All Aboooooard! The Jagermobile.

Last night was my final night of scandal and debauchery at Halifax’s legendary Khyber Club before the place closes down on Thursday.

Man, I’m going to miss the Khyber. I have too many memories of that place to think about right now. Tons of shows. I used to have my birthday parties there, I played there on a couple of New Year’s Eves, worked as a bartender there in the summer of ’99. Years of good memories.

I met up with Gerry and Mark Black over at Gerry’s place. I was well-prepared for the event with a bottle of disgusting Bacardi in my jacket pocket. My brother had given it to me for Xmas. “You’ll have to find your own eggnog, ha ha!” he said.

I phoned Claudette and got her out of bed and made her agree to meet us at the Khyber at 11:30. It’s fun being a bad influence on people.

So Mark and Gerry and I set out towards downtown. We cut across the Commons and Mark and Gerry proceeded to smash every snowman we encountered along the way. I chased after them with my digital camera.

“The urge to destroy,” I said, recording the carnage, “is a creative urge.”

Someone had gone to the throuble of creating a giant pair of snow-tits on the edge of the Commons. Gerry took a flying leap from about eight feet away, bounced off a rock-hard snow-knocker and fell down on his ass.

“Firm,” he said.

Mark Black managed to punch off one of the perky little nipples, but I attempted to replace it so as to capture the following photograph.

We got to the Khyber, met up with Claudette and hit the bar hard. This was our first official Swordfight Posse Drunken Free-For-All and we were determined to make it a good one.

All I know is, I was buying round after round of Jagermeister shots. I would buy five or six shots at a time, drink one myself, offer a few to whoever was handy, grab another for myself and drink a big toast to Rick Ferrari. People were buying me shots in return, I would order up another round, Rick Ferrari was a much-lauded figure last night.

It was Dusty Sorbet’s last night hosting open mic. Here’s one for the ladies… Joel Plaskett performing his hit song “Down At The Khyber”:

It looks all weird because my lens was fogged up, plus the lens had a big fingerprint on it. I took this picture and then my camera batteries died and that was that.

Somehow I found myself onstage with an acoustic guitar around my neck and Gerry, Claudette and Mark Black all crowded around a microphone. We did the Bloomfield Anthem and then the Bloomfield Salute and then I was doing an acoustic version of “Cure For Cancer” by my old hardcore band Equation Of State, while Mark and Gerry intoned backing vocals.

I dreamed of a great fire
Followed by a great flood
The future lives of earth
Swallowed up in blood

Some songs weren’t really meant to be played on acoustic guitar. Anyway. Then I did an old A/V song “Target Breakdown of Halifax Cannons” and Mark Black changed all the lyrics so they were about Rick Ferrari. Then we did “Graveyard Shift.” You know how sometimes you’re at an open mic and these really drunk obnoxious people get up on stage and overstay their welcome? That was the Swordfight Posse last night. I was up there thinking, “We are those people.”

And then there was more drinking and I spent all my money on Jagermeister and hauled a woman into the stairwell for some drunken groping, the very last of the Khyber stairwell, and the strict fire code regulations which make such fooling around actually against the law. I’m sure gonna miss it.

And then the bar closed and it was time to leave. I gave my heartfelt thanks to Craig Ferguson who has been known as Khyber Craig for so long that it will be tough to think of him as anything else. Hope it all works out.

I didn’t want to drink my last shot because I didn’t want it all to end. Gingerly I slipped the full shotglass of Jagermeister into one of my pants pockets. I held it there as I left the bar and took it out to sip on slowly and to savour as I headed up Barrington Street towards the Marquee.

If no one minds, I shall keep this shotglass as a souvenir?

I was super-drunk and in Hell’s Kitchen things just started going nutty. Maybe there was a weird vibe because they’ve announced the Marquee will be closing as well on the 25th, supposedly for a month of renovations but who the hell knows, I’m going to assume I’ll be out of a job. None of the bouncers were in a particularly good mood, that’s for certain.

I remember I smashed a couple of glasses and a girl who was standing beside me almost got thrown out while I stood nearby and whistled making an angelic face. Claudette and Mark were fighting or something, I don’t know, I think Claudette cut Mark with a broken bottle so he was running around bleeding all over the place.

Claudette poured beer on me, I don’t remember why. So I grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm and made her pour the rest of her beer all over herself. She just loved that.

I said to Gerry, “Ger, Claudette poured beer on me and I don’t know why. She knows I’m allergic to beer, why would she pour beer on me? Of all the things to pour on me, why would she do that?”

Gerry took a swig of beer and nodded thoughtfully and then spat it out all over me. He really gave me a good hosing.

A bouncer caught me in the back room in a compromising position and went out and slammed the door shut. Somewhere along the line the Bacardi was consumed, all except for one little mouthful, which I didn’t want and couldn’t give away to anybody. The Dean Malenkos ended their set at 3:30am when the plug got pulled, and I guess Jonny Horseface threw a glass, which set off an orgy of glass-breaking and then Jonny threw his drum kit piece-by-piece across the stage.

Even though I was drunk and off-duty, my sound tech reflexes kicked in and I jumped up to clean up the stage and coil all the cables. The stage was a mess of microphone stands, drum parts, broken glass and spilled beer.

I’m just trying to imagine people who get drunk a lot, alcoholics and stuff. Life must just be crazy all the time. Just a blur of weird memories. I’m not sure what’s gotten into me but it’s probably the same thing that’s gotten into Halifax in general: a sense of impending apocalypse.

These are the last days, my friends.

I had ibuprofen on toast for breakfast.