The Beautiful People

(smells like children, part 1)

It happened in July, 2 days after the end of summer school. I had just finished my music lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, it was sunny outside, there was a light breeze, and I made my way to the subway. Walking down the sidewalk, I found myself submerged in a mass of blackness. It was the Marilyn Manson concert. There were all sorts of weirdos dressed in black, and their faces were painted white. The general demographic seemed to be really fat, white chicks. I felt kind of strange walking amongst them, because it seemed like I was the weird one. I was in a bright red plaid shirt, carrying a gym bag and a back pack.

It seemed like a real contrast. I mean, it was a bright hot day, and here these kids were, wearing black, and looking really depressing. I felt especially sorry for all the fat people wearing the rubber suits, I mean it would be pretty hot just being fat and in really humid30+C weather, but wearing a black rubber suit made it that much worse.

Walking around, I saw that there were some camera crews around, starting to set up. I decided to stay for the chance to get on TV. In the mean while, I walked around just to check the thing out. This seemed to be some kind of pop phenomenon that I had to check out.

I saw two guys who were just standing there, they were the only people that weren't in any make-up. They both had baseball caps on, were around 19 or so, and were wearing the MM tee-shirts. I figured, it wouldn't hurt to talk to them, because they didn't wear make-up, so they probably wouldn't kill me. I was still a bit nervous though. I approached them, and engaged in a matter-of-fact sort of conversation. I named a bunch of bands I never listened to before, to get on their good side: Iron Maiden, Metallica, etc. As I was talking to them, I found out that they were from Lindsay. Here's the conversation we had.

Me: Lindsay? I've heard of that place, how is it up there?

Guy 1: Everyone there thinks in the same way, they're really conservative. That's what I like about Toronto, you can say what you want.

Me: So they don't listen to Marilyn Manson?

Guy 1: No way, we'd be considered weirdos up there..Twain's really in up there.

Me: Twain?

Guy 2: You know, Shania Twain...

Me: Yuck, country music..So why do you listen to Marilyn Manson? Ain't he a satanist or something?

Guy 1: That's what they want you to think, he's really a smart guy. He gives us a different perspective on things. I mean you see all this death and destruction in the world, don't you wonder where God is? Now, I wasn't so nervous as before. I mean these guys weren't so bad, but they had some weird ideas. I decided to ask for their names.

Me: My name's ______, what's yours?

Guy 1: My name's Pete and this is my friend Dave Dunlop. At this point, Dave pulled out his arm and rolled back his sleeve. It said "DAVE DUNLOP", with a heart and some snakes around it. I began to get scared.

Me: Uhh.. nice tattoo...

Guy 2: Yeah, my brother did it, he's a tattoo artist. These things are addictive after a while..You know what I mean?

Me: Yeah, I heard that..So why didn't you wear any make-up?

Guy 1: Our friend drove us here in his pick-up truck, but it got towed away..he had all the make-up.

The news cameras began rolling. I ended our conversation with a polite "goodbye" and "nice to meet you". This was my chance to get on television, be the star of all media for a brief few minutes. I first went on the CBC evening news, with that white balding 30-something guy who did the entertainment. I positioned myself behind him with all the goths around, we watched the little monitor on the side as the camera-guy queued us. Then the moment came, I began jumping up and down, waving and smiling hysterically in the background. Here I was in this bright red-plaid shirt, going up and down, while all these goths were all dead-like around me. When it was over, all these goths stared at me, but I still had a major adrenaline rush.

So I repeated the same thing with all the other camera crews. On City-TV I was jumping behind that really tall gino-type, and followed him on to his piece with Much Music. Wherever he walked, presumably to get me out of the shot, I would walk behind him, jumping around and acting foolish. I ended up on CFTO-news later, standing beside this goth while he was being interviewed.

After I was done, I walked over to the Ice Cream truck, to buy a cone. I asked the Italian guy how business was going, apparently he had been selling ice cream for 30 years. "Nuttin, nuttin, dese bepol buy nuttin", I thought this was strange, since all these kids were dressed in black and it was so hot. It was too bad, the ice cream was cheap, $1 for a chocolate dipped cone. I guess it isn't exactly goth to eat ice cream.

..Continued next issue!