Barf & Puke

This label is actually a photo I had taken of a bar sign in Stratford, Ontario (with modifications of course) which again features a boar's head, part of the Campbell family's coat-of-arms. Because everything else is getting too complicated, the story, the images used, we wanted the label itself to be elegant. O.K. mayby not elegant, maybe just simple.

For the story of this label we ended up going with a tabloid format printed on 11X17 paper so that it could be folded and opened like a newspaper, using lurid headlines to break up the written sections.

My son Elliot wanted to be included in this production (as in The Bottles) so he is.

The main picture for the tabloid features an old house in the French Quarter of New Orleans that my friend Sid had taken when we were there on vacation last year (complete with bathtubs). I don't really want to describe the process I went through with the picture minutely, just say that everything has been played with: tubs moved, flames added, walls built, bricks moved, Campbells positioned, plaid touched in, etc.

And here's the story of the Campbell Convent Catastrophe as it appeared in our Chicago Inquired, volume one:

A title reads: Roaring 20’s Fiery Furnace Fiasco

It was at a time when one would think that the Campbell brothers would finally make it big with an illegal booze operation, but again the brothers managed to clutch defeat out of the hands of victory.

Running a speakeasy was nothing new to the two brothers, they spent most of their time running anyway; from explosions, cops, other bootleggers, and often dissatisfied customers. But it must be said that they always had plans, usually big plans, sometimes too big.

So, not satisfied with the possibility of just screwing up their own operation the brothers decided to form an association of illegal nightclubs. They even had a name for their proposed company: ‘The Brotherhood of Artificial Refiners, Fermentators, Preservers, Undertakers, Khemists (the brothers couldn’t spell very well either) and Embalmers’. That’s right, the BARF & PUKE association. Their first (and as it turned out, only) club, the supposed flagship of the operation, was also called by this name.

This is really the story of how that association never happened.



It seemed an ideal place for the Campbells to operate, an old condemned convent. Even the nuns, with all their prayer power, had felt unsafe to live there and moved out a number of years previously. The least of the problems was that it had no electricity; the place was lit with candles and oil lamps. But what it lacked in power it sure made up in bathtubs. On the second floor, a long hallwaystretched down the length of the building with cubicles off to either side, each containing an old claw tub, 24 of them to be exact. The walls of the hall were a dark red oak. The wood was quite dry and cracked, caused by the passage of time and neglect. It was carved with figures of saints and that typical sort of religious imagery that either showed these people in ecstatic trance or this certain other person undergoing something that the Roman’s had become particularly good at, torture and execution. To the Campbells it seemed like heaven, a perfect place to set up their operation and to make bathtub gin.

Title: Convent source of illegal bathtub gin.

Now, just in case you don’t know, bathtub gin is made by placing a large quantity of low quality spirits in a bathtub and then adding juniper oil and other flavorings to it. Then you let the whole thing soak for a few days, and voila, gin. Some contend that many outlandish cocktails of the Jazz Era owed their inspiration to people trying to disguise the disgusting taste of the gin, and it should be said that what the Campbell’s made in those tubs upstairs sure was disgusting.

Prohibition was the law of the land and liquor was illegal to make or to sell. The Campbells had, of course, found their own little corner of the market, a dry corner, and had just set up and opened the Barf & Puke. Now everybody from miles around had made their way to the new club in order to put in a good solid night of drunken debauchery.

Title: Club named Barf & Puke, Den of Iniquity.

The outside of the ‘B&P’ was dimly lit from light trying to flee from any crack or crevice in the structure and make a run for it. Music seemed to cause the building to vibrate right down to the foundations. Inside, the smoke filled crowded and noisy main hall was shimmering and simmering to the beat of the five-piece band, the people were Shimmying and Charlestoning, and drinking gin.

The only thing that was holding up the roof nowadays seemed to be the bats who colonized the rafters, but these kept falling into the tubs. Eventually Ralph, tired of fishing out drunken bats from the vats, put a small ladder in each tub so the bats could climb out themselves.

Both brothers had excellent ears for music, it’s true. It’s just that the rest of their bodies weren’t very musical at all, honest.

Colin always wanted to play the saxophone but all he could do was play the bongo, and not very well. Here, at the B&P, he insisted on wearing a shiny sequined flapper dress, and when he wasn’t flogging drinks he was out dancing in front of the band (and making eyes at the bass player). Nobody seemed to notice or to care, except for one very nervous bassist.


Colin 'Legs' Campbell

The only thing Ralph could do was make gross noises using various body parts. He could even fart out the beginning of Beethoven’s 5th (but the odor would clear the room). He was delegated to stay behind the bar and keep everybody well lubricated, which suited Ralph just fine. He was allowed to tap his foot to the music.


Ralph 'The Nose' Campbell

Title: Plaid Gin sparks inquiry

The brothers were believers. They believed in quick profits and eliminating the middle man. They’d have eliminated each other years ago if they could. They were also cheap. Since they wouldn’t afford bottles for their gin they ran hoses from the tubs upstairs directly to the bar. To tell one batch of gin from another they added different colouring agent to the tubs, red, blue, green, purple, yellow and so on. Ralph’s favourite was plaid. They asked Colin how they managed to get that colour. He only chuckled and shook his head.

The place was rocking, the money was pouring in, the drinks were passed out, drunks were passing out. It was the bootleggers dream. Then Ralph decided that since everybody was well and truly lubricated that maybe he could ‘maximize profits’ by thinning out the mix a bit. He left his station at the bar and started to head upstairs to water down the mix.

Title: The Beginning of the End

So he headed up the stairs to tub alley, oil lamp in hand. Then things went all sideways. He opened the door to the hallway and squinted into the darkness. The fumes hit him like a juniper brick. The lamp flared. His eyes watered and then twitched back and forth in their sockets like two rodents trying to find a way out. As he entered the first cubicle he tripped over something and sent the lamp flying, which then smashed on the side of tub one and started it on fire.

The something he tripped over groaned from its position on the floor. It was Colin, who had the same idea as his brother but had stopped in the doorway, going down on his hands and knees, to look for and pick up some of the sequins that had started to melt off his dress when he encountered the fumes.

They helped each other up by pushing each other out of the way. Flames now spread from the room and enveloped the top of the stairs. Ralph and Colin ran for the far exit which was unfortunately now insurmountably blocked with a number of discarded alcohol jugs, old juniper bushes, and a pile of used plaid material.

At the end of the hallway they turned just in time to see the flash of the first tub exploding, sending it crashing through the wall and across the hall to the next room (showering sparks as it went) then upwards through the roof. It exploded in the air like star bursts on firecracker day. The second tub caught fire. Colin and Ralph looked at one another and said simultaneously, “Oh shit!” and started to look for cover as bathtub after bathtub crashed through the walls and crisscrossed across the hallway before arcing into the sky and detonating.

The only place they could find that might offer some cover was the infamous tub 24, the plaid tub.

Stop time.

Title: Meanwhile… back at the entranceway.

At that very instant the place was surrounded by federal agents, the Untouchables, led by (not Elliot Ness but by another man unwaivering in his Elliotness) one Elliot Campbell. He had been tracking the brothers for years looking for an opportunity to bust them. He claimed that if the brothers had just raped sheep and rustled women like all the other Campbells they would have been left alone, but these two had gone too far. They were truly sick individuals and really gave the clan a bad name. And they smelled bad.




After years of frustration his dream was about to come true, the trap was now set and he was ready to pounce.

Just as he was about to kick the door in (more for style than anything else because it was unlocked and unguarded, but g-men like doing that kind of thing) something crashed through the roof and exploded in the air making him duck and all the other g-men look for cover. Then the door slammed open in his face and the crowd from inside rushed out, trampling Elliot underfoot.

The crowd, hearing the explosion from above, ran screaming from the club. Outside they slowed and then stopped and began to watch the fireworks and the fun.

Tub after tub crashed outward through the roof and into the air where they exploded in a spectacular shower of colors and sparks accompanied by the ooh’s and aah’s of the crowd outside, jostling with g-men and soon firefighters and police officers too, sharing what remained of their drinks with the forces of moderation.

Elliot Campbell was lucky enough to only sustain a bruised moustache in the trampling.

Title: Plaid Comet Strikes Barge says witness.

Quantum physics states that no two particles can occupy the same space at the same time. That was basically the dilemma of the brothers, both trying to climb into the tub and push the other out. When part of the ceiling over their heads collapsed they threw themselves into the tub together. Just imagine two fat men trying to hide in a tub full of plaid gin. (Sorry, on second thought, don’t try to imagine. It would only warp your mind leaving you in a catatonic state.). The finale finally came. The plaid tub exploded through the roof in a plaid plume. The resulting shockwave collapsed the remainder or the building, destroying the old convent. The tub arced out over the lake in a shallow trajectory trailing plaid patterned sparks behind. Everyone outside applauded.

Luckily everyone had escaped the building and no one was hurt. The inside of the convent was another matter. Everything was cooked, destroyed, burnt, char broiled, melted, slagged, re-burnt and reduced to ash from the explosions and the subsequent fire. All the booze, all the equipment, all the evidence was destroyed in the fire.

Afterward Elliot Campbell and the Untouchables couldn’t find the brothers or their remains. It was really too bad because up until then they had imagined all these unthinkable and unmentionable things they had wanted to do to the Campbells if they had managed to ever get a hold of them.

As for the brothers, the porcelain rocket skipped across the water with them still in it. If you were there to hear you could have heard the brothers making sounds like ‘ouch’ and ‘aak’ as the tub skidded over the water. The tub finally crashed into a garbage scow, well not really crashed, more like thudded into the grease and stink and steaming refuse on the barge.

The night returned to quiet. The water was like glass. A lite mist (fewer calories than regular mist) danced across the waters. The moon itself finally came out of hiding and gave a silvery glow to the world below. If you had been standing on the lake, which would be a remarkable miracle, and still standing after the stink from the barge hit you, or maybe if you had had a broken nose as a kid and couldn’t smell anything anyway, you could have looked out over the water and seen this scow with it’s heap of rotting garbage silhouetted against the moon and watched two dark masses burrowing out of the heap.

If you could have stood there on the water without upchucking you would have heard…

“Are you O.K.? Have you got all your bits and pieces?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Hey, pull my finger.”

“Put that finger down. No I’m not going to pull it. You’ll only make the garbage stink.”

Silence.

“You know I think we should stay away from Chicago.”

“Right.”

“There’s lots of cops looking for us right now and Al Colon that we owe money to for all the alcohol.”

“Right.”

“And then there was that old lady.”

Chuckle, “And her cow”.

“Now that was a fire.”

“So Chicago’s out. Where are we going to go?”

“Let’s go to New York. I hear there’s this market thing, I think it’s called a stock market and people pay money for stuff not even made yet.”

“Really, like?”

“Pig fat belly’s not born yet. They call it futures or something.”

“Right.”

“We could sell Campbell Brothers wine futures.”

“What, for crap we haven’t even made yet? Cool.”

“They’ll never know what hit them.”

“RIGHT.”


So that's that. Whew.