Diamonds, Dreams and Kindred Magic

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Picasso Café was always identified as “the brainchild” of one Mr. David Dranchuk, an Anglican Church Street Outreach Worker in Vancouver who’d seen first-hand the barriers experienced by the kids he provided supports to.

The gist was simple – an experiential-based “teach them how to fish” philosophy that, for youth employment training programs, was downright revolutionary for the time. Before Picasso Café, pre-employment training programs were largely academic: you sat in a classroom and, with a wealth of handouts and workbooks, someone stood at the front of the room and explained what the job you were being “trained” for entailed. Bona fide on-the-job training, where you got to actually learn by doing, was generally accessible only to those whose resumes indicated enough skill and experience to merit being hired.

After only three years on the drawing board, there was finally a viable solution for the social conundrum of “what to do” with the uniquely marginalized, disenfranchised population known as “high-risk youth.” The timeless “you need experience to get the job and a job to get the experience” catch-22 would be addressed, and give street-entrenched youth both marketable skills and practical means to improve their lot in life.

A full-service, licensed restaurant which doubled as a long-term training program for the food-service industry, Picasso Café was win-win across the board. Kids who would otherwise have no access to post-secondary trades education participated in one of two college-accredited food-service programs (Dining Room Program and Kitchen Program), and also received counselling and other life skills training from specially-trained staff.

In 1989, the doors to the 80-seat restaurant were opened to the public, so funding received by the program was increased by revenues generated through sales.  The public enjoyed fine dining menu items and proper table service, all with the added philanthropic perk of supporting a “great cause.”

In the first year of its operation, many a photo-op was accommodated at Picasso Café for high-track city councilors and other enthusiastic officials to go on record as being in support of such a wonderful program. There were television spots and newspaper articles. Even a short 30-minute documentary was produced: “Picasso Solution” (a VHS copy still available on the 3rd floor of the UBC Library). Oh, how sweet was the thirty seconds of media fame!

By 1999, the program faced closure due to a lack of funding. Rallied support from media, corporate businesses and individuals in the community prompted a new round of negotiations between the Board and government. After an audit and new contract agreements with several different federal and provincial ministries, funding was reinstated and Picasso Café was reclassified as a registered private post-secondary training facility.

In the end, and despite a proven track-record of unprecedented success in supporting hundreds of youth to gain marketable, transferable skills and improve their odds of getting off both the street and the dole, the widely regarded Picasso Café closed its doors permanently in 2004. As the records indicate, the Board of Directors dissolved due to simple but very real burnout after 15 years of running on the hamster-wheel that is the baseline reality for any non-profit venture – the unrelenting mad scrum for funding crumbs from government and some semblance of fiscal security. As the saying goes, it’ll be a great day when education gets all the money it needs and the military has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers.

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It was 1988. I had been out of school for almost a year and, amongst those Ministry workers and caregivers tasked with “taking care” of me, I’d also garnered a bothersome reputation as someone with a tendency sporadically go AWOL.

Five years into my stint as a ward of the court, I would more than occasionally become overwhelmed with my emotional and/or situational landscapes. In these instances, my admittedly poor coping skills would altogether collapse. The lure of the geographical cure seriously appealed to me, so my last resort would be to take off for lengths of time not long enough to end up with my picture on a milk carton, but just long enough to create a bureaucratic hot mess for anyone connected with my file. As an adult, I can now entertain the notion that some may have additionally worried about me, although this idea would never – could never – have occurred to me at the time.

I was (I think) not the worst specimen of a kid in care, certainly. But I definitely was not the best, either. I dealt with Ministry expectations and those who conveyed them politely and agreeably. I cannot count the number of behaviour agreements I signed. Contractually, I formally agreed to curfews, abstinence, specific red zones; to attend school, practice healthier lifestyle choices, and to refrain from associating with particular groups and individuals. One foster parent was so frustrated at my general lack of material or emotional dependence on her that she had me sign a contract agreeing that I would ask for her assistance with purchasing baseline essentials like feminine hygiene products and other toiletries. (“She’s lived here for months and hasn’t asked me for a single thing!” was her complaint to the Social Worker.)

I had no problem signing any of the agreements – I just didn’t actually honour any of them. Outwardly, I personified compliance. I’d learned very early that the meetings tended to go quicker that way (just sit, nod, listen, agree, sign here… and here… and here… and then you’re good to go!).

My core belief was that no one actually cared one way or the other – they were just doing their job, the Social Workers (and sometimes even earnestly). Once they were out of my sight, however, both they and the contracts I signed were out of my mind and I really didn’t give much more thought to any of it. If anything, I was helping the Social Workers by keeping their briefcases full of fodder for those all-important reports I knew they were required to produce to feed the Ministry file that was me. (A short-sighted rationale with the flavour of Phil Knight’s [or any corporate CEO’s] sincere belief that the faceless mass of exploited sweatshop workers would be worse off without the jobs corporations provide them. “They need my part of this little dance – their livelihoods depend on it.” My excuse: I was a dumbass teenager with absolutely no capacity for big-picture, other-centered thinking. What’s your excuse, Phil et al?)

As for the people who were paid to let me live with them… well, that seemed obvious, even to a dumbass teenager like me. Well-meaning intentions rewarded with a monthly paycheck and the added bonus of widespread props (self-congratulation often included and probably justified) for “taking on” the noble task of fostering a damaged kid – a teenager, no less – from a broken home. If only I were a visible minority as well. I could’ve been a hat trick’s worth of philanthropic cause. A veritable lightning rod for the ever-lauding social returns from practicing charitable benevolence. Even without the extra pigment in my skin, I quickly internalized the “us/them, me/you” polarities that can very naturally come to underpin any relationship between the "rescuer" and the ones they “save.”

I exemplified the quietest strain of defiance disorder: compulsive lip service (a standard pre-requisite for any Masters-level certification in Passive Aggression, and in my defense, not entirely uncommon among the adolescent set generally). Politely approval-seeking to the core, my behaviours weren’t too far off the scale – usually. No arrests outright, no stints in juvie or psych, no verbal or physical assaults of anyone around me. I just partied, drank, did drugs, and broke curfews while getting myself into drama-infused situational fuckery with a preferred peer set of folks who, in hindsight, probably didn’t have my best interests at heart. And every now and then I’d disappear for a bit: a week here, a month there.

Perpetually unmet needs beget perpetual defiance, one way or the other. Looking back, it all seems rather textbook and you’d think that in the course of earning their Masters Degrees, the Social Workers would’ve clued in and conceived of more effective interventions for me. You’d think.

My attachment issues and relationship-dependence precluded the degree of confidence it would’ve taken for me to simply hop a bus or train on my own and get outta dodge permanently. The few boys who promised me we’d go off together and live happy-ever-afters in faraway clean slates like New York or California… well, they had neither the skills nor resources to actually follow through with their promises. And bless their hearts for what I’ve always believed was the sincerity of their intentions (some of them, anyway), but thank fucking God they didn’t. Had one of these pipe dream plans played out in real-time, the mere thought of where I could’ve ended up – literally and figuratively - is more than a little terrifying.

Where I did end up was Picasso Café. The first round of referrals to the program was being accepted in 1988. Participants had to have a “history of street-involvement,” be 18-24 years old, on welfare, and have a stable place to live. My exceptionally awesome Youth Worker at the time, Lawrence Demoskoff, was somehow able to convince the management staff at Picasso Café to enroll me even though I was only nearly 16 years old and in foster-care rather than on welfare.

I like to think it was Lawrence’s general awesomeness that can be credited for the bureaucratic exception that was made, rather than consider just how obviously fucked up I was. And then I remember that I showed up to my interview wearing a black veil over my head. Think “Lydia from Beetlejuice,” and then drape an Italian widow’s black lace veil over her as though she were a lamp in dire need of dimming. “Dress for the job you want!” as the saying goes, and at the world-weary age of 15, this was my best and sincerest attempt. (Hey – I got the job, didn’t I? Maybe my utter brilliance simply knew no bounds.)

He didn’t have a Masters Degree, but Lawrence got it. And he got the management staff at Picasso Café to get it too. And thank fucking God he did. Had I not been enrolled in the Dining Room Program at Picasso Café, the thought of where I would’ve ended up – literally and figuratively – is more than a little terrifying. Diamonds, Dreams & Kindred Magic is my heart's attempt to put my love and gratitude for my Picasso tribe into words.