Rockin’ the party, way old school

Here is a story about the time that I learned how the big kids party.

When I first moved downtown, the first place that I stayed was my Auntie’s boyfriend’s room in a house he rented with a bunch of local rock ‘n’ rollers. My Auntie’s boyfriend was never there since he was always at her house, so they figured why not let me use it while I get myself situated in the city.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the roommates in that house were a bunch of the movers and shakers of Toronto’s music scene. One of the dudes living there was Steve Banks who at the time was just a cool guy to me. I wouldn’t find out until way later that he is a legend.

One night there was a band’s CD release party. The next afternoon, everyone was sitting around the kitchen table talking about the night before.

Steve Banks tells the story of the end of the night when he was already more drunk than he wanted to get, but couldn’t stand to see all of the abandoned half-finished beers go to waste. He ended up getting way smashed.

I got thinking about how my parents always told me as a kid that you should never finish a beer that isn’t yours because you don’t know what someone has done to it. I didn’t know what they meant, I just thought that maybe people go around poisoning drinks for fun.

So I say to the group “Aren’t you not supposed to drink other people’s drinks?”, and the whole room burts with cacophonous laughter.

Steve, between chuckles, says “If someone put drugs in it, that’s a bonus!”

It was one of those moments when my whole universe did this huge 180-degree turn on me.

Tags: adventures, life, me, memories, opinion, parties, party, people, random, thoughts, toronto