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April 2019




  

R.I.P. ZIPPY PINHEAD
(For my forever brother.)
By: Christeen Aebi
aka Canada Jones Jett



Sometime at the end of the 1980s ...

I dialed that 604 phone number from East 12th Street in Manhattan. I was trying to reach a friend in the wee hours.

The other line picked up, and in a rumbly gargle of a growl I hear: “PLAAAH-zuh!”

“Shithead!” I exclaimed, thinking I knew that particular gargle of a growl. “What are you doing over at the Plaza so late?! Go home to your wife and kids!”

“BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAWWW!!! This is not the Shithead. Who’s this?”

“Christeen the Great and Terrible … Who’s THIS?!”


“Pinhead the Honer’ed. [HO-nerd.] Pleased to meetcha.” And then a torrent of words. Like, gave ME a run for my money. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. (Really.) My ear was numb by the time I hung up the phone.

And that’s how Zippy and I became friends. A few months later I was back in the  'Couv for a visit, staying at the Plaza, hanging out with the Pinhead himself and a houseful, swilling warm Kokanees out of a bootlegger’s trunk, listening to the clacks of the Foosball game off the kitchen while Zippy told story after story after story, smoking spliffs with hash that was giving us black lung, and wondering if I would even ever get five minutes’ sleep crashing here. I did, barely.

Zippy Pinhead -né William Chobotar -already had been a fixture on the Vancouver punk scene since its inception by the time we became friends. He was notorious in San Francisco as well, for his many jaunts south to join whatever band, however briefly, until he quit, was kicked out, or got deported back to Canada. Zippy Pinhead will be remembered as one of the legendary rock’n’roll drummers someday. For now, punk rock is happy to claim him as one of the Greatest Of All Time.

Zippy Pinhead was in one of the first lineups of D.O.A. including the prototype band the Stiffs, and then The Rabid. He played with almost every band Art Bergmann ever made. He had a bathroom cameo in the Dennis Hopper flick “Out of the Blue” along with the Pointed Sticks. He drummed on the 3-song double 7” by Les Dils featuring the stunner “Sound of the Rain.” The Pinhead had also drunk several breweries’ worth of “poonslers” by that time … And this is only a short list of his cumulative and varied accomplishments at this juncture.

In San Francisco he did stints in the Avengers, the Mutants, and Kaos, among others. At one point he’d made it down to Mexico and was promptly sent back north. I wrote a song for Zippy once: “He’s the beer molester, your friendly court jester … Deported all the way home from Tijuana, he loves to smoke the marijuana.”

He played in countless bands in the decades he lived back in Vancouver for the rest of his life: The Sick Ones, with his great, late friends Brad “Cunt” Kent and Randy Rampage; also the Valentinos and like a whole pile of others that I lost track of over the past few years. I know he lately was super stoked to be drumming for The Sacked.

Since his untimely passing on Wednesday, March 13, 2019, the best description I’ve read is that Zippy Pinhead was the giant golden retriever puppy of punk rock. This is apt as fuck. Zippy was a big, loud, sloppy, HAPPY ball of love that was impossible to restrain or contain. I cannot count the number of times I tried to pass out at whichever abode I was staying in Vancouver, only to have Pinhead barge over and plop down on the side of my bedroll or couch or whatever, wielding the acoustic guitar he’d found in somebody’s room, with the cider he’d found in another kitchen, joint hanging from his ridiculous lips, and commencing with, “Who’s your brother? Who’s your pal? I am now going to play you the saddest chord in the world.” And then it was showtime, with many a flourish … all the way up to and past dawn, usually. No sleep for the wicked. The set began with whatever song he made up to “the saddest chord in the world,” ran through the theme from “The Love Boat” (and if Zippy was feeling EXTRA special, he’d do that one again, “in CHINESE!”), and usually ended with an hourlong aria: “TIERRRRRRRA DEL FUEEEEEEEEEGO!!!!” 


I have been either cackling my ass off laughing or bawling my eyes out since last Wednesday. 

Nobody was more amused by Zippy than Zippy. I came home in Portland one time to a message on my answering machine that went something like this: “Hello and good afternoon. This is Zippy Pinhead, reporter-at-large, here to inform you that Saddam Hussein has been FOUND! YUP!!! They found him in a hockey hut, under the ice. A team of SPECIAL CANADIAN FORCES found him. Under the ice. In a hockey hut. In the desert. It was a special mission ...” And this whole long recorded message is punctuated by gales and gale and gales of Pinhead laughter, Zippy cracking up at himself the whole damn time. I could hear the spittle flying as he blew out the tiny answering-machine speakers. (If I am lucky, I saved this cassette.)

This was the usual state of affairs with the Pinhead. He was hilarious, and exhausting. And his voice and laugh were so damn loud and so resonant that you had to yell REALLY LOUD to tell him to SHUT THE FUCK UP, PINHEAD!!! over all the racket he was making. And it was absolutely always a futile effort anyway. This was how it was, in person or even over the phone, cuz he had to call up every once in a while to tell you he loved you at 3 am. “Who’s your brother? Who’s your pal? Who loves you? I see a SMILE comin’ around the corner!”

The very saddest I’ve ever known Zippy to be was after Country Dick Montana’s death up at Whistler when the Pinhead was sitting in with his favorite band the Beat Farmers. That wrecked him and I don’t remember seeing him wrestle with anything quite so seriously. There were a lot of late-night phone calls around that time. 

Pretty sure Zippy’s second-favorite band was Guns’N’Roses, and I definitely know he and Duff McKagan loved each other like nobody’s business. On Velvet Revolver’s first tour, Duff came out onstage in Portland wearing a T-shirt that read MY RECORD COLLECTION CAN BEAT UP YOUR RECORD COLLECTION, and I was right in front of the stage in a stenciled D.O.A. T-shirt and I yelled, “Oh YEAH??! Well, I’m Zippy Pinhead’s sister!” And Duff cracked up and yelled back at me, “Well, that’s funny because we’re related, then! I’m Zippy Pinhead’s BROTHER!!! Nice T-shirt.” 

The only time I ever saw Pinhead really scared was when he tried to drive me to Seattle from Vancouver to catch my bus back to Portland. It was the first time he had tried to cross the border since the Tijuana episode. I was super rough around the edges, having been in the 'Couv for a coopla weeks already, and Zippy was dressed for success: chain with mini-padlock around the neck, red bandanna schmatte around his big fat noggin, and a “World of Zippy Pinhead” T-shirt on - sleeves cut off true to style, and featuring the cartoon for whom he was named. We decided we had to smoke ALL OF THE POT I had before crossing to the States, so we started up in town and saved some for the approach. I was used to crossing at the truck stop, which at that time was still super low-tech and usually chill, but all of a sudden I realize we’re heading through Peace Arch, which is all fancy with EYES ON YOU the whole way up to the booths, and we’re sucking down that last bomber. We’re in the slowdown and finish our smoke and creep toward the checkpoint, where the U.S. guy says something to us, and we were both like, uh … huh? 

He’d waved us over, so Pinhead pulls over by the big building where we kind of thought we were supposed to go, and we just sit there. Stoned out of our skulls. I have no idea how much time went by, when another agent comes out and looks at us sitting there in the station wagon and makes impatient gestures. Turns out we had been ordered to park and go inside. So we finally do, and it’s not good. They told us they suspected us of harboring contraband and THEY KNOW WE’RE STONED OUT OF OUR SKULLS and then the games begin. They gave Zippy a really thorough pat down right in front of me, to gauge my reaction. Then they separated us and we each got searched again down to the skivvies in private rooms and interrogated and the car got torn apart. After four hours they found nothing. They refused entry to Pinhead anyway and then called me up to the desk to tell me I was free to cross into the States (like, they literally told me I was welcome to pick up all my bags and hoof it!), but I could not cross the border in that car and try with Zippy again. And: “If you attempt to bring Mr. Chobotar over the border, you will be arrested for alien smuggling.” I still find that hysterically funny, hahaha. 

Anyway, we opted to stay in Canada and went back to the 'Couv for snacks and more smoke and to drink our faces off before I took the bus all the way from the Vancouver to finally get home. Zippy had turned ghost-white as soon as we’d got pulled over at Customs, and his color didn’t return till after several pints and several joints. I was happy to never, ever see that look on his face again. 


I saw Zippy cry once. It was after yet another all-nighter at Hamm and Terry’s place out by UBC, and Hamm and Terry had finally awoken to find me trying to sleep through yet another Pinhead soliloquy. The Internet was fairly young to the main stream in those days, but Terry got on his computer as was his habit and started looking stuff up to show us. Zippy asks, “What happens if you put my name in there?” Terry puts his name in there, and all kinds of stuff pops up. Zippy is overcome with awe and asks, “So … this is going out LIVE, right NOW?” Terry answers, “Yup, Zip. Sure is!” And then it happened: That always expressive mouth starts quivering, his face reddens up, and big fat Pinhead tears started plopping out of his eyes. Me and Hamm and Terry exchange glances of concern: “You okay, Zippy? You all right?” And from behind his tears, like totally choked up, Zippy responds, “Yeah, ulp, I’m gonna be okay. It’s just … My grandmum would be SO PROUD that I’m on the Internet!!! I made Grandmum proud!” It was so touching and also so stinking funny. I know it took everything I had not to bust out laughing. But Zippy was totally serious and so touched. And so genuinely proud.

And then he was honored by being the direct inspiration for the drummer character (and yes we DO mean “character”!) for the Canadian indie film “HARDCORE LOGO.” I'm still convinced the blond longhair "I love you, man!" guy from "Wayne's World" was inspired, by osmosis at the least, by Zippy Pinhead. His favorite movie was “Spinal Tap,” and watching it with him was like participating in a really fucked-up rowdy rock’n’roll version of a live singalong to “The Sound of Music,” but with every single word and every single song performed aloud by Zippy himself, with added commentary. There was really no other experience like it. Not even a midnight screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” They broke the fucking mold when they made Zippy.

Zippy was feeling himself always. He had the biggest ego of almost anybody I’ve ever met, yet was the most generous and warmest soul I almost ever met as well. He didn’t have a mean bone in his oversized body. I never, ever knew him to hold a grudge, and grudges abound in punk rock. In his younger days he had to peel women off of him and he never lacked for female company. But I never remember him slagging any girl or woman, ever. Zippy really, really loved women, with all of his heart and soul. And things. Hahaha. Both his girlfriend Caroline whom I met soon after he and I became lifelong brother-and-sister, and his wife Kathy, are two really strong, smart, and amazing women, and Zippy was devoted to each of them and loved em to pieces. We all know how lucky Bill Chobotar was to meet and marry Kathy, and I am sure we all give her credit for looking after Zippy and keeping him with us for as long as we had him in our lives. Zippy’s chosen lifestyle was a bacchanalian Olympics. And bully for you if you could keep up. 

When I got home from a rock’n’roll show late last Wednesday night and discovered the news that Zippy had left us, I felt a palpable vacuum that SUCKED all the wind right outta me, and my whole entire brain screamed, NONONONONONONONONONO!!! 

Days later it is still hard to conceive of a World Without Pinhead. It is the end of a punk-rock geologic age that gifted us with one of the hardest-rockin’, most incorrigible, and funniest rebels in the history of Western civilization -and a big ol’ teddy bear love bug to boot. 

“Who’s your brother? Who’s your pal? Do I see a little SMILE comin’ around the corner? … What? Oh YES I DO!!!” That was how Zippy ended every long-distance phone call. “I love you and you are my sister forever and ever and ever.” 

Zippy Pinhead was a giant ball of light and love and a fiend for rock and roll, as are most of his nearest and dearest. We shall miss him terribly, for all time. Long may his bellowing guffaws careen around your consciousness. He was one crazy diamond, that’s for sure. Long may he shine.

I’ma go and have another good cry now.

https://theprovince.com/news/local-news/vancouver-punk-legend-zippy-pinhead-dies-at-57/wcm/5ecf40aa-25cc-440d-8f2a-42fac9bdd16e