the death of cool by gavin mcinnes

7/28/2019 The Death of Cool by Gavin McInnes

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Zappe by Spae Guns into a Sit

hole on Ai (1985)

I would never do acid in New York Cityits too dirty and claus-trophobicbut when youre stuck way out in Buttuck, Ontario, itsyour only escape.

First, let me tell you how Buttuck this place was. Canadian devel-opers back then were busy creating cookie-cutter housing communi-ties in the middle o nowhere. Tey had slogans such as omorrows

city . . . today and names such as New Granada and Bridlewood. Teywere ar rom the city and had no drugs, bars, gangs, sluts, or crimejust trees, houses, and the local school.

My parents were educated but working-class Scots who wanted toget as ar away rom their shitty past as possible. Like all expoor peoplethey wanted a better lie or their kids and this seemed like a greatopportunity. Tey tried England but it wasnt working. Canada was

brand-new back then. It had just settled on a ag in 1965 and was yetto choose a national anthem (they chose O Canada in 1980). In the1970s, they were building their lower middle class rom scratch and

pouring British immigrants into the mold like pancake mix.

McInnes_Death of Cool_TP_3P_re.indd 5 5/14/13 11:19 AM


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In 1975, ve years ater a breathtakingly gorgeous baby Me was

born, the Glaswegians who created me gave up on their new home inEngland and stuck the whole amily in a mass-produced Canadian sub-urb surrounded by armers elds. Kanata is a hal hour rom Canadas

tiny capital, Ottawa, and had houses that were so preab and generic, Iwould oten get lost trying to gure out which one was mine.

On my rst day o school, I was asked to say a ew words and ater

using my posh English accent to say, Well, hellowe, I simply cannottell you how chued I am to be here in Canad-er and have broughtalong my park-er or the occasion, I got the shit pounded out o me sobadly, I was saying, Maggie Longclaws is pregnant, eh? like Bob and

Doug McKenzie within the week. Tis began my lie role as a mistalways adapting to uncomortable situations. Whether its an English-man in Ontario, an English speaker in French Canada, a Canadian in

New York, or the only dad at the amily resort covered in tattoos, Ivealways been most comortable when Im out o place.

can you blame tem for kiking my ass? (1975)



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Zappe by Spae Guns into a Sit hole on Ai (1985)

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It was un, though. Rural seclusion is great when youre a little kid.

We shot at each other with BB guns, chased cows, and would makejumps or our bikes that were so intense, anyone who landed wrongwas guaranteed a broken wrist. Tis was in the pre-saety days when

not only did we not wear helmets, we didnt even wear shoes, and iyour bike didnt have brakes, youd have to stop the ront tire with yourbare oot. We swung o tire ropes into swimming holes in the summer

and had snowball ghts in the winter, but when the testosterone kicksin, so does the need or more. Te seclusion goes rom groovy timesto a pressure cooker that makes you want to start a nuclear war. So, theday our teenage years began, we took our cold, bleak, lame environ-

ment and magically converted it into Funtown by using drugs. We alsostarted a club that we pretended was a gang.

Steve (at), dogboy (urly air), anme in a poto boot were we tryto not laug for as long as possible.

(1986)



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Hal the students at my high school were the children o British

expats, and the other hal were Canadian armers kids. Our crewconsisted o about a dozen ornery mists rom both sides. We calledourselves the Monks because we were loosely divided into mods (a

now-esoteric subculture that was like punk but based more on neatlydressed, working-class 1960s British soul ans) and punks, thoughthere were quite a ew hosers (Canadian rednecks). Our crew ran the

gamut. Tere was a huge basketball player with a harelip named Marty,a male-model-looking kid we thought was ugly so we called him Dog-boy, and the Fonzarelli o the group, Steve Durand. Lawrence McCal-lister was a mod and so was his buddy John. We called John Pukey

Stallion because he always threw up at parties and never got laid. Wewerent part o the schools social hierarchy and had carved our ownniche as the weird kids.

Being ucking idiots was very important to us. I anyone artedor burped without saying saety beore someone else called slut,everyone in the gang got to beat the poo-stufngs out o him until he

could name ve breakast cereals. Unortunately, guys started memo-

rizing cereal lists, so we were orced to switch it to chocolate bars tokeep things interesting. Tis was the early stages o a career devoted to

troublemaking. Our motto was, It aint shit til it hits the an but thebully rom Te Simpsonslater said it much better when he asked Bart,I no one gets mad, are you really being bad?

Drugs enhanced this liestyle, especially acid. Wed drop a tabaround eight oclock at night and go walk around a boring landscapethat had blissully transormed into a place worth visiting. I acquired

X-ray vision to see through houses and observe how people lived when

they didnt know they were being watched. We stole hovercrats andwalked through trees. One time, Pukeys head was a chicken.

My avorite LSD trip happened when I was teen. It was me,

Steve, Dogboy, and Marty. We met ater dinner behind our highschool, and Steve pulled a sheet o about ten tabs rom his wallet. As

we each put one o the tiny square papers on our tongues, Dogboy

said to Steve, Let me see your drivers license. Steve pulled it out andDogboy ell to the ground laughing. Steve always went cross-eyed in



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his ID pictures and eventually we made it a traditioneven or the

yearbook. Soon we were all sharing our drivers licenses and laugh-ing at them, but I noticed something strange about Marty when hesaw his. He looked disturbed. Martys harelip was obvious, but wed

known him or so long we couldnt see it. Now I was seeing it. It wasmore than a single harelip; it was a ull, lustrous, head-o-harelip.Tats kind o a bad trip, Marty said ater quietly looking at the

picture on his license. Ten he put it back in his wallet and decidedto move on.

We wandered over to a big hill by the ootball eld where we usedto punch each other in the nuts and we lay down to stare up at the

night sky. It was a beautiul spring night, and the moon was so bright,we could see all the clouds perectly. I realized I was tripping balls.Holy shit, I said to Marty as Steve and Dogboy continued to laugh

at their licenses. Do you see octagons? Te entire sky was made up oeight-sided geometry-deying shapes all turning in the same directionlike cogs. It was a mosaic honeycomb o shapes that seamlessly rotated

in unison, and I wanted to know i it was just me.

Yes! Marty said. I see it, too.Now I was really conused. Whoa, I said. Now, that is a ucking

trip and a hal. I get how I can be hallucinating something, but howcanyou be seeing the same thing? Tats like us having the same dream.

Ten he asked, You know those weird desk toys where theres a

plastic board made up o steel pins, like a bed o nails kind o but theymove?

Er, kind o ? I replied.You push your hand on one side, he explained urther, and then

your hand imprint is on the other side.I nally got what he was talking about. I think its called Pin Art,

I said.

Tats it! he said excitedly. And i you put your ace on one side,the pins appear on the other side as an imprint o your ace. I didntknow where he was going with this and I was getting nervous. Ten he

said, Tats what I see in the sky. Only its God doing the impressionso your ace. Ten he ucking turns to me and says, about a oot away



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rom my ear hole, Whatever ace comes out the other end, thats your

ace. Do you understand?I was desperate to get o this topic and nervously said, Yeah, yeah,

I get it. Hey! Tat cloud looks like Gareld taking a shit. You see that?

He wasnt having it, and he got up on one elbow so we were ace-to-ace. No, man, Im serious, he said. Im going to ask you tomorrowi you really do get it, because its important. I could eel a bad trip

starting to bubble rom my toes and surge up my body, so I sprangupright and said, Lets sneak onto the gol course, to which Steve andDogboy yelled, Yeah!

Tose guys usually got all Beavis and Butthead on acid, and I envied

that. For me, acid was like having a thousand eyes and twenty millionears that could hear every conversation in the world at once. I thinkthats Gods Pin Art way o saying, Stick to booze, but every time

God spoke, I put my ngers in my ears and said, La la la. I cant hearyou. Doo dee dee. Not listening to you.

I was rattled by Martys provocations or the rest o the night, but I

had shaken the bad trip and was able to le his heavy vibes away under

No Fucking Way Are We Ever Going Tere Again or as Long as WeShall Live.

Te Kanata Gol and Country Club was in the upper-class sectiono Nowhere and we were well-known by the security sta. onight it

was beautiully lit up by the moon and we all elt earless. We were all

such old hats at sneaking into stu, we actually preerred it when theychased us. Steve would do karate moves and run in circles like he wastraining to be a Keystone Kop. We were bored brats who were desper-ate to get back to all the danger and excitement our immigrant parents

had rescued us rom. Adding acid to this game was like colorizing ablack-and-white movie. We ran up and down hills and tossed ags like

javelins. We threw garbage cans in the water and climbed trees as i

they were made o stairs. We had the agility o Olympic monkeys andthe whole thing was such a riot, we started laughing uncontrollably.

Ten it happened.

Steve was bouncing along and saw a small circle o mud that wasabout two eet in diameter. Without a second thought he jumped on it,



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expecting a small splatch and maybe a slightly muddy toe. Instead his

entire body vanished into the atmosphere and the only thing let washis disembodied head sitting there on top o the puddle.

Do you get what Im telling you?

His body was gone. Disappeared.I you were a Nobel Prizewinning physicist you would have been

conused. We were stupid kids on ucking acid. Ergo, we completely

lost our shit. Ater screaming What the uck!? about seven hundredtimes, I calmed down a bit and started to get mad at society or havingsuch technology. Why is it okay to annihilate peoples torsos and limbsusing some kind o invisible death ray? I understand security cant toler-

ate trespassers and I wouldnt have complained i we were kicked outor arrested, but obliterated with a space gun? Tey shoot your body oi you walk on a gol course ater hours? How long have they had this

technology? Why isnt there more blood? Te military are the only oneswho should be able to use such gunsnotthat at rent-a-cop with thewomans mustache! What i he gets drunk? He could end civilization!

Im going to ght or Body Guncontrol legislation when I grow up.

My mind was racing.Marty was bewildered and laughing but in control. Dogboy and

I were gone and had begun howling with conusion. Steve had beenmurdered. We were both sitting on our haunches with our arms out-stretched screaming, Whaaaat!? over and over.

Steve knew how important it was to laugh at a time like thisespecially i youre not actually dead. He authoritatively said, Im allright. You can laugh, and while still having no idea what happenedto his body, Dogboy and I both ell back and laughed our heads o

with no holds barred. I elt like my teeth were cumming. As we bothpounded the grass and continued roaring, Steve commanded Martyto get him out. Being the legal giant that he is, Marty had no problem

reaching into the muck, grabbing Steve by the armpits, and hoistinghis mud-dripping body rom what now appeared to be a perectlycylindrical hole designed or people to all into.

Ten Steve said, Its shit, and the laughter went to a whole notherlevel. But Steve wasnt laughing. Im not high anymore, he said like



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a science teacher. Te adrenaline had burned the lysergic acid diethyl-

amide out o his system, and he was completely sober. As Steve washedall his clothes in a nearby creek, we calmed down enough to put thepieces together:

A gol course needs to have plenty o manure around to maintainperect lawns, but you cant have a huge mountain o manure sit-ting there while people play. So, they had these cylindrical containers

drilled into the ground. Te holes are less o an eyesore and can stillhold enough ertilizer or the groundskeepers.

We all walked back to Steves house with him sopping wet but eces-ree.

As Steve tried to explain to his mom what happened, we snuckdownstairs to watch V. He had a shower and came down later withnew clothes on and a small joint we quietly and careully smoked in

the laundry room. As a particularly ununny episode oWhos the Boss?droned in the background, Steves buzz came back and I explained tohim how I thought his entire body had gone ying o into the orest,

leaving his head working but unattended.

As the laughter started up again, I considered drawing connectionsto cosmic exchanges and how Marty and I had the same hallucination

earlier, but my mind snapped shut against it. Lies too short to riskgetting serious.

the death of cool by gavin mcinnes

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