Current updates 12/07/2012

I just wanted to take a few minutes to apologize to my faithful readers for the lack of blog posts recently. I've had quite a few personal issues to deal with the past couple of weeks and I have just not had the time or proper mindset to write consistently. I always try to put my readers first but sometimes I have to compromise that while I deal with the curve balls that life pitches at me. Heavy Ghetto will return this Monday, December 10th with the continuation of my ongoing life story in regards to my involvement with music. Mondays blog will pick up where we left off in September of 1988.

Sincerely, Kabal

An Unfortunate Event

As great as the summer was there was one unfortunate event that took place I neglected to mention. At the start of the summer my mother approached me and mentioned we would be going to visit one of her two sisters that lived out in Cobourg for a few days. No big deal right? Wrong!

My hair had reached quite epic proportions as I had been growing it for almost two years straight now. My mom was not a fan of this and stated I needed a haircut before we went to visit our relatives. She wanted me to look somewhat respectable. I wasn't happy about this but agreed to it none the less. As per usual we went to my mom's best friend Lillian's place. I thought I was just in for a trim but I was sadly mistaken. The first thing Lillian did was chop the entire back of my mullet clean off! She proceeded to bean the rest of my head which resulted in me looking like I was back in grade school again. I was not happy about this at all to say the least. In fact I believe I held a grudge with my own mother for months afterwards.

Now with my hair short and all one length I decided upon a new mission. I was so into thrash and hardcore now that I didn't want to re grow my mullet, instead I decided to try and grow my hair all one length similar to my thrash heroes like Scott Ian and Tom Araya. Realistically I only had two months to grow my hair before it was time to return to school, which definitely wasn't enough time for my hair to reach the length I wanted it to.

By the time grade 10 started my hair was pretty shaggy but not very long. Sanjai loved it because he said I looked like Buddy Bradley, one of our favourite comic book characters from Fantagraphic titles The Bradley's & HATE comics. I was fine with this comparison since these were my favourite comics at the time. Although my hair wasn't super long my bangs practically covered half of my face. This seemed to annoy a lot of my teachers because they could never tell if I was paying attention in class or if I was even awake.

The big question on my mind now was just how long would it take me to grow my hair to the length I desired? And further more would there be any more unfortunate events that would get in the way of my mission?

Summer Closer

Summer passed by in a flash now that I was a working man, and it was time to finish it off in style. What better way than to goto a kick ass party! My friend Greg who lived on my street who was a few years older than me was throwing a big back to school party and there was no way I was going to miss it. I recall it was on a Saturday night because I didn't work that day. Jerry and I kicked the festivities off early, pre drinking at his place, which was pretty much across the street from Greg's place. Greg's parents were away somewhere that I can't remember and he had the house to himself. Coincidentally Jerry's folks were also away so we commenced with the drinking.

Before we left we decided to spy on one of our buddies through his basement window, while he received fellatio from a girl we hung out with who had a reputation for servicing her male friends. He ended up catching us and we had a big laugh then headed up to Greg's place.

When we got there it was still fairly early but the party was already rocking. As time passed by more and more people showed up. Before you knew it there was barely any standing room in the place. I don't remember how many beers I put down that night but I'm guessing Jerry and I split a 24 case like we usually did. At some point I ventured down to the basement and an extremely intoxicated girl started hitting on me. The next thing I knew we were making out intensely. This girl was a huge Beastie Boys fan and she was enamoured by my B-Boys shirt. She asked if she could wear it and I agreed under the stipulation that I got it back by the nights end. I can't remember if I had another shirt on underneath or if she gave me hers, but I definitely wasn't topless for the remainder of the night.

The girl disappeared after awhile so I walked around socializing with people. I started chatting up a fellow Greek guy who gave me my first drink if ouzo from a wine skin he was carrying. I found it amazing that it tasted like black liquorice. I made my way into the kitchen and there were a group of drunken, irate dudes carrying on. Ends up they were all bent out of shape because they had been making out with the same girl, now they were in an argument over who was going to be with her for the night. I joined in their convo and ends up they were talking about the same girl I had made out with previously. Now they were furious and out for revenge.

Awhile later I was feeling dizzy so I went out on the front porch for some fresh air and a cigarette. The next thing I knew all the irate drunk guys were carrying the make out queen and they tossed her out the front door. She slammed onto the concrete porch with a sickening thud. I tried to help her up but she just laid there lifeless in a drunken stupor. The next thing I knew she started vomiting all over herself and all over my Beastie Boys shirt! So much for that. I left her in her mess out front and headed back in. The rest of the night was a blur from that point forward, and I ended up passing out on Greg's living room floor in the middle of the night.

The next morning we continued drinking beer while Greg, who was an extremely talented guitar player, strummed along to the newest Iron Maiden album "7th son of a 7th son" It amazed me how Greg could pick up on a song he had never even heard before and play right along. Greg was a phenom no doubt. I ended up dragging my ass home sometime in the afternoon and flaked out for the rest of the day. I could only imagine what other wild parties awaited me in the new school year to come...

Cashing cheques & Captain Caveman

Although my new job at Via Post was somewhat boring to say the least, there was one very exciting aspect about it...getting paid every Friday. I was taking home about $250.00 a week after taxes, which was quite a lot of money for a 15 year old kid in 1988. The coffee truck driver used to give us credit all week long and then on Fridays he would cash our cheques for us and take his cut, this was pretty awesome to me seeing as I didn't even have to goto the bank. Every week I usually owed him about $40-$60 for all the food and cigarettes I consumed over the week. The rest of the money was mine to do what I pleased with it.

Being young and naive I typically spent the remainder of my cheque by the end of each weekend, and I really didn't have a lot to show for it. Most of my money was spent on alcohol, marijuana and fast food. The only material items I was continuously buying were band shirts, most of which I ordered out of heavy metal magazines, clothes, shoes, and skateboard decks. I also became an avid reader of Thrasher Magazine, and was ordering stuff from them quite often as well. All the shoes I bought at the time were $7.00 sonics, converse rip offs that you could find at BiWay (miss that place dearly) I'd adorn mine with killer artwork, always using a circular symbol on the heels such as a D.R.I. logo for example. After awhile people started to really take notice, to the point where they were paying me to design custom shoes for them.

These are a few of my favorite things

Skateboard decks were probably the one thing I spent the majority of my money on now however, as I was practically buying a new deck every week! I wasn't even getting to skateboard as much either as I was always working or was up at the trailer. The odd day we would skate however instead of playing Nintendo, usually at the French school down at the bottom of our street, or if I was up early enough I'd venture over to Ching Park for a late morning shred session. I ended up meeting quite a lot of different skaters at the Ching bowl and people were always trading or selling boards there, so I'd bring my old decks with me and open up for business.

I remember showing up there one day and there were some older thrashers ripping up the bowl, there was one guy in particular who definitely stood out from the bunch. This guy was barely taller than 5 feet and had red hair that was all one length, that stopped somewhere between his waist and his knees. On his board there was a small SLAYER logo in white on top of the grip tape and I was instantly curious as to how that was possible. The dude resembled Cousin It from The Addams Family, or one of my favourite old cartoon characters Captain Caveman, he had by far the longest hair I'd ever seen! I later learned he was actually the older brother of one guitarist from the Epileptic Brain Surgeons (Paul Donohoe) and apparently he had his own band as well called "Distortion" if I recall correctly. His name was Steve Donohoe.

Little did I know on that day way back in 1988 was the fact that this guy was going to be an important part of my life and my musical ventures in the years to come...And how did he do that grip tape job???

Trailer Park Boys

Typically on Friday afternoons we would skip out on our regular Nintendo playing so we could get Dennis' car packed up with all our gear for our weekend excursion to their Uncle's trailer. Mainly clothes, sleeping bags, food and beer, that way when Dennis came to pick us up after work we were ready to roll.

The trailer was up in a small northern town named Midland, about an hour or two north of Toronto. Smith's Trailer Park was the name of our destination. Jerry's uncle actually had two trailers side by side so us boys actually got our own trailer to stay in for the weekend. All we really did up there was drink, smoke, swim, and try to meet girls, which was almost effortless seeing as we were the "fresh meat" of the park. Plus being city boys with some swagger and attitude and unique looks only helped us out in our quest for the ladies. We would usually take a drive on Saturday or Sunday afternoon out to Penatanguishine, to visit Jerry and Dennis' cousin "Kevin" who was a patient in the mental health facility. That was always interesting to say the least.

Jerry and I were only 15 but it wasn't uncommon for each of us to put back 12-24 beers a day every weekend we were there. The park also had a small arcade with vending machines so we hung out there quite a bit during the days. Plus it was always a good place to meet girls. Eventually I became romantically involved with Jerry's cousin, who's father owned the very trailer I was using to seduce her in every weekend. Looking back on this it seems like I was up to some risky business, but back then I was blind to that fact.

One day we were bored so we decided to venture into town and see if we could find anything interesting. We had heard murmurings of a shopping mall in town so we opted to see if we could locate it, which we did with ease since the town wasn't much of a town at all, it was more so just a small strip if road with a few businesses occupying it. This was the smallest mall I had ever been inside of in my life. It literally took 5 minutes to walk from one end of it to the other. There were really no stores of interest there whatsoever, until we came across a small booth in the far end of the mall.

This booth actually had some cool pins and patches of bands, including some thrash and hardcore bands much to my surprise. They also had the old typical iron on transfers for t-shirts like most t-shirt booths in malls did. As I flipped through the pages of cheesy designs and bad quotes my eyes were caught by a very familiar image....Anthrax's "Spreading The Disease" album cover. Needless to say within minutes I was the proud owner of a new kick ass shirt!

We had a lot of good times up there that summer and it was really our only escape from the working life each weekend for 3 months straight. By the end of the summer I had broken up with Jerry's cousin so things became a bit awkward when we were up there, but regardless it was an important place for me and another factor in defining the man I was growing up to be...

Penatang Mental Health Hospital

Via Post

Summer was in full motion and I was very curious to see what it held in store for my friends and I. In the beginning it was a lot of skateboarding at Ching park during the day and a lot of hanging out at 7-11 during the night trying to find parties to crash. That all came to a halt quickly when I landed my first full time job.

To be quite honest I don't even remember how I got this particular job. I have no recollection of ever applying for it or being interviewed for the job, but I had a job none the less. Jerry also got a job at the same place the same time I did so we would be working together on a daily basis now. Our shift was from 3pm until 11:30....or perhaps midnight I can't remember. We were getting paid $6.25 an hour which was roughly $2.25 more than most kids our age were making at their minimum wage jobs.

The place was called Via Post and we worked on an assembly line bundling flyers, the kind of flyers you would typically find inside your towns local news paper. The job was fairly boring and repetitive but having Jerry at my side kept things interesting since I had a friend to talk to. The place was fairly fun to work at despite the boringness of the job and I even met my first official drug dealer, he was a receiver there and was my first real contact to score weed and hash from.

Our daily ritual was the same, I'd get up about 11am, shower and dress, then head over to Jerry's to play Super Mario brothers or Punch out on his brand new Nintendo entertainment system. We would play straight through until 2:30 pm at which time his mother would drive us to work. On last break we would always blaze some goodies with the receiver which was the highlight of the day to me. When we were finished work Jerry's brother Dennis would pick us up and drive me home. The next day we would repeat the routine. This was all I knew all summer long.

On Fridays however when Dennis picked us up the routine changed dramatically, he wouldn't drop me off at home. Instead the three of us would head up to their uncle's trailer for a weekend of fun and non-relaxation...

Exams

Within the blink of an eye spring had transitioned into summer and my first year of high school was coming to an end. I had pulled my socks up so to speak as far as my grades went and I was ready to take my exams in full confidence. I managed to keep my nose pretty clean that first year with a mere single visit to the principals office after exchanging some harsh words with my French teacher one day. I sat in the office waiting to be disciplined but no one even acknowledged my presence there. When the bell rang for lunch I simply got up and left.

As far as our band went we seemed to be doing more talking about it than any actual progress. We still jammed on Saturdays but we spent the majority of our time learning cover songs instead of making our own original material. The Epileptics had teamed up with another local Brampton band named Curious Mold and they recorded a demo, which I was lucky enough to receive a copy of from my old pal John McCuish. Both the bands had business cards made so we decided to follow suit. Ryan's dad worked for Kodak Canada and he linked us up with some bright yellow business cards he made at work. We now felt another step closer to becoming a real band.

I think the party life consumed us once we got a taste of it, which in turn put G.P.K. on the back burner. Our friday nights were like a ritual now. I'd take an empty beer bottle from my dads beer case and fill it half way with various shots of liquor from the old mans cabinet. I'd fill the other half of the bottle with pop for mixer and I was set for the night. Typically we would hang around the 7-11 parking lot in hopes of catching wind of a party. Most of the time we would eavesdrop on other people's conversations and then show up party crasher style. It seemed the more parties we went to the easier it was to get in as people were starting to know us. Plus grade nine kids were having parties now as well which made it much easier for us to get in without the anxiety and fear of being beaten and kicked out in humiliation.

I ended up passing all of my exams with ease, even my English exam that I decided to get drunk prior to for some unknown reason. I downed a Mickey of gin walking to school that morning then stomped on the empty bottle which resulted in broken glass. One of the shards managed to find its way through the sole of my shoe and into the bottom of my foot. Being intoxicated definitely silenced the pain for the time being. As I wrote my exam I noticed a slow but steadily growing pool of blood on the floor under my foot. Regardless of my stupidity I managed to ace the exam with flying colours.

I passed all my courses and completed my first year of high school without any serious incidents that would be detrimental to me. Summer break was now here and I was very excited to see what it held in store for me and my friends...