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Vancouver's Most Awesome: Bif Naked!

Juno-award winning, multi-platinum selling punk rawk songstress Bif Naked is one of Vancouver’s most visibly and audibly awesome residents.

Juno-award winning, multi-platinum selling punk rawk songstress Bif Naked is one of Vancouver’s most visibly and audibly awesome residents. She was kind enough to take some time out of her busy schedule for some total girl-chat time at local haunt Elysian Coffee on a sunny summer morning.

Ever the rebel, the openly engaging Bif swigged lemonade while staying real about the the life that she loves – from music to her four-legged fur children and from meeting her husband at a gym to her own personal experience with cancer – in the city we call home. If you haven't read part one, go HERE. Then, once you do that, go read part two HERE.

In treatment.

It says on your website you have been doing motivational speaking. What else have you been up to lately?

I asked to meet over here (Elysian Coffee on Broadway @ Ash) because every Wednesday I go to my cancer gym. I'm the rookie harasser: I meet the rookies, hang out, ask everyone how they're feeling... I love it, I wish it was my job.

I like talking a lot. I like talking better than singing. If I could just do advocacy stuff, I would. I like doing cancer-related stuff, or health care. I've started becoming interested in palliative care. I think I am going to go and get some training, because I can't get in there the way I want to, in a volunteer situation, unless I have further training. So I am probably going to go back for it. It's what I want to do.

Wow.

I don't think there's a lot of people who would be good at it. So I kinda feel a responsibility, in a way. Because I think I have a knack for it.

Society shies away from that. There's such a taboo.

It's absolutely taboo! So is cancer, though.

When I was diagnosed, for me it was, “what're you gonna do?” The problem with me was it started getting out [publicized - RF]. Ian and I had just had a wedding and my manager was like “You have to say something ... you have to. It's like the word on the street and it's starting to get weird, people thinking you're gonna croak and stuff. Who knows what they're gonna say.” So we had to say something.

I discovered, as I got to know other patients and worked with chemo nurses and it was my own experience, most other people were ... ashamed. They were embarrassed. People pity cancer patients and families and stuff, and it was just ... so weird. Your posture changes. Our culture is embarrassed by things that are not glamourous, healthy, fit, sexy ... but still, it's like your brother still has f**kin' lymphoma, asshole. Why aren't we creating dialogue about it? I think that's kinda how I got into it.

You have a visual persona. You have a distinct look – it's a huge part of who you are. If you take that away from anyone, especially a woman, I think it can be dis-empowering.

It was weird. When I was in chemo I'd go to Caper's everyday before I'd go to the cancer agency. I participated in a lot of clinical trials, so I was there a lot. I'd be in my wig – full spackle! It was like doing vaudeville for God's sake. It was so funny to me, it makes me laugh. It was like being a hooker or a showgirl. I had a riot.

That's such a great attitude.

It was a great experience. To me everything's funny, but I'm also a science geek. Pragmatically I could compartmentalize it. There was never anything fear-based for me, or “deer in the headlights.”

Mortality for me wasn't an issue. In the family that I grew up in that was never considered a negative or a positive, so I don't have that “fear chip.” And a lot of the women that I meet do. They're very concerned with their mortality, they're anxious about it. They have a lot of trepidations about treatment. They have worries about instead of just a few hours in front of them at a time, which is where we should focus on.

Bigger worries can be a burden and can take away or distract from where the energy should be going.

It's catastrophic. It serves no purpose.

Bif and Nicklas do the run.

You're on The Twitter a lot.

I get scolded often – from either my friends, my management, or someone who tells me, “Why do you have to be like that? You've gotta sound tough!”

I used to get that on stage too. I used to not be allowed to say stuff on stage and open my mouth, because it would “betray my image. “ I used to get that all the time. “We want you to be rocker girl, be tough!” And now, with the onset of Twitter, which I joined a couple of years ago, they're like “Cat's out of the bag, you're such a hippie! “

You just said you eat at The Naam. I can't imagine really tough people are going there.

I don't think so either. Although there are a lot of vegans who are in death metal bands.

You offer a lot of positivity every day through your tweets. It also seems like you get up really early.

Today it was 2:30 (am). I was at The Naam until 9 – after my bedtime. It was a special occasion. I got about 4 hours of sleep. A lot of people used to tell me that because of my (raw food) diet I don't need as much sleep because I'm not spending the time digesting food. I think it is a bunch of malarkey! Some people just don't need much sleep.

Let's talk about your fur-children, your dogs. How many do you have?

Just one now. Anna got her wings just around the time I finished my radiation. She had 10 back surgeries in her life but she was my lifesaver and I would do it twice.

Bif on The Hour, relaying her Best Story Ever. It involves dogs... and poop.

The Elizabeth Taylor of dogs. Are you involved in the dog park community?

Yes! I go to the dog park at Yaletown because that's where my son likes. I have so many photos of Niklas. I have a 13 ½  year old Maltipoo who now has mobility issues. (Reaches for her camera.) He's my muse. I take a lot of photos, I love them. It makes me so grateful for my eyesight.

Kits Point.

I only started getting into photos recently. I have an Anne of Green Gables mentality sometimes,“simple, I don't need it.” I'm not very sentimental in that way.

That's me. I could live on nothing tomorrow.

I don't like being tethered to objects.

Oh, that's really interesting. Me neither. Non-attachment! That's something that takes a lifetime of practice. Because of Anastasia's back, when I had met Ian – and I hadn't dated in about four years – I anticipated living the rest of my life as a single person. I had these two dogs - one was a meshugana and one was really health-compromised.

Boys were a liability. They were a liability to my job anyway. I just was too busy and it was too much stress to babysit somebody through my life. I've had the same manager for 21 years. Everything is was compartmentalized and it worked for me. When I met Ian I didn't like him, even though he was the sweetest little ray of sunshine. “Quit talking to me buddy, I don't have time to talk at the gym!”

You met at a gym?

Not just any gym – at Ron Zalko! Canada's first Iron Man.

Bif found love... at the gym. So very Vancouver!

That's a great Vancouver story right there, and somewhat inspirational as I am in my "Cathy Years". Here you are meeting boys at Ron Zalko's and then getting married.

I didn't want to meet anyone. I'm a big puppy dog – I've been in love a thousand times. Been engaged nine times. I was married when I was 18.

Bif shops for her "ass-kicking wedding dress" at Clara Couture in Vancouver, 2007. Episode 3 of "Bif Naked Bride."

Did you keep the rings?

I never got a ring. Believe me. And I wouldn't have kept them anyway.

I dated Ian for three months before he ever even saw my apartment. Wouldn't even let him in my house. I didn't even have furniture in my apartment at Beach and Howe. I slept on a tatami mat for ten years because I couldn't dare risk Anastasia (my little Bijon that smelled like baby powder until the day she died - I don't know why I never put it on her – she was edible, so funny) ever jumping on any furniture and they wanted to sleep with me. And then I meet this boy -

Bacon Boy!

- who did a bait and switch, motherf**ker. Let me tell you, when they want in there they will eat your salads. Six months later he's living with me and nothing green touches this boy's lips. No salad, no vegetable, nothing. The only thing green about him is his Venice Beach t-shirt he wears at the gym.

That happens to all couples, that you put on your most agreeable personality and then you change. You just shift, I don't think we do it unconsciously. I wonder about my things, as a female, we always want to but our best features forward. You know, the good Calvin Klein underwear or whatever. Eventually, where does it end? When we're in the mirror trying to pluck our remaining four eyebrow hairs and then the boy can see you ... why are we no longer standing on our tiptoes sucking our stomaches in? Instead we're standing there looking like a pygmy. Where does the shift happen?

I call that “The Threshold of Fart.”

Oh yes... I know it well.

I know someone who still hasn't farted in front of her husband and I just think she's crazy. I think, really – are you gonna do that your whole life? I make jokes saying that I get up early - everybody knows I do - so that my husband will never see me without makeup for a second in his whole life. He goes to bed before me and wakes up after me and there is never a moment that he ever sees me without my whole 100% Carol Burnett-in-the-turban schtick.

Like Norma Desmond.

Is that for real?

No, I'm kidding. He saw me bald and jaundiced.

Ms Naked, ready for her close-up.