BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition - November 2019

BARON S CAMERON
THE
TAO
OF
CHI
PIG
"One month to live":
SNFU frontman Mr. Chi Pig
talks about life, love and the
art of drawing himself
to death By SEAN ORR
I
didn’t want to interview Chi Pig. It
just happened. There’s probably
a thousand more people qualified
to do this piece, but in a way, Chi
chose me. Then he told me he was
given one month to live.
It starts as a cliché: Chi Pig
walks into a bar. That’s it. That’s
the punchline. My friend and I try to sneak
a photo but he isn’t having any of that. He
walks right up to us, and even though we’d
both had our own personal encounters
with the infamous SNFU frontman in the
past, it doesn’t matter. It is this moment
that matters. Something he hammers home
a dozen times over the two hours that
follow.
Born Kendall Chin, Chi’s presence is
palpable. He talks in code. If you know, you
know. His mug is plastered on a sign at the
entrance of the fabled Cambie Pub and his
artwork is lacquered underneath one of
the tabletops. He walks over and puts his
own song, SNFU’s “Painful Reminder,” on
the jukebox. He says it always pisses off
the jocks. He also tells us that he wrote it
in Grade 8 about his homeroom teacher —
“I was in love with him,” he says.
Like everything about Chi Pig and his
storied existence, this interview was bound
to be unconventional. In fact, I don’t even
know it is an interview until he tells me it
is. Apparently BeatRoute had reached out
years before, but because his phone is actually
the phone at Pub 340, it didn’t work
out. “Interview me now, then!” he demands
with a laugh.
We follow him up the street from
the Cambie to Pub 340 where he has a
workstation set up in one of the booths
with some of his artwork and art supplies
sprawled all over the table. It is here he
drops the bombshell about the bill of health
he had just received. While this likely isn’t
the first time Chi has been told his days are
numbered, something about the conviction
in his voice and the sincerity in his eyes
when he says it floor me. “So, I’m drawing
myself to death,” he continues. We stare in
awe at his colourful creations that he’s now
drawing in front of us.
Chi is a natural storyteller. With his
cadre of Pub 340 regulars sitting in close
proximity, he rattles off stories about the
time Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier
bullied him, and the time he quit his job
at Dairy Queen to go see Kiss Meets the
Phantom of the Park, and the time SNFU
played the Ship and Anchor in Calgary and
he told everyone they could take home one
of the many books decorating the bar’s
shelves. Stories he’s told a thousand times
before, but that doesn’t matter. “I’m here
now. Talking to you guys,” he says.
It’s 1p.m. The famed dive bar that acts
as his second home is packed and I’m a
tourist here. I know that. Chi usually sits
in the “dark corner,” but since he’s making
art, he needs more light. He opens up on
the struggle of coming out at the age of 20
when he was still living in Edmonton back
in 1982. He migrated to Vancouver on February
2, 1990 and hasn’t looked back since.
He talks about his family and his hero,
Anthony Bourdain. How he’s read Kitchen
Confidential 10 times.
We bought his art.
Chi is full of tidbits of wisdom: “Faster
and louder isn’t always better;” “A gift
comes from a curse;” and “Life is like
a box of Ex-Lax, you never know when
you’re going to shit your pants.” He keeps
a dream journal. His favourite food is beef
tartare. He loves to travel and his favourite
city is Berlin because he can smoke in the
bars, loves the energy, and “there’s a lot of
homos over there.”
The banter between the regulars
intensifies. Chi invites a lady over to sing to
us. “This is Rose. She’s a lesbian vampire
with a gambling problem, but she has a
beautiful voice.” It’s all so surreal. We order
his custom shot, Jägermeister topped with
Baileys and cinnamon sprinkled on top.
The “Chi Pig” is shockingly good.
“My mom’s dead; she died when I was
32. My dad’s dead. He died when I was 47,”
Chi shares. “She was German and he was
Chinese. But… 12 kids. So we grew up in
poverty. We were so poor growing up my
mom’s tits lactated powdered milk. That’s
how I got my dry sense of humour.” We
remember to laugh.
As the day’s waning light filters through
the cluttered opaque windows, our eyes
glazed with Kokanees and hearts filled with
stories and banter, it becomes clear that
even though he calls himself “a fucking
asshole,” Kenny Chinn is just a really sweet
person. And with that, something else
becomes even clearer: If Chi Pig really is as
close to death as he says, Vancouver will
be left with a gaping black hole at its core
when he’s gone. ,
NOVEMBER 2019 BEATROUTE 17