Hair Doesn't Make The Man

After the Slayer concert, another cold, heartless, and forgettable winter had passed and the fresh scent of spring was in the air once again. It was time to bust out the jam shorts and skateboards. It was time once again for underage drinking in public places while we searched for parties. It was also time for a major change in my life.

I wasn't very happy with the way my hair was growing. A few of my friends had shaved their heads and now I too was contemplating it. Now that I was more into hardcore punk as opposed to metal, hair didn't seem that important to me, and as the age old saying goes "Hair doesn't make the man"

One day on lunch a few friends of mine were heading over to a buddy's house for lunch and haircuts. I decided to tag along as the time had come to shed these long locks of mine. I was so eager and excited that I asked to be first. The "barber" in charge asked me which level of guard I wanted on the clippers. I insisted on no guard as I wanted my head shaved down to the skin.

It was such a strange feeling, going from a full mop of hair to a clean, bald head. When I returned to school after lunch all of my female friends were in shock, and practically in tears, over the fact I had removed my hair.

I was anticipating going home at the end of the day to show my folks the new doo. I assumed they would be happy that I didn't have long hair anymore. Much to my disbelief my mother flipped her lid screaming "why did you cut your hair so short?" I couldn't figure out why she was so upset. She absolutely despised my long hair and now she despised the fact that I had no hair! There was no winning this hair battle. Parents. Go figure...

Punk Rock Girl

Connie was a French high school student who lived in what at the time we considered the far outskirts of Brampton, the area of Sandalwood and highway 10. She went to catholic school just like my former girlfriend Lydia. I don't know what it was with me and catholic school girls but oh how I adored them so.

We started out talking on the phone, I of course took advantage of the fact she gave me her number, and we would chat for hours and hours. I'd tell her about all my favourite bands and it wasn't uncommon for me to play her songs over the phone via my little boom box. We even had our own song, "In My Eyes" by none other than Minor Threat.

Although she was uniformed, it was clear as crystal that this girl was a freak, or a punk, or whatever she classified herself as. Her fire engine red hair was usually crimped and styled unlike no other girls hairdoo I had ever seen.

As natural of a beauty as she was, Connie wore fairly heavy amounts of make up, not to cover any flaws as in my eyes she was flawless. Her heavy and stylized eyeliner jobs were merely an extension of her personality.

After weeks of talking we started meeting on a regular basis. She would take the bus to the mall from her school, and I would walk to the mall as I always did. We would walk around holding hands, we would shop, we would eat in the food court and chat, and of course she would have to accompany me to my favourite spot in the entire mall, The Hex Arcade.

Every time we went out she always had one request, that I wear my bandana and hair in front of my face like the day I met her. I had no problem with it but after awhile I started wondering if she actually liked me or just my freaky styley. We would head back to my place afterwards and make out in my room until it was time for her dad to come pick her up.

Connie brought me and a few of my boys to a party once with all of her French friends. As much as I liked her, for the life of me I couldn't figure out why she hung around with all of these boring, uptight people, as this was easily the worst party I had ever been to. I decided to bust out the infamous chain trick to spice things up and it did not go over well at all. Every guy was intimidated, every girl was screaming in horror, and I think one of them even puked.

Eventually she ended up breaking it off with me for reasons I can't quite remember, but I do remember I was quite devastated, as I had developed intense feelings for her. I was scorned, heart broken, and that led to hate and rage. I now despised this person I cared so dearly for.

I never saw, nor heard from her again, until about a year later when I saw her in the mall. To my amazement and disbelief she was pushing a stroller around with her new born child in it, at her side her new pint sized boyfriend. I remember thinking to myself "Sucker" for my life was just beginning, and the way I saw things their lives were ending...

Dance Dance Execution

So I had been growing my hair all summer after my mother "beaned" me, and now as 1989 was rapidly approaching my hair had grown quite long. Although I was trying to grow it all one length it appeared like my bangs were growing faster than the back of my hair was.

It seemed as if the back of my hair barely hung past the collar of my leather/denim jacket combo, yet my bangs were way past my chin, practically to the collar of my shirt. My teachers were constantly complaining about how they couldn't see my eyes and accusations of me sleeping in class were constantly hurled.

One day Jazzy Jeff and the crew mentioned they were going to be DJ'ing a school dance at none other than the French school down the street from my old house, a place I had spent many of hours skateboarding, smoking, and playing handball....or murder ball. Jeff asked me if I'd be interested in coming to help out with moral support and I eagerly agreed, with one exception: he would have to play a few songs from a few of my favourite records. Jeff was cool with that and the stage was set.

When the day arrived I decided to try something different. I combed all of my hair forward and then tied on a bandana ala Andy Anderson style from Attitude Adjustment. The effect it caused looked great, a wall of hair raining out the front of the bandana, completely covering my devilish good looks, leaving me to appear faceless. I tossed on my $5.00 D.R.I. shirt, army pants, Chuck Taylor's, and I was ready to roll!

The dance was your typical grade 8 dance, which in general is fairly lame, except for the fact that my boys ran a bad ass DJ crew and they played nothing but the best music. Eventually Jeff through on some of my music and the next thing you knew I was thrashing about the dance floor filling people with fear. Jeff even abandoned his post behind the wheels of steel and joined me in the mosh festivities. All the kids seemed fascinated by our actions and some of them even joined in. Eventually the teachers broke up the fun as they obviously were not thrilled about their students slam dancing.

Things seemed to get a bit lame and tame so I decided it was time once again to liven up the party. I retreated to the bathroom, removed my dog tag sink chain from around my neck, and proceeded to sniff it up my nose, let it fall down my throat, and then spit the other end out my mouth and attached the links. Little did I know someone caught wind of the chain trick and when I came out of the bathroom practically all the kids were gathered around waiting to see. I soaked up the attention as they all gasped in shock. The next thing I knew some teachers became aware of the situation and decided it was time for me to leave.

I figured I'd hang around outside and wait for the crew since the dance was almost over. No sooner than I lit my cigarette I was approached by a very attractive punk girl who was helping out chaperoning the dance. She proceeded to tell me how much she loved my hair and tell me how cool she thought the chain trick was. The next thing I knew her parents were there to pick her up. She slid a small, folded piece of paper into my hand, smiled at me, and then she was gone.

I opened the paper to find her phone number along with her name....Connie

The Tooth of the Matter

I just wanted to take a quick minute to inform everyone that last weeks posts got cut short due to a terrible toothache, or teeth ache rather, that I've been dealing with.

I'm sure you, just like everyone else would simply ask "Why don't you goto the dentist Kevin?" and yes that does seem like a simple solution to my problem. I just HATE going to the dentist and I have been too tied up with other things to find the time to go. Big shout outs to my little friend Steph for all the kick ass pain killers she has been kind enough to give me so I can deal with this pain and not have any more sleepless nights or miss any more days of work.

Never fear, Heavy Ghetto will resume tomorrow...

Mike C

Now that I was in with my new group of friends I was constantly meeting new people through their circle of friends, some of whom were already graduated and apart of the working world. One of the guys named Jay who we referred to as "Dove" had cool enough parents that they would let us party at their place every weekend and they didn't seem to mind all the underage drinking that was going on. We would have the brews a cracking, the tunes a cranking, and usually super Mario or Ice hockey booted up on the Nintendo.

It was at Jay's that I got acquainted with yet another Mike, Mike Chapman. I had seen Mike around school in grade 9, he was a member of a band called "The Stiffs" who's flyers adorned the high school walls. Mike was what some may call a "goth" or "industrial" he wore all black, a long black trench coat, and he had an extreme flat top hair cut, almost like a cameo, which appeared to make him look 7 feet tall.

I always found him to be somewhat of a big, intimidating guy, until we struck up a conversation at Dove's place one night. Mike ended up being a super nice guy and he was very easy to talk to. Mike didn't seem to mind nor judge me on the fact I was a few years younger than him. As we shot the shit Mike revealed the fact that he worked for the city of Brampton, mainly on the grounds of Chinguacousy park where I frequently skateboarded.

From that point on whenever I was at Ching Park skating I always made a point to keep my eyes open for Mike. I'd usually run into him driving one of the city vehicles around the park. Mike would always stop to talk with me and he never seemed rushed or pressed for time. I truly appreciated the fact he was a genuinely good person who always had light hearted words and humorous statements in store for me.

That went for while we were at school as well, Mike would always say hi when we passed each other in the halls and normally he would stop to talk for a few minutes. Right from the get go of meeting Mike I always felt there was something special and unique about him and I also felt more connected to him than any of the other older dudes I was now hanging out with. I didn't know it at the time but Mike and I would go on to be great friends, roommates, and band mates as the years progressed...

World Sacrifice pt.2

Our seats were claimed, the merch was bought, and the stage was set, it was finally time for the music to come to life! As I looked over the balcony I scanned through the crowd, everyone seemed rowdy and blood thirsty. I was even able to pick out the EBS boys as well as a few other familiar faces in the sea of metal below me.

Finally Motörhead hit the stage, I remember thinking there was an awful lot of room for the 3 band members up on that massive stage, none the less Lemmy stood out like a Greek god on the foot of the acropolis with the sun shining upon him, or in this case the stage lights. Motörhead ripped shit up in a hurry and demanded the attention of every person in the room. They belted out all the classics like orgasmatron, killed by death, chase is better than the catch, and of course their eternal hit the ace of spades, to which the crowd erupted in a frenzy of madness. One thing was for certain though, I had never heard music that loud in my entire life, and Motörhead claimed to be the noisiest band in the world.

I ventured down to the bathroom for a quick piss before Slayer came on and had to bob and weave my way through the leather and denim clad hair giants, I almost felt like a lost kid on his first day of high school, nervously searching for his home room or locker. I managed to make it back to my seat and patiently awaited Slayer.

The lights went dark, the crowd erupted, and the opening riff for "South of Heaven" kicked in. The first song on the new album. Years later after seeing Slayer a few times I realized they always opened up with whatever the first song was on their newest album. So I thought Motörhead was the loudest thing I had ever heard but Slayer was just a few notches higher on the volume dial. I honestly thought my brain was going to explode and bleed out of my ears! I had never smoked as much dope as I did on this particular day before and it was taking its toll on me. I hit the burn out phase and could barely keep my eyes open, only the extreme loudness of Slayer kept my eyes barely propped open.

I gazed down at the action below and was thankful for my comfy seat, as it just looked like absolute madness and murder was going on in the pit. When the band finally broke into "raining blood" I couldn't believe my eyes, it was actually raining bodies for the whole song, and by that I mean there was a non stop flow of people diving off the balcony onto the unsuspected people below. I had never seen anything like this, it had to be at least a 15-20 foot drop. Absolute insanity.

When the song "Angel of death" kicked in it was quite apparent that this was the encore and the final song of the night. With the stage lights all emblazoned in a fiery red, it was easy for one to forget where they were and feel like they had just stepped into the bowels of hell. Once the music died and the smoke cleared it was time to go home.

I had finally attended my first REAL concert and it was amazing experience, I couldn't wait for the next one, despite the fact that it took about 3 days for me to regain my hearing properly. Thanks Slayer!!!

World Sacrifice pt.1

The day of the Slayer concert had finally arrived and I was super stoked! Early in the day I headed with Noel over to this guy Mike's house. Mike was another older guy in the group. Word had it his family had inherited tons of money from a family member who was an inventor, or something along those lines, and judging by the size of his house and his numerous vehicles he owned, it was safe to say the word on the street was more than likely true. We hung out and blazed a joint then Noel left to go pick some of the other guys up. We ended up meeting somewhere with our 2 vehicles packed with people for a doobie rendezvous then we were on our way. I was lucky enough to go in Mike's car, a red iroc with quite possibly the loudest stereo system I have ever heard.

The whole drive down we listened to "south of heaven" by Slayer and "Nations" by Public Enemy. I felt so cool driving in this kickass car smoking weed and listening to music so loud it drowned out anyone around us. Oh and did i mention more joints were burned? When we arrived in Toronto we met the guys at an underground parking lot where we drank some beer and smoked even more joints, which caused us to miss the opening act "Overkill" of whom none of us were really fans of so it wasn't a big deal.

The next thing I knew a police cruiser pulled up and the cop started questioning us. A lot of guys had dope on them and Mike's car was loaded with stolen stereo equipment. Just as things were starting to look bleak, the officer's partner called him over to another vehicle he was checking out which was full of guys drinking booze and carrying on. The cops diverted their attention to said vehicle and allowed us to go on our way.

As we stood in line at The Concert Hall a.k.a. The Masonic Temple, I gazed over all the people in line. There were thrashers, punks, skin heads, etc. all walks of life loved Slayer apparently. Even though it was winter I didn't even notice due to how inebriated I was. We finally got inside after presenting our tickets and the first thing I did was head to the merch table with Noel where I purchased a sweet "South of Heaven" concert shirt, it had the album cover on the front and an image of the band on the back with the caption "World Sacrifice Tour 1988" I was so giddy to finally own my first concert shirt that wasn't handed down to me from my sister.

Noel was a HUGE Slayer fan and he wanted to make a bootleg recording of the show with some equipment he snuck in. Noel wanted to sit up in the balcony so he could get a proper recording. I decided to sit with him since this was my first show and needless to say I was a bit intimidated to join the action on the floor. The other guys left their jackets and shirts they had purchased with us, then headed down into the danger zone. Noel and I had a great spot, front row of the balcony. His recording device was ready to roll, his joints were ready to burn, and the time had finally come...