Can-do, Can-did, Got The T-Shirt

I'm kinda tardy with this post... again, my deepest apologies.

Two weekends ago I attended the big Sloan/Sam Roberts co-headlining festival over on the Toronto Islands. It was an all-Canadian bill that also included Broken Social Scene, The Constantines, Buck 65, The Stills, Pilate and Death From Above. By all accounts it was a huge success, notable because this summer saw the cancelation of at least two other festivals: Lollapalooza and The Toronto Blues Festival.

I think Eye magazine hit the nail on the head with this story about the festival.

It was a great day. Started out kind of overcast, but as the day went on it cleared up and warmed up. Olympic Island is a very cool place for a show like that. Lots of green space, trees, places to wander off and escape the crowd if you want to, and a great view of the downtown skyline.

Crowd behaviour at these things is always fascinating. Observing real, live flesh-and-blood interaction between masses of people and pop music and pop culture--at the moment of spontaneous(?) consumption--is rife with all kinds of interesting paradoxes and revelations. For instance, there was the moment in Sam Roberts' set when he was performing "Brother Down", and the crowd picks up the refrain (with a little urging from Sam). People have their arms raised, fists in the air, voices jubilently belting it out...

"I think my life is passing me by"

um, yee haw.

And then of course there's Sam's other big sing-along moment in "The Canadian Dream"--part manifesto, part spelling bee...

"S-O-C-I-A,
L-I-S-M is here to stay!"

Gee, suddenly we're standing in the middle of thousands of real live socialists! Who knew? Up to that point they had appeared to be a bunch of students and young urban and suburban 20- and 30-somethings. And me not even partaking in the jubilent celebration of my fellow travellers, even though I was wearing my DJ Guevara t-shirt! (Note the Mao vinyl!)

...speaking of which...

When I was at the concert, I went to get a beer and as I was coming back from the serving area, this guy runs up to me and stops me, saying that his friend is doing a project on Che Guevara, and would I mind if he took a picture of my shirt for the project. I said, sure. So I go over and meet the guy, and he explains that he's a professor at Ryerson University, and his project (which sounded like part research project, part art project) involves investigating uses of Che images; talking to kids--university students, mostly--about why they're wearing the Che t-shirt, what it means to them, etc. A lot of these kids, of course, don't even know much about Che Guevara, other than that it's a cool image, I would guess on a par to them with Jim Morrison, John Lennon or Kurt Cobain. A cool icon. Projection of some kind of fuzzy rebelliousness.

So I was certainly willing to let him take a few snaps of me and my shirt, especially since mine represents a different...spin, shall we say...on the appropriation of the image. He asked me where I had found the t-shirt, and I told him that I had bought it in a little boardwalk store near Cavendish, P.E.I. when I was home visiting a few summers ago. The guy who initially approached me then says that he's from the East Coast, too. Antigonish, N.S. Says he wouldn't have guessed I was an Islander because he didn't hear an accent in my voice. I explain that we moved to the Moncton, N.B. area when I was 13, and I probably lost some of it as a result, plus living in Ontario for the past 14 years likely took care of the rest. He says, "No kidding! I lived in the Moncton area, too. Riverview." I say, "That's where I lived. Went to Riverview High. Class of '81". He says, "I was Class of '83!".

I say, "What's your name"?

"Patrick Decoste."

"Pat Decoste! I know you! ... I think... do I?"

Turns out it was his brother Mark who I knew from high school. He and his then-girlfriend-then-wife-then-ex-wife Sue Ellen (long story) were in several classes with me. And my friend Dan had dated their sister for a short time. But Pat and I had a few common friends, and we spent a few minutes working out the connections.

Too funny.

Che Guevara. Uniting people around the world.