Vancouver Street Heart: The Amsterdammit!

As far as their website is concerned, The Amsterdam Cafe opens at 10:30 am, 7 days a week. I was sure this wasn't accurate, but surely i could trust their website over my horrible memory. Their website wouldn't lie, would it?

Yes, yes it would. I named the place and time, only to arrive a few minutes after 11 this morning and introduce myself to Paolo, who was standing in the rain in front of the locked gate of said cafe. (On a side note, I highly recommend taking a camera to The Amsterdam and asking the staff to let you go out back to shoot the graf -- but wait until after 12 noon.) Paolo is a filmmaker who has been documenting the street art scene in Brasil. He moved to Vancouver two months ago and approached me about the possibility of filming my artistic process from start to finish. From blank page to street. The end result being a 3 minute documentary film. I agreed.

The plan was to chill at The Amsterdam and make a poetry scroll at the table, blaze some kush, and film the process. But that clearly wasn't an option thanks to potheads not updating their website. Surprise, surprise. Thankfully, a friend of mine has a massive studio space just down the street that dozens of artists occupy, and he was kind enough to allow us to set up and film in his space. This underground artists' den is truly one of the most creative environments in the city, with someone always at work on something rad. I set up at a table in the middle of a giant room, under bright lights, and used my sharpies to stencil the poem onto the scroll. Fragments of discussion were broken up with awkward silences. I found myself ripping the label off of my soda bottle before the camera turned on.

Several cigarettes and about an hour later, I was walking west a few blocks up Hastings Street and ducking into the alley behind the Church of Scientology, followed by my private paparazzi. I pasted the poetry scroll up on a door that I have hit many many times, covering up some of my older pieces that had been torn over the years. It was a strange experience to say the least, being filmed. I'm not a camera virgin by any means, as my good friend Pete Jordan loves to follow me around filming and snapping photos. But it's a different vibe when it's a good friend, as opposed to someone you just met in the rain in front of a cafe that you had told them would be open.

The presence of cameras always draws more attention, and everyone in the vicinity tends to take notice and come in close enough to find out what the hell is so interesting on an alley door that people would be filming it. Today was no exception; cars slowly crept by as we stepped aside; drivers reading and shooting me a smile. Pedestrians cut through the alley and followed suit. I wiped the paste off of my hands and onto my camouflage shorts, lit a cigarette, and took a photo -- a process I've repeated hundreds and hundreds of times.

Ten minutes later I was sitting alone, gazing out the window of Vera's Burger Shack, adjacent to the Gassy Jack statue in Gastown, eating a killer Vera's burger with triple pickles and quenching my alcoholism with a pitcher of honey lager. Through the glass, I witnessed what appeared to be a homeless man, feverishly cleaning up the streets. Picking up litter and putting it in the garbage bin, kicking butts to the curb and so forth. I've seen this man before, performing these types of acts, showing love and pride for his community. This is his process. No lights, no camera, no documentation of any sort. Sometimes, the most inspiring stories are never told.