Summer of 87'

I don't remember much about my grade 8 grad with the exception of lining up in front of parents in the gymnasium to receive our diplomas, and of course the grad dance afterwards which I don't remember being different than any other school dance. Mr.Q had given me a wake up call as well in regards to attending high school the next year, as I had barely passed grade 8 and there was a slight chance that I may have to attend North Peel, a trade school that fellow Bramptonians referred to as "the half knowledge college" None the less I had passed and the summer of 87, one of the most formidable summers of my life, was here. 

My father got me my second job ever, the first being a paperboy delivering "the penny saver" with my pal Duane, but now I had a gig my pops landed me at his place of employment, Bell Canada. The job was quite simple, I was to clean the parking lot every morning, which generally took one to two hours. 2 hours of work a day didn't seem like much, but I was getting paid $20 an hour while other kids were slaving at McDonalds for $4.00/hr and free Big Macs. I was quite frankly rolling in dough for a kid my age, and I spent most of my money on records, tapes, junk food, smut, & skateboards. Every day after work I'd head to the Hex Arcade in the Bramalea City Centre, where one quarter would keep me occupied for hours playing TWA Wrestling. Eventually my friends would meet me there once they were awake, then we would figure out what the day would hold in store for us. 

Most of the summer we would bike ride or skateboard as a means of transportation to our destinations. We hung out at the mall a lot, arcade, food court, record stores, even book stores, where we would sneak porn mags inside of rock magazines while we "browsed". The Beastie Boys "licensed to ill" record was the soundtrack to the summer, and it was apparent by looking at us, since we were emulating their look and style. There was one aspect of the look we didn't have though, so we decided it was time to solve that problem...we needed VW logos. Mike D of the Beasties was always rocking a fat gold chain with a Volkswagen emblem straight off the grill of any VW product. Sanjai and myself were the two biggest B-Boy fans amongst our friends, so we came up with a plan to obtain some VW logos for ourselves and our pals.

Our plan was pretty simple, we'd walk around parking lots and look for Volkswagen vehicles to steal emblems off of. Sanjai would take care of the removal aspect, since he was smaller and could sneak around easier without being seen. I'd be the lookout man and make sure nobody was taking notice of him. This arrangement worked out great and in no time I was rifling through my moms jewelry boxes looking for chains to borrow. Sanj got a bit carried away in the whole process and started stealing emblems off of other vehicles, to the point where he had multiples of almost every car emblem out there, his pockets constantly carrying every type of screwdriver imaginable. I remember hanging out somewhere on our bikes one day when a jaguar drove by, an emblem he had yet to conquer. The next thing I knew he was off in a flash, furiously peddling his bike down the street in pursuit of the car, in hopes of finding out where it's owner lived. Later that night he went back and got it. 

I also got into theft that summer, which looking back on doesn't make much sense considering the fact I was making decent money, although I'm sure I was spending it as fast as I was making it. Sanjai had in a sense became obsessive compulsive with his car emblem collecting. One day while having my usual undefeated morning run of the TWA Wrestling arcade machine, he had the jones to go jack some more car emblems. I told him I wasn't ready to give my game up yet. Nobody could defeat me at TWA so I'd spend the first few hours of everyday on one quarter playing kids, teenagers and adults, until I finally got bored and would usually let a small child defeat me. Sanjai was very eager and impatient that fateful morning, and he decided to venture out into the parking lot without me. He never came back...

The Main Event pt.2

    There was no way in hell i was losing my hair! I knew Bob had no chance of beating me, yet the thought of my locks being cut off filled me with feelings of anxiety and worry. I had to come up with a fool proof plan to assure my hair would remain unscathed. All my friends had their own ideas to prevent me from losing but I liked my idea the best so we rolled with it.

My plan was simple, I would only wrestle defensively and let Bob make the moves. I knew I could stimey and reverse anything he threw at me so I decided to just keep shutting him down, proving to him I was the superior wrestler. Then when there were mere minutes remaining in the time limit, my boys would pull a run in which would result in a no contest and we'd both keep our titles respectively. Nobody would lose their belt and nobody would lose their hair....or at least that's what the plan was. 

The day of the big match arrived and do did the end of grade 8. I excused myself from whatever class I had before lunch minutes prior to bell time so I could go suit up. My wrestler persona was "Killer Kevin Piper" an amalgamation of my two favorite singles wrestlers at the time, Rowdy Roddy Piper and Jason the Terrible (Karl Moffat) My gear consisted of my high top Adidas sneakers, some colorful "jam" shorts or skateboarding shorts with one of my mother's kilts over top, my "hot rod" shirt I bought at a WWF event that year at Maple Leaf Gardens, and the coup de gras..... A hard plastic street hockey goalie mask donated to me by my good friend Jay Poole.

I knew Bob would immediately try to remove my goalie mask, so being the master of head games I decided to start the match off with one offensive move. I still had whippersnappers left over from my Boston trip, so I used masking tape and attached a few to the mask. I then exited the side doors of the school and made my entrance onto the soccer field with my bag of tricks and radio blasting Black Sabbath's "Iron Man". Bob and I now stood face to face as the ref checked us over for illegal objects. As soon as the bell sounded I quickly head butted bob repeatedly causing the whippersnappers to explode on contact, which resulted in numerous small burns on his forehead. As expected Bob pulled the goalie mask off and tossed it aside. 

We locked up. Stalemate. We locked up again but this time Bob went for a quick arm bar, which I easily reversed and broke. Another lock up, Bob puts me in a hammerlock. I spin around behind him putting his arm in a hammerlock then I pushed him to the ground. He makes a shoot for my legs while he's down, but he can't get me to the ground. Back to his feet now, he rushed in for yet another lock up. This time he applied a side head lock, which I eanded up pulling out of, and again shoved him from behind forcing him to the ground once again. I could see the frustration starting to build inside of him. Bob couldn't keep one hold on me nor could he fathom why I wasn't attempting any moves of my own. Confused, he kept attempting moves and holds which I kept escaping or reversing, generally resulting in Bob on the ground.

On his feet again, he came in for another lockup. This time he quickly scooted in behind me and applied a full nelson. Bob was applying the pressure hard and asking the ref to check if I wanted to submit. Obviously not. The move was synched in deep. Generally I could escape this move with ease but I had to give him credit, he was locked in for dear life. I threw my head back attempting to smash my skull into his face but he had his head down, our skulls colided and dizzied us both. I stomped on his foot a few times so he readjusted his legs so I couldn't stomp any more. I threw a few kicks back at his shin and groin, which connected but he didn't brake the hold, I made comments about how he must have no balls seeing as the groin kicks didn't affect him. I put my arms straight up and attempted to slide down, a textbook escape from the nelson, but Bob knew of this trick and he lowered his body with mine. I was now sitting on the ground still in the hold with Bob behind me on one knee and one foot. 

I was starting to run out of gas by this point so I was actually happy to be on my ass and getting some rest. For the next 20 minutes or so Bob kept asking the ref to check if I was ready to give up. Hell no. I told Bob he may as well break the hold and try something new, as there was no way he was going to submit me. He refused and held onto the belief that this would be his finisher. We sat on the ground for what seemed like an eternity until the time keeper announced there was only 5 minutes left in the time limit. This was the cue to signal the final part of the plan.

My buddy Chris ran in and drop kicked Bob square in the side of the head, which broke the hold and caused the ref to end the match due to interference. Technically I had lost by disqualification but the last laugh would be all mine. Before Bob could collect his thoughts another wrestler ran in and threw a bag of the mysterious "white powder" in Bob's face. It was actually a bag of flower from my mother's pantry. Now blinded and dazed, we all started laying the boots to Bob. Someone put him in a Boston crab and another kid applied a camel clutch. The combination of the two submission moves simultaneously caused Bob's body to resemble the letter U. 

Now folded in half and screaming in pain, it was time to end this once and for all. I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out the scissors. Bob had a haircut similar to Tony Hawk at the time, a skater cut, short with a side part and long bangs. I frantically started snipping away at his bangs as well as the hair on top of his head, making sporadic cuts which resulted in him looking like he had a fight with a lawn mower. The bell sounded to end lunch, so we all ran off laughing and yelling victoriously. Bob was so humiliated that he got up and walked home, instead of returning to class for the second half of the day. With my hair still in tact and title around my waist, I declared the BWA was officially dead. I shouted out "long live the BWF" repeatedly and my chant was joined by the entire roster. We all cheered as we marched back into the school. No one ever heard from or saw Bob again until the first day of grade 9, where he acted like he had never known or met any of us before...WIN!!!

The Main Event pt.1

    Grade 8 was winding down to a close, all in all it was a fun, mischievous, music filled year. Towards the end of the year this kid named Bob started wrestling with us in the BWF. None of us liked him so we came up with a scheme to rid him from our fed. 

One of our buddies agreed to team up with him and we started having tag team matches, all of which saw Bob as the legal man being double teamed for the entire match without ever tagging in his partner. We ran this angle for about a week and it finally culminated in Bob's tag team partner going berserk due to the fact his partner kept loosing their matches. In a fit of rage he joined the opposing team, which consisted of me and my partner, in stomping Bob to a pulp and torturing him with every submission move under the sun. Bob realized this was for real and got the fuck out if dodge before he was seriously injured. 

Over the next week or two Bob completely ignored us, until one day in class he came up to us claiming he had started his own fed, the BWA (Brampton Wrestling Association) which he boasted was a superior product in comparison to our BWF. We quickly grilled Bob about who he had on his roster to which he retorted "Bob the barber beefcake, the macho man bob savage" and other wrestler names with "Bob" worked into them in an un clever manner, his roster was nothing more than him as multiple characters....or personalities. 

My friends and I were in hysterics as we made fun of Bob and his imaginary wrestling federation, to the point where he snapped and actually manned up for once in his life, issuing a challenge against your humble narrator. Bob demanded a title va title match. My BWF title belt against his BWA title belt, which we were sure was also imaginary. The bout would have a one hour time limit, and would take place on lunch hour, during the final day of the grade 8 semester. I quickly agreed to Bob's list of demands with a cocky laugh, which he tried to cut short by adding one final stipulation...the loser would have his hair cut off by the winner...

My lucious locks that were at stake

Skate or Die!

    Another fundamental ingredient in the development of my childhood took place during grade eight, the re introduction of skateboarding. Back in the late 70's I had a small, plastic banana board. The wheels and trucks were like those off of roller skates. I played around with it a bit from age 5-10, mainly using it to coffin ride down my driveway or street. For all you un-hip non-skaters, a coffin ride us when you lay flat on your back on the board and coast down a hill. 

BMX biking became quite popular in the early 80's and I was apart of that trend, yet I never really felt much of an attachment to it, I was more into riding bikes for the transportation and freedom aspects of it. Now skateboarding was taking over the extreme scene and I was right on board, no pun intended. My mother brought me over to toys r us, or k mart, or sears, or some store along those lines, to get my first skate. It was only about $30-40 from what I remember and was made by DSC, the Dominion Skate Company, who coincidentally had a skateboard factory downtown Brampton, where we would rummage through dumspters for scraps of griptape and defective products. DSC was one step up from no name, but was frowned upon by kids who were riding pro decks like Powell, Vision, & Santa Cruz. My deck was emblazoned with a dark, masked, medieval knight mounted on his bad ass looking horse, both of them were entombed in flames. 

I had recently heard my first Metallica song "Four Horsemen" and I had started reading "Judge Dredd" comics, which contained the 4 horsemen (or judges) of the apocalypse, so I instantly connected the character on my deck to "Fire" one of the four horsemen. Being a huge wrestling fan there was also a connection there as well, since Ric Flair had started a recent faction known as none other than....The Four Horsemen!

I immediately felt connected to skateboarding. I didn't care that I had a budget board, I was just happy to have one and to be able to skate with all my friends. My buddy Duane had screwed a few screws into the tail of his board, which created dazzling sparks whenever he leaned back on the board causing his tail to touch the ground. We were constantly skating at the French school down the road from us. Nobody really knew any tricks so we just ripped around and did whatever felt right. Our streets we grew up on were all downhill, so most the time we would just bombs the streets and get ridiculous speed, similar to what all the long boarders are doing in the present day. 

Skating gave me such a feeling of freedom and personal expression. I loved nothing more than cruising the streets, crouching and swaying like a surfer would, with my glorious black mullet blowing in the wind. My father had forced me into organized sports my whole life, and to be honest I really had no interest in them, I just wanted to make my dad pleased and have him proud of me.

Now I had discovered a new sport that was unparalleled to any other sport. There was no coach, no team, no uniform, no time limits, and no rules. It was just you and your board and anything goes. You did what felt good, you did what you wanted to, you learned tricks at your own pace as opposed to drilling coaches pushing you to impossible limits. I had truly found what to me was the greatest sport in the world! Next to wrestling of course...

Toronto: take one

I forgot about this memory so we're backtracking a bit back to the winter season of 1986/1987 when I was in grade eight. One of my friends whom often hosted porn parties on lunch hour came up to me one day and asked me an intriguing question, he was curious to know if I would be interested in going downtown Toronto with him on the upcoming p.a.day that was approaching. Normally my parents would forbid me from venturing into the evils of the city but this proposition had an interesting catch to it. His mother worked downtown and she would be chaperoning us on this adventure. 

My folks were a bit skeptical but they agreed and I was extremely eager, they were even kind enough to give me $20 towards my shopping excursion. What they didn't know was my friends mom was actually working that day so we wouldn't necessarily have an adult supervising us. My mother dropped me off at my friends house the morning of, on her way to work. It was still pitch black outside. I got loaded in the car with my pal and his mother, then we drove to the train station downtown Brampton, where she parked her car and we boarded the go train. We arrived downtown and headed to her place of employment, which was a luxurious building overlooking Nathan Phillips Square. We ate some breakfast there, then went ice skating down at the square for awhile. After that we returned to the break room in her building for some hot chocolate to warm us up while we overlooked the newest wrestling magazines that i picked up along the way.

Once we were warm again and ate some lunch, we decided to venture up to Yonge street and begin exploring stores. I really don't have much recollection of where we went asides from the worlds biggest book store, some surplus shops, Warriors, which catered to all your martial art and ninja needs, and rock memorabilia stores which were otherwise known as "head shops" it was here that I felt I had truly found what I was looking for. The one head shop in particular was down a set of stairs that led into a large, grungy, unfinished L shape basement. The place had a few glass counters filled with pins, patches, and smoking accessories. There were a lot of band posters and flags that were only five dollars each. I quickly found my first ever Beastie Boys poster and was happier than a pig in shit! 

the beastie boys poster I bought.

The rest of the place was gridlock full of folding tables that were covered in bootleg t shirts of just about any and every band you could imagine. All the shirts were black with white print or vice versa, and all were also only five dollars! Once again I spotted the B Boys, this time on a shirt which I snatched up with lightening speed.

Proudly rocking my B-Boys shirt @ new years dinner.

I also found a shirt emblazoned with Freddy Kreugar from the film A Nightmare On Elm Street 2, which happened to be a new fave of mine, so naturally I grabbed that one too. I can't remember anything else I bought that day but the trip was a success and I was very happy with my purchases. I rocked those two shirts with pride religiously. My first trip to Toronto was a success and I was already eager for the next time I would get the pleasure of returning...



Freddy shirt very simular to the one I bought.



Q

Our teacher in grade 8 was known amongst the students simply as "Q" due to his last name that matched mine as far as epic last names go. Mr.Quattrochiocci, or Mr.Q for short, was my home room teacher in grade eight. I can't remember if he was a phys ed teacher first and foremost, if he wasn't he should have been considering the fact he stood anywhere from 6'2-6'4 and was in pretty good shape. Q was easily the biggest teacher in the school and could have been an athlete or a pro wrestler without question. I honestly can't remember what his teaching forte was, but being a home room teacher left him to cover all the basics for us like math and English. 

I believe he was Italian. He had thick black hair that slightly receded on either side of his widows peak, and a thick, bushy, black moustache that could put Super Mario's to shame! To be quite frank he looked like a seventies porn star, straight up! In the beginning of the year I found Q to be the most intimidating teacher I ever had, based on his constant scowling face and sheer size, but he didn't hold a candle to Mr.Hoyte as far as belittling students went. Q was actually pretty laid back and even comical at times, but me being a metal head b boy and him being an alpha male jock, obviously led to us bumping heads over the course of the school year. For a teacher he was actually quite the "ribber" (wrestling term for practical joker) and it was hard to pull a fast one on him, although I did manage to make him go red faced a couple times during the school year. All in all he was a bit of a hard ass who always got the last laugh. So I made it my mission to change that.

Closer to the end of the year we got an assignment in music class. We were to group up in 4's and perform a song. I quickly grabbed the reigns for my group and decided we were going to fix Q's wagon once and for all! My brilliant idea was to make a song about him called "Q" which would be a parody of the Beastie Boys song "Girls". Our group quickly figured out how to play the xylophone part of the song, now all we needed was a beat. Thankfully I had bought a drum machine from Toys R Us the previous year, so I programmed the entire song into it and our music was done.

Synsonic drum machine from "toys r us"

Now we just needed some lyrics. If my golden memory serves me correctly it was I that single handedly wrote the lyrics which went something like this:

Q! all we really hate is Q!

Cus in the morning it's Q!

And after recess it's Q!

I hate the way that he talks 

And he's such a big head jock

And you can never make him smile

He gives you homework in a pile

That's about all I remember but you get the idea. So I programmed the beat, one guy played the xylophone and we all decided to do the vocals. 2 of us did the rhymes simultaneously and one guy did the backups which consisted of "bomp bomps" Around this time I was working on some murals with a few other students in preparation for the grade 8 graduation. My music teacher was actually allowing me to cut class so I could help get these murals done on time. On the day of our performance I was painting as usual when my group came to inform me that it was our turn. I told the guys they would have to do it without me as these murals had to get finished. The guys were upset and insecure but I assured them they'd do great without me, as we had been practicing religiously and had our song down tight. I showed them how to run the drum machine then returned to the murals. 

Grad day. Mural of me @ bookfair by Sanjai. My initials "kt" on the other one.

My group returned awhile later and they were all ecstatic! Our song was the stand out performance and we had received the best mark in the class. I was extremely proud of my boys and myself for that matter, as I was the brainchild behind the whole project. Mr.Q was even brought into the music class to witness the performance which left him red faced with embarrassment and sporting a huge smile from ear to ear. Even though our song was a success, inside of me was a feeling of failure. What nobody ever knew until this present day was I actually suffered from stage fright when the moment of truth arrived. I had previously been very outgoing in music class and drama class, but for some unknown reason I was full of anxiety that day and could not bring myself to perform in front of the class. I felt terrible for abandoning my group yet I felt like a proud father at the same time since they had nailed it without me. I used the mural as an excuse to skip out on performing. The only saving grace was the fact we had the top mark in the class, which restored some of my dignity. I didn't know it at the time but this was just the beginning of an ongoing battle with stage fright that would haunt me for years to come...

Boston Trip

So the big trip for the grade eight students that year was to Boston Massachusetts. Surprisingly I was allowed to go on the trip considering I had more visits to the principals office that year than any other. If I remember correctly it was a close call though and somewhat of a last minute decision which resulted in me being grouped in a room with 5 other guys, 4 of which I couldn't fucking stand.

The bus trip was much more longer than the Quebec trip the previous year, and as always I had my trusted cassette Walkman with me. My Beasties/DMC tape was in effect as well as the newest "LL Cool J" release "B.A.D." otherwise known as "Bigger And Deffer". I'm almost certain the owner of the tape was an Asian kid named Thomas Chen. I mentioned him in anonymous fashion many posts back as the kid at the breakdancing display who had the most epic back spin ever. Thomas let me listen to the tape and that helped kill time, lost in my headphones visualizing the lyrical content in my ears.

B.A.D. cassette

When we finally arrived it must have been well into the evening but the sun was still up. Our hotel was almost a horseshoe shape which surrounded a pool, and every rooms balcony overlooked the pool. I dropped my bags in my room and stood on the balcony examining my female classmates in their bathing suits. We spent the rest of the night having wrestling matches in our hotel room, and yours truly, the biggest wrestling fan in the school, did not partake. Since I was grouped with guys I despised I did not want to interact with them whatsoever....except for the one guy I liked. I opted to listen to my Walkman. 

Our trip took us to all the Bean Town landmarks. The Boston Tea Party, The Green Monster, Cheers, and we also went whale watching as well as to some indoor marine park. The trip wasn't that enjoyable for me except when I was throwing lit firecrackers out or hote window at people, until one day when they took us to an outdoor market type place full of all kinds of different shops and vendors. I bought handcuffs and a butterfly knife. The next thing I knew a bunch of kids came running up to me excitedly, they were in such shock they couldn't even get their words out. They dragged me to the front entrance and pointed down the street where I saw none other than WWF giant Big John Studd leaving the market. My trip had meaning now.

Big John Studd

Unlike my Quebec trip I don't really need 3 blog posts. My memories are a bit vague of the Boston excursion as I didn't really have a great time there all in all. I was at the point in life where I had developed a sense of people, seeing them for what they are, or were, or weren't. At the time I was peering through the fake facades of all these popular kids and seeing the realness of the people they considered lower class or beneath them, like my computer buddies. I had attended their parties in the past and fulfilled them with amusement as "the crazy kid" but my days of being the court jester had come to an end.

Duane & I as  " the turbanators"