1982 (33 page)

“Yes … we survived with these large-knobbed cassette players, children. And we used shiny tapes in plastic cases that moved quickly in circles and often broke. And also, we learned how to mash up peanuts and butter in order to make peanut butter for food.”

Okay, maybe I have no idea how you make peanut butter. We never did that. But the point is, clunky Thornlea tape-deck technology was the only option at the time. It was all very antiquated.

The morning announcements were a thankless endeavour but a big step into prominence by my standards. And I’m still not really sure how I got this odd morning gig. Somehow, I took the place of our vice-principal and his moustache. The vice-principal, who had a very prominent moustache, had been holding down the morning announcements duty for the first few months of my Grade 9 year. He had a temper that could spring up like burnt toast. Word had it that he’d become frustrated one morning when the “O Canada” tape was not cued
up properly, and he had spent several minutes “live on the air” trying to rewind the cassette and begin it at the right place as everyone listened over the school speakers. When he finally started the anthem, it was somewhere in the middle, at the “… in all thy sons command” part. Some students later claimed they overheard the vice-principal with the moustache curtly say “Oh, fuck it” over the PA system. I don’t really know if he said “Oh, fuck it.” It wouldn’t be something a vice-principal was supposed to say to an audience of students. But whether he said “Oh, fuck it” or not, that day proved to be his breaking point. So in early 1982, I began as the voice on the school speakers every morning.

My job was to greet the student body and introduce the national anthem and then read a list of meetings and events for the school population. After a few weeks at the mic, I started adding a “thought for the day” to end the announcements with. This element became my favourite moment on the job. My thought for the day was usually something benign, like an affirming declaration from Gandhi or John Stuart Mill or one of the popes. You know those quotes. You see them at the beginning of important movies, or at the end of important movies, or when someone dies, or in the books of quotations that sit on top of the toilet at your friend’s house. You see these kinds of quotes on Twitter now when everybody is writing #RIP about something. They are words that are universally considered very wise and significant. These are quotes I knew to be non-controversial and likely sanctioned by the school authorities.

“All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.” —John Stuart Mill
See? Who would ever disagree with that? It’s very important sounding, right? And no one has issues with a proclamation that includes “good things” and “fruits of originality.” So I used that one once. But does it really add to your daily knowledge about life? No, it doesn’t. This is an example of a benign quote. Nice fancy words that ultimately add nothing. But then once in a while I would slip something different in. I took pride in imagining myself a rebel in this way. And on two occasions I used a Bowie lyric as the thought for the day. That was when I was being subversive.

Once, I used a Bowie quote from the song “What in the World” on the album
Low
about being out of control and in the mood for love. I’m pretty sure that was the only time the chorus of “What in the World” has ever been used as an inspirational message for the morning announcements at a high school. I cunningly recited this lyric over the loudspeakers at Thornlea knowing that the vice-principal with the moustache would never have done so. Maybe I wasn’t entirely sure what being in “the mood” really meant, but I imagined that Bowie would think I was cool for using it. Being subversive at the time didn’t mean Malcolm X or Trotsky quotations. Not from where I stood at the mic. The future of change was Bowie. “What in the world can you do, I’m in the mood for your love” would later become my graduating quote in the Thornlea yearbook in 1986.

The thing is, I thought of the morning announcements as some sort of performance. I thought of them like a mini-concert with a large audience. Thornlea was a school with almost two thousand students. This was no small crowd hearing my fledgling baritone. But very few others considered the
announcements to be cool. No popularity came from being the kid who informed everyone that schoolwork had to begin. And it’s not as if girls would like a guy because he did the morning announcements. Not even the nerdy girls. There has probably never been a heartthrob in history who attained heartthrob status based on his prowess doing morning announcements at a high school. So it was a losing proposition overall. But I was good at it. And one time, when Paula Silverman found out I was the voice, she told me I sounded “sexy.” And she wore short shorts. And her compliment made me feel good, because I figured I was like a broadcaster—a “sexy” broadcaster. And being a broadcaster seemed cool.

Most important, the morning announcement job was largely anonymous. A bunch of my classmates knew who was behind the voice, but I never said my name over the PA, and few students saw me making the announcements from the principal’s office, even though the walls all had windows. I took some comfort in my anonymity. I could perform without being judged. It didn’t matter that I was brown or New Wave or not New Wave enough. But this was a contradiction, too. I didn’t actually want anonymity. I wanted to be a rock star. And being a rock star meant being seen. It meant singing in front of Wendy and crowds who could witness it. And that meant trying to come to terms with who I was. And that’s why the Harbourfront concert in the spring of 1982 was so pivotal. And that’s also what would lead to a duet that brought a good deal of uncertainty about my identity.

You see, I was confused in Grade 9.

I know. That part isn’t a particular revelation to you at this point. But there were times when I couldn’t quiet the voices
in my head. The voices would remind me I was a fake. An imposter.

You might think this sounds familiar. You might contend that all kids in their early teens go through feelings like this. And I appreciate the solidarity, but you’d be wrong. It’s a thing that benevolent people say:

“Oh, all teens are messed up and trying to figure it out.”

Or:

“Yes … it’s a challenging time for anybody.”

Just like that. That’s the kind of thing well-meaning people say. They say this to make kids feel better about being imposters so that they don’t swallow turpentine or harm small dogs when they become adults. But not all kids struggle with this equally. It’s easier not to feel like a fake if you have a perfect nose and straight blond hair. That’s a fact. Or at least, I was always sure it was. I was sure that Wendy never felt like a fake. That’s one of the reasons she was almost perfect, like Bowie.

For me in 1982, the voices in my head were a reminder of my ongoing life as an imposter. The voices would also point out that I wasn’t who I was made out to be in song. And this would lead to a most unfortunate onstage experience before the end of Grade 9. It wasn’t about how I sang. My singing didn’t really suck. The point was, the quality of my singing was
not
the point if I wasn’t sure who I was. I was confused.

I WAS NERVOUSLY WAITING
at the side of the stage at Harbourfront Centre in downtown Toronto in the spring of 1982. The second-last song of the show was coming to an end. There was a small set of steps leading up to the area where I would soon
be standing in the spotlight for the finale. My eyes were trained on those steps. I was about to make my major singing debut. I was fidgeting. I had my hands focused north of my forehead, where I was trying to sculpt the gel that kept the front part of my hair standing up so the tips could then come flowing down in an arch. That’s the way the guy from Ultravox had his hair. He was New Wave. I was never quite sure how to get that right.

This gig was what I’d wanted. I was supposed to be excited about my debut. I mean, I had been onstage before. I wasn’t entirely a rookie. As I’ve told you, I had played in the Wingnuts, and we had done our big show at the Woodland Junior High gymnasium at the end of Grade 8. I had performed the role of the pharaoh in
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
there as well. And I was now the main drummer in the Thornhill Community Band, and we had performed the theme from
New York, New York
with featured tap dancers at our Christmas concert at the community centre. The tap dancers had worn sparkly jackets and little shorts that exposed their long, tapdancing legs. But I hadn’t really done an official show on a big stage. Not as a singer. I was two minutes away from my turn to step up. I would be holding a microphone of my own. And I would be performing two solo verses of a famous song.

The plan was for me to close this landmark show in a duet with the most talented singer at our high school. Our music teacher had wanted a boy and a girl to perform together, and I had been selected for the guy part. I had nothing close to the pipes of my singing partner, but she was a girl. And because she was a girl, it was acceptable that I wasn’t technically as good as her. Boys never sing as well as girls. Not usually. Have you
ever noticed that? They don’t. That’s because female vocalists can sing the way Mariah Carey or Beyoncé does. They have dizzying multi-octave ranges and engage in vocal gymnastics. Guys, on the other hand, they just have to be able to warble like Bob Dylan or Jay-Z. They can rely on their personality and “musical integrity.” Women sing better. That’s why, in most musical duos, the man plays the lame supporting role. Just look at Sonny and Cher. Or Rihanna and Drake. Or Kermit and Miss Piggy. Or Captain and Tennille. I’m not even sure if Captain sang at all when Captain and Tennille did their hit song “Love Will Keep Us Together” in the ’70s. And if he did, he wasn’t as good as Tennille. Guys never sang as well as women. That is, except for Bowie. His voice was always as good as a girl’s voice, except it was much deeper. Usually.

For the Harbourfront finale, it didn’t matter if I was a vocal master. I simply needed to hold my own. I just had to get up there and do my best in front of the enthusiastic crowd. That’s what Bowie would do. That’s what Bob, the music teacher, had said to do. If only I could sing the lyrics like I meant them. If only I could really believe I wasn’t a fraud. If only my entire identity wasn’t bound up in performing one side of a crappy pop duet.

I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to exude confidence. I was supposed to act like a star. But memories of being the oddball were flooding back to me. I’d always been the oddball. I wanted so badly to be accepted. But who was I trying to
be
in this song? I wasn’t sure. It was like when the nice gay guy sings “Who am I anyway?” in
A Chorus Line
. People usually have sympathy for the nice gay guy at that point in the show. But in the musical, he’s struggling with being gay
and insecure and needing to present himself as something else. That was just like me. Except in my case it was a different shade. For me it was about being ethnic. And there’s a grey area when it comes to brown. The song I was about to sing was forcing the issue. I was confused.

MY JOURNEY TO THE GRAND
Harbourfront stage in May of 1982 began with countless hours spent in the school’s music room as a member of the Thornlea Vocal Group. By the second month of high school, I was doing whatever I could to pursue my musical dreams. Beyond attending to core subjects and spending time and energy in Room 213, I would occupy the Thornlea music room. It was a large rectangular space with graduated floors and a parade of instruments sitting on various shelves. In the middle of the room stood an upright piano and a drum kit with some guitar amps. It was a high school rock-music version of McDonald’s Playland for kids. Before and after the regular school day, any number of aspiring musical stars would hang out in Room 273 and exploit the instruments. This was where I did my time on the four-piece school drum kit with fancy Zildjian cymbals learning to play “Tom Sawyer” by Rush. There were always drummers and rocker guitarists and their followers hanging out in the music room. Everyone generally had long and greasy hair and wore faded jean jackets. This was cool.

You might think the music students would have had a lot in common with the theatre group in 213, but there was actually little crossover. The music and theatre crowds were largely a divided lot. The 213 students were artsy and introspective. They were also punk and New Wave. The music room was
populated by rockers, aspiring pop singers, and orchestral instrumentalists. I straddled both communities. I never really saw Wendy hanging about the music room area. She was part of the theatre scene. By the end of Grade 9, I would know to spend more time around Room 213, even beyond my class requirements in Theatre Troupe. The 213 crowd was where I might encounter Wendy. I had my priorities.

The main music teacher at Thornlea was a man named Bob Leonard. He was a hip guy in a “jazz cat” kind of way. Just as with the theatre teachers in 213, the liberal origins of our high school meant it was okay for students to call Mr. Leonard by his first name. So he was Bob. On most days, Bob wore a brown jacket with suede elbow patches and blue jeans or brown corduroys. He dressed the way a rumpled musician of the 1970s would dress if he was trying to appear “grown up.” Bob had facial hair and glasses and a very nasal voice. He said “sure” a lot. In fact, he began and ended almost every sentence by saying “sure.” But with Bob’s nasal voice, this trademark word of his sounded more like “shoo-er.” Bob was also very nice and quite gentle. So, for example, if Bob wanted to order you to be at a class on time, at his most forceful he might say, “Shoo-er … well, please make shoo-er to get there on the hour, please … shoo-er.” It was a strange vocal tic to go along with his genial nature. Maybe “shoo-er” had been part of 1970s jazz-speak when he was young. I’m not sure. But it was Bob. And most students had great affection for Bob. He cared about music. And he cared about us. And Bob always made me feel like I belonged. I didn’t usually feel ethnic or oddball when I was around him.