O Canada…

When the chilly Canadian dusk comes down on Vancouver, the waiters hurry to shut the venetian blinds in the lounge of the Flying Pig. They do it because the homeless come up to the large glass windows and stare at the patrons inside as they eat their beef tips. It tends to make the more fortunate uncomfortable, so the blinds are pulled tight. The tall open-space full of reclaimed wood and industrial artifacts immediately seems more cheerful.

By happenstance, we were sat at a table on the second floor loft located right up against a tall blindless window that looked down on the sidewalk below. From our vantage point, we could see the tops of the heads of destitutes as they pressed their faces against the glass – trying in vain to peer between the now shut blinds and the edge of the window frames. Some of them tapped on the glass while others held up strange artifacts for sale while they pleaded for money as if the people inside could see or hear them.

As I sipped a Molson, I wondered just what in the hell I was doing in Gastown – the skid row district of Vancouver. Despite being in the center of one of the most beautiful cities in North America, the area struck me as being impressively treachorous. These thoughts were quickly interupted by the buzzing of my phone.

“Hey man,” a young sounding voice said. “This is Brad. I’ve got an idea. If you’re in Gastown, why don’t we just shoot the car in a poorly lit crack-alley of some kind. There should be plenty around there.”

The Gastown steam clock once graced the cover of a Nickelback album. Damnit.

As he said that, I looked up and immediately saw an alley that appeared to be exactly as Brad had described. It was a small passageway between two old brick buildings that was capped on one side with another. Each was covered in hastily done graffiti claiming allegiance to one band of brothers or another. There was a dumpster about half way down and leaning up against that was a dirty 1980’s era camping tent. From the door hole stuck out two legs covered in grimy brown corduroy and feet in thick wool socks.

“I think I’ve found the perfect shooting location,” I said. “How quickly can you be here?”

While I waited on Brad, I ate Canadian BBQ and made arrangements to meet two other fellas at our chosen location. Like Brad, both Tim and Keith are HAMBers and answered my eleventh hour call for cars to shoot while on my expedition to Vancouver. Both seemed hesitant given the location, but agreed anyway. Then, my phone rang again.

“Hey, it’s Brad. I broke my generator mount and I’m stuck at gas station a few miles from you. There is a car park across the street though. We could do the shoot there?”

I conceded and quickly began trying to figure out the logistics of it all.

***

A few weeks before we left for the North, I had spinal surgery that required a long and narcotic softened recovery. Our trip to Canada was a sort of spontaneous reward for getting through it all. To add to the festivities, my wife and I brought along two of our closest friends.

Katie is my wife’s bestie… She’s the public relations woman behind Colin Kaepernick and a few other belligerent athletes. Her husband, Jason, has spent most of his life ensuring the amateurism of student athletes for the NCAA, but is now a defense attorney for those same kids. He’s a strict hard-ass out to punish those that have it coming. She’s the counter – a hippie with a heart of gold so long as she’s sober.

I bring this up only to illustrate the pickle I had found myself in. Both Katie and my wife were seeing double at this point. And, as a result, Jason was on edge. And to be fair, I would have been too if it weren’t for the pain pill and the valium I had popped only an hour or so earlier – not recreationally mind you, but because my healing neck didn’t react well to the long drive from Seattle to Vancouver.

In any case, there we were… Three sloppy drunks accompanied by a red headed attorney hell bent on keeping things in order. I was in no state to drive, so I immediately annexed Jason as my chauffeur. First, however, we had to check-in to our condo located in the Woodwards building – a restored skycraper full of trendy housing located right in the middle of Gastown. From there, Jason would then drive me to the new shoot location.

The only thing standing in our way really was an iron-fisted tenant law, that for some unknown reason, required all rentals in the Woodwards building be of at least 4 months in length. We were only going to be there for four days, but our Ukrainian landlord was somewhat of a racketeer. She was tall, dark, and spoke with a thick Russian accent. She also drove a black Rangerover with darkly tinted windows. I’m certain there is an Adidas track suit in her closet as well.

The view from our Gastown Penthouse.

Before we even entered the building, she laid out an intricate plot of deception in an effort to fool both the building’s handlers and the Vancouver tenant laws. Keep in mind that while all of this cloak and dagger shit was going down, my blood was full of chemicals aimed at keeping me both pain and care free. This worked for a while, but eventually my mind broke down into full paranoia. By the time Jason and I were back in the rental and headed to the shoot, I was certain that our party had somehow become a tool for some rogue communist outfit looking to further socialize Gastown and all of her residents – permanent or not.

***

Thankfully, the drive to the car park was a short one. Brad had broken down about five miles south of our illegally rented condo and we arrived in no time at all. As Jason and I jumped out of the rental, Brad made eye contact and said, “Hey guys… Here’s my old broken down piece of shit.” As he turned, his better half stood between us and the car.

“He’s talking about the car. Not me,” she said with a smirk. And with that… I knew, even in my incapacitated state of mind, that I had found my people.

Reassured, I finally got down to the business of figuring out the shoot. Brad’s car was striking. It was finished in a semi-matte black that was obviously fresh and done in something other than Dp90. Nitro – No doubt. It was also lettered cleanly and with an eye for graphic design. Tasteful. Next on the first impression list was the 18″ wide-fives. Rare as hell and the resulting stance is worth every hour Brad must have spent hunting them down. But before I got too bogged down with the details, I took a step back and looked at the proportions of the car.

“Not too bad,” Brad said with humility, “for a coupe that started life as a four door sedan.”

It was then I realized that I knew this car. I had seen this car. Brad had been updating a build thread on the H.A.M.B. since 2014 or so and I was a loyal follower. Only, I hadn’t seen the finished results yet. Suddenly, I remembered watching the slow and steady progress as Brad posted weekly pictures of the old sedan morphing into a heavily chopped coupe. I remembered all of the old chrome (every bit on the car is vintage) he collected. And I remembered the hot little Thickstun equipped flathead that was hiding under the hood.

It now felt as though I was shooting an old friend that I hadn’t seen in a while. One hurdle jumped.

The next issue to figure out was one of locale. There were plenty of crack alleys about, but given his broken generator mount Brad was beginning to become risk adverse. I could hardly blame him and luckily, there was a car park across the street from the gas station where the car was sitting. The common urban background was far from perfect, but at least the trees preparing for winter gave the scene some color and the attendants seemed to be doing a mannerly job of keeping the space free of those without another place to go. Brad fired the flathead using the nearly lifeless battery and got the car moved while I prepared my cameras.

Now, I prefer to shoot cars digitally. Using a digital camera, I can “spray and pray” and know that I have the dynamic range to save just about any poorly exposed photo. But, I prefer to shoot my family/personal life on film. Our adventure to Canada didn’t originally include a photoshoot. It wasn’t until the flight over that I had this grand vision of tax deductions through Canadian hot rods. So really, greed lead me into the rather intimidating position of shooting a car in a less than ideal location using a camera made in 1958 sans a light meter and with only three rolls of film… all the while, high on pain meds and valium.

Speaking of, my paranoia hadn’t completely left me yet either. Brad’s flathead is loud and as soon as it fired, I imagined every mindless brute from blocks away hearing the mating call of someone with more to give than they themselves had. It would be minutes, I thought, before we would be totally overrun by those with ill intentions. I worked feverishly.

About the time I was finishing up my shoot, I heard the rumble of more V8’s. In the haste of the moment, I had completely forgotten about Tim and Keith. They had both gone to our original crack alley shoot location before learning of the change of plans and rerouting. As they climbed out of their cars, they had a distant look in their eyes. They had seen some shit.

The shooting locale with the good side in the background…

But before I could hear their story and drive myself further into the depths of my delusions, I had them line their cars up with Brad’s and I continued my shoot. Fifteen minutes into it and I heard the parking attendant approach someone in our party behind me.

“Hey man, you guys need to leave. This is an operating lot and you are using our spots.”

I ignored the warning and continued on with my shoot as quickly as I could. A few minutes later, I heard a long burst of small arms fire. “Woah. Was that gunfire?” I asked to anyone within ear shot.

“Fireworks,” someone replied. But I was having none of it. This was not a good scene to confront with a head full of Oxycodone. I was certain that the communists had organized a unit of highly trained assassins and that they were now coming to take what they believed belong to society at large. Tax deduction or not, my shoot was over. I packed up my cameras, shook the hands of all involved, and got the hell back to the safety of my 39th floor penthouse in the Woodwards building just as quickly as I could.

***

The next morning I woke to an awareness that not all was as it seemed. The consequent couple of days, in fact, were a nightmare full of paranoid blunders and the kind of small humiliations that haunt you for many weeks afterwards. But that’s the risk you take when you travel with a head full of opioids I guess…

It wasn’t until our third day, I think, that the brain fog had cleared enough to have a sustained, clean focus on the Canadian situation. There’s something about Vancouver that had grabbed me. Even while staying in an area that many consider to be the slums, it was easy to see her beauty.

I’ll be back… Thank you Brad. Thank you Keith. Thank you Tim. The hospitality was appreciated and will be returned anytime you guys make your way to Texas.

***