B.B.S.

Before the summer ended there was a certain something I needed to acquire. After my good old buddy Pat brought me to his cousin Bernard's house, where I saw him using a modem hooked up to his Commodore 64, I had to get one. For the life of me I cannot remember how I finally got my hands on a modem, but I did. I do not think I bought it in a store, as I remember only playing $20-$30 for it. I do remember it was 300-600 baud (speed) and whoever sold it to me did so because they had just bought a newer, faster 1200 baud modem. Never the less I was stoked to get it and immediately went home and hooked it up. 

The modem plugged into the back of the 64 similar to a game cartridge. You had to run a phone cable from your wall jack into the in port and plug your telephone's cord into the out port. So what was so special about this modem? Well just the mere fact that it was the newest way to download video games via the BBS (Bulletin Board System) and here's how it worked. Sysops, or system operators, would create their own BBS or  "board" that was generally a reflection of their own personal interest. For example, one sysop who was a fan of The Beatles, had a board called "Octopuses Garden" the title of a Beatles song, and the sysop's alias was "Sgt.Pepper" another Beatles song. 

You would find BBS numbers on loading screens of games, so you would write them down on an ongoing list. When you were ready to rock you would dial a number, wait for the modem to answer on the other line, then flick the switch on your own modem to connect. You were now inside someone's "board" or computer, this was essentially the first p2p sharing technology long before the Internet would grace our lives. 

Once you were in there would be a title screen for the board, and some of the artwork people were doing with the c64 was just incredible. Once past the title screen you came to a menu which usually had 3 categories: the message board (for posting messages), the bulletin board (for posting user created artwork), & the game room, obviously for posting games. Every BBS lived by the same rules of conduct: you had to post in the message forums EVERY login before you could access the game room. When you were in the game room, there was a 5:1 download/upload ratio, meaning for every 5 downloads you took, you had to upload one. If you broke the rules you would be banned from the board, and possibly blacklisted from all the other boards. Needless to say everyone followed the rules without question. 

Due to the fact a BBS worked via phonelines, there could only be one visitor on a board at a time, so most the boards had a 60 minute time limit that you also had to abide by. If you didn't, chances were the sysop would disconnect your ass simply by picking his or her phone up. There were a variety of boards with various themes to suit anyone's interests. I ended up spending most of my time at a place called "The Graveyard" which was run by two brothers, SkaterPunk & Necromancer. They ended up giving me an assistant sysop position under the alias "Leatherface" and eventually hooked me up with software to create my own board "Texas Chainsaw Farmhouse" much to the dismay of my parents, who got tired quickly of the phone ringing all the time at all hours of the day and night. Eventually they got me my own phoneline and a phone that you could turn the ringer off. 

I lived on the boards to the point where I hardly ever went out, and if my friends wanted to hang out they had no other choice but to come hang out at "the farmhouse" I had made a lot of friends via the message forums and I got into cracking games. Cracking a game consisted of breaking into the code of the game where you could add in your own loading screen that promoted your BBS. I had more games than ever now and was constantly elevating my illustration skills to post on the boards for everyone to see. 

At the peak of my fun, somewhere in grade 9 or 10, my modem speed was deemed to slow for the BBS world, as everyone had upgraded to 1200-2400 baud. I could not find a new modem anywhere and they were quickly becoming obsolete, plus money was an issue. I was however getting into partying and having a social life, so I slowly faded away from the BBS world. Who would have ever dreamed of having something as powerful as the Internet years later? I was just thankful to be apart of the pre cursor to the World Wide Web...

Ching Park

When I wasn't stealing cassettes like LL Cool J and Public Enemy, and I wasn't being a mall rat, I'd usually be hanging out at Sanjai's watching Benny Hill, or we'd be at my place watching The Little Rascals, or one of our favorite movies like Revenge of the Nerds, Weird Science, Krush Groove, or Aliens. This seemed to be our morning ritual on the days I wasn't working. 

Other than that the only place you might have found us was Chinguacousy park. Ching Park was close to the City Centre and it was full of things to do. My neighbour of 10 years Joanne, worked at the snack bar, so she would hook us up with free munchies, popsicles, and tickets for complimentary rounds of mini golf. We could easily kill a few hours putting balls through the small, but enjoyable course. Ching park also had a nice barn where you could pet the animals, as well as a man made ski hill that was formed from a landfill of garbage. Every summer the park held the "Nitty Gritty" a kick ass fair with rides and all kinds of games where you could win cool stuff like mirrors with rock band logos on them. The park even had an outdoor band shelter, where I'd sometimes find myself standing on the stage fantasizing about performing music for a rabid, cheering audience. That dream would come true many years later.



Band shelter from behind & the pond

 In behind the band shelter was a dock and a small pond with paddle boats, that same pond is the first place my father ever took me fishing when I was five years old. We caught lots of sunfish and catfish. Who knew back then that I'd be tripping balls there years later. Above everything else at the park there was one thing we cherished the most...a large concrete structure for small children. It was a water slide that went down into a kiddie pool. You may be asking yourselves why teenage boys would cherish something for toddlers and small kids, and the answer is quite simple. Around noon time the city workers at the park wound drain the kiddie pool thus ending the days fun for the little ones. We would sit around on our skateboards waiting for the sun to dry up what we referred to as the "Ching bowl"

the greenhouse was a great area to skate.

On a hot summers day the bowl would dry up pretty quickly and we would commence the shredding. We'd have the ghetto blaster blaring metal as we all did our thing. There was always a picnic table near by that we would pull up to the edge of the bowl, giving us something inspiring to try and trick off of. Most people either went down the slide and tried to pull tricks and airs out of the bowl, or they rode the bowl from side to side like a half pipe. Asides from the bowl, the park had alot of other great areas to skate. There were no skateparks around back in those days and I'm thankful we were lucky enough to have Ching Park around in a time when skating in public places wasn't an issue or considered a crime. It's nice to see in this day & age Ching Park still caters to skaters, as they now have an actual skateboard park on site.

the infamous Ching Hill

You can call me Teef

I'd like to start today's blog post off with a sincere apology to all of my readers. I went five days without posting and I find this unacceptable. I've been a bit sidetracked with work, fatherhood, and my social life. From this point forward my goal is to post every day of the week with the exclusion of weekends. Let's see if I can make this goal happen, now let us continue on with the story...

We went looking for Sanjai but could not find him anywhere, needless to say I feared the worst. As the evening sun was setting I heard the phone ring, it was him on the other line when I answered. Sanj went onto tell me he had been caught red handed and busted. The police picked him up, brought him to the station, and booked him for theft under $5000.00. The part of the story that shocked me the most was the fact that his mother decided not to tell his father about it, as he was a very abusive man. This blew my mind considering my entire life growing up I had always begged my mother not to tell my dad whenever I got in trouble, but like the faithful wife she was, she could never keep a secret from him or lie to him. I was sad that my best friend got busted but at the same time I was thankful he didn't have to endure the verbal humiliation and physical ass whooping that his raging father was known for.

The summer of 87' had now incurred the first and last negative blow. I can't remember if Sanj learned his lesson or if he kept up with the thievery, but I was bringing my theft tactics to knew heights. It seemed I had the uncanny ability to steal anything at anytime and never get caught. Sometimes I'd steal things right in front of my friends without them even noticing, that's how good I was. My catch phrase was now a line I had modified from the RUN D.M.C. song "Hit it run" and it went a little something like this:

"How devastating can an mc be? 

My name is Theo, but you can call me Teef! Hit it Run!" 

Every time I teefed something unbeknownst to my friends in company, I would sing that line and reveal whatever I had stolen, which always got hilarious reactions from my friends. Most the stuff I stole was smut, books, magazines, art supplies, batteries, cassettes, and pranks from the "It store" such as fart bombs and whoopee cushions. Whatever I needed to amuse me essentially. I stole a lot of tapes from the various record stores in the mall, mainly because I browsed there a lot and all the clerks saw me as "that kid with no money who never buys anything but browses all the time" so they wouldn't even pay attention to me when I was in the store. In fact I had became such a mall rat that it got to the point where clerks in stores treated me like a ghost. They never so much as said hello or even looked at me, so I figured "Fuck it. Nobody's watching me"

I got so pro at stealing that my friends started paying me to steal things for them, which would be the way I made all my money the first and second year of highschool. I just didn't know it at the time...

Who needs wishes when you can steal things?

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...