It's... 1992, 93? What a great time. I was 24 and living with two guys in the main floor and basement of an awesome house (albeit falling apart) in a very funky part of town. I was collecting Employment insurance from yet another layoff, and working under the table part time for an entertainment and event company. I mean, the owner used to be a stripper and started the agency to book strippers, but branched out. She had a hard time escaping that past though, and a big part of the business was booking dancers for stags, stagettes, topless hostessing... Those were all my department. As was booking "novelty" characters, like birthday grams or a Marilyn Monroe impersonator for your event or something. Our Marilyn impersonator was a man, and you'd never know it. Unless he was hired for that reason to trick your boss for his birthday strip-o-gram. Ahhhh, Terry, whatever happened to you, I wonder.
Anyway, I made a lot of friends working at that agency. Mostly the novelty characters, who were great, fun people around my age. One of them I had the BIGGEST crush on! He not only appeared anywhere you sent him in costume, but he made the costumes... Incredible Aliens, Ninja Turtles, Batman, you name it. His house was full of foam, glue, material etc. and many free-standing costumes. He is now, as far as I know, living in BC and has made a name for himself working as a costume designer for many TV shows and movies you'd know. I always look for his name in the credits.
A lot of the dancers were nice people too, just stripping their way through school or something, but I never made FRIENDS with them.
It must have been through one of these friends that I came across a little freak side show, whose name I won't reveal because they're still around, run by the same guy, and I don't think I should talk about them. So I'll call the show Side Show, and the owner Todd. Anyway, Todd had this Side Show running out of the upstairs of an old liquor store. It was a museum of oddities he (says) he either inherited from family members who had freak shows of their own, or he made them himself (although he'd never admit that). Every night he hosted a live show, with all the usual side show stuff - fire eating, impaling, man of steel, sword swallowing stuff. And Todd himself was a master showman, SO good at that, convincing everyone that his mind reading and magic was real. His presence was magnetic, it's no wonder he still runs the show. He was extremely talented, but also an EXTREME ass.
Somehow I ended up working there. Not for pay, but just for fun, and to be around these amazing freaky people. I worked the door and the concession stand. I remember one night Todd told us he wanted a real sword swallower in the show, and we all tried it with a long spoon. The only person who didn't gag was Peggy, so she got the job. She went from that spoon to huge swords and pink flamingos... She was really good. We had to rush her to the ER one Halloween night that we had a show at a club, and she scratched her esophagus with long shears. The ER nurses thought it was a prank at first, but one of the doctors was so fascinated, he asked her back to get X-Rays of her with a sword down her throat. He wanted to show it in a class he taught, and she then had proof to bring on stage for anyone who doubted her ability.
There was also Big Ross. He looked like your typical biker dude - big, with long hair and tattoos, but he was SO nice. He did all the burly man stuff - like eat glass, take darts in the back, get electrocuted. You know. The electrocution chair was an old one that Todd said came from a prison (whatever...) Nothing happened to you when you sat in it and it was turned on, so Ross had to fake the being electrocuted part. But what was interesting, is that your body did act as an electricity carrier, so to prove it was "real", Todd would light a torch off Ross's hand. He always got that fire, but Ross never felt a thing. We all tried it, too. I'll never understand how that worked - I'm sure an electrician knows. Years later I saw Ross working at a record store downtown, completely slimmed down, more tattoos, platinum hair, and those huge holes in his ear lobes. I asked how the hell he managed to do that!? He said "persistence".
Then there was Matthew, the impaler. HE REALLY DID IT. This kid (he was 19) liked pain. He'd hang fish hooks off his chest, impale large needles through his arm and cheeks. I mean, the needle went in one cheek, out the other cheek. And he REALLY DID IT. Later on he would become one of my roommates, when we had to ask one to leave because of his drug problem, and I really got to see what a quirky person Matt was! He idolized people that brought pain to themselves through various forms of impaling and piercing. He had many magazines featuring this culture. Matt himself had many tattoos and piercings, and was an amazing illustrator. He wrote and drew adult-themed comic books. At one point, because he was crazy, he excused himself and Ross to our basement for some reason. Ross came back up and said "nope, I can't watch that" as Matthew was piercing his own penis. The Prince Albert, I believe it's called, the ring at the tip. Then I always like to give men the heebie jeebies when I tell them that while sleeping on his side on a hide-a-bed, it hooked on to something, and then he rolled over...
I could write a lot more about Matthew. At one point I remember him making this big announcement that he was gay, and none of us flinched. Either we figured as much, or didn't care. That wasn't the reaction he wanted, so a few months later he announced he was NOT gay. I'm sure he's all grown up now and not doing that stuff. But he used to talk about wanting to go on tour with a human atrocity side show, throwing himself through glass and stuff.
Ah, the fire eaters. The show was just Pat doing his fireating tricks, but my friend Cara took an interest in him, and therefore, fireating. She was one of the clowns and novelty characters at the agency I worked at, which is how we met. She had also known Pat since elementary school, but he was a nerd and she was one of the "cool chicks" all through school, so they never talked. Now, Pat was tall, handsome and pretty damn cool, and Cara was interested. I actually knew they'd get married before they even went on a first date. (Three kids later, they've been married for over 20 years. But I digress). Cara used Pat as an excuse to learn about fireating, and soon they put on a show together. It was during one of the rehearsals that I decided I, too, wanted to try that. So Pat explained it to me, and I ate fire. I also did transfers - you know, when you have one lit torch in one hand, and an unlit one in the other, and use your tongue to transfer the fire from one torch to the other. I felt so cool. I burned the inside of my lips, but those burns heal fast.
Soon, Todd felt Pat and Cara's "love story" routine, and the two of them as a whole, were not "dark' enough for the Side Show. So they were replaced by Trish, a long-legged elfish looking girl who brought grace and beauty to the show. She was a dancer/actress/all round artist and totally fit the part. One night though, during a show at a nightclub, she did the usual big ball of fire thing. You know, when the fireater takes some gas in their mouth and then spits it at the torch, causing a huge flame that "ooohs" and "ahhhs " the audience. Unfortunately, without thinking, she didn't spit the rest of the gas in her mouth to the side - she spit it out again. This caused the fireball to follow the gas back to her face! Her entire face and head were on fire. Straight to the ER, screaming, nurses scraping her face, oweeee, oweeee, gross. She had 1st, 2nd, 3rd degree burns everywhere. However, she never hid herself as she healed. She wore a scarf on her head, but otherwise she slathered her face in aloe and went about her business. To this day, you'd never know she had that accident. I remember seeing her as little as two years later, and not seeing a scar anywhere!
Todd asked his friend Heather to be in the show. She was a tiny girl of many talents, her last job being a magician's assistant and she just came home from a long stint with him on a cruise ship. She also clowned and did human mannequin stuff (man, these were interesting, free spirited people). Her act became the woman who ate worms and live goldfish. Yes. Only she could make that sexy.
The old liquor store that housed the Side Show had been bought and was being renovated. Todd had to shut down the show, and needed somewhere to store the museum items. I asked my roommates, and we decided he could keep it in our basement for awhile. A two-headed calf and a perfectly shaped thumb-size baby in formaldehyde were among the crazy pieces in my basement! Once the show was shut down, our house kind of became the hangout. Matthew and I lived there with our roommate Mike, and everyone else mentioned above visited almost daily. Todd knew how to make EVERYTHING about him. It didn't matter what we were doing, if he showed up it suddenly became about him and we ordered pizza (that I don't think he ever chipped in for).
Todd was exhausting. Feeding that ego was a full time job. I had been to his apartment on several occasions, where he always turned it into a show. You waited in the hallway while he set up his smoke machine and lights (or whatever) and then you could come in. Once he opened the door and stuck his black-died head out with a creepy "welcome! Hahaha". He had a million mind reading and magic tricks to show anyone. I actually learned a lot of magic tricks (because I was so close and made fun of him taking himself so seriously by grabbing stuff) which has since taken the "magic" out of so much. Once you see how it's done, you wonder why you were ever amazed in the first place, and then you wish you didn't know. And when it comes to "mind reading", just remember, if there's instructions involved, it's a trick. True mind readers could just tell you what word you're thinking, not make you follow instructions to get there.
Anyway, eventually everyone tired of showman Todd and his ego. He advertised himself as a fireater (?? He'd never done it) and got a job as an extra on a TV show filming around here. Naturally, there was an injury involved, and rather than drag it through the courts, the production company paid him off (it wasn't much, but enough) and he took off for Toronto, where I believe he still is. Oh, and my basement? We got a new roommate (super awesome guy I'd crushed on in high school, who was frequently visited by his super awesome and cute friends - I had a good thing goin' on) and he needed that space for his art studio. So we called Todd. And called him. And called him. Eventually I left a message saying he had two hours or it would be on the front lawn, and by the time he got there, it was mostly on the lawn. He was horrified, how dare you, blah blah blah. We did give him weeks notice, but he refused to budge. I think he found a garage to store it in, but I'm sure he uses some of it at the Side Show he runs today.
More about Mike and that house. We moved in there together with Andy. Mike was a musician and one of the older bike couriers in Calgary. Andy had a different girl come out of his bedroom every day, which wasn't in itself a big deal, but his drug addiction was. For his own good we kicked him out, and he had no choice but to go home to his parents. Sometime later I heard he was counselling teens and thanking his old roommates for giving him up the kick in the butt he needed.
My room was the big bay window in front, I guess at one time the living room. But we actually had two living rooms more, anyway. Then Andy's room, a TINY kitchen, bathroom, then down back was Mike's "area" - a huge bedroom with a whirlpool hot tub and sauna (that never worked, unfortunately). Mike had a steady girlfriend that he'd been with for years, but she only came over on weekends. Other nights, it turns out, Mike was sneaking girls in the back door to his space. I WAS SO DISGUSTED WHEN I HEARD THIS! However, he grew up, got married, had a kid... He's on my Facebook, actually.
We had epic parties there. Being a bike courier and musician, Mike knew EVERYONE. I always invited the Side Show people, so our house was wall-to-wall people and it was awesome. After Bryan the Artist moved in, it was me and three guys as roommates. Seriously, no complaints over here. They were cute and talented and had cool friends! Our house was always full of people, music, and laughter. Bryan was (I'm sure still is) an illustrator just getting his start. But I have since seen his work all OVER the place. He got his start in our basement! I knew him when!
Eventually, I moved out. I wanted my very own space, so I got a hardwood floor (always a must have in my younger days) apartment in an old building on 17th Avenue just down from the Ship & Anchor, a very cool and trendy pub. It wasn't long before everyone at that house went their separate ways. I guess I was the glue that held them together! I still miss those days, a lot. Crazy times, fun and weird people. Never forget x
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