Where I picked this up precisely, I am not quite sure. There were a small number of businesses in the Toronto downtown that had these business cards back in the 1980s. They would have been surreptitiously left alongside other assorted business cards, flyers, etc. You can still find such oddball piles of ad/trash/bulletin stuff today. At that time, you would see these Van Halen Cafe business cards in record stores such as Record Peddler, or in the odd club or maybe even a restaurant. I know I'd seen them numerous times before I actually pocketed one or two of 'em.
I'm none the wiser to the producer of the cards, though I have my suspicions it'd be someone like Nash The Slash or a character of that sort (personality character, not another mummified peformer). His own records included bogus record company addresses and contact information. Places you'd passed hundreds of times, and when you stopped and actually looked to see, you'd rebuke yourself for being so gullible.
The Van Halen Cafe - The Transformation of Waste card was a quiet campaign. It needled playfully without any fuss. Hitting the right chord with anyone who shared the same sentiment, or darkening some Q-107 fanboy's day. But only for as long as it takes them to say aloud "Waste!?! Everyone ^&*@%& loves Van Halen!" to which the gleeful mass of passing, like-minded plebes might retort "&%^@$^% right!" You can only wonder how many people actually walked back and forth near the 600 block, looking up and down the facade with beady eyes, ready to take umbrage the moment they found their way.
Yet each time, a failure.
Brings a wry smile to my face all over again. I hope it brightens and darkens as much as it did back then. Because as we all knew... Van Halen sucked!
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