Art school encouraged individuality, self-reliance, and self-discovery. I think that some of my classmates were actively figuring out who they were and who they wanted to become in life and in the arts (that was definitely me). Others in my Foundation year seemed to already have formed a pretty good sense of their identity.
Here are stories of two classmates who were on their own paths: Gough, and Gary.
Gough and the Psychic Vampire
Gough was an energetic young guy with curly black hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He was lively and funny, often dressed in a black leather jacket like a punker, but with a smiling, fast-talking manner, like he wanted to convince you of the truth of a story or maybe sell you something. There was just a whiff of hustler to him, and I found his wit and enthusiam very appealing.
We might have been about the same age, maybe 19 or 20, but to me he seemed to have the easy, lighthearted confidence of someone just a few years older who thought he could take life’s challenges in stride. Usually whenever someone presented themselves with a breezy kind of confidence, I became suspicious and my bullshit detectors went to eleven, but with Gough I didn’t do that. He could make a smartass comment, but be kind about it. He had a self-deprecating smile that told me that he was in on the joke: we were “art poseurs” at times, but also dedicated young creative people under the hood, who were still finding their own way.
At this time in my life, I was quite convinced that I was the least sophisticated and least wordly person in any room. I held my own internal version of “street cred” from the trials of my family, but I was wary of my peers learning about my past. Being observant and cooperative were my best moves.
Gough was looking for helpers for his film project for Sandy Wilson’s Foundation film class. I wasn’t in her class, but I wanted to be part of someone’s film project. So one day, I went along with Gough and his “crew” of art school kids. I remember being out at someone’s house, somewhere like Kerrisdale or Kitsilano. Most likely it was Gough’s parent’s house. I don’t remember a lot more than some images. Sometimes, when you’re with a bunch of people you don’t know that well, you’re just trying to keep up with them; faces, names, and even the passage of time itself can become a blur.
Gough’s student film was about a “psychic vampire” who preyed on young men, or something like that. An aspiring film-maker for sure, Gough had rounded up a real rag-tag collection of Emily Carr Foundation students for his crew and performers, glued together mostly by his infectious enthusiasm.
I think he needed a pretty punk or goth girl to be his star vampire. He found his vampire in a reluctant girlfriend-classmate who wore a black leather jacket and had blue hair. He also needed a cool car in which she would kill her guy at the climax of the movie. For that, he’d recruited a cool dude named Beau who dressed like a rockabilly star, wore a black leather jacket, and owned a very cool Alpha Romeo convertible. Gough also needed a hero who’d be the vampire’s victim. Who else, but the auteur himself could take that role (wearing a black leather jacket of course). I think my job was to hold a cable or something. I didn’t own a black leather jacket, but was just happy to be there.
All I remember about the shoot was a lot of giggling students, calls of action and cut, and standing around watching people crack jokes and bicker. The highlight of the day had to be watching Gough bargain, beg, cajole, and plead with his leading lady to complete the final scene. Let me set this up: Gough is in the driver’s seat of the cool Alpha Romeo, and the Psychic Vampire girl is in the passenger’s seat. In the shot, her head was supposed to drop down into his lap. Yeah, like for that reason, and that’s pretty much what it would have looked like. True to his craft, Gough begged and cajoled, and true to hers, the punk-goth vampire actress said “fuck, no” and “fuck you” about a dozen times. Somehow, he finally convinced her to do it. The camera rolled, her head went down (you couldn’t see anything) and Gough’s head went back in a mock horrified silent scream. Done. Cut. Print. See you at the wrap party everyone.
A couple of weeks later, I heard that Sandy Wilson’s students were screening their films. I just had to sit in on their class and watch. There were some really great short films, some narrative, and quite a few that could have been music videos, complete with musical scores and everything. Gough’s film was probably among the most technically complex: He shot on 16mm film, with sound recording and a rock soundtrack. I doubt that he ever got more than one take down for each scene because of his tight schedule and silly young crew. There was defnitely a Corman-esque, low budget feel. Occasionally, near the end of a scene, you’d catch Gough’s eyes peek at the camera, or he’d have to walk out of the scene to stop the camera. It was all wonderfully self-conscious B-movie heaven to me.
The big scene at the end came (the giant climax, if you will) and Gough’s head went back into a great frozen scream as power chords swelled in our ears. The Psychic Vampire had struck! Fade to black. A film by Gough Lewis, ladies and gentlemen.
I thought it was hilarious, but I also thought that Gough was sweating just a little bit. His film instructor was Sandy Wilson, the famous Canadian film director recently known for her award-winning coming-of-age drama “My American Cousin”. Punk rock vampirism was not exactly her genre.
She flipped on the lights, walked around in front of the screen, and told Gough that she thought he was hysterical, and she loved his film. Total win for the leather-clad kid from Kerrisdale!
Up all night
Gough told me he was living in a warehouse space that was his art studio. We headed over there, and sure enough he had an unfinished room in some old warehouse near Second Avenue, in what was then a rather industrial part of town full of textile, metal manufacturing, and warehouses. Gough waved his arm around to show me his studio space. It was shabby-looking, with beams and roughed-in drywall, and I wondered if he actually did sleep there. Saying “Check this out”, he plugged in his electric guitar, powered up his amp, and turned off the lights while he deafened me with a succession of power chords and swipes from a bow. It was all very cool, surreal, and Jimmy Page-like – a free performance from my new friend. Somehow, he could afford all that shit and I was suitably blown away to be hanging with a cool kid who could enjoy having a nice axe and a bit of money.
After a few minutes of loud, sonic torture (in which I totally coveted his amp and bow), we went out to Bino’s restaurant on Broadway and ate fries and drank coffee for the rest of the night. As the morning hours got closer, we cracked cynical little jokes about how exhausted the busboys and servers looked, all the while ignoring our own crazily growing fatigue. (I had been a busboy not long ago, so might have been revelling in my freedom on the customer-side of the passbar.)
By god, the all-night thing really caught up with me the next morning! I felt like a useless garbage dump zombie all day long – desperately tired, and senses dulled to nothing. Food just tasted like crap, I couldn’t concentrate at all, and I dreaded the assignments that I still had to complete.
I remember sitting in the college library desperately trying to colour something – a poster or some graphic design assignment. Each pencil felt like it weighed twenty pounds, and I watched my hand feebly try to colour a small section in slow motion when I started to really panic. Luckily, my buddy Ghi was walking down the hall nearby, and I heard myself dramatically beg him to colour for me while I went to get some food and a drink of water. I was all “Please Ghi man, you gotta colour this for me! I, I gotta go get a banana!” It was a pathetic display of a desperate man. Ghi just shrugged and said “okay”. I almost wept at how easily he coloured things. He was such a good illustrator, and a great friend. Nobody else had such a good friend as that, I was sure. I may have shed a tear while eating my banana, watching him effortlessly colour a section of my drawing.
When I saw Gough in the hallway later, he said that he’d blacked-out a couple of times while just walking along to class. I may have laughed about that weird, helpless feeling of being so comically sleep-deprived, but also “Never again” I told myself.
Gary’s Automatic Essay
Gary was another Foundation classmate whom I got to know a little. His personal style was strongly evident in both his dress and demeanor, and he seemed to hold his head up high, either in genuine pride or in mock disdain. He was very intelligent, bitingly funny, and seemed to enjoy highlighting all things ironical. In a group in the hallway, he seemed to me to stand just a half-inch off the ground when he needed to, snorting out a dry little joke. He was down on terra firma again whenever Gough laughed with him though. They got each other.
Gary always dressed well, at least to my unfashionable eyes. (My own wardrobe usually featured a pair of German army surplus combat pants, sneakers, and whichever t-shirt was cleanest that day. ) Along with his nice white shirts, bolo tie, dress slacks, and long overcoat, Gary also seemed to wear the air of a disaffected young sophisticate, steeped in the ways of Dadaism (c. 1920). I didn’t know where he’d come from, but I’d speculated that maybe it had been a different planet or at least another time period. I don’t know whether his Dadaist affectations were a cover to protect himself, or to fit in, or to stand out. I was a walking, talking poster-boy for imposter syndrome myself, never committing enough to take on such a specific role, or invest in such nice clothes while doing it. Whatever the genesis and purpose for his persona, it seemed to work for him. He stood out as intelligent, just a little remote, and he fascinated me.
I had to admire his commitment to absurdism too. “R-O-C-K in the USA” was John Cougar Mellencamp’s top ten hit of the day. It was kind of a lame-ass anthem of ‘murican self-gratification, and for more than a few days, if I encountered Gary in the Foundation hallway, he’d be singing the chorus in a mock Russian accent. It was a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Reagan era in the US, and he was singing a pop tune about American freedom in the voice of Leonid Breshnev – for days. Funny.
One morning, when our Art History essays came due, we each dropped our papers down onto a pile on the instructor’s table at the front of the little lecture room. Gary, however, followed the advice of the Tristan Tzara (and later, William Burroughs) to the letter, delivering his written essay in true Dada style as a brown paper lunch bag filled with words cut from newspaper articles. The instructor was Ian Wallace, who was (as far as I knew), the only teaching faculty with a Masters degree, and considered more academic than many of his teaching colleagues. Gary handed him the paper bag and said something like “The words are all there. You can put them in the right order.” Daring and hilarious. Or a clever dodge out of actually writing an essay. Anyway, it was a bit of a ballsy “fuck you” to a tired old assessment strategy. I doubt Ian Wallace appreciated it, officially, but he might have laughed about it later. I’ve always wondered what grade he gave Gary.
Some time after, maybe after seeing Gary at a party, I remember being in the Joyce-Collingwood area of East Van with him. (There was a Bino’s restaurant on Joyce Street back then. Maybe we went for fries and coffee there too? What the hell is it about me and frickin’ Bino’s?)
As we hung out and talked, I heard a different voice out of Gary, which I guess was his real self. There was no indifferent affectations, agent provacateur BS, or attempts to impress – just a real guy from my side of town. I learned that Gary had actually gone to the same high school as me, just a couple of years later. Who knew?
When I mentioned having gone back to visit my old high school art teacher, Mr. Prinsen, Gary’s eyes went big and he exclaimed “Oh my God. You’re that John Love that Mr. Prinsen told us about! He mentioned this past student of his who’d gone through all these troubles with his family. That was you!”
I probably just said something unwitty, like “Holy shit. Um, yup.” I was a bit shocked, but also humbled and gratified at having been recalled and recognized like that, both by my old teacher and by my school friend. I enjoyed watching Dadaist Gary, but I liked talking to Real Gary.
The last time I saw Gough and Gary, they were together. I think it was near the end of Foundation year. They were a team once again, full of enthusiasm and optimistic promises, promoting a big book project that they were developing. It might have literally been called “The Great Big Vancouver Book” or something, I’m not sure. The topic of Vancouver was hot right then, driven by Expo 86 dreams of many tourists and their dollars. A book project seemed like a new direction for those two, but they presented their exciting venture as if it were obvious they could pull it off. For all I know, they did.
Maybe the breathless bravado (and a shit-tonne of hard work) really paid off. Everyone was on a path to somewhere…
William S. Burroughs Tells the Story of How He Started Writing with the Cut-Up Technique
