Filed under: Indie Music, feature story, music review, vancouver | Tags: menomena, rappin' hobos
That’s a picture of the littlest hobo, a friendly husky who would wander the great white north and help people in need. Kinda like Lassy, but Canadian and not lame. Which is actually kind of a stretch for something that is produced for Canadian television.
Anyway, I was walking up Robson the otherday with Doozy, going to some make-up store so that she could buy some new lipstick or nail polish or turlte wax or something, and along the way we encountered a series of Vancouver street people. Now, I have nothing against vagrants and those who live on the street. I think that they are beautiful people who have lost their way and need help getting back on their feet, or in some cases, assistance living.
Vancouver is rife with street folk. They’re everywhere and much more active than the one we used to encounter back in Calgary. In the paeries, they’re too busy trying to survive the weather to really be much of a nusance to anyone. But out here, it’s like they’re cold blooded or something, they’re bouncing around all over the place. Running across streets, climbing walls, scuttling about the busy sidewalks looking for spare change (or Spange, as I would call it in high school).
I swear the first time I drove into the city, we had to come in through East Hastings at night, and it was like cruising through a mad house run by the inmates. I saw one fella do a back flip off of fire hydrant by Pigeon Park.
So as we were walking up Robson we saw a few hobos trying their best to get some cash to get by. One guy was on his knees at the corner with his hands out, still as a statue. On big guy, like my buddy John big, was on a wheel chair in front of the Robson and Thurlow doing a puppet show with stuffed animals. The voices he was giving his plush players were in decipherable, and it sounded mostly like a series of moans and Bllaaarghs. There was one fella (or lass, I can tell. Doozy says it was a dude) who looked to have leprasy. He was missing a hand and only had patches of afro-like hair jutting out asymmetrically of his otherwise bald head.
But the one who got me the most was the other guy in a wheel chair. He had a sign asking for fund and in a sad, muppet-like voice he asked “does any buddy hab any change pweese?” It was pathetic in the most literal sense of the word. It felt like my heart got kicked in the balls.
It got me thinking to the Hobos that come into my life regularly. There is one who sits by the exit doors of the shoppers drug mart by my building. He doesn’t ask for change, or beg or anything. He just sits there with his cup and makes pleasent conversation with people going in and out of the store. Sometimes people will have him watch their dogs while they’re shopping and he seems to get a kick out of it. One day I saw him petting some rather tall greyhounds while they were licking his gray beard. He’s such a good spirit that I feel bad when I have not change to give him, so on my last three visits I’ve given him popsicles, some doritos, and last night, a can of pepsi. He really liked the popsicle.
Then there was the Rappin’ Hobo. I was working at a coffee shop one morning on the corner of Granville and Smtih and in from the rain come a younger hobo with a plastic bag. He started to, well, rap at me about how he needed to use the washroom. I tried to tell him that it was for customers only and that the cheapest drink he could get would be a small coffee, but it was like he couldn’t hear me as he kept on going spouting his off-cadence non-rhyming lyrics at me:
I need to use the washroom so / I can wash my hair and give my teeth a rinse / then I can talk to people properly / out there on the street / and you have to know that I’m no fool / and that I’m here to keep it real / and that love comes from within / and the so does energy too .
Or something like that.
We let him use the washroom so he’d leave. I tried to give him a cup of water on the way out, but he wasn’t having it. “Hey, I don’t know what type of game you’re playing but… I don’t fall for that / ‘cuz I’m seeing clear with my two eyes / and I can’t take what you’re giving / and …”
And so on.
What else…
Menomena! Right
The other day Dan was driving Doozy and I around kits and there was some awesome song on on his iPod. I said, “Hey man, what’s this?” he said “dude, this is Menomena. and it’s awesome.” and he’s right!
I’ve been listening to Friend and Foe pretty much non-stop for the last few days and it’s possibly the best album for 2007. I feel like an ass for not getting into it sooner, but I’ve been busy. But this is pretty much the same thing that happened with the Postal Service. You think that I would have learned my lesson then.
They’re probably the best thing to come out of the Pacific Northwest since Harvey Danger or Bionic Bigfoot.
Better late than never.
google = “menomena” site:megaupload.com
