Ripped in Toronto in 2000

[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty-five years ago the Sultan of Sot hit the road for a visit to Toronto, Canada, and composed this article for the July 12, 2000 edition of the Ripsaw newspaper.]

“Nobody helps you with your cup
No one could ever fill it up.”
—The Sadies

Prelude: Detroit Metro

It was 11:15 a.m. and I was sitting in one of the many cafes at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Toronto. Everybody else drank coffee and ate pastries. My flight had been delayed two hours. I needed whiskey.

The Price is Right was on the TV above the espresso machine. Bob Barker put his arm around a gaunt middle-aged woman while they watched a cardboard mountain climber ascend a cardboard mountain, singing:

Laaa dee doody
Laaa dee doody
Laaa dee doody dooooo …

I ordered a whiskey sour, which put the place into a frenzy. It seemed the morning staff didn’t know how to make drinks. Finally, they trotted this half-dead dishwasher out of the back and pointed her in my direction. I repeated my order and she looked at the booze rack for a long time. Then, she pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels out from a nest of whiskey bottles and said, “We only have Jack Daniels.” I said that would be fine. She poured about half a tumbler full and then began to look confused. “Umm … uhhh … the only thing we have to mix it with is Fruitopia,” she said.

Laaa dee doody dooooo
Laaa dee doody dooooo …

So I sat and drank JD and Fruitopia and watched Bob Barker giving away dinette sets to sunburned retirees. Eventually, they announced my flight and that was when I realized I had never been charged for my drinks. Faced with this dilemma, I did what any red-blooded American would do. I left the country.

Toronto Streets

I took to the streets immediately in Toronto, swept away by the pulsing life of the crowds. Four days before my arrival, there had been a riot just outside my hotel. Now everything was peaceful, yet chaotic. It seemed as though everyone was speaking Chinese and trying to sell me something. A guy was charging people a dollar to play his drums. Little kids stood on street corners hustling piles of pastel underwear. One family had an entire storefront of strange and rare food, including a bin of fowl the size of mice and some kind of orange rubbery beast strung up on a rack. The only food I could even recognize was a pig’s head. I wandered aimlessly for hours until eventually a guy in dreadlocks handed me a ticket and said “Come to the Living Room tonight. Get in free.”

The Living Room

I think it was around 10:05 p.m. that I showed up at the Living Room, which was terrible nightclub etiquette. Toronto nightclubs don’t even open until ten and they aren’t expecting anyone to arrive until at least eleven. Cover charges take this into account and are priced on a sliding scale, depending on the time. The later it is, the more you pay to get in. The friendly people at the Living Room didn’t mind my intrusion and were very kind to me. But still, the cash registers were not operational upon my arrival, so I had to wait for a drink.

Waiting turned out to be a pretty pleasant experience. The place was decorated, well, like a living room. Couches and armchairs were arranged around glass coffee tables. Thick velvet curtains covered the windows. There were three separate bars, a dance floor and candles everywhere. A DJ was spinning hip-hop just for me.

After eleven, things picked up considerably. People showed up in droves. Two exquisitely drunk guys fell down on a couch and one of them decided to woo some ladies by challenging them to a pillow fight. This was such a stupid idea that things nearly turned into a brawl, which would have been pretty entertaining to watch, considering that the women were dressed to the nines and the men had a combined weight of about 250 pounds.

Ted’s Wrecking Yard

If I lived in Toronto, I’d hang out regularly at Ted’s Wrecking Yard, a trashy upstairs dive in Little Italy. The walls, ceiling and tables are painted black with gray tire tracks on them. The only light comes from white Christmas lights. The beer is cheap and the entertainment is outstanding.

I went to Ted’s to see the Sadies, a punk-country band comprised of four greasy-haired beanpoles who call Toronto their home. Joining them on stage was the lead singer’s dad on autoharp and a quiet guy on slide guitar who kept saying he needed to leave after the next song.

The crowd was freaking eclectic. Moping around near the stage were two scary-looking vampire girls in red leather pants and glittery lipstick who kept popping pills. Older couples sat at tables while dudes in flannel shirts and cowboy hats leaned against the wall. One guy was wearing a bike helmet. Everybody was ripped.

After about seven beers, I felt the urge to dance like a lunatic. In the Twin Ports, if someone breaks the ice and begins dancing like a lunatic, other people will quickly join in. Everybody wants to dance like a lunatic. Knowing this, I slammed the last two inches of my brew and bravely rushed to the front of the room.

The response was not as good as I anticipated. In spite of the wildly insane music the Sadies were cranking out, I was joined only by two women who tentatively rocked back and forth, a bald guy who walked around in circles playing air guitar and a teenage couple who engaged in some kind of tango/mosh that involved a lot of hair twirling and falling on the floor.

The Sadies took this as a cue to turn their music one notch further, putting even more “edge” into their performance. Air guitar guy then stood on a chair and started ranting to the crowd, “What is wrong with you people?” Then one of the Sadies said, “We are gonna riot. We are gonna riot and we are not gonna stop until every item in this bar is destroyed. Then we are gonna take it to the streets.” At this, about twelve more people took the dance floor.

The Plastique

My final night in Toronto took me to the Plastique, which I was a bit nervous about. My sources told me that the Plastique is an “exclusive” club, the kind of place that will turn you around if you are not cool enough. Could I, an ordinary beer-swiller from out in the sticks, fit in at such a place? No problem.

Inside, the Plastique is decorated with white vinyl chairs and about four bars with glowing neon surfaces. Drinks are pricey, but still within a reasonable range. The bartenders are the hottest looking booze-schleppers I have ever seen in my life.

I went to the upstairs level and leaned over a railing to watch the crowd below. There were about 250 people in the place, all of them well-dressed and good looking. A DJ was spinning nonstop house music and about 25 or 30 people were on the dance floor, all of them female. Eventually, one timid boy of about 20 stepped out among them and was instantly mobbed by three women who pressed themselves against him on all sides, grinding away. At this, a lot more men became willing to dance.

Things got hotter and sweatier and were still going strong with no end in sight when I left the place at 2:45 a.m. Outside it was pouring, and I walked through the rain to the subway station, letting the bar-stink wash off of me. The station was filled with people who, like me, were exhausted, wet and drunk. I had had a great time, but I was feeling a bit homesick. Noticing the acoustics of the tiled subway station, I did my best “Chickenbone George” Alan Sparhawk imitation, singing “I knoooow you waaaant to riiiiide that traaaaain.” No one cared.

The train came barreling down the track with a roar and a gust of vile wind. To me it looked like a big stainless steel dragon, its eyes glowing as it emerged from its tunnel snarling and scattering rats everywhere. When it stopped, it opened its mouth and I stepped inside.