May Toofer 94'

I cannot simply describe with words how rewarding it was to be living on my own. I had briefly lived with a girlfriend when I was 18-19, but it was a small apartment and technically it was hers, I was more so a visitor. But now living in a house with three of my closest friends made my first experience pale in comparison. 

We'd been living on Homer square for about 6 months now, and that magical time of the year was upon us once again...May 24 holiday weekend. We had secured the "Whites Bungalows" the same place we stayed at the previous year. Our plan was also a repeat, invite as many friends as possible to lower the cost for everyone, and of course rent a killer sound system to blast our music as loud as possible.

It was another crazy weekend indeed, especially with the abundance of psilocybin I had gotten my hands on weeks prior. Somehow I also acquired an ounce of hemp leaf which I used to roll 25 oversized cigarettes with, and those were what I considered to be my actual cigarettes for the weekend. Who needed tobacco? I was also big into drinking Schlitz beer at the time, which you could get in a 32 ounce bottle. We wanted to drink 40s of malt liquor like our hip hop heroes, but at the time Schlitz was the closest thing you could get to that in Canada. I ended up purchasing an entire case from the liquor store instead of buying the usual individual bottles. I knew I'd have more than enough alcohol to last me the weekend.

Tara and I were still together. It had been just over a year since we met and it was nice to get to spend this holiday with her, as we weren't able to the year before. Throw her friends into the mix with my friends and you had one very large group of people ready to party. We packed as many folks as we could into the cottages and the rest slept in either tents, cars, or on the beach itself. Hell, Tara and I even slept on the beach one night with nothing more than a comforter and a sleeping bag. 

Everyone thought we were "crazy people" the year prior, now we had a bunch of lunatics running around on magic mushrooms. One friend in particular, Scott, took so much that he ended up isolating himself inside one of the cottages. He covered all the windows with blankets, turned off all the lights, and sat on our cooler in the darkness. Every time anyone of us needed a drink from the cooler we would have to debate with him just to access our alcohol. To make matters even more difficult, the sound system was in that cottage, so needless to say it was a chore whenever we needed to change the music.

Speaking of music, my bandmate Paul had brought his girlfriend Jen with him. Jen worked for HMV records, and somehow she managed to get her hands on a promotional copy of the newest Beastie Boys album "Ill Communication" before it had even been released. This made the whole weekend even that more special, and we played that album continuously. And speaking of Paul, sometime early Saturday afternoon he vomited just outside of my cottage. I had never heard such an ungodly sound emitted from a human ring before, which led me to proclaim "So that's where the name Demon Barf came from!" My attempt to be humorous and lighten his mood. It worked.

The weekend wasn't quite as insane as the year prior, but it was definitely right up there on the party scale. I don't have as many memories and stories from that weekend, but it was still a very magical and important event in my life. The only unfortunate part of the weekend was the fact that we started having plumbing issues. Someone would flush the toilet in one cottage and sewage would start coming out of the shower drain in another cottage. It got to the point where nobody wanted to shower or use the can. Naturally we were blaming all of the girls for it, mainly because it was fun to jokingly embarrass them in front of people in regards to bowel movements. 

I had no idea at the time, but those plumbing issues and clowning on the girls would lead to the birth of something very significant...

Whites Bungalows, Wasaga Beach, Ontario Canada

(L-R) [John McCuish, Mike Stewart, Shannon Stragier, 

Rob Clarke, Gary Moffat]

Blessed Friends

Living in Homer square was a real blast to say the least. It was nice to be on my own, and even nicer to have a place for our friends to congregate. Generally on weekends we would goto a bar in Toronto somewhere, then everybody would head back to our place after last call to keep the party going. This became common practice and it was no big secret that we would be partying it up on weekends. I was never super close or tight with my family, and to me my friends were my family, so I immensely enjoyed being surrounded by them at most given times. 

I was still working midnights for Shayne's mom at her gas station. My shifts were Sunday, Monday, & Tuesday 11pm-7am. Working a mere 12 days a month basically gave me enough money to cover my portion of the rent and bills, but I didn't have much money for anything else. Thankfully I had some extra curricular activities that were earning me a second income and allowing me to live life comfortably and the way I wanted to.

As the months passed by it seemed more and more friends were coming out of the woodwork. I had been hanging around with Sanjai again quite a bit, my best friend from middle school. One day we had plans to hang at the house and he said he was going to bring a surprise by for me. I had no idea what it was, but I was excited none the less as I love surprises. When the doorbell rang and I went to answer the door, I couldn't believe my eyes and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Sanjai was standing there with our old third partner in crime Jay Poole. I literally hadn't seen Jay since about grade 9 or so, which was now roughly six years in the past.

Jay had moved to the east coast shortly after we started high school, either Halifax or Nova Scotia, I can't quite remember. I do remember at that time thinking I was never going to see him again, and now here he was standing at my front door with his huge trademark smile em blazed. I was flipping my lid with excitement and we were both genuinely stoked to see each other. You can always tell a true friend when you haven't seen each other in ages, yet when you do cross paths again, you have the ability to pick right up where you left off like it was yesterday. Our three man crew of chaos was reunited once again and it felt great.

Another new friend came into the fold through my roommate Shayne, and his name was Scott Kornack. I honestly have no recollection of how these two crossed paths or how Scott ended up at our place one day, but I never questioned it. I was a bit apprehensive of him at first, as he was a clean cut jock type...the type of guys I loathed in high school. Scott had been a football player and a rugby player, and he was quite a big guy. He was a really laid back, nice guy though, so I put my judgements aside and surprisingly we ended up hitting it off very well, to the point where we became closer friends than him and Shayne had been. To me it was a trip to get so close with someone who was such an opposite parallel from myself, yet we had so much in common. Scott introduced me to the world of "japanimation" or "manga" exposing me to classic films such as Akira, & Fist Of The North Star. Being the art lover that I am, it was inspiring to be exposed to something new that opened my mind to more possibilities. 

Speaking of friends, another golden oldie resurfaced while we were living on Homer square. Steve Waller, former vocalist of Epileptic Brain Surgeons, had returned to Ontario from Vancouver. Steve moved out west somewhere around 91' I believe and I think I had maybe seen him once when he was visiting and attended a Grasshopper show in late 92'. Waller was back for the summer and I was totally ecstatic. I told Steve he could stay with us anytime and for as much time as he liked. Steve had other places to stay but he did end up crashing on one of our many couches on numerous occasions. Steve and I went out skateboarding quite a bit, and it was nice to have a skating buddy once again, as most of my friends had grown out of it. Steve also taught me about the importance of suspenders, and I swore off belts from that point on. He also taught me about creating graffiti tags, so I was now expanding my artistic side even more.

Living in this place with these great friends was truly a blessing. Everyday was an adventure, as you never knew who might drop by or what may lay around the corner...

UPDATE: 07/20/2015

 

Greetings readers and happy summer to you all. I hope each and every single one of you are enjoying your summer & I hope you've all gotten some time off of work to spend cherished and/or lazy moments with your friends, families, and loved ones. I can never stress enough how important that is in life. A lot of the times in our younger more stubborn years, we tend to take our families for granted. As we get older we realize they have always been and will always be the only ones there for us. Sure friendships are important, but as one grows up, has a family, etc. they cannot always be there for their friends. I've always tried to be there for my friends and I will continue to do so the best I can to my ability, but just remember your family love you and always have your back and front.

I didn't have a chance to do any writing this past week as my son Gabe was with me for 8 days straight, so needless to say my time was spent with him. We had a great time doing our usual activities on the rainy days such as arts & crafts, video creating, watching movies, and playing Xbox. Thankfully we had some really nice weather the majority of the week, so we did manage to get out to the parks, splashpads, ponds, and creeks in our area. Gabe caught a bunch of frogs so that was the highlight for him, until we went to Centre Island in Toronto.

We have gone there every year now for apart of our summer activities, and I believe this was our fourth year in a row. I was totally shocked as hell when my boy told me he wanted to ride on the Haunted Barrels alone this year. I was so proud of him, especially thinking back to myself at his age, as I would not have rode this ride without my Father at my side. It was truly a shining moment in my life as a Father to see such a brave young man do something like this of his own free will.

After riding all the rides we spent hours with the animals there, and Gabriel really seemed to hit it off with the goats, one in particular who was following him everywhere he went, and showing signs of affection by playfully butting at the fence in front of him. It was really sweet, and it melts my heart to see my boy so loving and gently kind with animals of all sorts. 

After we spent the day and had some early supper, we headed over to the beach for a few hours, where I layed in the sand while Gabe swam and frolicked in the lake. It is so hard to get that boy out of the water once he is in it. We also discovered a maze that i recall playing in as a kid, I thought it was long gone, so it was an absolute delight to discover. Both of us got a bit nervous as we lost each other in the maze for awhile, but thankfully father and son were reunited.

All in all we had an amazing time as we always do, but this year seemed just a bit more special than the others. There is still lots of summer left and I am sure we will get up to new adventures before it runs out. I hope you do too. 

Cheers.

CURRENT UPDATE: WWE "The Beast in the East"

I recently noticed in a wrestling group on Facebook I am apart of, that the WWE had a show in Japan, which aired live around 5:30 am our time, this past 4th of July. This event was dubbed "The Beast In the East" which didn't really sit right with me, as former wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow was known as "The Beast from the East" and I personally feel they could have come up with a more creative title. I have not watched one full episode of their televised programming for over a decade now, and the last pay per view I ever witnessed was the second ECW "One Night Stand" back in 2006. I googled the match card and decided I'd give the show a watch, mainly because I was curious to see how the wise Japanese fans would react to the product.

The show took place at Ryōgoku Kokugikan in Sumida, Tokyo, Japan, and right from the get go I liked the feel of the show. It definitely had more of an independent vibe, with the absence of the fancy bells and whistles we are used to seeing within the realm of the WWE. I decided I'd write my own review and rate the show, so here we go...

There were two dark matches that took place which did not air, so I cannot really express an opinion on them, but the results are as followed:

1. Cesaro defeated Diego by submission. Singles match. Time limit:N/A

2. The Lucha Dragons defeated The New Day. Tag team match. Time limit:N/A

3. Chris Jericho defeated Neville by submission. Singles match. Time limit:16:20

I personally felt this was the best match on the card. I was surprised to see Jericho back in the ring, and I have to admit he looked quite good. Chris seemed to be in good shape and his performance was top notch considering his age. This match was the epitome of wrestling in Japan. The bout indubitably had that puroresu element to it. A great story with a great build up and there weren't really any dull moments. I did kind of expect Jericho to put Neville over, but the finish was done well and these two performers put on a great spectacle.

*****5/5 STARS 

4. Nikki Bella defeated Tamina and Paige. Triple threat match for the Divas Championship. Time Limit: 7:03

By far the worst match of the night. An absolute shit show by the Divas as usual, but I didn't expect anything less. A lot of sloppy wrestling, bad timing, and unbelievable scenarios, especially with Tamina, who was the biggest of the women physically. She barely spent anytime in the ring and kept getting knocked off the apron with simple moves such as a forearm smash, which would result in her powdering on the floor for extended periods of time. I personally felt this match shouldn't of even been on the card and I feel it was an insult to the Japanese fans who are used to watching women who can actually wrestle.

0/5 STARS

5. Brock Lesnar defeated Kofi Kingston. Singles match. Time Limit: 2:41

With this show title referencing Lesnar, they could of gave him a more formidable opponent. This was nothing short of a simple squash match. I'm guessing Lesnar is still over big in Japan, so why not treat the fans to an actual great wrestling match? Considering the show was fueled by the hype of Brock returning to the ring, a bout less than three minutes seems somewhat of bad idea. I would have loved to see Brock have an epic battle with someone of his caliber, but instead we were given all steak and no sizzle, and Kofi got a one way express ticket to Suplex City.

**2/5 STARS

6. Finn Bálor defeated Kevin Owens. Singles match for the NXT Championship. 

Time limit: 19:25

I was probably the most excited for this match above all the rest, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. Owens throwing his flowers into the audience during the opening ceremony was very disrespectful, yet a great way to get heat as a heel, which showed throughout the match. The fans booed the majority of his offensive moves, and when he encouraged them to join the ref in counting Finn out it seemed none of them were willing to oblige. The match was very solid, somewhat of modern day WWE meets puroresu, but in the beginning they were a bit sloppy. Kevin Owens also seemed to run out of steam fairly quick and he wasn't moving around with much urgency to say the least. Some really great spots though, lots of solid and stiff hits, and a picture perfect ending. It was a great pleasure to see Japanese legend "The Dragon" Tatsumi Fujinami come out and show his respects to Balor for becoming the new NXT champion.

****4/5 STARS

7. John Cena & Dolph Ziggler defeated Kane & King Barrett. Tag team match. 

Time limit: 23:50

This match was a complete sleeper for me, considering the fact I was watching it at 3:00pm and could barely keep my eyes open. I'm not up to date with the current WWE story lines, but as far as I know there is really no connection amongst the four men with perhaps the exception of Ziggler & Barrett. To me it felt as if the WWE just teamed up two top baby faces and two top heels. The match was quite boring, the time limit ran way too long, and I saw quite possibly the worst selling I've ever seen from Kane. The whole thing just seemed like a bad idea to me for a main event match in Japan, and I think the crowd there would agree with me, as they didn't seem very enthusiastic with it whatsoever.

*1/5 STARS

All in all it was a fairly decent show and I did find it interesting to watch the product being presented to the people of Japan. I feel if the card was booked a little more creatively it would of been a five star show all around.

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15 Homer Square

1993 was officially history, and we had now rolled into 1994. Shortly after we established Black Belt Jones and the Furious Five, we lost one of our key players. Our drummer Gregg aka G Money, had landed a gig drumming in Yet Another Posse, who like 3 n' Pass had now evolved into an actual band with instruments. Since we were still in our early stages and not quite an established band, I couldn't really blame Gregg for joining up with a group that already had their shit together. This was a major setback for us, but little did I know it would be a key part to our evolution as a band.

Quite a lot of changes had bed going on in my life as well. I had started working midnights for Shayne's mom at one of her Shell gas station franchises in Woodbridge. I had also officially moved out of my parents house at twenty years old. My other friend Shane aka Foxy Bano, had told us about his new neighbor he had met. This fellow was looking to rent his house out and Shane suggested that to us. Myself, Mike C, Shayne & Noel, ended up moving into 15 Homer square, and we were now Bano's next door neighbors.

It was very rewarding to be out on my own in the real world living the way I wanted to live and enjoying my life. I really have my parents to thank for raising me as such an independent person, as I feel if it wasn't for them I may have ended up one of those sorry cases still living in their parents basement at age 40. Our place quickly became the local flop house, as the majority of our friends still lived at home. It wasn't uncommon for 6-10 guys to be sitting around on our three couches at any given time.

Unfortunately some of our friends couldn't be trusted. We threw a big moving in party and it was a blast, but in the morning Noel discovered that our first and last months rent, which he was holding on to, had disappeared. We all had questions and we replayed the evening in our minds. Noel claimed he had the money in his pocket when he went to bed, and only two friends were still in attendance and awake, a guy named Rob and his girlfriend Sharon. To me it was a no brainer, one or both of them clearly took the money. Noel refused to agree with this theory as he felt they were his good friends. Shortly after this Rob mysteriously left to British Columbia, and it was obviously on our dime, in my opinion. 

We set up a big jar on our coffee table in the living room with a note on it explaining what had happened. It was a donation jar in hopes that our real friends would help us out in this situation. Lots of friends, including us guys who lived there, would throw our pocket change in it at any given chance. We ended up raising a couple of hundred dollars, but it wasn't even close to the $2000+ that was stolen.

Despite the negative setback we dealt with right after moving in, we made the best of our situation and had a blast living together. Mike C had set up his DJ equipment in the basement, so we were always spinning records and working on mix tapes. Mike and myself still had our radio gig at CHRY with Myers, so it was nice to be able to commute together to and from home. My good friend Jerry ended up scoring me a ball python and cage for free, so I now had a new pet snake. Noel had gotten a cat named Generic, and Tara and I got a new kitten named Dakota. We were all one big happy family.

Black Belt Jones was kind of on hold at the moment, but Pauly didn't want the project to die, so he started saving up to buy a drum machine to replace Gregg. Living in this house brought all of our circles of friends together. Greg Dawson would stop by quite a bit and hang out. He was currently still playing in a band called Sweet Grass, but he had mentioned wanting to start a rap metal project once again, just like our Psycho Puffs conversation when I had met him a few years prior. We were both really stoked on the idea, and we weren't going to let it just be an idea. Greg got together with Sweetgrass drummer Frank Barone, and they started making songs. We decided to use "Dead Homiez" as a band name. 

Our house didn't really have much space to jam, so Greg would have me over to his place to record vocals. We ended up doing four songs: Fuck 175, Todd B, HipHop 4 Da Herbz, & U Wanna Test? The tunes were very cool in my opinion, infusing rap, metal, jazz, and hardcore all into one. We never played shows or anything like that, as this was just more of a fun side project. 

All in all the house was great for my creativeness, everything around me, my friends included, were very inspiring to my artistic side. I was also making new friends through other friends who would come to visit. Our clique was growing in numbers rapidly, and I felt as though we were all inspiring each other. Before I knew it the winter had passed and spring was in the air. As they say "time flies when you're having fun" but the fun was really just beginning... 

Black Belt is born

We continued our weekly open jams at Pauly's place, and it was always a blast, as you just never knew who would show up with what instrument. Some weeks we had more people, some weeks we had less people, but we always had a great time regardless. As per usual Paul would record every jam.

After a few months our group started to dwindle down a bit, to the point where there was now just six of us showing up on a regular basis. Those six people being myself on the mic, Paul & Mike C. on guitars, Mike Myre on bass, Gregg on drums, and Kevin Evans on the turntables. Our jams were starting to get a bit more structured now, and we were actually writing some songs. 

Now that we had dropped from an average of 12 guys to 6 guys, I no longer felt like "The B-Funk All Stars" was a suitable name for us, so I began to brain storm. I had recently rekindled my relationship with old Kung fu movies that I was very fond of as a child, so I now spent a lot of time watching old Bruce Lee films & Shaw Brothers films. Pauly noticed my interest in these films, so one day he grabbed me a VHS from Zellers where he was working. The name of the video was "Bruce Lee & Kung Fu Mania"

The tape consisted of a short documentary on Lee, perhaps 45 minutes in length or so, which was quite interesting and informative, but the rest of the tape was where the real magic laid. Two hours of movie trailers showcasing every classic Kung-Fu title under the sun. Epic films like The Chinatown Kid, The Five Deadly Venoms, Master of the Flying Guillotine, and many, many more. 

There was a trailer for one movie in particular I had seen ages ago that I had totally forgotten about, a martial arts/blaxploitation film entitled "Black Belt Jones" starring an actor named Jim Kelly, most famously known for his role in Bruce Lee's "Enter The Dragon" Jim was also in a few other films such as "The Tattoo Connection" and "Hot Potato" which was the sequel to Black Belt Jones. After rediscovering this film I was feeling very inspired. I felt like the music we were making was quite parallel to the feel and the attitude of Black Belt Jones. 

It was then that I made the realization this could serve as a great band name, but it needed some spicing up. My first idea for a new band name was "Black Belt Jones & The Five Deadly Venoms" myself representing Jones, and the other five guys representing the Deadly Venoms. All the guys loved the name, as did I, but shortly after I felt like it was too much Kung-Fu referencing and not enough reference to funk, which was what we were all about.

I started to brain storm again, and it didn't take long before a new name came to mind; Black Belt Jones & The Furious Five. "The Furious Five" was a reference/homage to "Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five" one of the first rap groups to emerge on the scene in the early 80's. The name was perfectly fitting, as it embraced the combination of two major influences, Kung fu & old-school rap music. Once again, all the guys were on board with the name. We even came up with a new genre name for the music we were creating...

"Kung-Funk" We also started referring to Pauly's place as "Kung-Funk Studios" even though it wasn't a legit recording studio.

Our journey had brought as all to an interesting crossroad. What started as a group of guys jamming simply because they loved music, had now evolved into something real. Our ball of momentum was now rolling on strong and nothing could get in the way of it.

Or so I thought...

B-Funk All-Stars

The day of our first jam had arrived and I was ecstatic. I headed over to Pauly's with Mike & Mike, and we were surprised by the turnout. Apparently I wasn't the only one excited for this impromptu jam session. Everybody got their gear set up and arranged and we were ready to make some music. 

Greg from Demon Barf was on drums, Mike Myre was on bass, Mike C and Pauly were on guitars, Dave was using a CD player to drop in samples, Eric had brought his trumpet, Justin was on bongos, Kev from Demon Barf was on the turntables, another fellow had brought his saxophone, and yours truly held the microphone in hand.

Pauly set up a blank 45 minute cassette in his boombox and hit record, we were off. The jam consisted of slower, funky grooves, making it easy for me to freestyle and making it easy in general for everyone to play along with each other. We were busting out some sweet sounds, and despite the large number of us, everything was blending together nicely.

When the 45 minute tape reached it's end, Paul flipped it to the other side and hit record once again. We were having so much fun that the time just flew right by. In the blink of an eye we had been jamming for 90 minutes and we had filled the tape. Everyone was stoked about the jam session, so we decided to have another one ASAP.

Our new super group needed a name, and I believe it was Mike C. who came up with "The B-Funk All-Stars" the B standing for Brampton. It was an ode to The P-Funk All-Stars, a classic old funk band comprised of members from Parliament and Funkadelic. Granted our funk was a bit more rap oriented, but we all loved the name. It was settled, we were now known as The B-Funk All-Stars.

Ice Cube had recently put out his latest album "Lethal Injection" which was mediocre at best compared to his previous releases, but I was listening to it a lot regardless. The album was very P-Funk influenced, and it even featured one of their members George Clinton, known for his hit song "Atomic Dog" There were a few songs that influenced and inspired me to write some lyrics down, as to have some lyrical content for our next jam. The song "Bop Gun" led me to write "Pot Gun" and I also wrote my own version of "One Nation Under A Groove" as well as a few other songs who's titles escape me at the moment.

The next week we were back at Pauly's to jam again, and even more people showed up this time. If someone had an instrument, they brought it. We also had a few friends show up just so they could sit and watch the jam session. Pauly had the tape recorder queued up once again, and we were all ready to make more groovy funky tunes. Having brought lyrics this time around made my life a bit easier, and we actually started to structure some songs.

Every week we would jam, and it was always a mystery as to who would show up. Paul made a point of recording our jams every week, his philosophy being that we could go back and listen to them for ideas. We could take the best parts and use them for creating songs. I personally thought it was a genius idea. 

To be quite honest, I was just thrilled to be making music again, even if it was just for fun, as we really weren't trying to go anywhere with this, it was merely a creative outlet for a bunch of musicians who were not currently playing in bands. Everyone was having fun, nobody was taking things too seriously, and there really was no right or wrong. People just played whatever they wanted and whatever made them feel good. These were truly some magical jams, that unbeknownst to me were leading up to something special...