for us after it became apparent that we were not getting paid anything beyond our hundred-dollar guarantee that they took up a collection at the end of the night, giving us an extra twenty-three dollars. We were thrilled. Much celebration ensued, and we were feeling pretty good when we left.
The entire bunch stood at the club door to give us a soldiers’ send-off, complete with clapping and waving of handkerchiefs. James was driving that night. He rammed the gear into reverse and drove the van backwards for a few feet, then rammed the gear back into drive and drove forward for a few feet. Then he did this again, back and forth and back and forth. The van filled with cackles, and the Completely Grocery guys were doubled over laughing and slapping their knees. Through the dirty van window I smiled at them, at James’s tomfoolery. Only, as it turned out, I wasn’t in on the joke. In fact, I was the butt of the joke, or more specifically, my Mario Lemieux doll was. I brought my Mario Lemieux doll on every tour, and it was my pillow. Lemieux had led the Penguins to not one but two Stanley Cups, and I was winning the hockey pool with him, much to the rest of the band’s dismay. I was a Mario fan, and we all called the doll my “boyfriend.” The guys, even Brian, trying to fit in, would grab him and pretend to hump him while I tried desperately to grab him back, squealing, “Don’t!”
That night, James and Rich had thrown the doll under the wheels of the van during load-out when I wasn’t looking. From the guys’ banter, I figured out why James was driving back and forth, and I started whining and trying to get out of the moving van, which only made the cackling worse. James continued his onslaught of terror on my prize doll, my Mario. Nearly in tears, I eventually was able to get out of the van and collect it, covered in dusty gravel, soot, dirt, and tread marks.
I was crushed about the state of my doll but relieved that the guys were having such a good time despite our slim earnings that night. The Satyricon was a legendary music room and it was somewhat of an honour to play there. We would actually go back again, and again and again.
We made the drive to San Francisco in record time. We had never been to California before, and now here we were in wonderful San Francisco. The sun was shining bright, the air was warm, and Anthrax was playing there—at a venue called Bottom of the Hill—the same week.
Gorilla Gorilla had never made it that far south—not as a band, anyway—though by this time, Randy, the Gorilla Gorilla guitar player, was managing Green Day; Kent, the bass player, had started working with NOFX; and Brett, my ex-husband, worked on the crews of both and also with the American band Pennywise. I was entering their turf, though I hadn’t kept in contact with them during those first tours with Chrome Dog. San Francisco was where Danielle Steel lived, that’s what I knew. Danielle Steel, Ansel Adams, Jerry Garcia, Metallica, the Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra.
Out of necessity, we slept in the van, parked on a side street, many times during that trip. San Fran’s weather can change drastically from one day to the next, and we sometimes slept with the engine running if it was cold outside, or with all the windows down if it was really hot, the sun heating up the inside of the van and baking us awake before we died like dogs left in a hot vehicle. We could sleep four in the van: Brian, then James, then Rich (all six feet five inches of him), and me, the smallest. I slept with my head nestled in Rich’s armpit. We were like best friends. Nothing sexual ever happened between us, and I was grateful for that. I loved him very much, and he was my advocate in the band most of the time. We were like George and Lennie from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men—an unlikely pair.
On one of our nights in San Francisco, we were in the van sleeping when a junkie broke in through one of the open front windows. He was halfway through, clutching our removable stereo, when Rich woke up. “Hey!” he yelled, sitting up. “What are you doing?” He grabbed the guy’s arm and punched him. The junkie wouldn’t let go of the stereo. Eventually, Rich broke his grip. The junkie dropped the stereo and took off.
By this time, we were all wide awake. The sun was just coming up. I think we had gone to sleep only a half an hour before. We laughed at the hockey-fight-worthy hammering Rich had given the dude. But really, I think we were just relieved the junkie didn’t pull a gun or knife on us. This was the real America, and we were going to take it all in stride, even if it killed us.
But that episode wasn’t nearly as traumatic as what happened when we arrived in the neighbourhood where the club was located and discovered that the promoter had made his own posters for the show, with only my picture on them. The rest of the band freaked out. They were furious with me. They ran up and down the sidewalk, ripping the posters off the telephone poles. I was embarrassed about being singled out on the posters, and about being blamed for the promoter’s actions.
The band was so pissed off, blaming me for the fact that the promoter we had yet to meet had made his own posters and really done up Ashbury Street with hundreds of them, they could have murdered the dude—and me. In truth, what the promoter had done was actually an incredible and rare thing: he had done his job and promoted the show. I’m guessing he chose the photo of me instead of the band photo in the hope that it would spark more curiosity than would a photo of just some Canadian band with a chick. Fair enough, but unfortunately, the guys did not see it this way. As the tour went on, it happened more and more, and it was embarrassing for them and for me. But not for our new manager, Peter. He had sent the promoters the two photos, one with the entire band and one with just me, knowing full well that the single shot would stand out and get used. Although Peter must have known that this was upsetting the guys, he continued to do it anyway.
On that tour, Chrome Dog played up and down the California coast, showcasing for A&R—artist and repertoire scouts from the record companies—including at Los Angeles venues. We played all the way down to the famous Casbah in San Diego. We never turned down a show, and even drove all night once to play a venue in Riverside, California, only to arrive and find that the club had burned down the night before. This was tragic for us, as no gig meant no gas money. Often we’d split a couple of burritos for our only meal of the day, paid for with the leftover cash from a show after the van’s gas tank was filled. That night we went hungry.
Somehow, the guys managed to meet girls in almost every town we went. We always hoped that Rich, single, gregarious, and charming, would hook up with a girl and that she’d let the entire band stay at her apartment. On one particular tour, we found ourselves in Hollywood, and in the unfortunate situation of having a few nights off between gigs—unfortunate since we had no place to stay and couldn’t afford a hotel room, and sleeping in the van had quickly become tedious. The upside was that Mudhoney and Poison Idea were playing at the Hollywood Bowl as part of a bigger show, and because James knew just every band on the scene, having toured with Beyond Possession, we managed to get ourselves backstage. Everyone who was anyone was there, including Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.
Rich
met a couple of young women there who worked for a publicity company, and we ended up staying with them in their West Hollywood apartment. They fed us and showed us around. Luckily, they had rich parents. These women were like princesses—they had cars, apartments, food, beer, and looks. The guys were falling all over themselves trying to impress them. All in all, it was a good situation for a touring band stuck in a big city with days off. We attended a benefit concert for a Save the Whales charity with them at the Key Club on Sunset Boulevard. A young woman named Beth Hart was performing, and Richard Moll, who played Bull in Night Court, was handshaking. We were terribly excited to be there.
The guys were, as usual, trying to meet girls. Typically, I’d follow them around until they told me to get lost. But not this time. No, this time they simply took off, leaving me there. I was in an unknown city, in an unknown part of town, and the trouble was, I had arrived by car with one of the girls we were staying with, the same girl who was now, I presumed, driving my band somewhere, maybe to hook them up with friends of hers. My band had ditched me—something that became a recurring practice as payback for the Bif posters in San Francisco and elsewhere—and I was in a bad situation.
We didn’t have cell phones back then in the early nineties, and I didn’t know the address of where we were staying, or even in which part of West Hollywood. I didn’t even know the girls’ last names. Trying not to panic, I went to stand at the bar, keeping an eye on the door in case they returned.
“What are you drinking?”
I turned around to see a smiling face. A man with brown eyes and a soft tan was leaning in to me.