Des Gosselin.

Bon Gosselin:

Mauvais Gosselin:

Emptying The Baskets.

My father was a technician at a water treatment facility. Once in a while, mostly in the late 80's, I would get to tag along and work a graveyard shift with him. What was daily routine for him was in fact a complete adventure to me.

I could just bring my videogames in and play all night or I would do stuff like counting the bacteria in water samples or walk around with gas masks pretending there is a global thermonuclear war.

The most excellent thing was "EMPTYING THE BASKETS". The process of water filtering obviously has to start somewhere. In Levis, this was at a water intake station by the river. The first filtering step begins with picking out the bigger stuff. From there they go on removing visible particles, then bacteria, and anything else that could make us sick, all the way down to the tasty tap water the good people in Levis and Lauzon got to drink.

It started with my father handing me an electric remote hanging from a thick wire coming from the ceiling. I pushed a button which got an engine running. This engine was in fact pulling a huge metal basket from a hole that seemed like a fucking mile deep. For 3 or 4 painfully long minutes, I had to wait for the basket to be up.

The moment I got to see the light hitting what lies in this god given basket of nature's surprises, I started getting excited like a dog hearing the sound of a leach... Especially if I could see something moving in there. Once the basket was up we just had to tip it over and empty it's awesome contents on the floor. Most catches prominently featured eel, some sort of shark looking fish found in the St-Lawrence, and countless other life forms I could not properly identify. Then I had to shovel these gasping animals in buckets then dump them back in the river. Is it just me who can see the poetry in this?

A Pesky Label.

Sometimes I wish I was a spy. You know, following targets, hiding and collecting information... I could be an actual spy and could finally leave this pesky "stalker" label behind.

A Piece Of Mind.

Remember the scene in Back To The Future where a time-traveling Marty plays fucking fierce 1985 rock music in a 50's high school dance? I happen to think about this sort of things a lot.

Maledos.

Good afternoon Samantha,

I appreciate the work you have been doing for me lately has a hair stylist. For your reference, please see the haircuts below as a representation of what I consider the best male hairdos ever. Please bear those in mind as you keep doing your excellent job.

The McTernan Legacy - DC's 1990's Hardcore War of Good Versus Evil.

Hardcore's troubled 90's. Many are quick to dismiss hardcore music's accomplishments during this period, however in 1991, hundreds of kids still believed they had their say. Brian and Mike McTernan were among them, both proud to represent the city that was at the leading edge of the genre for so long.

The Mackaye dynasty was hard to put in perspective. Washington DC used to be Straight Edge's Vatican. Now that their heroes moved on from the XlabelX, one can wonder what made the McTernan brothers commit so wholeheartedly to the Edge.

Each started their own band, Brian doing so as early as 1991, with Battery. Mike started working on Damnation in 1992. Both bands extensively featured Ken Olden, who often recorded many of the instruments on most of the bands sessions.

The hooks are often similar, but the music is worlds apart. Battery fueled on the youth crew's positive glory, while Damnation was on the dark side, with moods reminiscing of the harder Cleveland sound of the time, having only Mike's Henry Rollins-like vocals enabling listeners to link what they heard to the punk realm.

Olden had a passive face but quick fingers. He came up with both inspirational, motivating anthems and multilayered brooding dark musings. The chords were often the same in both outfits, but the way he played was for entirely dissimilar universes.

Always keeping busy, Olden formed Better Than A Thousand with Youth Of Today's Ray Cappo and even filled in YOT's reunion shows.

By presenting them together, I wish to point out the obvious similarities between these acts that achieved so much without being associated with Dischord Records overwhelming post-Revolution Summer art-core.

Anger sits strong at the core of this music. By living on the edge of bittersweetness, Ken Olden expressed more in these riffs than he ever did in facial expressions. He carried this emotion between both bands, and somehow, it did not permeate Better Than A Thousand and not much of his other endeavors.

Damnation found their niche early on with Jade Tree records, (previously Hi-Impact records, the sXe hardcore label who released Turning Point's first EP) while Battery found a cultish following in Europe (often touring with Ignite, who were also big over there). Their legacy remains unparalleled as of today.

Find Battery's Until The End and Damnation A.D.'s No More Dreams Of Happy Ending on mediafire.com/naud.

Meryl Streep, les "Juggs" et le Boulevard Mont Royal.

Je vais vous dire des choses.

- J'aimerais tellement ça que Meryl Streep soit ma mère.

- Je suis parti de chez-moi hier soir vers 20h afin de rejoindre Karine, qui elle même venait de rejoindre Coach à la Porte Rouge. Je me faufilé dans les ruelles du plateau, errant avec les chats en attente de la pénombre. En arrivant sur place je tombe immédiatement dans l'ambiance crade des cinq à septs du boulevard Mont-Royal. Deux jeunes femmes avaient assez ingurgité d'alcool pour maintenant vouloir attaquer le plancher de danse, qui jusqu'à ce qu'on me l'indique, est bel et bien existant. C'était jeudi: je ne sais trop si c'était jour de paye pour la clientèle mais la fébrilité était au rendez-vous.

Il fallait vite que j'ingurgite un double gin tonic. La concoction s'est révélée une bonne cure contre mon mal de tête. Les colonisateurs Britanniques l'avaient l'affaire en Inde. Au bar, Karine m'interpelle, déjà en compagnie de Patrice et Amadeo, que je ne connaissais pas. Immédiatement surgît derrière eux ce cher SI. Poignées de mains. Présentations. Enchanté Amadeo et Patrice. Amadeo, c'est l'Italien Canadien qui a grandit sur la Rive Nord et qui demeure maintenant à Montréal. Son boulot est pour les douanes. Il écoute des importations de porn et juge si les films peuvent être importés ou non en jugeant de leur légalité. Zoophilie: non. Scatophilie: non. Les sports aquatiques, oui, seulement si les participants ne s'urinent pas dessus et qu'il n'y aie pas de sexe d'impliqué. Pour Patrice, à part qu'il était un type ricanneur qui aimait faire des blagues, je sais trop peu sur lui. Il portait un t-shirt jaune avec des imprimés un peu partout. Les deux portaient des sandales et je voyais leurs... orteils. Coach est arrivé juste après et un peu abasourdi de ne pas avoir eu la chance de me présenter ses Juggs. Plus tard il me disait, "ces amis là, c'est les moins pires de ma gang".

Mon premier verre à peine achevé, que les jeunes hommes du clan de la Rive Nord voulaient aller manger. Ma curiosité était bien sûr attisée. Ma charpente vous le suggère, mais le fait que mon estomac était vide et que ce géant gin tonic commençait même à me donner le verbe léger me portait à juger que je devais moi aussi songer ingurgiter des matières solides.

Nous attaquions alors Mont Royal. Les masses qui fumaient en face des tavernes étaient en admiration devant cette parade de jeunes hommes séduisants que nous étions. Je marchais au devant de la file, la plupart du temps au téléphone avec Charles, qui me racontait son agitation avant son man date avec Monsieur Brideau. À ce jour j'attends toujours de savoir ce qui s'est réellement passé ce soir là entre ces deux-là. De retour au défilé sur Mont Royal, le choix du troupeau s'est arrêté au Wakamono. Karine s'est jointe à nous le temps de quelques verres avant d'aller puncher au DV.

Sur place nous avons développé une synergie intéressante. Ces jeunes hommes savent bien taquiner Coach. SI a invité moi et Charles à un quille-o-thon et un souper Spahettis sur la rive Nord pour financer son équipe de Balle Molle aux Nationals qui se tiennent dans l'est du Canada. L'activité se tien le dernier week end d'Août. Faudrait y songer. Patrice m'a très tôt interrogé sur ma Montréalicité, et sur ma perception de la Rive Nord. Les Saporos - à 13 dollars la cannette - ont coulées à flôt dans ce tourbillon de sushis de qualité décente. Karine nous ayant quitté, les échanges se masculinisèrent. Ces jeunes hommes commencaeint même a m'étendre des invitations pour tel ou tel évènement. L'addition aquittée, je quittai la table en saluant chaleureusement le clan des Juggs du Coach D'amours.

Paisley

For some odd weird reason, likely because my father sometimes worked in a lab, my family used to call paisley 'bacteria'.

Russian Encounters.

This was early November. I had just quit my girlfriend, changed jobs, made major purchases, I was considering moving to a new place, Epidemic was releasing the EP, lots was going on.

I remembered reading about self purification a while ago. I decided that while I was at it with all those changes I should get a check up at the doctor and what else... Hum, why not have my colon cleansed? That's not a natural thought for a normal grown man like me. I wouldn't be considering this if it wasn't for those articles talking about impacted feces and all the toxins sticking to your intestines. I grew genuinely concerned by all of that. To a point where once in a while I would spend a day only drinking lemony water in order to clean myself a little bit.

I noted months ago the phone number off a place my bus drives by every day that had a sign picturing a colon. I googled the place, it looked legit. I also read about the process so I knew what I was getting into. As horrible as it can get.

I took an appointment. The lady on the phone had a bad russian accent. I took it for the following Friday afternoon ( I made sure I had the day off at work for this). I kind of felt, through what I gathered from our conversation, I could have just dropped in whenever I wanted. However, I so was adamant in pulling through this motherfucker that I pushed any shadow of suspicion aside.

I remembered my ex-girlfriend would be over Montreal that same weekend to pick up some things at my apartment and also so we could talk about the break up and other things we had to arrange. We also wanted to catch up as friends. Coming out of a 4 year relationship is more complicated than meets the eye. The general plan was for her to come over Thursday night, Friday morning we'd have breakfast, then we'd go on our personal errands we had to run (by now you have a rough estimate of what kind of 'errand' I had to run). After we could meet up again in late afternoon for a snack somewhere. I made sure that somewhere was a Second Cup a block from the Colonic Irrigation place.

I covered up my colonic plans to her (and everybody I know) by telling her I would meet up my old boss at my old workplace for a coffee somewhere downtown. Which was true, by the way, I just did not intend spending the whole afternoon doing so.

Thursday night came. I found out the ex was more insecure than I thought about the break up and she was already fearing the day she would see me with another gal. I tried reassuring her by telling her that wasn't about to happen anytime soon.

After breakfast I headed downtown to my old office space. It was good seeing my old boss. She was always a pleasant woman being around with. We had coffee. Then I was off to hell.

I took a scary elevator up, walked a corridor probably left untouched since 1967 and entered the door frame of my destination. Turns out it was a full on spa. They had a sweat cabin from where your head sticks out a wooden box. There was also massage rooms and a place for a mud bath. Next to me, plenty of flyers about natural health were laid out on a table for guests. What sketched me out is how small the place was. It could only receive a maximum of three or four guests at once.

For no apparent reason, Irina, the lady in charge, the same I talked to on the phone, told me they couldn't accommodate me right away. Irina was a blonde russian, probably in her mid 40's. She was still looking good but, you know, make-up couldn't make up for that much longer. Her accent seemed worst in person.

Instead of waiting she offered me a deal on a one hour massage.

What the heck. I went for it.

- Go in this room, have shower and lay on table, Katrina will come soon.

Sounds great. I glanced at Katrina and she was perfect for the circumstances. Not bad looking at all but not too good looking. Last thing I wanted was to go for a colonic with a raging boner.

Showered, dried off. Katrina knocked at the door just as I was putting my boxers back on. I laid on the table on my back as she asked me to. She then proceeded to massage me real good. I think I would have fully enjoyed it if it wasn't for the impeding doom awaiting me.

I realized I should have been naked for the massage because now the waist band of my boxers was oiled up. Oh well. I had another shower afterwards to clean away the oil that was rubbed all over me.

I figured that I should call my ex to tell her I might run a bit late on our rendez-vous at Second Cup. After I did so, Irina walked me to the colon room. I already knew about the machines that were to be used from the Internet. I did my research, trust me. This decision to willingly have something in my a-hole had to be, at least, an informed one. As I looked at the clock a few seconds before tube insertion, I realized I was going to be more late than I thought to that thing. Unless I was out of that hellhole in 15 minutes, which I doubted.

I'll do my best to leave out as many details as I can. All I can say is that the operation is not painful but frightingly uncomfortable.

Prior to the insertion, Irina had the courtesy of lubing up my asshole. Then promptly warned me about what was to come. The bitch fingerbanged me. To check my prostate. Apparently they can tell you a lot by feeling your prostate. Irina had the clairvoyance of telling me I should have more sex. Thanks for the newsflash, violator.

I don't know what was wrong with me. After 20 minutes laying half naked on my side on that cold table, only half a dozen crap flakes went zipping by the illuminated horizontal glass tube that was part of he contraption designed to process what my body would eventually decide to reject. During those long minutes, Irina was praising the virtues of the treatment she offers. And she went on again on how sex is good for losing weight and good for my body, reminding me that my prostate is too big and that a beautiful man like me should be getting some.

My phone rang. Of course I'm late, that's to be expected. I couldn't answer in that position, so Irina brought my pair of jeans over so I could pick my phone in my pockets. I missed the call. Irina wanted me to call her back but you know what, I didn't feel like making a phone call. Not now.

Back on the other end of my body, not much was happening. Irina had to bring in some extra workforce to massage my back during the operation. Apparently this can initiate some bowel movement. Katrina gladly joined back in. However, things became awkward when they started talking russian to each other. Both of them were massaging me as if I was a half-empty tube of cookie dough.

And Irina had a constant flow of calls. People taking appointments. My homeland sketched out advisory system went in orange alert when Irina asked a gentleman on the phone which masseuse he wanted this week.

My phone rang again.

- Why are you late?
- Hum, I didn't see time pass by with my boss. Stay there, I'm on my way.
- I can come and meet you guys over, tell me where you are.
- Oh, no, don't bother, just have a coffee, pick up a magazine, I'll be there in 20 minutes.
- Oh... Okay.

Things were progressing a bit on the bottom end. I was seeing more matter flowing through the tube. Not enough for Irina, unfortunately. I honestly thought that wasn't much either. With persistence we could come through.

Twelve minutes later, the ex rings me again. I could discern this insecure tone in her voice.

- Where are you?
- I'm still on my way, thanks for waiting.
- Let me meet you, I know you're lying.

Of course she always knew when I tried to lie. Anybody who knows me a bit is aware I'm a terrible liar.

- Please wait for me, I'll tell you later what's really going on.
- You sound really weird, tell me the truth now.

I guess I sounded really strange when every second word I pronounced was followed by sighing and even some occasional slight grunting from my part. I had warm water irrigating my bowels. You can't possibly hold a normal conversation, let alone one like these, in similar circumstances.

- OK, well, you see, I'm in a colonic cleansing place, whatever how you call those places... I am getting a treatment there. This is one of the worst things I've ever done. I don't need your crazy bullshit at this moment.

There you go. I blew my cover and gave away my dignity in order to ease my ex girlfriend's suspicions of me secretly hooking up with my old boss.

- Oh yeah? Give me a break. Why don't you give me the address. I'll wait for you there.
- Please wait for me at Second Cup, I'm only a block away.

She was still not buying it and had me ask Irina mid-treatment what's the address so she could meet me there. I told her to wait for me in the small waiting room they set up there.

Five minutes later I hear the buzzer indicating a customer walked in the place. Irina greeted her new visitor. I could hear them coming in the room I was in. Oh, no. No fucking way, you're not walking in here, not now.

- Sit down and wait for me, I'll be done soon. Read some flyers, all right?

Irina was more than welcoming to her. Even though I told Irina she was my ex, her bad english probably misunderstood this as "she's my fiancee" or god knows... Irina had another one of her courtesies by inviting my "fiancee" to join me in that moment of hardship. Irina truly felt my pain through this experience and having my wife-to-be by my side would sure help me out through this. My ex being of russian descent, Irina was quick to be even more kind to her.

I guess up to that point, my ex even had more rights to be suspicious. She most likely picked up on the massage aspect of the business.

They both walked in. I had no barrier, no defense. Naked on a table, curled up, naked with only a towel covering half my ass. And the tube. This fucking tube, expelling fluids out of my sorry ass.

- Is that proof enough I'm not smooching up with my old boss?
- I'm so sorry. I'll be in the waiting room.

And this what it took to end this latest episode of crazy she had. Clearly one of the aspects of our relationship that made it impossible for us to go any further together.

After the treatment I headed for another shower, put my clothes back on. When I walked out of the changing room, Irina was giving an enthusiastic tour of the place to my ex. I met them as Irina was showing her leeches.

They kept leeches for some type of indian healing method. I already knew about this from the MTV show Wild Boyz when Steve-O took one in the eye for entertainment purposes. I was always repelled by those suckers. As a kid I would never swim anywhere near those. Irina told me having five of those on my chest for twenty minutes could help bring down my cholesterol. No thanks, I'll stick to that thing they call EXERCISING for this.

Irina was also quick to remind me, now my "fiancee" being by my side, once again, the joys and benefits of regular sex. We decided to join our efforts telling her we broke up, divorced, separated, finished, through, niet... She paused and said:

- This don't matter, he very handsome man, and you very beautiful russian woman. You two should be making love all the time at your age.

My ex was in a very apologetic mood for the rest of the night. With no surprise, I opted for dinner at home. She cooked dinner for me and was trying to be as empathic as possible with me. I still appreciate this attitude to this day. I guess the whole experience helped her moving on with her life, in a weird, disgusting way. I still giggle to myself this day thinking this is one of the last memory she has of me.

And Irina: you complimented me, massaged me and fingerbanged me. With a bottle or five of vodka, you'd probably have a shot with me.

Death Before Dishonor

Before Supertouch, there was Death Before Dishonor. And before a certain Boston hardcore band went by the same name in the 2000's, there was NYC's DBD.

On drums, the young Mike Ferraro, later famous for his lead singer role in Judge, jjust like Jimmy Yu, who stayed on guitar. Yu's brother, Steve, was also in DBD. On vocals, Mark Ryan delivers the first verse of his long, harsh, profound, educated and mind-altering lyrical path. The second verse can be heard on a record titled The Earth Is Flat, an effort released by the band Supertouch, which also featured both Yu brothers. Not surprisingly, some DBD songs went on to be early Supertouch songs.

DBD was music for skinheads, with grooves these kids never heard before. Take Deadlock at 1:47: right at this point this becomes a Supertouch song, sincere, different, fresh. Most songs have similar patterns, sometimes starting mellow, dark, questioning (and almost bordering with post-punk sensibilities), and ending completely hard. This demo will grow on you and it's significance in NYHC history should never be ignored.

Download it here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/gvym73

A Life Outside Hardcore.

Could it be possible? Two years into being practically completely apart from the Hardcore realm, I feel I can say I can deal with the lack of unity, cope without the brotherhood, and I manage to keep it real, but this time thriving on a different level of Dancefloor Justice.

The first time I felt confronted to how apart I was from society back in the days, is when a girlfriend from a year or so back asked me about a rugged X Swatch laying on my desk.

- What's that? I never seen you wear it.
- It's been broken for a long time.
- Why do you keep it? It's destroyed, you have better watches to wear.
- This piece of junk has sentimental value, I guess.
- Why?
- It was some sort of symbol for me and some friends.
- What kind of symbol?

You see where this is going. At this point it is a valid point I should have kept her nagging curiosity in check. But I felt it was honest interest in my past that kept her going and got her to ask me about the rite of passages I went through, most being somehow related to Punk, Hardcore and the Straight Edge. While it may seem contrived of me to bask in this nostalgia as I type this listening to the Pet Shop Boy's Introspective LP, I came to realize the impact this crucial lifestyle had on my life.

At first look, I was living happily ever after the Core. Many former coremen developed subversive opinions about the culture they once embraced, and act as opposite as possible to anything that may be Hardcore... "The Harder They Fall", we would say. They usually turn out really douchebaggish and in overall denial. I also know a guy who switched lifestyles but is in no denial. It's this chameleon boy who started as pos kid, got into Madball and Hatebreed, then went full on wigger, even wearing ECKO gear. He then went skinhead, bordering on the dark side and "ironically" listening to Screwdriver or Blue Eyed Devils. Then got into metrosexuality, dance music and all that stuff, and now he's into obscure new wave shit I wish he'd get me into.

The way I felt is that Hardcore just naturally stepped out of me. Not the scene sucked, because new kids keep coming and the new bands keep rolling by the town. Thing is, I was just not getting into the new stuff, and I had less and less time to go out and dig those excellent new bands coming up. I was always down for a road trip to see exciting reunions like for Bold or Youth Of Today, or see a Ignite show in town or in Ottawa, but the new breed of Wiggercore and the friends slowly disappearing from shows kind of made me not miss it that much. Even though we started EPIDEMIC in 2006, it wasn't specifically about Hardcore but just letting loose musically the best way we could. Of course, spending our formative years listening to Hardcore made us Hardcore, or more so Post Hardcore.

The same summer Epidemic formed, I also broke Edge. I like to think I made this choice by respect to the Straight Edge, as I was keeping my drug free, booze free and smoke free lifestyle by habit more than conviction. Since you can't ask a teenager to live by the principles he set for himself for his whole entire life, I felt I was now ready to partake in full-on Ovechkin style partying.

Turns out I'm glad I got into the social drinking and drugs game at age 26 instead of 19. College parties suck so bad, the kids have no idea where to draw any lines and when it is appropriate to cross them. Instead I had the chance to learn with adults with experience and was introduced (and could afford) the best beers, wines and spirits. I can now move straight to go, get my two hundred bucks and enjoy quality scotches.

But why is it that in my haziest moments, a Minor Threat song will come up and and will lose my shit and mosh the living room - as a guest - up ? Why do I find my X varsity jacket to be one of the most beautiful items of my wardrobe? Why do I sample Straight Edge Hardcore in the computer tunes I craft when I'm high? Why do I look up the show listings in the hope a band I love decided to reform and play Montreal? Is there really a life outside hardcore?

Maybe not so much. There will always be a few stories to tell to the people that want to know me, about the things Hardcore has put me through, whether we're talking about scars, tattoos, the records in my bin, the weird pictures of people piling up on me thrown around in online social networks... And I have to take the time to tell them, otherwise they'll go home thinking I was in a cult.

Even though I can sometimes be found laying down some justice on a dancefloor with a broad that does not have straight bangs and a sacred heart inked on her chest under an arm and a fine drink in the other hand, I will always go out of this lucky predicament to meet and hug a former fellow edgeman. I will always remember that what brought me to this gratifying stage of my life are the seminal years that taught me about integrity, brotherhood, equality, unity, holding strong and keeping it real. I used to be part of Hardcore, now it's just a part of me.

Le Probleme avec le Monde de Quebec.

Je ne peux inventer ce qui suit.

'Dominic joined the group Les anti-gauchistes, socialistes et séparatistes du Qc'

Pierre Yves: c'est quoi la rejoindre ce groupe la...je peux bin croire que tu es un peu plus a droite mais criss la sociale democratie ca la quand meme cest bon coté...reharde y a pire que nous autres en tk....cest sur que je paye trop dimpots mais criss le gros la tu sais au tant que moi qu'un jour nos ressoursces naturel bvont etre si importante(hydro ) quon devra fair cavalier seul...arrete de vouloir jsute prétendre a des idées de droite ...c'est exemple la sont en trasindesécrouler a travers le monde

Dominic: Merci pour la moral!!! Mais je n'est rien a crisser de ta social démocratie et de tous les estie programme de gauche que je suis oubliger de payer pour pour toute le reste de la societé.Au Québec on est tellement d'épendent de l'état que ca me fait mal coeur.Moi quand je te vois tu pogner le cul chez vous pendant six,sept ou huit mois parce que tu profite des génereux programme de l'état pour ton enfant!!! Ca mérite pas mal.Emplus on est une province très pauvre qui a aucunement les moyen de se donner tous ces esties de programme de gauche!
Bye the way je trouve ca bizzare la moral de la part d'un gars qui a voter Conservateur(Les peureux qui viene de nous sortir un estie du budget de gauchiste) mais quand même parti suposément très a droite!!

Pierre Yves: yo...bonne sicussion en tk au McDo pis tes belle journée au Big Air...tk on gagne ca a soir au hockey pis question de pognage de cul aq maison je suiis^pas d'accord...2 points la dessus...moi je n'aurai pas de fin de semaine pendant 6 mois pis 2- le jour on tu auras des enfants tu va comprendre que ca existe pas le pognage de cul :P
bonne soirée

Social Banking.

Having been taught Special Care Counselling in college and moved on to different fields of work over the years, there were multiple instances of me wondering how could the knowledge I gained in SCC could be applied to other fields of work. Think in job interviews...

I was never involved in the world of finance. I can safely say it was never of interest to me, even if I stay up to date with the sate of the economy, mainly for it's political and social implications. The company I work for has banks and major banking corporations as clients and we work on tenders and bids for their IT contracts and their software asset management solutions. That's as far as it goes as far as I'm concerned. However it came to me to think of  skilled financial advisers. Now what if one of their competencies was also that they were thought in the field of social work.

In the current financial system we deal with, it is not far fetched to believe that a state controlled bank structure could hire a different kind of banker. One of these employees' mandate would be to identify the people that are in a downward spiral of debt and have one of the newly nationalized banks buy their debt and finally stop the bleeding. From there, they could help the individual work his way out of that debt with reasonable interests rates, constant follow-up on budgeting to eventually, slowly and responsibly building the credit rate back up. A planned intervention from the ground up, made with dignity and based on personal history has the potential to significantly improve individuals and families lives.

Other private banks will not lend even an ear to the struggling man. The few people ready to lend him are plain bandits. The state tolerate doubtful pawn shops mainly scattered where poverty reigns, it currently allows credit card companies to charge 28% rates to men and women failing to consistently meet their commitments to these corporations. The racket of profiteering over one's suffering has to stop. As a society we must ask ourselves what do we want to do with people like them. Judge and shun them for not meeting their responsibilities or foster a system in which these people, thanks to the principles of decency, the common good and common sense, can be respectfully assisted back to a better financial health?

By showing care and social responsibility towards these men and women, we lead by example and can righteously and rightfully hope that they will uphold those principles for themselves in the future.

Hang Loose.

I hardly ever wear any t-shirt these days. This is why I figured for a whole Sunday filled with plans of watching a few TV shows and sports all day, it was a perfect time to rock one of the million band t-shirts I gathered over the years. From Gorilla Biscuit to Into Another then to Quicksand or SSD to Earth Crisis, I got tons of these bad boys dying to be worn once in a while.

I decided to opt for a Fired Up tee the band actually gave to me the first time they came to Montreal. Their set was a bit sloppy but their demo was so good, I was psyched anyways to hear these songs. We basically just chatted about common friends and had Montreal talk. It looks completely badass.

So I walk up this early afternoon to the Depanneur to pick up a few things and by the counter a mid-40's looking guy was there, talking to the delivery kid. He looked at me and told me I reminded him of his youth. He probably noticed I was puzzled as he asked me what language I spoke. Then I saw him pointing at my shirt - as opposed to my varsity jacket that could have reminded him of his high school or something - saying it was the design for his first skateboard deck, which was a Jason Jessee pro-model. I did, indeed, completely ignore Fired Up used that design for their shirt. It is common in the punk and hardcore realm to do so. In this instance, they simply replaced the words "Santa Cruz" by "Fired Up" and "Skateboards" by "Hardcore".

As I paid for my stuff (sour cream, nachos, coca-cola - I'm coming clean) he told me about what this skateboard meant to him as a kid. As I walked away he gave me the classic Hang Loose Shaka hand sign. You know he's for real.

Ignite Covering Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Worst song. Possibly the only thing about Ignite hat makes me go *smh*. This, and the aura of sleazyness surrounding them. Still a great, great band. Second rate Unity is still better than most stuff out there.

Échanges.

- C'est comme si je te disais: "Tout tes amis te haient secrètement". Avoue que tu serais comme: peut-être pas tous, mais je suis sûr que une couple, oui.
- Pas vraiment mais c'est peut-être parce que je m'aime beaucoup.
- Ouais. Tu te dis: impossible.
- Je veux dire ceux qui m'aime pas sont pas amis... Mais c'est dur de pas m'aimer. Je suis pas mal awesome.
- Moi je t'aime pas.
- Oublie ca tsé tu m'aimes ben trop.
- Non je te ONIS. Je te répudie. Je connaissais le mot RÉPUDIER avant on s'entend, mais depuis que j'entend dire à tout les jours: "Stéphane Dion a été REPUDIÉ", je l'utilise dans ma vie quotidienne. Comme hier, mon coloc a laissé sa crotte dans le bol. Je lui dis: Flush ta crotte, je te répudie.
- Je pense que c'est aussi un terme légal pour renvoyer son épouse dans son pays. Mettons si Michel veut plus de sa mail order, il la répudie back to Ukraine... En passant, C'est terrible oublier une crotte en surface. Je l'ai déja fait par exemple.
- Je te onis.
- Un souvenir de mon passage.
- La mail order bride à Michel, est-elle hot ou non?
- Moyen. Elle est effaçée. C'est dur à dire. Je dis pas qu'elle est mail order, c'est juste un running gag entre amis. Pour vrai elle sort du bateau, tout comme sa famille, par exemple.
- Je me suis joint au gag. J'suis dans le gag.
- J'espère.
- Hahaha YES.
- T'es en mesure de l'apprécier.


- Avoue que hier que tu as crié les cris les plus primaux au monde.
- Tellement. J'espère que tu parles de la game d'hier. On est allés dans au Bar Davidson. Il y avait pleins de patches de monde ultra sketchy. Mais on étais tous unis pour les glorieux. Il y avait un jeune noir ultra bâti qui chillait avec un petit vieux chauve. Vraiment une belle gang. Ah oui, il y a eu un meurtre à coté des machines video poker la semaine passée.
- T'as embrassé un semi clochard sur la bouche. J'aime les parties de hockey parce que cest les seule fois où j'ai le droit de GUEULER légalement dans mon appart, sans que mon coloc me haisse à 100%.


- J'aurais pas peur de me battre mais jai une phobie de me faire casser le nez. J'aime l'apparence de mon nez présentement pis je voudrais pas que ca change.
- Ça serait malade un vrai COMBAT.
- Haha, ta gueule.
- Imagine si tu le gèle.
- Je commence ca direct avec COUP DE PIED dans les gosses. Mon premier move est déjà ultra illégal. Je finis avec seringue souillée dans la jugulaire.
- Classy textbook style.
- Comme ils le font dans les dojos en Chine. Frapperais-tu une fille? LE FERAIS-TU?
- Si elle me gifle, je la gifle à 75% de SA force. C'est pas mal tout ce que je peux faire... Tu fais ça avec élégance comme dans les vues françaises. Shaker une fille c'est BS en crisse, le reste on en parle pas. Mais il y a rien de mieux que de la bonne vielle violence psychologique.
- Mon coloc, SOUVENT je l'ai obligé à me biner le bras. Je le poussais à bout. je le binais bien sûr. Pis je le défiais de me biner.
- T'es terrible.
- À chaque fois, il le faisait, bien sûr. Pis à chaque fois je fake pleurais. Les meilleures larmes que t'as jamais vues. Tu sais, les pleurs qui commence juste dans les yeux, mais qui finissent en suprasanglots.
- T'es malsaine. Calice.
- Pis je prenais le look femme battue: j'ai peur et je suis faible. YES OSTI.


- Avoue que c'est vraiment excellent que Bronfman se fasse voler ses bijoux par des cat burglars dans son mansion à Toronto. Surtout les deux bagues de la coupe Stanley.
- Hahaha quoi?
- J'espère que c'est un Québecois qui les a ramenées à Montréal et les a enterrées dans le sous-sol de l'AMC.
- Se faire voler des bijoux. Cest semi homoérotique.
- C'est génial tu veux dire.
- Oui.
- À Paris, Harry Winston se sont fait voler pour 134 millions de bijoux. Après, tsé, tu prends un bain dans les bijoux. Pis tu ris et ris et ris. HAHAHAHA.
- Haha oui, tu jouis autour des bijoux, tu te mets les bijoux dans ton intérieur pis tu les savoure
-...
- Haha ouais. Ouais... Je te frappe a 75% de ma force.
- Je te gifle à 75% de 75% de ma force.
- Hahaha ah non, tu me giffle tsé.
- Je te sacre un coup de poing dans le chest. Je t'ai déja raconté la fois où j'ai punché ma grand-mère dans le chest? Elle me chatouillais pis j'en pouvais plus. J'étais couchée sur le dos. Pis je l'ai punchée dans le chest. Ça en est resté là. Elle a accepté que tsé, le niveau de chatouillage qu'elle me faisait subir, équivalait à un coup de poing dans les boules. C'était fair pour elle.
- Haha, quel âge que t'avais?
- Genre onze ou douze. Je me rapelle clairement du sentiment...AH NON OSTI QU'AIS-JE FAIT? Mais personne n'a rien dit. Et on en a jamais reparlé. J'ai oublié de dire que ma grand-mère avait survécu à un cancer de l'oeil et du sein, alors ca explique aussi à QUEL POINT MAL c'était de la frapper. Là. J'ai punché ma vieille grand-mère malade. Punché une femme qui a le cancer du sein dans les boules. Mais jai jamais pensé tsé, j'étais trop en souffrance. Je compare vraiment me faire chatouiller à me faire violer je suis sûre que c'est la même terreur.
- Disons une fille veut faire courir légerement et sensuellement ses mains ou ses doigts sur moi je la rejette.
- J'espère. Pire sensation
- C'est dur à expliquer. Elle pense pas qu'elle me chatouille.
- Ah osti juste y penser, ça donne mal à la MOELLE ÉPINIÈRE. Pis un léger goût de vomi.
- Je lui dis, si tu veux me faire plaisir, fais moi un massage. Ou une pipe.

- Raconte moi une anecdote terrible
- Je peux te dire comment ça a fini avec Diane.
- Oui dis le moi
- Ok, vers la fin elle capotait pas mal pis je voyais en restant dans la même ville qu'elle et en la voyant souvent - après un presqu'un an de long distance relationship qu'elle avait des problèmes. Donc j'essaie de casser une première fois mais ca n'a pas fonctionné... Une de ses amies amie m'appelle en détresse, me dit que je peux pas faire ca en ce moment, c'est trop pour elle de s'occuper de ramasser Diane en 1000 morceaux. L'affaire est que on s'est rencontrés Diane et moi au travers une amie en commun: Laurel. Laurel et moi on était bien downs l'un avec l'autre. Alors à chaque fois que le drame éclatait avec Diane j'appellais Laurel. Je la gardais à jour, je me confiais. j'étais pas habitué au drame, Laurel m'aidait à dealer avec ces choses une vraie amie. À ce point là, moi et le band étions parti faire quelques soirs en dehors de la ville. Ça faisait un moment que ça allait mal avec Diane.
- OUI OK. Je te permet de continuer
- Ce weekend là j'ai failli embrasser une autre fille. Vraiment pas mon genre, je suis pas sleazy à ce point. Je me suis dit, criss ok là c'est grave faut vraiment que je finisse ça avec l'autre. Je voulais casser ça en personne, c'est sûr. Je l'appelle en revenant et mon ton de voix a trahi mes intentions futures. Elle sentait que il y avait de quoi de louche. Elle voulait savoir, là, exactement ce qui se passait avec moi. Au debut je disais ok on s'en jasera quand on se verra, ça peut attendre, mais elle voulait clairement pas attendre. Je tentais de couper cours à la conversation, mais elle revenait à la charge. Je commençais à ne plus savoir quoi faire. Entre deux conversations interrompues, j'appelle Laurel. On se jasais ca, tsé, quelle stratégie employer et tout. À ce moment Diane rappelle encore... Cette fois, elle m'a pas mal forcé à dropper la dompe au téléphone. Elle était convaincue que c'était ça. Dans ma tête c'était pire de dire, non c'est pas ça et lui dire que finalement JE CASSE trois jours après.
- OH SHIT.
- Là les pires affaires sortaient de sa bouche. Elle m'accusait de la tromper avec Laurel. Il y avait des larmes, pire moment émotionnel, le tout sur le salloperie de téléphone. Calice.
- Ah non...
- Finalement on se promet de se rejaser ça plus reposés dans un futur rapproché. Donc qu'est ce que je fais après mon appel? j'appelle Laurel, parce que là c'etait pas mal moi qui capotais sur les bords rendu à ce stade là, après avoir dompé une fille au téléphone pis avoir ecouté des larmes pis des promesses pour tout régler. Mais là: ERREUR classique de Naud. J'ai recomposé par erreur le numéro de ma désormais EX. Ça décroche, je m'addresse à l'interlocutrice.
- NON. NON!
- "Hey Laurel. Je suis célibataire."
- NON OSTI. NOOOON. TROMPEUR.
- Diane: "Je le savais!"
- HAHAH OUAIS.
- "JE LE SAVAIS! Depuis le temps que je voyais votre fameuse AMITIÉ!". Finalement, quatre semaines plus tard avant un spectacle que j'anticipais Diane m'appelle.
- Vous vous êtes pas reparlés? Avant quatre semaines?
- Exact, j'était devenu un sale trompeur, il n'y avait plus rien à faire. Donc elle m'appelle et veut discuter de tout ça.
- Toi t'étais finalement heureux.
- Haha, ouais, quand même. Je la rejoint au concert en question. Elle m'amène en face de la venue. Elle fait son plaidoyé et me dis comment tout ce qui me conviens pas dans cette relation va être réglé. Des larmes encore... Je lui dis que il n'y aucun turning back. Larmes. Sniff. Janic is OUT.
- T'étais parti.
- Dans ma tête j'étais déjà au show en train de mosher ma vie. Elle m'en veut toujours à ce jour à ce qu'on dit.

This Is My Blood.

Oh, the blood that's in me. When I turned 20, my father offered me a custom made family tree with tons of documentation to back it up. Well in case you're wondering, the Naud clan is 13 generations strong.

This ancestry is purely french, cherie (strangely enough, not even a single Irish got in the gene pool). After a long, hard and depressing look at the mirror, there was no way this could be true.

Even though I have caucasian written all over, you can tell I have feats from another world. This is when I stumbled on a name in the tree. Genevieve Marie Ste. Marie. My conviction is firm. That sounds like a native that was force-converted to catholicism and force-mated (that's an alternative way we found for saying raped). Francois Nau, you son of a bitch.

Other irregularity, how come there are three women bearing the name Cloutier only a few generations apart in the same family tree? Was inbreeding common from 1743 until 1865?

My genes are a mess.

Des Relations.

Les seules relations qu'un gars comme moi peut obtenir, c'est d'avoir du beau sexe significatif, passionné et profond. Les femmes qui veulent une aventure d'un soir et des nuits endiablées ne vont pas vers le semi-beau, pas pire gros pareil, et semi-riche. Donc pour avoir des relations et de la compagnie féminine, je dois être celui qu'elle se verrait épouser, le bon, l'achèvement de sa recherche... Croyez-le ou non, j'arrive du point A au point B sans faire de promesses ou de demande en mariage. Mais comme disait Landeau dans Crimes and Misdemeanors, peut-être que, inconsciemment, je leur fais des acroires. Moi au moins je ne les fais pas tuer par mon frère dans la pègre.

Je me dis toujours: ah, ça va être plaisant, on va faire des activités que je ne fais pas avec mes amis. Comme par exemple aller voir des documentaires, avoir des relations, aller au musée, avoir des relations, aller manger ailleurs que chez Lafleur, avoir des relations...

Quand j'atteins cette zone là, même si j'y arrive de reculons, je m'enivre. C'est parce que je la comble. Je sais écouter les femmes, je sais comment leur donner. Je sais bien des affaires. Je peux être tendre comme Francis Reddy quand il le faut. Et c'est exactement ce gars-là qui va recevoir une pluie torrentielle de ce qui suit :

1. Des relations. Oh. Que. Oui. Le matin, en fin d'après-midi, toute la nuit. Crisse que je fourre quand je suis dans la zone.

2. Des cadeaux. Des offrandes, j'en ai reçu. Des tubes à pesto, des mitaines tricotées, des DVD de John Hughes, beaucoup, beaucoup de nourriture, des magazines, qu'importe ce que je puisse manquer, nommez-le, je l'ai eu. Je ne sais pas trop pourquoi, mais elles me gâtent au point que je commence à me trouver important. Elles voient bien que j'aime bien trop ça être traité comme un prince hédoniste à Dubai.

3. De l'attention. Elles veulent tout savoir, toutes mes histoires poches sont un régal pour elle. Tout la fait rire, même quand j'ose commencer à péter dans sa couette. Si j'ai un besoin, vous pouvez-être sûrs qu'il va être comblé avant même que je m'en rende compte.

Mon problème c'est que je me tanne. Un moment donné, elle veut toujours savoir ce que tu penses. Un an plus tard, tu te rends compte que tu sors plus souvent à souper avec elle que tu as de relations avec elle. Ensuite, elle se rend compte que non, je ne suis pas comme Meat Loaf, je ne ferai finalement pas tout au nom de l'amour.

C'est peut-être mon aspect confortable qui cause cette illusion là. Cependant, le fauve de sensualité en moi se meurt de briser sa cage.

My First Hate Mail.

This appears to be in response to a bit I wrote on Alec Baldwin. Somebody felt they had to get the following point across yours truly:

WHO EVER WROTE THIS BLOG IS A MOTHER FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT ASSHOLE MOTHER FUCKER WHO DESERVES TO GO FUCK HIS MOTHER AND DROWN THE THE PITS OF HELL. NO ONE KNOW THE ALEC BALDWIN AND IRELAND BALDWIN SITUATION. YOU DONT KNOW KNOW SHIT YOU FUCK FACE. ALEC BALDWIN MAY BE A DESENT GUY, BUT SO CAN IRELAND BALDWIN. SHES JUST WAS JUST A FUCKING LITTLE GIRL. NOT TO MENTION KIM BASINGER IS A DESENT NICE PARENT TO. DONT WRITE LITTLE FUCKING BLOGS ABOUT PEOPLE YOU DONT KNOW. WHAT A FUCKING LOSER YOU ARE. YOU COULD BE WRITING A BLOG ABOUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT BUT SINCE YOU PROBABLY JUST LOST YOUR JOB OR FOUND OUT YOU HAVE GENITAL HERPES BECAUSE YOU FUCKED YOUR COUSIN, STAAAYYY THEEEE FUCCCCKKK OUUTTT OFFF PEOPLES LIFES YOU LITTLE WHORE. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.


YOU LIKE A 40 YEAR OLD PIECE OF SHIT WHO PROBABLY PAYS A LITTLE 7 YEAR OLD TO SUCK YOUR 1 INCH SO STAY THE FUCK AWAY AND MOVE THE FUCK ON.

Mindfuck.

A couple months before taking off to Mexico City, I remember standing out in the cold a few blocks from home waiting to commute to work. I was standing in front of this advertisement for the Mexico tourism board and was thinking to myself I could use an all inclusive resort of some sort (even though this is a blatant waste of traveling time). It was me and the snowstorm, looking at this gorgeous beach and where the ocean melts with the sky.

Weeks later while walking throughout downtown DF, I notice an photo exposition along Reforma avenue, by the sidewalk. Turns out it was sponsored by the government of Quebec. There were these incredible pictures of familiar places from back home. The whole thing was basically a publicity stunt to attract Mexican tourists in Quebec.

The mindfuck happened the moment I caught myself standing in front of a picture of a street corner a few blocks away from my actual Montreal home, in the middle of a blizzard. Doing this in Mexico under intense heat brought the experience to a metaphysical level. I think I heard a blood vessel in my brain pop right at that moment. Who knows, maybe this picture was actually a space portal leading home.

I Could Make Lisa Smile.

W was running for his first term when I met her. I caught a couple buses and a train and ended up in downtown Philadelphia where I could finally see her again. Long distance was not a relevant obstacle. Lisa had just left her campus and was heading back home to her parents with me in tow.

The air was getting colder and we could see our breath fluttering away. White picketed fences, white houses, white people and star spangled banners all over the suburban haven of Chester County. We took a detour so she could walk me around Avon Grove High, where she graduated just a few years ago. She showed me where the cool kids sat, next to the bleachers by the football turf.

Her parents had a Bush/Cheney sign on the lawn. They were some of the kindest people I ever met. It felt like a Rockwell painting. They had apple pie ready for us. It didn't matter to them their daughter was dating this young lost rebellious soul. Lisa made them proud. And to them, I had to be a kindred soul because I could make Lisa smile. In my own world of opposition, confrontation and dissension, everything had to be black or white. Suddenly, a shade of grey blossomed in me.

Tough Call.

Let's see. Should they pick the guy who did charity work with a former homeland terrorist with integrity, or the guy who still rolls with corrupt civil servants?

Artists Are Fun.

Friday night was wild, man. Just pure mayhem, causing retarded trouble in the streets. So obviously Saturday morning was a pain. My severed 28 year old body had traces of blood and who knows what sort of fluid I might have ran into. Don't ask why I left downtown to end up all the way in Verdun. The answer would be Starbucks, but that's probably not what you think.

So there I was at 10 am, a zombie in Verdun trying to find his way home on the Plateau.

A friend of mine who elected me her 2008 most electable bachelor invited me to a modern dance event, at Studio Tangente. I had to keep up my reputation, and my friend Mat was going too, so who knows, maybe we could make a night out of it.

Before getting there I walked in the weirdest Depanneur. It smelled something. I just couldn't say what. It's the kind of smell that is strong but you can't figure if it's a disgusting one or something possibly pleasant. The entire surface was packed to the point where you couldn't walk properly through the aisles. Weird part is, the shelves were hanging from the ceiling.

My mission was quite simple, getting us some Red Bull for reason made obvious above.

I got to Tangente much earlier than him. I was soon greeted by Emilie. The reason she invited me was because she was a choreographer for the show. Those dancers just graduated and this happened to be a extracurricular presentation for them. I'll say I appreciated this concert and I have several long winded opinions about it. But since I lack knowledge about this form of art, I don't feel I deserve sharing these impressions.

So after attempting a phone call I just sat at a table in the hall, putting the two cans in front of me waiting for Mat to get there. As the room filled up full of people lining up to see the show, I was becoming amused by the crowd and the various typecasts being there. You had completely dancer type artists clashing with some folks who appeared to be related to the artists on stage. So you had moms and dads, grand-parents, jockish brothers... Throw in a couple of dudes or girls in the same position than I am: normalish people, interested in catching this event and also friends with somebody involved.

I probably spent 25 minutes walking around then sitting at this table. After assessing the crowd, I picked a target.

She was an artist looking girl. Kind of cute but obviously involved with herself and no one else. I overheard her making slightly condescending comments about how this show is only made by graduates. She was also spending more time looking at the whole environment than at her interlocutor. The person in question actually excused himself somewhere else.

This is when I stood up, left my coat and my cans at the table and walked straight up to her , making sure to look at her right in the eyes. She saw me coming a long way in and was obviously looking back at me inquisitively. I said in her hear, as loud as I could without being heard by anyone else:

- YOU THINK I HAVE A GOD COMPLEX? I AM GOD.

I ignored any possible reaction she might have had and walked back to my table and opened my can of Red Bull and had a long, invigorating sip.

Video Business Card.

Serious offers only.

Sunday.

The Vetting Process.

In his quest for the perfect running mate, John McCain faced more difficulties than he expected. In the back of his mind, he knew he wanted to create a buzz similar to his opponent candidate for the presidency of the United States of America.

His first vision was a magical negro. One who could assist him achieving his goal of adding another house to his incalculable collection, the White one with the oval office.

Here is John's top 5 magical negroes.

Noah Cullen in Defiant Ones.



Morgan Freeman in 90% of his roles.



Lamont in American History X.



Morpheus.



And last but not least: any appearing in all Stephen King's Novels. For the purpose of this web log, I will stick to a photograph of my favorite of them all.


McCain needed his vice president black, to tell America that he is not a racist. He also needed somebody magical to help him in his role. However, a magical negro, like in the movies they star in, only help the white protagonist, the hero, to save the world, escape from prison, destroy the Matrix or whatever else they got to do. This sounded perfect to good old John.

Unfortunately, the Republican establishment wouldn't let him have it his way. With the evangelists on one side, W, Rove and Cheney on the other, everybody knew that plan wasn't acceptable and decent for them. Then began the ultimate search for a republican that would survive the vetting process.

The goal is to come clean, that is after having a team of private investigators run a thorough search in every aspect of your life and past life. As expected, nobody came out of the process as a potential Vice President in line with the party's values. You see, their moral highground is really, really high. Enough so that faking or paying your way through this order can secure your position as a steady politician for the party.

The search went on and it got down to a few juniors of the party who were in not long enough to get their paws dirty yet. And lord, one of them was a woman.

- Bingo.





Here is what I managed to learn about her.

- Almost became Ms Alaska in 84.
- 2 years experience as the Governor of Alaska, after being mayor of WASILLA, ALASKA!
- Maya Rudolph will make a good impression of her.
- Watches Seinfeld for fashion advice.
- Alaska features many woman in public office leadership roles. This is because men are working on oil rigs.

This was John's best magical negro compromise. That's because being a Republican that can sleep at night is rare, and so far, Sarah Palin can sleep tight. She is known as an ethical and incorruptible conservative. Talk about magical. While not being John's idyllic vision of having a helpful black man to his side, a woman would at least get him some recognition from the Suffragettes, as he likes to call them - when his sugar mommy is not around, of course.

J'excelle.

Quand tu déclines une invitation à aller au cinéma avec des amis, dis leur pas que tu dois aller travailler sur Excel. Essaie de trouver quelque chose de plus sexy à dire. La présence de macros dans ta soirée, dans cette situation particulière, c'est pas quelque chose que tu anticipes.

Ça m'apprendra à mentir sur mon CV. C'est drôle comment sur nos curriculums, on est tous ultra compétents avec Excel. Je sens que je vais devoir déleguer à la grosse Brenda demain matin.

Suicide Girls.

Female suicide bombers is the new trend in terrorist ops. I guess there is substantial pros for them to opt for a woman over a man for this type of intervention. However, I doubt they can sell the mythical concept of the virgins waiting for them in heaven. What women in their right mind would want to die for 72 teenagers who have absolutely no clue on how to please them?

Isabel Allende and Ayahuasca.

London's Sunday Telegraph reported this interesting bit on Isabel Allende's experience with ayahuasca, to fight a bad case of the writer's block.

But after forcing down the foul-tasting brew, she was catapulted to a place so dark her husband feared he had 'lost his wife to the world of spirits'. Her life flashed before her as the hallucinogen took hold. She faced demons, saw herself as a terrified four-year-old and curled up on the floor, shivering, retching and muttering for two days.'I think I went through an experience of death at a certain point, when I was no longer a body or a soul or a spirit or anything,' Allende says matter-of-factly. 'There was just a total, absolute void that you cannot even describe because you are not. And I think that's death.'Nevertheless, the process proved transformative. Allende emerged aching but lucid and was able to complete [a trilogy she was writing], now being adapted for film by the co-producers of The Chronicles of Narnia.

In somewhat unrelated news, Joe Rogan is known to be an active defendant of legalized use of DMT, the main psychoactive component of ayahuasca. He owns an isolation tank (which he put on sale, if you're interested). The state of sense deprivation will release our brain's own DMT, dimethyltryptamine (trippy name, I know). A bit like a Californian new age twist on ayahuasca, one who enters the tank will undergo, after a few minutes in, an introspective journey, confronted with oneself. People living with regrets, suppressed memories and emotions tend to be revulsed by the experience. On the other hand, people with open minds will embrace the experience almost to a spiritual extent. No matter how you take it, it turns out to be formative. I plan to try it.

MADD.

I saw this MADD commercial on television where they attempt to show viewers that drinking impairs your driving. That's a legit cause I guess.

What you see is a driver's view on a road at night, with traffic and all. There's an obvious Gran Turismo feel to it. Then you see empty pints of beer being lined up sequentially, in a way that it blurs out the view of the road progressively. After the fifth pint the car just randomly sways to the left and we hear what seems to be a car crash.

Thing is, after the fifth pint they place in front of me, I still kinda see the road and the blur really doesn't justify the stupid random crash. Turns out this ad just challenged me to drink and drive, because if driving under the influence of 5 pints of bear causes the effect shown in this commercial, I'm confident I'll make it home.

Spending Time With My Girlfriend.

Anybody played Grand Theft Auto lately? It's way more awesome than it used to be. There's a few things that really suck about the games now, like how you have to eat to not starve your character to death. I'm having enough of a hard time keeping a regular eating schedule for myself, let alone watching over my hero's diet.

They also incorporated girlfriends in the game. It's all about how you gotta get her number, then go for dates, call her, that sort of shit... In the end you get to bone the e-bitch and I actually learned way later that in the realm of the game, it doesn't change anything if you do or don't score. So in case you're wondering, just go bust a nut instead of spending time in these sub-missions.

Before I figured that out, a few years back, the summer when San Andreas came out, I was out there, enjoying this game at full capacity. I was doing all the missions, the killing, the chasing, the fake girlfriend, everything. I was way too immersed. I was putting hours on that game in the middle of the summer, the best one in years according to our weatherman (about the temperature and the game, too).

One night I had to go out with my girlfriend (the real-life one) to a dinner with another couple. I was playing Grand Theft again and did not want to let it go. Not for this other couple I did not care for and especially not to hear them and my girlfriend talk about stuff like the last time they went to Ikea.

I managed to weasel my way into staying home that night. I usually manage to do as I please in relationships and this is why I'm single today. Of course, I spent the whole time at home, playing GTA while downing Cheetos and Mountain Dew. My girlfriend eventually came back home. I swear to god, the first thing she saw was of course me with cheet all over my fingers, control and shirt. The second thing she saw was the hero of the game on the TV, having a dinner date with it's girlfriend. Right there, I understood two things. First, I wouldn't get laid that night. I also realized that there was no way I could justify my way out of this one.

Arretez l'Enquete, Clouseau!

Monsieur l'inspecteur, qu'avez vous dans vos dossiers sur ce gars-la?

Quelqu'un a pris un moment pour investiguer l'alibi de cet homme qui roule sa boule dans les medias depuis un an? Le pere de la jeune concernee est mon suspect NUMERO UN. Outre passant sa chevelure indescriptible, on constate qu'il a le pedigree classique d'un pedophile meurtrier, un vrai de vrai, un old school. Je mets un dix qu'on retrouve la gamine en question dans un congelateur en region, ou un cliche du genre, et des traces de ce saloppard tout partout dans et sur les alentours. Gardez un oeil sur ce dude. Je suis pas pire dans ces trucs-la d'habitude.

June 21st.

Canada has been paraded in history as a paragon of virtue on the issue of slavery, especially lauded as a safe haven for runaway slaves. Portrayed as the antithesis of the American South, Canada's (then known as New France) version of the "peculiar institution" has been described as benevolent slavery. Benevolent or otherwise, it was still slavery with the attendant consequence of one man or one race dominating another.

Marie-Joseph Angélique was a slave owned by François Poulin of Montreal in the early 1730s. Being in her sexual prime, she was expected to breed with male slaves as well as provide sexual services to her master. Angélique had other plans, such as freedom and having a normal relationship with her lover Claude Thibault, a white indentured servant from France.

On April 10, 1734, Angélique learned that she was about to be sold and, in a fit of fear and anger, retaliated by setting fire to her owner's home. The fire spread and the final damage was forty-six buildings, including the famed L'Hôtel Dieu hospital. The conflagration resulted solely in property damage. No lives were lost.

After trying to escape, Angélique was captured and brought to trial. The trial, in accordance with the French justice system, was a systematic process that took two months. First, the chief investigator extracted her "confessions" which in essence was a narrative of her entire life. Later, she endured another round of confession, this time under torture, where she admitted her guilt.

On June 21, the day of her execution, she was driven through the streets on a scavenger's cart, with a rope tied around her neck and signs bearing the word "incendiaire" ("arsonist") on her chest and back. On arrival at the parish church at Place d'Armes, she was made to kneel and beg for forgiveness from the King, God, and her fellow citizens. Then her hand was cut off.

Placed back in the wagon, she was taken to the gallows where she was publicly hanged by another slave, Mathieu. She was summarily burned at the stake and her ashes were "cast to the four corners of the earth."

Slavery in New France was tacitly condoned by the church, which sat silent when benevolence became brutality. The case of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a Portugese-born slave woman, who was tortured and hanged for burning a large portion of Montreal, illustrates the duplicity of the Church and the nature of slavery in New France which, when shedding the veneer of benevolence, rivalled the vicious acts perpetrated against slaves in the southern United States.



The Blacks in Canada: A History, Robin W. Winks, Yale University Press, 1972.

Blacks in Montreal 1628-1986: An Urban Demography, Les Éditions Yvon Blais Inc, 1989.

The Freedom Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada, Daniel G. Hill, The Book Society of Canada Limited, 1981.

The Fats Waller Story.

A word on Be Kind Rewind. This movie blew any expectation I could have had about it. Let's face it, it is the presence of Jack Black that marketed the whole film. His voice being featured in animated pictures and a couple of roles that semi let me down are aspects that loomed in the back of my mind. A friend of mine then let me in on the concept and I was sold right away.

Jerry is a junkyard worker who attempts to sabotage a power plant he suspects of causing his headaches. But he inadvertently causes his brain to become magnetized, leading to the unintentional destruction of all the movies in his friend's store. In order to keep the store's one loyal customer, an elderly lady with a tenuous grasp on reality, the pair re-create a long line of films including The Lion King, Rush Hour, Ghostbusters, When We Were Kings, Driving Miss Daisy, and Robocop, putting themselves and their townspeople into it. They become the biggest stars in their neighborhood.

I grabbed the movie on it's DVD release and I was shocked that Mia Farrow, Danny Glover and Mos Def were also casted. The movie had an underlying aura of Woody Allen meeting Kevin Smith. Mia Farrow's interactions with Glover were an interesting take on relationships, especially to a dedicated Allen fan like yours truly. Like all the other roles in this movie, the characters portrayed by Farrow and Danny G showed different takes than Hollywood usually vomits at us of what their lives should be like. We could see them in this flick as positive representations of our late baby boomers, Glover playing a really touching older VHS rental store owner that once loved a woman, made mistakes, therefore he couldn't keep her and that since then, he cannot find anybody that matches up to her. He lives a fun lifestyle, in love with jazz music with his other life-long friends. He tells them about his made up story of an eminent Harlem jazz musician that supposedly actually lived and grew up in their hometown of Passaic, NJ. Mr. Fletcher's account has it that Fats Waller was actually born in the same store he owns today. The interactions he has while playing with Farrow, (the loyal, older, smart, customer) remain funny while remaining imaginatively in line with the plot, the whole thing led up also long time single Farrow having a coup de foudre with Glover, only one look between each other, this is all we get to see of their actual relationship. Really well done.

We also get a glimpse of Mos Def really wanting to have Glover's respect as an employee, but also because he is compelled by the stories of Mr Fletcher and also wants to be part of his jazzy circle.

The scene where Mos Def steals a kiss from Alma, began with him clumsily mentioning her upper lip duvet. This mainly all we get to see of their actual relationship, and I am so fine with this.

For the great comedy of it all and the above reasons, this film impressed the hell out of me.

Second Person.

What's up? What are you listening to? What cities did you visit? Are you normal? Who is your favorite movie star? Singer? Tell me who is your favorite team. Who is your hottest/bestest/cuddliest/awesomest top 20 friends? What's your CAUSE, son? What fucking My Chemical Romance song are you? Tell me again which one you are in Friends.

Hello. What's your favorite color? I need to see an icon that will exactly indicate me what is your current mood, have you thought of that? You know what I miss? I miss you quizzing me about Desperate Housewives, The O.C. and Smallville. Those were the days.

Baby, you know I dig role playing. Hey, you're a zombie, now you're a werewolf, no, you're a VAMPIRE! Look at those sweet experience points. Well done, player.

Now listen to me, you got to fill every personality test that might come in your way. Dr Phil's, Oprah's and the one that rates how much of a rock star you are. All of them. Then you have to make sure all the results will appear at one single place for everyone to see what is your blow job IQ, for instance. You need to share that stuff, trust me, you do.

I have good news. Now you don't have to tell me that stuff anymore! Somehow, I found a way to know all about these important things about you. That's A FUCKING MIRACLE!

Alvaro.

Our first night in Playa Del Carmen was like being four kids in the Hershey factory. After 12 hours of driving through the real-life, harsh, hot, ugly, Mexico, we were then immediately just thrown into this tropical Disneyland for consenting adults. The first spot we really decided to hit was called the Bourbon Street.

For most, it was a reference to Louisiana, to us, it was also a bar down the mountain in St-Sauveur, north of Montreal. A really bad excuse for a decent drinking establishment, really. A joint where the crowd has the dollars but none of the class and culture you'd expect from somebody having that kind of dough. I'd rather drink in a Montreal back alley than in this sad place. But I digress, really, because PDC's Bourbon had a great looking staff, cheap Dos Equis, Tequila at the rise of my index finger and fucking Pablo Escobar and his vigilantes sitting next to us.

Turns out his name was Alvaro. He asked for a cigarette, fine, but we'll have to ask you for some weed. We were dead on. Just like that, Alvaro became our assigned touristic guide and drug dealer.

During our stay, there was not a day where we'd just stumble into him randomly. He pointed us to Mamita's where "they just take it off, bro". He gave pointers on pizza and dinner in general and also shared about his life.

Over our last Big Lobster dinner in town, he kind of opened to us a bit more. Turns out he wants this year to be his last in PDC and in the business in general. "This can't go on forever, bro". He got his ass covered by the mafia, so the cops leave him alone. I thought he had a sweet situation, hanging out all day. But he wants to move north, I think, and he's been to Canada before. And, yeah we made a case for Montreal to be an option in his window of future opportunities.

I feel privileged that he confided in us. He looked like a sketchbag (a beautiful, suave, sketchbag), but he was one of the most reliable dudes we met there.

The name has been changed to protect the obviously guilty. The spirit of it is still there though.

A Tale Of Culture.

One cold winter's day, the members of the Glenn Miller Orchestra are on their way to a gig when their tour bus breaks down. So the musicians grab their instruments and start walking. Plowing was poor. They were almost knee-deep in the snow for almost a mile. In the horizon they appear a cosy little house. There was smoke coming out of the chimney. There was this warm glowing light coming from the inside. As the came across the house, they see a family sitting around the dinner table, enjoying turkey, talking, laughing, clearly enjoying each other's company. The band members are damp and shivering as they gaze at this idyllic Norman Rockwell scene. Finally, one of the musicians turns to another and asks: "How do people live like that?"

The Payroll.

The road between Villahermosa and Merida, as I discovered that morning analysing our road map, was not an expressway (or cuota, a type of road Edgar particularly recommended us sticking on) or not even a highway, for that matter. It was simply this long tiny strip of asphalt where cars only have one lane on each way. There was no way we could drive at the same pace the day before, where we averaged speeds of 150 km/h throughout the way. The road was also crossing all kinds of towns and cities where for a few miles, it would just become the main street, only to go back to whatever type of road it was before it crossed that town.

One of these cities was named Ciudad del Carmen. Nothing to do with Playa del Carmen, our final destination, which was still about 1200 km ahead on our road trip. Approaching it, we noticed the traffic slowing down because of a few intersections and red lights. After hitting some curve, a policeman waves us on the side of the road, where another car is already pulled. There is already a few other policemen on the scene.

At this point I thought he would signal us another way to drive through, maybe there was some road hazards ahead or something. However, I quickly realized that we just were caught for speeding. Finally the Mexican policeman bribery training we received prior to this trip would come effective!

He was friendly looking and of course, of smaller stature than us. Even Charles who can fit in American Apparel size small t-shirts looked like he had some sort of stature over him. Except that Charles did not casually wear an Uzi like it was an Adidas bowling bag.

He scribbled something in the palm of his hand. I understood we were doing 79 km/h in a zone of 60. Busted. At this point all I wanted was his writing pad, so I could clip on there a couple hundred pesos there for his personal enjoyment. He wouldn't let me have it. The moment he saw the money in my hands though he made it clear what I had to do with it.

Turns out I had to roll the dough around my finger so he could grab it as he grabbed our car matriculation. After pretend looking the validity of our plates, he just let us go with a two-finger wave. Corruption with a smile. I guess it was one of them good days for him.

Edgar.

Le dilemme: se rendre chez les Emery en metro ou en taxi? Notre première expérience de metro dans la ville a été intéressante mais pas concluante. Dans le sens qu'on a pas vu de type se lancer dans du verre cassé au sol (pratique courante dans les transports en communs, pour amasser des pesos de courage). Il y avait plutôt beaucoup de monde tout chiés, fatigués de leur journée qui se plaisaient à fixer les quatre gringos partageant le wagon avec eux.

Il s'est mis justement a pleuvoir quand on pesait les pours et les contres. D'la marde, on pogne un taxi. Notre valeureux bellboy de l'hôtel en appella un immédiatement pour nous. Un fiable, qui roll seulement dans le réseau des hôtels de la ville. Notre chauffeur, Edgar, arrive nous chercher peu après et nous embarqua dans une ride qui nous coûterait 150 pesos. Ces types là n'ont pas de compteurs, on voit que c'est pas comme n'importe quel taxi.

En chemin vers Coyoacan, le quartier de Rene Emery, Edgar a répondu de son avis expérimenté à toutes nos questions. Les doutes sur notre niveau de sécurité en ville ou en campagne furent tous dissipés par son savoir bienfaisant. Il y avait pas mal de traffic, chose naturelle dans le DF, compte tenu que l'équivalent de la population du Canada réside dans les limites de la capitale. Ces engorgements signifiaient une plus longue exposition aux conseils et trucs d'Edgar, le tout entremêlé de faits juteux sur sa vie privée. Il voudrait bien déménager aux États-Unis mais sa femme ne le laissera pas partir là-bas seul tant qu'elle n'aura pas sa Green Card. La raison, et on la comprend: Edgar doit être un pas pire tombeur car madame Edgar ne fait pas confiance à son mari auprès de toutes ces américaines.

Rendu à destination, on a tellement aimé notre ride qu'on demande à Edgar si il nous ramenerait à notre hôtel après notre soirée. Pas de problème! Il nous donne sa carte d'affaire avec son numéro de cellulaire.

La soirée fut magique à sa façon, mais ça c'est une autre histoire. René a pris le soin d'appeller Edgar pour qu'il vienne nous chercher à partir du café dans lequel nous avons terminé notre soirée. Edgar arrive aussi fiable que le train de midi à l'endroit prévu. La retour fût aussi passionant que l'aller.

On discute de nos soirées respectives, on est confortables et on rigole. Assez pour que Masson s'avance:

- Listen man, tell me if I'm too forward for you, but do you know how we could score some motta?
- Ah, so you guys want to smoke up tonight...
- You got it.
- I don't know man... Actually I have this friend that lives right by your hotel that could hook you up. You didn't get it from me, though, right?
- Naturally.

Rendus à l'hôtel, moi et Girard on part au dépanneur s'acheter des cochonneries nocturnes pendant que Masson va discuter avec Edgar et son ami de l'autre côté de la rue. Gareau a dû retraiter aux toilettes de notre chambre pour des raisons intestinales.

Moi et Girard on revient et on apperçoit Masson, qui est toujours en pourparlers avec Edgar et son ami. Quelques minutes plus tard, il revient et nous confirme que non seulement la transaction est complète mais que Edgar s'est vaillamant offert pour nous guider hors de la ville le lendemain matin pour amorcer notre périple vers la côte est.

Le plan était qu'il embarque avec nous jusqu'aux limites de la ville et du traffic, on le laisse à quelquepart, nous on roule vers l'inconnu, tandis que lui prend un bus de retour vers le centre-ville.

En général dans ce voyage, à chaque situation donnée, Masson nous prédisait son best case scenario. Exemple:

- On va arriver la il va faire super beau, les filles vont être jolies, il va y avoir du weed, la bière va coûter le prix mexicain au lieu du canadien.

Tandis que Gareau nous rappellais inévitablement le pire scenario possible.

- On và arriver la il va y avoir une tempête tropicale, on va se faire voler nos reins, la police va nous violer pis il va y avoir juste des petites grosses laides.

Pour renforcer ces aspects négatifs il y a eu Raphaël Breton qui nous a donné des mises en gardes un peu capotées et le site du gouvernement canadien pour les touristes au Mexique qui voulait vraiment nous flanquer la trousse.

Dans ce cas l'enthousiasme de Masson a vite été contrecarré par Gareau qui avait des doutes sur les intentions réelles d'Edgar.

- Mettons qu'il aie un gun, on est dans la marde. Il peut nous amener dans une ruelle terrible pis nous voler tout.
- Edgar ferait pas ça, on a sa carte d'affaire avec son numéro de cellulaire et les détails sur son employeur.
- Ca veut rien dire ça man au MEXIQUE.

C'est sur qu'on faisais semi des farces en ayant cette conversation mais il reste qu'on avait un doute pareil. Gareau de poursuivre:

- Je vais le choker si il sort un gun.
- Ok moi je vais prendre son bras qui tient le gun et le pointer vers le haut.
- Shit qu'est ce qu'on fait si il pointe avec l'autre bras?
- Calisse.
- On peut juste lui demander poliment avant qu'il monte de la fouiller. On lui explique raisonablement les raisons de nos craintes.
- C'est pas comme si ça se demande pour vrai come on c'est Edgar, tu peux pas faire ça.

Nous en avons même ressorti à appeller Rene vers minuit qui a quasiment ris de nous d'avoir des doutes. Selon lui tout était correct.

Finalement on avait une grosse quantité de motta à fumer et il n'était pas question d'amener ça en voiture avec nous avec tout les barrages routiers des policiers fédéraux. Edgar et à peu près tout les mexicains qu'on connait nous ont spécifiquement prescrit de ne pas trainer notre weed sur la route.

Le restant de suspicion que nous avions envers Edgar se dissipa dans la fumée de notre communion.

Le lendemain, comme un seul homme, Edgar était la, prêt à nous accompagner. Masson se dirigea vers lui et tout naturellement, lui offra un arrangement différent. Dans ce dernier, le plan est qu'il prend sa propre voiture et nous le suivons jusqu'a ce que nous pouvions voler de nos propres ailes hors du traffic et du casse-tête routier de la ville de Mexico. Le gros bon sens. Il accepta volontiers, probablement soulagé du fait qu'il sache que nous savons nous débrouiller derrière un volant et qu'il n'aura pas à se tapper 1298 heures de bus pour revenir.

En chemin, Edgar employa de son expertise de conduite pour nous garder derrière son véhicule. Finalement, après deux heures d'enfer dans les paseos, gloriettas, circuitos et retornos de la ville, Edgar se stationne devant nous, marche vers notre voiture, nous donne ses derniers conseils et nous laisse voler de nos propres ailes sur les autoroutes arides du pays.

"You boys like Mexico?"

Tu parles qu'on aime ça. Je me marierais avec le mexique comme c'est là, torvis. Tout ça pour dire que c'est l'histoire de quatre hombres qui s'apprêtent à s'embarquer dans une aventure épique dans le monde des Mayas, Aztecs et Olmecs. Le prologue est d'ailleurs déjà paru dans La Presse.

Maintenant, c'est une histoire de rite de passage qui ne fait qu'arriver dans la mi-vingtaine de Gareau, Girard, Masson et Naud (finis les surnoms, c'est cette semaine qu'on devient des HOMMES). Mais on sait tous que c'est pas l'âge qui compte mais le comment, et comment...

C'est comme le walkabout de John Locke mais en vanne sept passagers parce qu'on est don' bien dans une vanne. En fait le voyage c'est juste un prétexte pour se louer une vanne mais on essaie de garder ça chacun pour nous.

En gros on s'envole la nuit de jeudi à vendredi. Nous arrivons dans la capitale Mexicaine. Nous errons dans la ville trois jours de temps, et nous roulons 2000 kilometres en deux jours en faisant escale a Villahermosa. Le tout pour finalement arriver a Playa Del Carmen où nous attends une villa avec 6 chambres à coucher, où nous allons passer le reste de notre séjour.

Sur une échelle de un a dix, notre niveau de preparation fait un genereux quatre. Nous avons la villa de cédulee, nos billets d'avion, un dictionnaire pratique espagnol et !!!DECK!!! qui nous a (veux, veux pas) appris comment quémander du sexe. Tout va bien parce que nous, on carbure à l'imprévu, à part Gareau qui fait des ulcères terribles (je n'ai plus de Tums, brah). À la fin du périple j'espère avoir réussi à accomplir la majorité des choses suivantes:

- Faire des activités a saveur locale.
- Me perdre en quelque part.
- Consommer de la tequila comme un vrai homme.
- Consommer du Peyotl.
- Visiter des lieux sacrés (dans le sens de sacrifices) sans attraper de malédiction capotée.
- Trouver un sens a mon existence. Quoi?
- Me faire proposer du sexe.

Underrated Women.

The crazy chick. Oh sure sometimes she cries after sex but most of the times, these are sweet, sweet tears of joy, because for the last hour, you really cared about her, more than her father ever did. No matter how harsh is the treatment you are giving her, it will never be as bad as those beatings she got as a kid or the emotional scars her cocaine addict ex left her with. No matter what, you'll be the better man. Now the upsides: berserk sex on demand and, believe it or not, a low maintenance gal. Sure you might spend some extra time hearing about horrible tales of humanity, but she will be content with a bag of gummy bears and a hemp bracelet. Besides, if you like surprises and up for adventure, crazy Sally has an exciting night in store for you. The break-up is easy if you consider that she will buy into anything you'll say. Easy on the foreign spy stories though. Extra warning if she finds out you lied to her! Ask Bobbitt about it.

The single mom. Her life is a circus as she jungles with responsibilities, the baby, work, making ends meet, the yoga lessons. Be the balm that will soothe her hectic existence. For the weekly few hours she'll have for you, or the occasional weekend where the sucker father takes care of the kid, you can be the one who will give her a good time. Bring her and the kid to the rides, go for a picnic, pay for some groceries and diapers, then watch her compensate for her undersexed life. That is until life takes it's course again, she has to be million places, you're out of the picture, until next time.

Salut Mon Ron.

If anyone has been asking what I'm up to, well tell them I got a new stint as a software consultant. It's awesome and all but day in, day out, CKAC is on every radio at my office. So I have two options; hang out with the HR girls on the second floor and enjoy some Pemiere Chaine and cookies, or actually get some work done with Parlons Sports.

I'm the new guy, I gotta get it done.

So yeah, you can tell people that I'm going gorilla crazy because believe me, this radio station's staff is entirely comprised of complete batshit mentals.

So Who Will Be There?

Am I an asshole for asking who's going to be there before going somewhere? I'm past the point of going places filled with jerk offs just because of poor planning. Is it only me who gets this "oh-s-now-you-think-you're-better-than-my-friends?" look whenever I inquire on potential attendees to an event? I don't think I can be called a snob - and yes, I have been - for this. Our time is precious in this world, let's not waste it. Let's see... Being out with your acquaintance and a dozen intolerable human beings, or staying home and masturbate? Like the founding fathers said, this is self-evident. Effective preparation and tactful targeted questions went a long way for me.

Short Bus.

Living a few kilometers away from my elementary school, my parents judged best to put me on a school bus to get there for the first couple years I attended it. This afternoon, right in the middle of the winter in one of these intense colds we can get in Quebec City, I was one of the last few kids to get off. The heating contraptions of the bus were not capable of dispelling a proper level of warmth inside. There was frost all over, things were worst than in Apollo 13.

Rene, our Harley Davidson leather clad bus driver, was doing his best not to lose his biker cool with all the screaming kids. Because then, he switched to biker rage, and you don't wanna see the biker rage. Especially not in Quebec, where biker gangs could obliterate Compton in one night. With all the commotion up front, I preferred staying alone on my seat way back there (cool kids ride in the back, everybody knows this), trying to fight hypothermia the best I could.

Nature knows a thing or two about auto-regulation. Constantly, it either provides death to the weak or warnings to the dumb. Boy, did I do dumb stuff. You know the kind of situation where you just don't think - at all - before performing a given action. As a kid, this sort of un-thinking was the main occupation of my life. I think I was just pushing further into my childhood this experimentation phase you're supposed to have when you're like, what, two years old. Like this one time in kindergarten, for example, the teacher got kids to spray paint on a canvas using a toothbrush, making a point to tell us in which direction to spray. Well I just had to spray the paint right in my stupid face.

As the bus was making it's way closer and closer to home, I felt one of these urges. Why not just stick my tongue out and try to lick the white frost forming on the metal edge around the window. Ooh, cold. It was very cold and absolutely not refreshing frost, as I expected. In fact, it kind of felt like burning. Well, better put my tongue back in my mouth, silly boy. "No way, dumbass", nature said.

My lick engine was just frozen there, stuck to the fucking bus, seconds before Rene would stop and drop me off in front of my house. I really had no clue what was going on. Nobody even warned me for this. Why would a kid lick metal at subzero temperatures, right?

Time was not on my side, Rene brought the bus to a halt, the flashing stop sign was flipped all the way out, announcing a kid will eventually cross the street. At this point I just used the little balls I had (or retard tenacity) to just pull hard to free myself from that evil trap. As I was leaving my seat, I could see a tiny piece of flesh stuck to the bus.

Now outside, it was so cold I couldn't feel much pain, but noticed a drop of blood in the snow, I knew something was up. As I walked in and removed the thirty layers of clothes I had on, I truly felt the pain. It wasn't too bad, I didn't cry but I was definitely weirded out by the taste of blood, which I wasn't even sure if it was actually the taste of the bus that was still in my mouth. Overall I was just this kid feeling completely weird, cold and uncomfortable.

My father and mother came up to me, which was kind of strange since both of them never really made a point of welcoming me, especially not at the same time. Apparently they just wanted to offer me a Whippet, which is basically just a small round s'more with strawberry filling inside. I loved those, this stuff was like crack for a five year old.

In the condition I was in, I really felt the need to decline this tempting offer. My tiny brain was smart enough to tell me a severed tongue should stay away from marshmallow. 

- Have a Whippet, son.

- No...

- OH MY GOD. Are you sick? Tell me what's wrong! You heard that Rita (my father often called my mother Rita for a reason I have yet to figure out)?

- Cafn I juthr go ifn my room?

Let's Talk About Corn.

So what is it with the cell structure of a corn kernel that makes it resistant to all my gastric acids? From consumption to defecation, it's appearance is pretty much the same.

I mean, I swallowed my share of Gobstoppers in my days. My crap turned purple once but there were no candy left in my log. If my digestive system can burn through a fucking jawbreaker, what makes fail to rip through a kernel?

Can someone isolate the cell structure of corn and make me a chemical warfare protection suit with it? Can my shit support our troops?

If you're a girl walking around Cornell University and a guy describes you using the word "corn" as an adjective, you should be flattered. It is his way of saying you are so hot, he would eat the corn out of your doodoo. That's the charm of Ithaca for you folks.

Walk it Off.

This dream we humans have to fly, did we really think about it thoroughly? What if tomorrow, we were all able to soar up fifty thousand feet in the air, only to find out we can only fly at the same speed we can walk? I'd rather walk, at least there's more to see than the occasional cirrocumulus.

Which reminds me how living in a suburb can kill all the joy one can find in the simple act of walking to get from point A to point B. Grey house, driveway, bushes, grey house, driveway bushes... Where I live it's more like, coffee shop, sketchy alleyway, sidewalk, hot broad, tranny hooker, nice park, masturbating homeless dude in the bus shelter...

Derniere Chose Dite.

"Ben non, Fanny! C'est pas un bandit, c'est juste un pauvre."

Oil.

Man, I love olive oil so much, sometimes I just wanna pour some in my Gatorade.

Control.

There's no way out of it. A dark, intense and powerful tidal wave keeping me away from everything in sight. The Joy Division slump has got a hold of me. Hours spent listening to this legend, then finally catching Control a few weeks back, I was hooked bait, sinker and line.

So far, the only sense of balance I got is to listen to some stand up comedy every other fifth time. Musically everything is vain. The best shot I had was to progressively plunge into New Order, from the early JD reminiscing EP's and Movement LP. Then, if I found the courage, go into the happy dancy stuff you could hear in pretty in pink or go balls deep into True Faith. This is flirting too much in homo territory, and besides, everything pulled me back no further than Power, Corruption & Lies. This was pointless, I had to find something else.

Practicing with the band was amazing and I did relatively good at keeping my reborn interest into Joy Division from interfering with what I truly represent in real life, as part of this group of friends people call Epidemic.

This is pretty much where I stand, caught into the drift, the calm panic of Ian Curtis, the immense Sumner riffs plowing into my ears. I lost control.

I'm obviously open to any musical suggestions to pull me out of there. Do not call suicide lines or anything, I have the new girlfriend to keep the edge off.

Cool Rock.

It was a simpler time. This ad became an instant classic for any fan of late night TV. Picture yourself laying in the couch and just fighting sleep with every once of energy you have left. IYou know you'd be so much better in bed than trying to watch the end of a stupid euro cartoon version of The Highlander. I spent so many hours following this douchebag's adventures and the network just canned the show because it truly sucked. Still, I was riled in balls deep into the series, and I had to know how it would end.

Only a few advertisers stepped in to buy publicity slots to pay for this Canadian cartoon network's operational costs. The good thing is that Teletoon could operate without hiring actors, hosts, or any camera crew whatsoever. Only animators and computer music geeks to make jingles in between shows. And they only changed concept every second year so you know that the only thing they had to worry paying for were the rights to air the Simpsons, South Park, Ren & Stimpy (yeah that goes way back to this), King Of The Hill. The rest of the crop was Canadian and Quebecois content, and a few euro oddities threw in the mix.

Amongst a flux of shampoo ads there were a few infomercials, the type that lasts 2 minutes and would end with a 1-800 number, asking you to have your credit card ready and tell you how many payments of 34.95$ you had to make to buy said article (call now).

One of these had an unsuspected longevity span, and aired long enough so that any fan of late night TV would know it's exact words by heart. What really mattered were the hot sounds of Cool Rock.

As openers: REO Speedwagon, singing "'cause I can't fight this feeling anymore". Well this is cool, and this sure seems like rock...

"Mystic Music presents COOL ROCK!"

Cut to a fierce but bitter John Waite declaring "I ain't missing you at all!", then we travel to opposite moods with the Wilson Philips girls asking us to "hold on for one more day". By the way, the complete horrors you see in this video turned out to be total hotties in their late 30's, Look it up. The only thing we learned to expect at this point is the Cutting Crew to tragically bust out "I, I just died in you arms tonight". High contrast black and white made for the theatrical sadness, but the hairdos were colorful, if not flaming. Anybody noticed the drummer banging his skins like Neil Peart on twelve lines of cocaine? There is absolutely no drums to be heard (or guitar for that matter) in this segment.

“The sounds are HOT but the music is COOL!”

What better way to back this up with Joe Cocker’s pinnacle in uncoolness, Up Where We Belong. With Jennifer Warnes, known for her other parasitic work, such as the famous duet on Dirty Dancing, The Time Of My Life. Here comes the double whammy with the painful Love Will Lead You Back, as hoped by a messed up sepia-face Taylor Dayne. Looks like there were no stock footage for him... Or her?

Glass Tiger sweeps in with “Don’t Forget me When I’m Gone…”. By the time this ad was in hardcore rotation, Glass Tiger already faded away from everybody’s memory. An ex of mine, coming from the same town as this band told me the singer Alan Frew can be seen (and has been for a while now) at the local tavern, shitfaced, on his own at the bar, singing this song to himself.

To the bumping pseudo reggae of Club Nouveau we finally learn: “Cool Rock contains 35 chart toppers for 19.95$ for cassette or 24.95$ for CD's! Here’s how to order (…)”

While the commercial aired, I shit you not, I could go to the bathroom, go get weed in my bedroom or fix myself some popcorn, I would not miss a beat and come back to my living room singing and talking in sync with the ad. There was the short version one, embedded after this, and the longer one, which I’m still looking after.

If anybody knows what finally happened to the Highlander, please get in touch.

The Christmas Album.

As many mainstream recording artists can testify, there is nothing like putting out a Christmas album to keep your name alive. That basically gives an excuse for them to generate medium hype through advertising, spots on TV shows, interviews and the whole PR machine.

Did any of these artists sat down and thought about Christmas to write a song? It's impossible. I'm about to break some harsh news to the kids out there. Let's face it: the holidays are mostly a pain in the ass. This period of the year can still bring out the party in all of us, however, the market is increasingly aggressive towards the consumer, flooding all senses with mindless advertisement. When it comes down to it, four days of celebration are not worth two months of mind bashing.

So for (the) Christ sake, who can actually write an anthem dedicated to this whole mess?

Predictable like an ass grabbing uncle on punch, the industry got it all covered. Just have the band write a half a dozen new half-assed love ballads. Then record said tracks. Then enters the final ingredient: the jingle bells. Use it on any dish, at your preference, just like salt. This automatically transforms any song into a brand new holiday hit. You can also add a choir, preferably composed of kids. To make it extra customized, throw in a few references to winter, snow, Jesus, world peace and family.

For the same reason things stupid in nature often never stops being, the motive behind this absurdity is because there is enough people out there eating it, then asking for seconds.

Just like stuffed turkey, the Christmas Album makes me sleepy.

Commonwhat?

Suspending Pakistan from the Commonwealth is like when my parents were sending me to my bedroom to punish me. It's not like I was miserable and had nothing to do but sit in a corner once I was in there.

The Clark Kent Life.

Sitting down at my desk at the office, an ear on the phone, awaiting information, hands on the keyboard converging different information into this metal box sitting next to me, I feel wired up to the whole rock we live on. The left hear is reserved for an ear bud, feeding into news radio, streaming in, balancing between half-propagandas and brutal truths.

As I'm Juggling with processes, I crack wit mixed in with a dash of bad jokes to entertain colleagues starving for any kind of entertainment. I'm not one to care for running gags. Joke's out of gas by the third time i hear it. I somehow managed to spot a few heads I know I could withstand from five to nine. But they all know that when the hour rolls in and the last key is typed, "he is out of here".

He's the stereotypical post modernist, as seen in the overused banker by day, raver by night model. Such reflections fight their way into my mind, a reality creeping in my thoughts once in a while.

Walking from my office to my band's practice place, the landscape and scenery keeps on morphing. From the office towers of the financial area, then on to Notre-Dame, where the city hall and other impressive structures lay their majesty on me. The last leg of the trip brings me back to a different setting, where the air is tainted by fumes coming out of the Molson beer factory (you can't call it a brewery once it gets to such an industrial scale) and where the company's warehouses and production facilities go on for blocks. Once I'm in this overpriced storage room we jam in, and that the music kicks in, the transition is now complete. No more Clark Kent.

Keeping these roles separate, concept and ideas existing alongside one another, ignoring the conflicts that might be stemming from it all, I notice a rigorous side of me transpiring into my personal life.

The emails that I write are now generally layed out in a point to point fashion. When a friend declares something, I now command them to tell me the hows, whens, whos and whys of said idea. I demand logic, common sense and no bullshit from anything and everybody. I also find myself mildly angered when those standards are not being met. While all this organization and method made things simpler for me in my daily life, I can't help but notice that the emotion gets drained out of more and more aspects of my life. It's getting harder for me to take a stand, as I now fail to see the black or the white, all I get now are shades of gray. What's left for me to do is to rationalize my situation, my oppositions and contradictions and let my logic perform it's magic.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I should learn being a kid again. This might be what the five to nine is for after all.

Perpendicular Glory - An Ode To Plaid.

Growing up, it was a cautionary tale from my sister and her cool friends that egged me to seek my clothing from Simon's. Back then this fairly large (sq. foot wise) chain of only two stores was only resting it's comfortable foundations in Quebec City. What you would find there were nice fancy clothes for middle to lower-upper class women and decent classic wear for men. For some reason, plaid was a trademark for this store. Maybe the owners were scots, I'll have to google this. By trademark I mean that one third of all the men's items in the store had plaid on it. And, of course, plaid had the approval of Quebec City's 1988 prep school youth.

Maybe it was a sense of comfort found in these boldly colored perpendicular lines, a simple and logic pattern, that drew me into keeping plaid around the wardrobe for the rest of my entire life since then.

This makes middle age Scottish Lowlands clans the true founders of this timeless trend. There was an age where grown men would kill to defend the honour of the colours of your plaid kilt or belted plaid. Then countless real men kept the tradition alive taking the pattern into America, it's glory surviving among lumberjacks. Still today, the color of your plaid jacket can get you capped in certain neighborhoods. I guess what I'm trying to say is to respect the plaid. It's more than a rug or a tablecloth, it's a bloody uniform.

Maybe my rise into early adolescence in the high school grunge scene was just a decoy for me to keep wearing plaid. Same could go for joining the hardcore brethren, where tartan was always a wise choice from the new school to the old school.

Simon's was not the same after making the cross to Montreal. The business is still owned by the Simon family, but the new breed sacrificed everything the name meant for quick money in Quebec's rival city and in submitting to new trends. As I walked through the isles of the downtown MTL location looking for the remains of a simpler time - where plaid made you look stoic, not ironic - I could see nothing but horrible, horrible, clothes. Snowboarding and skateboarding companies (and white belts) took over everything in there it seems. Every time I see a normal looking garment, it is only to reveal some kind of crappy vintage imprint on the other side of it, not even centered. Fuck you Djab and Volcom, give me back my tartan. It's time for retribution.

So could my entire life be an excuse to wearing plaid? Well, all aboard Spaceballs 1 and let's go full throttle into the plaid dimension, because this is where I want to die.

Pare Balles.

So about a month ago, on a saturday after dinner, I said fuck it, and hopped on a bus that dropped me corner Sherbrooke and St-Dominique, and walked down to the Metropolis. Antibalas was playing that night and I had just proven myself I was hellbent on seeing them.

I got in line and was offered in 3 minutes a free ticket from a stranger. Oh, nice, I just saved myself something like forty bucks. Thank you stranger. Then I'm told I don't have to wait in line if I have this ticket. Well, hey, Thank you tall black dude. Things were just getting better and better.

I found myself inside, where a/c made things definitely comfortable for me. I went to the bar, ordered a Heineken, and they give me this space age aluminum bottle. Sweet, it kept my beer cold and tasty. I then proceeded to keep them coming as it was pretty much the only beer served that night. A rather large wait staff was making sure my hands were free of any empties and filled with full bottles. I walked towards the stage and found myself a nice little spot where the sound was good and the band near enough, all while being with the crowd enough to feed off it's potential energy.

Antibalas went on and played for about an hour. They mostly played songs from Security, which was especially excellent for me as I easily got into their innovative, less traditional, new sound. Speaking of which, the sound was excellent as the whole show was being recorded for a live album. It was such an exhilerating experience. I'm not used to see such kind of concerts, especially not when the artists have such an impact on me. The crowd was festive and some ganja got passed around, which is fine, but I was mostly busy feeding on the rebellious vibe the music and what the words really meant. Antibalas stand for human rights, emancipation of all peoples, freedom, peace and against oppression. This is what I was getting, and it felt great. Still, the women were moving nicely, people were smiling, and this is also what Antibalas, Femi Kuti and his legendary father Fela, are all about. Let's dance.

The whole evening was a furious and delicious blend of tribal beats, funkified riffs, cuban jazz horns and inspired singing ranging from spanish, english, nigerian pidgin to yoruba languages. Femi Kuti and the Positive Force (not POSI X FORCE) brought the show to a new level by bringing dancers on stage. It was all traditional african. Pretty, pretty, pretty, intense. See Coming To America with Eddy Murphy for a grandiose display of what I saw that night. Enough said. You weren't there, I was. You suck, I suck less.

Midway through Femi's (we're on a first name basis) set, Ben called me so I could meet him and Jamal somewhere downtown. At first I complied and told him I'd meet them soon. I realized I was all wrong. Everything was perfect around me, I had no reason toleave this place. I then called Ben back, got his voice mail and delivered:

- "Yo, dude, fuck that shit, I'm not meeting up in a Quizno's next to U Con. In fact I have no goddamn reason to leave this place. Let me see. A shitty greasy submarine or the best non hardcore show I ever saw in my life? See you later, man."

The show eventually had to end. I grabbed myself a t-shirt and took off on Sherbrooke and walked west to meet the guys somewhere that really didn't matter. This half hour long walk flew by in no time. Antibalas and Femi Kuti's Positive Force made me feel fucking alive. This is a good summer.

You Got Spam.

A sector of the advertisement business has been progressing exponentially over the last decade. It may not be as glamorous as the industry we all came to know, with names like Cossette or Taxi, but it generates a revenue high enough to attract an increasingly large clientele of throughout the entire world.

Every day millions of emails are being sent out by virtual robots living in monster-sized servers in unexpected parts of the world, where conducting this kind of business is completely unregulated. There is an actual market for email lists. It doesn't matter how you fetch those addresses, what really counts is that there is always somebody waiting to purchase a list of, say, 200 000 email addresses, for their own business purposes, legit or (mostly) not.

This market has been surviving based on the sole cold, hard fact and proven evidence that about one individual in a thousand will bite the hook of pretty much any given promising advertisement.

While the consensus is that junk mail is generally annoying, I found myself highly entertained by it upon the understanding of the 1/1000 evidence*. Basically it means that no matter how stupid is the spam you get, some idiot, somewhere, is completely buying into it.

- Hello! I am tired tonight. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at XXXX to see my pics

"HOLY SHIT, REALLY? THIS CAN'T BE REAL. A NICE GIRL WANTS TO CHAT ME UP. I BETTER EMAIL HER FAST TO SEE THESE PICS. I MEAN, I LOVE CHATTING WITH NICE, TIRED GIRLS."

- Biteno enlargement patches. Now your big penis can stretch her pussy like rubber.

"THERE'S NOTHING LIKE FUCKING A LATEX GLOVE. GIVE ME TEN OF THESE. IF PEOPLE CAN QUIT SMOKING WITH PATCHES, I DON'T SEE HOW IT COULDN'T GIVE ME A COUPLE EXTRA INCHES."

- Hello my friend! I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog, if medicine prices here XXXX are bad. Look, the site and call me 1-800 if its wrong.. My dog and I are still alive :)

" SIGN ME UP :) "

- Hello, my friend. I am pretty and passionate Ukrainian woman, but I am lonely. My heart dies without love as beautiful flower dies without water. I need to love and to be beloved as rose needs to be watered every day. I need kisses and love as no flower can't live without sunny rays. If you want to have into your life such beautiful flower like me, don't be shy and leave me your message here XXXX Sweet goodbye, Vaness.

"YOU'RE HOT AND I LOVE YOUR DEEP, POETIC WRITING. YOU ARE REALLY INTRIGUING, VANESS. I HAVE PLENTY OF KISSES AND LOVE TO GIVE."

- Fifth/Sixth month you will notice an increase in penis size of up to 4 inches. No more being shy of your manhood in the showers after gym or in public toilets.

"MY DICK OBSESSED MAN FRIENDS WILL SURE ENJOY A FEW EXTRA INCHES IN THE BATHROOM OR IN THE LOCKER ROOM. I'LL BE SO POPULAR. NO WONDER WHY THEY ENJOY MY COMPANIONSHIP SO MUCH."

- Cum & fukk my wide pussy ;) FACT: more women need fukk badly on this site than men cum

"WINK, WINK, I GOT YOUR SUBTLE INNUENDO ;) WIDE PUSSIES FEEL REALLY GOOD ON MY ENLARGED DICK AND IT MAKES ME WANT TO CUM BADLY."

To women's benefit, the target market seems to be masculine. Proof that the market will go wherever the demand might exist. The niche found amongst "single white males with too much time on their hands" seems to be a lofty one for worldwide scammers. I'll keep enjoying those kind of tidbits until the novelty wears off. It's been since 1999 now and to my enjoyment, people keep reaching for the bait.




* Ok, more like 1/10,000

Investment Return - A Reflection On Hedonism.

So me and a bunch of friends were hanging one night, looking for something to do. In our endless search of laugh material and absurd ideas, one of us figured we should go to Tabou, a male strip club lurking deep in the eastern part of the gay village.

The thing with Montreal's gay village, is that as you walk across it eastwards, you notice a gradual transformation of the crowd. You start out with the young vibrant ones, fresh out of the closet, all lining up in front of Sky around St-Hubert. Then they slowly morph into the old, fat and bitter ones chugging beers on the Stud's terrasse, corner Papineau. Those are the kind of things you notice when your band has a practice space in the area. Besides, we often eat out at Club Sandwich (read Lub Sandwich on the front sign, due to neonic malfunction, har har). It happens to be a decent 24 hours restaurant at walking distance from our places and (but) located right in the middle of Montreal's homo nightlife.

Tabou being a block east from the Stud, we figured the sketch factor would break the roof over there. Now you got to understand: none of us are gay or even remotely attracted to males. At first glance, there is basically no reason for us to want to go there. Wrong. This is what makes my friends special, I believe. We gave a second and third thought to the idea because we could possibly have a blast going to see stereotyped gay male peelers performing to an equally gay crowd. I mean, imagining the profound disgust on each and everyone's faces, the pink drinks, the bad techno music, the leather, and the stories we would milk out of the evening... It all made it somewhat appealing.

It got me thinking on the way I gage if I will indulge in an experience or not. Is the time, money and effort investment worth the return in terms of sheer, pure, unadulterated pleasure?

For instance, this method allowed me to reconsider the time I would spend in front of video games. Sure they're fun, as long as the time you invest in it remains in the spectrum of sanity.

In a moment of lucidity, we scratched off the male strippers idea and opted instead to head to a spot underneath Jacques Cartier bridge where crackheads, crackwhores and other highly recommendable gents go to in order to score, inject and smoke drugs or turn a trick or two. The risks taken by entering this zone were significant, but the enjoyment we'd take back from it made us take the trek. We ended up having a beer there. Benjamin also threw an abandoned pink handbag at Frank's head. Ben's overall non-concern over viral and infectious matters lying around was somewhat entertaining. He actually ended up engaging in a solo Kick-the-Needles-at-Guillaume challenge. Well done, Benjamin. In exchange of a milder form of entertainment, we, at least, spared ourselves the trauma of sketchy homoeroticism.

An Open Letter To Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton,

When it comes down to it, I don't think you can do your job. I believe your duty as a FIRST Lady was to be the FIRST one Bill goes to in order to polish his knob. This is why I recommend every American I know to chose a democrat with a better-proven sense of duty.

Best Regards,

Janic Naud


PS: Obama 2008 (I guess). That is if Zach De La Rocha or Gore stay in their respective holes. More on them later.

Bulletproof.

Unintentionally, my father made me discover the joy of jazz music. He himself got into it because of his cousin and best friend Michel, who spent his life touring all across America as a circus drummer.

Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis and tons of big bands could be found in the stacks of tapes he carried around in his car. Then he got me into Latin jazz, first with Brazilian Latin jazz, most notably Bossa Nova, mainly through Antonio Carlos Jobim. One of the genres I came to prefer was the Afro-Cuban Latin jazz.

As a youngster, I could pick up the Latin influence. I could clearly pick on the Cuban aspect of the sound, but the African part of it remained a mystery to me. I believe it's what really drawn me to the style. The jams I preferred would last over ten minutes, spiraling into musical greatness. I discovered the greats this way, like Tito Puentes, Machito, Mongo Santamaria...

The genre debuted in the late 40's. Dizzy Gillepsie got into big bands, wanting to push bebop to the next level. He formed his own big band, and he wanted to have congas in one of his songs. He goes to arranger Mario Bauzá, and says "can you introduce me to one of those tom-tom players?". Gillepsie wanted the sound but did not know the instrument by it's proper name. Bauzá introduced him to Luciano Pozo, a legendary Cuban conguero. Pozo wrote the song Manteca with the band. It is considered to be the first Afro-Cuban piece.

I got to say that jazz went off my radar for about a decade, before I reintroduced it into my life a couple years back. Since then I occasionally break out Jobim, Stan Getz, Mulligan, Miles Davis, Coltrane, Astrud Gilberto, Puentes et all. A few months ago I stumbled upon an article about a Brooklyn band, about a dozen of musicians giving into Afrobeat. They were initially a tribute to Fela Kuti, the creator of Afrobeat. Kuti, back in the 60's combined jazz, Highlife (originating from Ghana in the 20's, jazzy horns, lots of guitars) and funk with African percussions and vocal styles (sung in pidgin english, as Kuti, who spoke perfect English, regarded this as being the language best understood across all of Africa's borders). Kuti was talking about African unity, liberation and spiritual emancipation. In the confrontational context of African politics in the 60's, Kuti took controversial stances and spoke of rebellion.




This New York formation is called Antibalas. From their creation in 1998 until today, they grew into an outfit that only created originals, but still openly admit they owe everything to Fela Kuti's legacy. Antibalas made me put all the pieces together and understand the tribal aspect of Afro-Cuban that attracted me to the genre. More over, they broadened the pathway to the true African spirit that reggae initially opened for me. They allowed me to reach back in time to Kuti's Africa 70, Egypt 80 and Nigeria 70 (Kuti's own big bands, of respectively 70, 80 and 70 members - just imagine).

As a beginner listener, I believe there is a close resemblance between what Antibalas does and Afro-Cuban music. However, the band plunges in musical landscapes I've never been taken to before. It's as Afro-Cuban showed me slides of it, but now it's the real deal. The introduction of funk and dub in the mix is really fresh to ears like mine. Besides, the tribal rhythms are probably appealing to the life long dream of mine of spending time with an African tribe. Thematically, the excellent artwork and the few lyrics seem to approach modern issues in pure Kuti spirit, and make a point to remain confrontational on multiple levels and do not fall in the trap of festivity. In a few interviews available all around, they are outspoken about their usage of cannabis as a mind expander and their use of the drug can be compared to the Rastafarians, helping them connect to the spiritual essence of their sound. For the last few weeks, this band is all I've been listening to.

My excitement went through the roof when I found out they would play the Metropolis on June 30th alongside with motherfucking Femi Kuti, Fela's son. Femi was part of Egypt 80 with his father, and has been in the Afrobeat milieu since his birth in 1962. He is now in a band called Positive Force and they will all be on the same stage in a few weeks in my city. Wicked.

I imply all fans of reggae, funk, jazz or latin music to pick up one of their records.

Discovery.

What's up, Epidemic?

In this day and age where most hc kids only look inside record sleeves to check the color of vinyl, it's time to bring back some focus to lyrics and message. In my upcoming zine Sight Beyond Sight one thing I want is certain bands I like writing a little essay about one of their songs.

I hope you'd like to participate. Perhaps you could write something about "Discovery"??

Blessings,
Erik Anarchy,
Soulfire


"It's been such a long path, embarked on man's outward journey. Just look where it took us, such an unfamiliar place in time. Where are we heading? Are we going the same way? Do you believe man's inward journey will set us free? We took the longest way home, the latest night train. Cosmic truths and revealed paths - a mission to discovery. What else are we gonna lay our hands on? Nature pushed us against the wall. Is the sight of concrete a deliverance. Blind, the eye inside."


Have you ever felt compelled to look deeper in history, at our past triumphs, achievements and worst mistakes for what can come out of that for you? This basically one of the things I did to find my own piece of dharma, my own true way.

One of the obvious threads we've seen is the survival of oriental civilizations. Their technology evolved on a need by need basis and no one can ignore the impact their spirituality had on their existence.

On the other hand, no one can deny the accomplishments of our own civilization. An instinct of discovery and curiosity moved us forward and gave us new lands to explore, the age of enlightenment, the birth of the concept of equity. But there was a price to pay. Man's journey towards the unknown, as infinitely small to infinitely grandiose as it gets, left some aspects of our humanity behind.

We're against a wall. Darwinian economics lead us to ecological. sociological and political disasters. Western religious concepts are manipulated and used by those who are in power in order to justify their thirst for more. A spiritual veil covering material needs.

Seeing this corruption, many lost trust in spirituality. And this only causes us to further blind ourselves from what our senses will never be able to teach us.

We are now pressed in terms of time, but I doubt the humanity in ourselves that sent us in space, freed the slaves, allowed women to rise up and drove science ahead has given up on our own kind. It is time, now, to search for own personal truths and to reveal our paths.

Missed Connections - A Quebec City Remake of Garden State.

A mother celebrating her 60th and a dying grandmother were the main motives of my trip back home on these royal holidays. I rode a bus that took me in Quebec city in the span of a couple hours. My sister set up a room for me, where usually Laval U students reside during school. Her and her husband make an income from the 3 rooms they have in their house basement. I dropped a few gifts to my niece and nephew. Any visit from me is obviously great news for them for the sole reason that there's something in it for them. Fast forward to 9pm, the kids were up to sleep and my sister and I were all caught on.

I had previously dialed all the friends I could reach. I realized I was a bit on a short notice, calling them at the last minute. Most of them changed numbers since the last time I saw them so all of this made my venture pretty unsuccessful. I came in a day early in order to hang out but that was going down the drain. I figured that I would be bored to death staying at my sister's with limited means of entertainment, and frankly I wanted to make the most, or more, for the least, of my few days in the homeland of Quebec City.

I hopped on the public transit leading me to a bus station near the part of town I grew up in. I opted for transit solely for nostalgic purposes, as it was kind of exciting to drive by all those places I used to hang almost a decade ago. This time around, with the iPod on going through my modern-day playlist instead of whatever I was listening to in 98.

I stepped out of my bus at the station, planning to transfer to a different circuit which would take me by the Bulls Bistro. It's a standard sport-oriented pub nested in a quasi residential area of the suburb where I spent my last years in this city. The bistro has been bonified with 8'x8' dance floor, plenty of finger food available and was equipped for the pub triathlon - foosball, pool and darts. I figured that since I couldn't reach anyone, might as well try a spot where I stood a fair chance at bumping into some old high school buddies of mine, former bandmates or old flings gals. None of the people that really mattered to me but still potentially entertaining to catch up with. Worst comes to worst I'll get there, find no known souls, have a big hoe, then head back to my sister's.

I would have to wait 45 minutes at this damn bus station for the next bus to come. I was out to find a cab to take me to my destination when out of nowhere a girl asks me for the next scheduled bus. We were pretty much in the same situation. We looked for alternatives, to no avail. I offered her to share a cab, which she agreed to. Unfortunately the streets were void of any traffic, let alone any cabbies. I had to dial 411 to find a taxi cooperative. Me and Marie-Eve, as we introduced ourselves, were both waiting for our cab. We discussed our occupations, and the general context of why we were there and then, Hic et nunc. A cab appeared but wasn't meant for us, he was destined somewhere else. We figured that after 20 minutes of wait and talk outside, might as well save us the cab fare and keep chatting for another 25.

Turns out we were heading around the same block. We shared the same age. Her face was darker than most of us whities, definitely had a south american feel to it. Cute eyes in almond, and dressed nicely with an above average sense of style. She completely looked great. She was surprisingly more welcoming than any of the girls I recently hung out with in Montreal. I'm not sure if she was that type of girl of if I just wasn't used to Quebec City girls anymore. She was completing her law degree at Laval U. Beforehand she lived in montreal for a few years, studied at LaSalle college, worked and got involved with the advertisement business for a while then to head back home for law. I learned later in the night that she was adopted from Peru by great parents here in Quebec.

Getting close to destination I asked her to join me for a drink. She debated to herself whether she'd go or not, since she admitted being tired, but she finally chose to join me. One drink led to another, and another. We were clearly having a talk, you know. Talking about what happened to us during the week, then during the last month, last year, last ten and fifteen years of our lives. We both had incredible tales of fate, wisdom, relationships, friendships, life changes and accomplishments. We had a connection, admittedly slightly tainted by a few funky colored drinks, and were coming to conclusions on many of our personal issues and triumphs.

We were devouring the hours alongside baskets of free salty popcorn and various oddly named drinks she'd make me taste, since she works at a bar downtown. The fun was not interrupted not once but twice by encounters I would have never expected. First one being old buddy of mine Thibault who messed his life up with cocaine about 5 years ago. He told me he has been clean for two years now. He was also in a band with Dube, and we exchanged Myspace formation contacts. He was definitely excited about meeting me as he had watched a tape with shows of one of my old bands the week previous to this.

After another couple hours of intense conversation, slight hand touching, exchanging compliments and eye to eye contact, came the second wave of encounters. They were guys I knew from back then, whom Thibault gathered over our table. Three acquaintances came up, one of which being Carl, one of the rad kids I used to play basketball, enjoy sneakers and listen to Onyx all day with back when we were 13. Some cellphones were handed over to me, putting me in touch with some other folks in other parts of the world. It suddenly became out of hand. Marie-Eve was cool and chatty when Thibault first came around, but with the second flow of encounters I had to stand up and leave her sitting there for me to exchange with old pals who deserved the decency of a bro hug and a bit of recollection for each one of them. Then the last call came and people started heading out. Marie-Eve stood up and told me I'd better catch up with the guys, as she announced her intention of leaving right away in the moment. We walked out from the bar and I offered to walk her home, to which she replied that it wasn't necessary. She previously gathered my digits and and email address, and promised to get in touch. We exchanged standard hug and kisses a la quebecoise, then she parted away. I definitely felt like something went out of control which kinda blew the outcome of the night out.

I mean there wasn't much to expect from the beginning. She resides at her aunt's place during her last year in law school and the only home I had at the moment was this tiny single bedroom in my sister's basement. I still haven't heard anything from her 36 hours later. Should I add that she left me her digits but I forgot them on the table we shared. So... Sucks to be her if she's waiting for me to call.

Then it just reminded me of another missed connection from a decade before. She and her friends were hanging in front of the local arena just like me and mine were. Our crews got together and hung out for a little while, spontaneously in front of the arena porch. Our respective people took off, leaving only me and her behind. From then on, it was the same scenario. It was then our teenage dramas that took over the conversation. We also managed to discuss about our plans for the future and all that cool stuff you talk about when you're 17 in a late spring night. From midnight until dawn, we changed our worlds together. When we saw the sun we walked home together, as we were heading the same direction. On my street corner, she felt pressed to be home, as 17 year old girls had curfews back then, and hers was long due. She still had a shot at sneaking back in unnoticed before her parents would wake up. We parted with a hug and then it went out of hand just like the awkward me would make it. I was heading for the full hug, and when it was too late in the motion I realized she was heading for the kiss. Afterwards we kind of just took off on our own.

So there I was, ten years later, with the same feeling in my gut, of anticipation that just became nothing. I can't say I was/am bummed out about it, but the thought of this cool bond we had forming into what we both anticipated earlier on in the night that turned into... this, well it was was strangely overwhelming.

I went back in for a few more goodbyes to the guys and took off shortly after. I felt like walking it off so I just went all the way down the desert main street. It went on for about 30 minutes. An half-hour of watching places opening, or going out of business, of spots I used to hang out, the place my father used to live after the divorce... I touched base with my hometown bank to make an honorary transaction at the atm, namely to pay for a cab back to my sister's. The birds and the sun we beginning to show signs of life. I walked to Ashton's, the first franchise to ever exist. I swallowed a spectacular poutine, then called a cab to pick me up. The ride was one of the best I had. The guy was pushing his sixties but drove 100mph for a good part of the trip. I paid twenty bucks a ride that once cost me 30 back in the day. I was head on pillow by 4:15.

The next day all the friends I tried to reach finally got in touch. My friend Donald is now a father, just like last time I came, when my old friend Nutz also just joined the fatherhood. Then I met first hand my dying grandmother, who did not recognize me. She is way out there due to Alzheimer's and morphine.

We concluded the day celebrating my mother's 60th. It was a poorly planned surprise party that turned out to be all right. It was my first time with all the family as a drinking adult, now that me and the Straightedge broke up almost a year ago, after seven years of union. I decided to spend my last night back at my mother's place, also close from the Bulls Bistro. I was within reach if Marie-Eve decided to call to hang out after work for my last day in town. I spent the rest of the night fixing/setting up my mothers computer instead, then hit the sack.

The bus ride back home to the MTL was made in record time. I also caught up on some long overdue sleep and watched the ending of Breakfast Club on my iPod. The night I spent at the arena talking to her, when I got home, this movie was on cable TV and I got to watch the end of it. That definitely moved the clueless crossroading teenager I was then.

Of Prosperity, Baby-Boomers, Mass Media & Rock N' Roll.

I just squashed a baby ladybug off my keyboard. Minus one karma point for me. I try to stay even, for the least.

This is a well-documented and commonly told tale. The end of WWII brought all the soldiers home, and America celebrated by fucking a lot. A lot. The following generation, now known as the baby-boomers grew up and entered their adolescence or adulthood right about when the sixties kicked in.

And boy, did America boom or not? Businesses sprouted and the US of A became this economical force that changed the way the finance worked. Thanks to Simone de Beauvoir and countless influential women, feminism enabled the better sex to truly take part in this revolution.

Technology enabled countless kids the privilege of choosing between more than one radio station on the AM band. New music styles developed. Blues, jazz, rnb, rock and rolled emerged from the african-american people and the white took part in the movement, both races now collaborating. For the first time, there was a choice. You could change the radio station, chose your favorite musical genre, artist. You could chose different walks of life, you could do something else than what your father did. Next thing you know, the concept of what dissension really is becomes one you can grasp and make happen.

This era of choice, prosperity and rebellion had a soundtrack, and the sixties reached maturity with Woodstock, or monster gatherings in Europe. Rock N' Roll proved America that there was more than prosperity. And also showed the nation what it sacrificed to obtain this wealth.

Bring in the mix exponential technologies - medias and mediums confounded, with a population growing at a similar mathematical rate, drugs, excess, Vietnam, MTV, Reagan and the rest of the republican trifecta - the holy trinity... What do we get? The USA we know today.

Truly, America has the choice more than ever. And no matter where they look, information is sinking into every pore of their body. In this constant flow of data, every nugget of truth becomes tainted by a massive influx of useless knowledge, fiction, action news reports and other lies. The mass media became one of America's most powerful weapons, up there with the bomb (the big bang and genesis of the baby-booming kind). It designed a machine running on it's own that could generate what they needed from it's people: it's apathy and money. We are individuals but we're also consumers.

I don't think it is web logging's convention to propose answers and solutions. The only thing that I know for sure is that we'll have to use some spirituality in order to rise up.

One thing remains for sure: like a bitchin' sling shot in my back pocket, rock n' roll will still be around when it will be time for upheaval.

Build A Nation.

The Bad Brain's new record is for music lovers. I really mean fans of hooks, riffs, melodies and grooves bound by no limitations. Listeners of dub, punk, reggae and hardcore music might find elements of the genre they enjoy, but this is just something else.

Bad Brains specialists will find some verses are really semblant to what could be heard on Rock For Light, while some choruses are similar to a late-er era of Bad Brains. Think Quickness, God Of Love and Rise. Then you can blend in some of the grooves and the unpredictability found on I Against I. This is basically a full and complete Bad Brains serving. Of course, once again, the band delivers a large portion of reggae in this album. Fortunately, the arrangements heard on this output are richer than anything they ever done, making these mellower tracks as solid as the hardcore stuff. I also thought that many new aspects to their sound might draw-in new fans, namely hard rock and stoner rock listeners. That remains to be seen.

The mastering once again pushed the limits of modern recording techniques. Never you can hear so much emphasis and fury of the bass sound. They play classic hardcore punk with the intensity only a band like Slayer would. Many sound effects, reverb loops and sound tweaks deepens this album to a new level. Most notably, the vocals have been worked on a lot.

It feels as a complete creative green card was given to HR, their famous frontman. You will most likely hear lots of complaining in regards to the vocal work on this album. To me this is a wonderful showing of HR's complete creative and personal freedom. He simply uses his voice the way he intends to. Judging whether he is mentally ill or not is completely besides the point here. This is what the Bad Brains were always about. While it can feel too exotic to some, the eccentricity of it only transpires a classic dub sound treatment. We need to recognize this is where HR's head was for a long time now, and it was almost always part of what the bad brains are.

Thematically, this album definitely still has PMA. This, and the usual love for Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah and Root of David. Many won't be moved by the traditional teachings of Rastafari consciousness. But anybody who actually read on the matter will have no choice but to appreciate the epic tales and messages HR tells us about. No matter what, I'm confident a majority will stay on board just because the soundtrack is that kick ass.

I had the chance of seeing the Bad Brains for the first time in Burlington, VT some years ago. I honestly never saw a band play their instruments so hard and so tight. HR's performance alienated many fans, myself somewhat included, but I had no choice to recognize that what I was seeing was one of the best concerts I ever attended.

Ultimately, this experience, as well as seeing them fronted by their old roadie John Joseph and listening all their records for years leaves me thinking the Bad Brains are possibly one of the greatest band in modern musical history.

The Purple Pill.

The end of the year was coming fast. One more year and it would be our graduation from high school. For now we were ready to put the worries of the forthcoming senior year and just cut loose. School's out for summer. At lunch, this sketchy friend of mine Dube (sketchy as in: working as a guinea pig to pay off a $3,000 drug related debt that his mother covered for him... At age 15), came and dropped this purple pill in the palm of my hand.

- Here, we're having this tonight.
- What is it?
- That'll mess you up.

There was some big plans of house partying that night. We were friends with kids from every goddamn part of the city. Communication was hard because the interweb was just a lair for the nerds, all we had was a landline and a notebook full of telephone numbers. Actually in my case it was a zip lock bag filled with all the phone numbers people would write for me from napkins or random pieces of paper. That's as unorganized as it can get but there was a warm feel to it.

The positive aspect for having friends all over the city is that it would make for the raddest parties I ever attended. I knew this one would be an all nighter. Dube, our group's reference when it came to illegal substances and other dodgy matters, was the guy providing us on all accounts, sometimes going beyond our expectations. We always trusted him as our knowledge about drugs was limited. We were satisfied customers and asked no questions.

Which is what I concluded to when I was standing in the middle of an high school hall with that purple pill in my hand.

We pulled through the afternoon by only bailing on the last class, which was pretty much tolerated by most teachers at that point. I zipped home right after for a quick shit, shower and dinner pit stop. In this case you can refer to the shower as a poor man's bidet. Nothing like a quick shower rinse to spare mother nature of a few shit stained squares of toilet paper.

For dinner I had one of my teenage years faves: meat sauce, pasta and a glass of milk. Midway through my meal I remembered the pill and decided to go for it, figuring that it was safe to assume that this thing would get me high for eight hours plus. I'd rather swallow now so that I can have a decent night instead of tripping balls at 5 am when the fun is done. It went down all right with a bite of spaghetto.

It was about two weeks after my grand father on my mother's side passed away from parkinson, alzheimer and a truckload of degenerative illnesses. My father was in good terms with his old mother in law, so he decided to give me a call after dinner, just when I was about to head out for the party.

- Hey son, we should go visit your grandmother, I'm sure she'd like to see us. She's having a small family get together at her place.
- I don't know, dad, I was heading out to a friend's place.
- Don't worry I'll come and pick you, we'll go visit your grandmother for half an hour or so, then I'll drive you to your friend's house.
- Sounds good.

Soon after he was home and moments after we were in the middle of a traditional family gathering. It was two weeks after the death of my grandfather, so the drama was fading out, and people were having drinks, and joyfully commemorating good old Lucien and his antics. I had a beer then settled in a comfortable living room chair that my grandfather especially enjoyed.

Then I started appreciating the fabric of the chair. It was so fuzzy and velvety. And what a nice color... You don't see those chairs anymore. That sucks. And it was so perfectly comfortable, I felt like never getting out of that chair. I felt so heavy and anchored into that chair. Oh, then I looked at the hair on my arm, which were even fuzzier than the couch itself. My hand... my hand was so fascinating, like if it wasn't a part of me... "Wait... I am way, waaay high right now. How the fuck did this happen?" I thought to myself as I was pulled into that chair like it was an abyss.

In a composed attempt to shake out of thins mind journey I semi-volunteered for, I realized I was silent in this couch for 15 minutes and inquiring minds wanted to know the reason for my silence.

- Something I ate during dinner, I guess.

Crisis adverted. I guess I wasn't sweaty-with-bugged-out-eyes type of stoned, which always rises eyebrows during dinner parties. The higher I'd get the more I got the feeling I was a... rock. All I had to do is to keep it cool and have the strength to maintain regular chitchat with the guests to a decent, not-speaking-in-tongues level. Twenty or so minutes later (remember my space and time continuum gauges were not working 100% then) my father came in and asked if I was ready to take off. You bet I was.

The ride to the party was questions free so it was like a benediction for me. I made sure to kick Dube's crotch when I saw him at the party.

PS: Any input as to what I took that night is welcome. I never had any clear insight from my friends about it.

Porn Calibur.

So this saturday afternoon I decided to stay in, because it's shitty outside. I grabbed myself some nachos, sour cream and salsa and Tab cola. I decided to put some Unbroken on real loud in my home theater system. Then I popped Soul Calibur in my Dreamcast console. I was having a damn good time. I spent hours unlocking characters until I finally unlocked my favorite fighter: Cervantes de Leon. He's a manly pirate with a grey beard and mustache. He has those two swords and he destroys everything that stands in his path. It was really intense to play as him, I only wished he was a Viking instead.

Then I had an epiphanot and imagined the best video game ever created. It would be called Porn Calibur. It would basically be like Soul Calibur but there would be real life porn scenes between fights. As you advance through the multiple levels, you increase your porn viewing pleasure. Then you get to fight your way through the next stage fueled by the intensity of your testosterone rage. Only to see some more porn, the circle goes on ad nauseam, or until you pass out. Oh yeah, because there would be drinking games incorporated, when you choose Party Mode. The score would only be Slayer, Damnation AD and Unbroken, and by this I just mean a medley of their hardest riffs. Although that we all agree Reign In Blood will be there in it's entirety.

I can see this taking off as a trend-setting pioneer in the genre, or fail miserably, depending if I'm high or not. I wonder if the video game industry listens to what dudes like me have to say.

On This Day.

...In 1966, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia visited Jamaica and was greeted by more than a hundred thousand Rastafarians.This is the equivalent of meeting Jesus. The kind of Jesus that makes peace miracles happen and that wasn't a show-off about being a son of god. In fact he had no idea he was.

King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah and Root of David.

Ireland Baldwin Is A Heartless Stupid Little Cunt.

Last thursday, Alec Baldwin was meeting with his colleagues and had to interrupt this gathering of minds because he had something more important to do. That is to talk to his daughter Ireland, and make plans with her because they were meeting the next day. We're talking about Alec Baldwin so you know that his meeting was important. Alec means business.

He picked his gorgeous looking cell phone, got himself some privacy and voice dialed Ireland. This telephone meet-up was scheduled for days. Both parties, of the same flesh and blood, committed to this. However, Ireland Basinger Baldwin did not answer her phone.

What else was she possibly doing? She's fucking eleven years old! She certainly wasn't at an extremely important meeting like her father, who interrupted everything for her daughter. Was she buying bubblegum? Exchanging Yu Ghi Ho cards? Sucking a 15 year old cock? Only her, her brainless twat mother Kim or God knows.

As Baldwin gracefully let out later, it wasn't a first for Ireland. She let her father down several times before. But now that I made clear that Baldwin means business, he made sure to let her know that was for the last time.

Tactfully, thoughtfully and making sure he was not firing empty insults, Alec delivered one of his greatest performances on Ireland's voice mail.

The little cunt did not only not accepted and thought about her father's heartfelt words, she decided to attack his reputation by leaking the message to others. As a celebrity child, one can expect that doing so would blow over and make it public. Five hours later the table was set to make Alec's life as miserable as ever.

What kind of daughter is that? Baldwin is obviously a great man to still want her custody to save her from her evil bitchwitch mother Kim. Just look what she did to Garth in Wayne's World II. Ireland did not only break her father's heart, she also violated a court order making sure the Basinger/Baldwin divorce/custody trial/tribulations were kept under the public eye.

Good thing we can count on damage control, Baldwin style, to put things back in order. Baldwin is a man of power and controls the media with a steel hand in a velvet glove. He could count on his bro Larry King to give him a chance to put things in context. All medias made sure to publish his side of the story. Since he's Alec Baldwin, it's easy to figure who you can trust. Let's see: a heartless dumb little cunt bitch or Sir Alec Baldwin (he'd be a knight if he wasn't a die hard catholic irish american). Here is what he had to say.

"Although I have been told by numerous people not to worry too much, as all parents lose their patience with their kids, I am most saddened that this was released to the media because of what it does to a child. I'm sorry, as everyone who knows me is aware, for losing my temper with my child. I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now. You have to go through this to understand. (Although I hope you never do.) I am sorry for what happened. But I am equally sorry that a court order was violated, which had deliberately been put under seal in this case.

In such public cases, your opponents attempt to take a picture of you on your worst day and insist that this is who you are as a person. Outside the doors of divorce court, I have friends, I have respect from people I work with and I have a normal relationship with my daughter."

Teach me your ways, Alec.

Seen This Morning.

He Already Gave.

"HE ALREADY GAVE"

That exactly proves my point when I say that catholicism is the ultimate cult of guilt.

Is it me or that looks like an Absolut ad?

La Sagesse De Gareau.

Les chances que je soit pris dans un autobus bondé le matin en allant au travail sont d'environ 50%. C'est une situation pas trop plaisante mais tolérable, tout dépendament qui est aplati contre moi. Ce matin était un bon exemple de ce genre de situation. J'ai la chance de toujours avoir une place assise, vu que je reste près du point de départ du trajet 24.

Aux environs de Papineau, c'est la que l'autobus devient plein a rabord. Une jeune femme vient prendre le siège a ma gauche. Un homme âgé était déjà assis a ma droite. Quelques minutes plus tard, le téléphone situé dans la poche gauche de mon pantalon sonne. En fait, je fait toujours preuve de civisme et laisse le cellulaire en mode silencieux, ou il vibrera sans faire de bruit. Je ne pouvais vraiment répondre a l'appel sans gêner mes companions de voyage. J'ai cependant l'habitude de manquer des appel, et il semblait bien que celui ci allait subir le même sort.

L'inconfort s'installa quand la jeune femme en question se tourna vers moi avec un regard insistant dirigé vers ma cuisse gauche, la d'où semblait provenir la vibration qu'elle a du sentir a son tour. Je ne crois pas qu'elle aie tout a fait compris ce qui se passait dans mon pantalon. Je ne suis pas entraîné pour ce genre de situation. Le malaise grandissait a chaque séquence vibratoire. J'ai du creuser un peu dans ma cervelle pour une phrase inspirée qui relaxerait l'atmosphère étouffante qui s'était installée entre la femme et moi. C'est alors que le génie de mon ami Gareau transpira sur moi.

- Qu'est-ce qu'ils peuvent bien me vouloir, hein?

C'est tout ce que j'ai pu trouver a dire, cela accompagné d'un haussement d'épaule invocateur. Historiquement, cette phrase a été utilisée a mainte reprises par Gareau, afin d'expliquer la raison pour laquelle il n'ouvre jamais les courriels qu'il reçoit, ou ne répond jamais aux appels qui lui sont dirigés.

Mon attention a ensuite immédiatement été dirigée envers cet homme que je vois monter chaque matin a l'arrêt du metro Sherbrooke. Un grand homme noir, barbu. Très imposant, presque intimidant. Sa tuque lui donne cependant un charisme instantané. Sur celle-ci est inscrit: "OPP - Yeah you know me". En plus de désirer ardemment la posséder, je souhaitais aussi prendre le type en photo. Je vais y travailler et présenter ici même le fruit de mes labeurs. A suivre.

Reach For The Top.

I don't know about your high school but in mine, the Reach For The Top kids were fucking badass.

Reach For The Top (from here on now RFTT) is a competitive knowledge showdown, for high schools throughout multiple countries. Kids compete throughout the year in regional competitions. Then by year's end, you get to a provincial tournament. If you win you can do the nationals, then go international.

A game typically involves two teams of four players, each holding a contraption that activates a light and a sound when you press it. We called it the buzzer. A team gets 10 points awarded when one of it's player presses their button first and answers a question correctly. The team that finishes the game with the most point wins the match. The questions will touch any type of knowledge imaginable. Most will be about history, geography, arts and mathematics.

By my second year of high school I heard plenty of stories of my school's teams getting expelled from tournaments and involved in the craziest shenanigans. That's when I decided to join. I was already playing basketball, but I figured it would be academically correct to join this club. I figured I'd get even more days off school this way. Basketball was already releasing me for tournaments, meetings and so on.

I was introduced to the teams by the coach, a temp who was looking to show school spirit and involvement, all under the principal's watchful gaze, in hope for a permanent teaching job. The older students were those I heard about. I saw how they spent practice time and I figured that must showed poorly in their standings. Surprisingly, they dominated all the boards. They looked like potheads but were faster, knew more than most and above all, had a sense of humor. And they were part of a long tradition in this school that all participants aspired to be part of.

Throughout the four years I have been doing this, I met my share of typical nerds, like the ones you see in the movies. I also met cool people, unfortunately, they only seemed to come from my own school. That was mostly because everybody else in the province hated our guts. This is an anachronical recount of some of the wackiest moments I've had in those years.

One of the weirdest characters I've met is Cabral. He had this unphasable smile in his face. He wasn't the best player either. I guess he was just in for the ride. Weren't we all anyway? His face joyfully displayed light acne, magnified by a daring pair of rapist eye wear. We caught him masturbating one night in a tournament. He didn't think his plan through. In tournaments, all kids from the same school are sleeping in the same classroom in whatever city the championship is held. I wouldn't say it was cramped in there but it was definitely not appropriate to spank your monkey in these conditions. He was caught by the sound his sleeping bag zipper would make when motioned towards climax. Don't go thinking he was ashamed. No, just no distinguishable trait in his face, aside from the smile. C'est de cette facon qu'il s'est merite le surnom Cabranle pour les annees a suivre.

In my latter years, still in a tournament, I spent the whole day, with these two girls my age, trying to get the time and the necessary space to go blaze up a joint in the woods. Cabral was the fun police and followed us during the whole day, just looking for companions. We almost succumbed to the temptation of making him high, but relinquished the idea, as I had higher moral standards than I do today. We had to wait after curfew to finally enjoy that reefer.

Yes, pot was a big part of RFTT for us. Before practice, after practice and profusely during tournaments, we managed to go through those last two years high as a kite but victorious nonetheless. The cool cat in the senior year was providing us. His name was Chico and he had the best stories about shit he and his teammates did the years before we joined the fun. He had a gigantic fro to distract the attention away from his acne.

Another tradition was to watch the hockey playoffs that were happening at the same time as the provincials. A fight involving us broke out in the communal cafeteria, where the games were aired, during a habs versus nords confrontation. That caused us to be expelled and ridiculed by our principal on the intercom the next monday. A public announcement was made by him and officially called us a disgrace to the school spirit. That was the only year we didn't bring a medal back home.

Other occurrences of us getting kicked out of a tournament involved making a schoolgirl from a private school cry during a game, drinking on the tournament's premises, showing genitals in public (at the same aforementioned private school) and peeing on a judge. A member of the crowd, from another team in our school, was irate about how the game was judged and expressed his anger in this particular manner. He tried to be discreet but even ninjas couldn't pull this off. He got caught and so were we, ipso facto.

At age 15, after I came back from the provincials, Ruel got me into telling him what happened there that made me come back glowing like an Ivory ad. We were sitting on a trapeze in an elementary schoolyard near my place.

It was in Amos, the tournament was doing well as always, we were kicking ass. The team we just beat was actually cool, they were from Hull. We hung out with some of them and it turned out their whole team were ragers like us. We hit the woods and started a fire there. As this unplanned celebration went on, I got more acquainted with Sophie, the girl I was facing against in that match. She happened to be cute, almost hot, and into punk rock. That was enough for me back then to be into her. Well that was my lucky day cause she was also into me. A short walk we decided to have, to pick up stuff to burn in the woods (I know, we were fucking genies en herbe), turned out to be longer than expected and actually led us to her dormitory classroom. We never went back to the campfire. We started making out on her thin blue camping mattress and the place was dark and deserted. By then, she was stealing bases faster than Tim Raines. Really surprising for a guy who was usually trying to take those kind of initiatives himself, only to get shut down at number two. Above the irony of realizing I was getting a babe in nerdland instead of a stupid mono gender basketball tournament, something prevailed. It is the triumph of reaching for this top high school achievement: losing my virginity. Judging by the moves she had, I'm guessing that wasn't her first time. I tried playing it as cool as possible but my inner self was ecstatic. I had the chance of taking a bit too long instead of a bit too short to finish my duty. I found ways to push her buttons right enough so she'd still talk to me afterwards. I went back to my own dormitory only to find the coaches happy I was the only one, along with good old predictable Cabral, back on time for curfew. The rest of the gang came back at 2 am, and got in serious trouble. Sophie and I exchanged a few letters and tapes but who fucking cares, really. To quote Ice Cube, that day was a good day.

Our greatest achievement as a team was in our final year of high school where we scored a silver medal in the nationals. That put us back under the principal's good eye and deserved us a heartfelt speech on the school's intercom the following monday. Even though we were all relatively talented in the team, we owed most of it to Matt, the Terminator. The guy was the kind of genius that can remember the yellow pages if you'd ask him but had no trace of social skills. Maybe he was autistic now that I think of it. He took us through the whole tournament, with his fists of knowledge. He always looked angry so this, along with the rest of the team's goofiness, made a powerful lasting impression on our adversaries. For some reason when I think of him, I always picture him pushing his glasses up his nose. He also sported the pervy glasses and those look heavy.

However, In the semi-finals, in a do or die fashion, I beeped my buzzer to the question (it was more of an order actually):

- Name the babylonian ruler who reigned from 605 BC to 562 BC.
- Nebuch...adrezzar?
- Can you be more precise please?
- The second?
- Correct answer.

Even though what I came up with was a long shot guess gathered from something I must have remembered from practicing, that caused my team to win and move to the finals. The "second" part of my answer was a pure wild guess.

I decided today I would scope out local high schools in my neighborhood to see if there's any volunteering opportunities available to be coaching a team. I figured the medals I have as well as my internships and work experiences with teenagers can make me a good asset. First I have to find out if kids today still play Reach For The Top.

Here's a parody on how a game usually goes down.

The Woody Allen Year.

For some reason, I was an ultreme Woody Allen fan at age 12. For my birthday, my sister took me to the premiere of Husbands & Wives. I was psyched about it like a normal 6th grader should have been about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I subscribed to a writing workshop given in my community, at the public library. Every tuesday night, I found myself surrounded by housewives, we were all doing those literary exercises. I believe I learned more listening to these women and their stories about their shitty lives than I did participating in those activities.

After these workshops, I buckled up and worked on a movie scenario. A complete Woody Allen Rip-Off that was. The story was happening on Manhattan and was inspired by his vision of it. I mean, a twelve year old kid cannot honestly capture the tension of old couples with psychoanalytic undertones. Although I watched Woody Allen's entire film carreer and read some Jung and Freud (did not understand much, busy discovering masturbation), it was just plain inconceivable to hope for an ounce of credibility from me.

After about thirty typewritten pages, I abandoned the project. I basically came to peace with the fact it was immature and cocky. Instead, I turned on to grunge music. Soundgarden was increasing my odds of getting laid, as opposed to having an old incestuous jew as an idol. What a dumbass I was.

Live Faust, die Jung.

Dump Truck.

There's a couple of things I have to make a conscious effort not to do on a first date. One is to ask how her parents met, which I should reserve for later. I also tend to ask when and how she peed her pants for the last time. The shy ones will just give me a bogus story about their childhood. The ones I - oddly - find interesting always have a crazy story they recall almost fondly that happened in their adulthood.

And when it comes to me, I'm almost holding back not to tell my shit stories. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna blow my chances of mating again by admitting that I shit my pants a couple times every year. It usually happens as a failed race to my bathroom or a raging war against the layers of clothes between me and poop deliverance. Or sometimes I think I need to fart. The keyword here being "think".

The earliest crap story I can recall goes back to the time where me and my family moved a block away from my native home. It was in 1986. Everything was already moved out. The last thing left were my Tonka trucks, still kicking in my old sandbox. Those were my most prized possessions so there was no way I'd leave them there.

So on that hot summer day, I set out to move those big bulky toys from a sandbox to another. I had nothing but my will power to move me. As hard as it is to imagine, it was not a single round trip. First trip involved picking the easy stuff like the Hot Wheels and the bulldozer. Easy stuff, I was done in no time. The final trip was only between me and this gigantic dump truck. You got to understand it was almost half my size and really awkward to move around, let alone for a 400m ride.

I rolled the thing off our old property, I was now hitting Rue De La Joie in an equally joyful manner, thinking of all the possibilities my new sand box would offer. I even pushed the excitement to a level where I'd imitate the sound a real live dump truck would make while pushing my toy one.

After I walked a few houses, I came to the realization of a pattern I would repeat for my entire life: I didn't schedule my shits properly. A sudden need to drop the Cosby kids at the pool was felt inside of me. What to do? What to do? Run to my old house? Nah, it's all locked. Run to the new house? Yeah, and leave my precious dump truck unattended and ready for the Deslauriers kids to steal? No fucking way.

I needed to blow mud. Real bad. To you it may sound like the stupidest thing one could think of, but to me that was obvious. In my twisted 6 year old logic, I thought taking a dump in my dump truck was the natural thing to do. Why else would thay call it this way?

I had to be careful. Not that I had of doing this behind a bush but because I was by that time in front of the house of the crazy guy who would scream at us kids when we were too loud on the street. He was one scary motherfucker. Getting caught dropping my chalupas in front of his place meant death for me.

I tried pushing the yellow beast a few meters further. There was no use fighting it. It was either doing it clean in the truck or having my nuggets delivered all over my Batman undies.

I furtively looked left and right, undid my blue corduroys, and did my chore in my potty on wheels. It was a major release. It had this cartoonish shape, the one fake plastic turds has. I humbly re-did my pants and pushed my brown shipment to it's new construction site.

Once home, the only thing I could think of doing with my mini-me was learned from my cat. I dug a hole in my brand new sandbox, pulled the Tonka close and transfered the keester cakes to their final resting place. The only thing left to do was to cover the evidence, then I could pretend it never happened.


Poop Scriptum: Whenever I tell this story, people seem to be all concerned by what happened to my logs. Well, excuse me for forgetting about it. Who knows, maybe years later I dug a rock that wasn't really a rock and threw it on the grass, I don't know. There is no need to care, really, at this point.

Post-poop scriptum: Oh oui. Un peu plus haut vous pouvez lire a propos de la rue de la Joie. C'est rien ca. Je restais dans le quartier le plus gai de l'Ancienne-Lorette, ville du maire innondeur. Entre la rue de l'Esperance et du Bonheur s'etend la rue de la Joie. Tout juste au sud se trouve la rue de la Gaiete.

Huxley.

I wasn't even a dog person. I grew up with a cat in my household. Then I went out with a girl who had a pug. At first I was more or less indifferent to it. But it only took a few weeks for me to become a fan of Twinkie. She was a fucking diva prick but she was adorable. Twinkie, that is. She was fun times and I took care of her like if she was mine.

My girlfriend at the time was devouring hours surfing on petfinder. Just to look. Her living situation wasn't really dog friendly to begin with, another dog would have been a bad idea. However she was pushing the idea hard on me. And the day she found that ten year old pug/keeshound cross available for adoption, I finally complied and agreed to have my own dog. The thought of adopting such an old dog was not an easy one. I knew I would get attached to him but also that he would die too soon. I took the gamble. Jackpot. She picked him up for me in Cobourg, Ontario. He came from a good family that couldn't keep him anymore.

His name was Huxley. He grew accustomed to my pad in a week. Got along fine with my cat Jesus. His old age was perfect for me, he didn't require as much attention and care as a puppy. He was still an energy ball and was more active than lots of younger dogs I've seen before.

We became friends and used to each other. We had our own weird rituals like the bum bum dance before bedtime, the barn door yawning in the morning or the belly scratching after dinner. I walked miles with him listening to ebooks on my ipod in the Parc Lafontaine. He was excellent with my guests. A few people were thrown off by his looks, but most adored him unconditionally. We definitely bonded more than I could imagine at first hand

Hux started getting weaker on tuesday evening. He finally took his last breath somewhere around 8:00 pm. I went to see how he was. I was expecting the worst since yesterday. I saw no signs of breathing. I pet him, he was still warm. No reaction. I push his little lungs together as a desperate attempt to stimulate some breathing. I knew I wasn't fooling anyone. I called the SPA, they were here faster than a pizza delivery. During that half hour I went by to pet him one last time.

Today sucked, tomorrow probably will too. I don't know if I'm gonna call in sick yet. But that's nothing compared to the two incredible years I spent with him. In retrospective I'm damn proud and happy I gave this guy a chance and a sweet retirement home. You will be missed big guy.

PS: I don't know if this is the best moment to mention it, but if you want a dog, get one, because it's amazing. But if you get one, please adopt, don't support the breeding industry. Be aware, read up on the subject, you'll see it makes lots of lives really miserable. Check out Petfinder, a good place to start.

Hollywood.

What's up with Crescent street? When I moved in the city five years ago it was party central. Now I walk down the street everyday to go to work and all I see now are hair extension salons.

Yesterday afternoon after work I walked up the street to my bus stop. I had to walk behind a couple that just got out from one of those hair extension places. The woman was actually a young girl, early twenties, the man was obviously in his early fifties. My guess is that he just got one of those extensions to his toy girlfriend, like any sugar daddy should. For some odd reason, this man had a string of long, shiny, blonde hair attached to the back of his winter jacket. Go figure.

I recommend taking a walk in that vicinity on a friday morning. I always see the same employees from competing bars chilling together, cleaning up the mess underage girls barfed on the sidewalk. There's also all the delivery trucks parked illegally, blocking up the traffic and making cab drivers even more angry than they usually are. By the way, is it a prerequisite for cab drivers to always be in a pissy mood?

Finally, walking around there significantly increases your chances of bumping into Hollywood, the most awesome hobo in Montreal. If you see a black homeless man holding a banana like a gun, hustling people for money, spare a few bucks on him and ask him to sing a song. He'll step up and transform his banana into a mic and do his weird interpretation of any song that will come to his mind. Try asking for Hit Me Baby One More Time.

Chain Of Strength.

There is countless rumors about COS. Some of them are somewhat true, most of them were lies. Here's what holds true.

The band consisted of Curt Canales, on vocals, who seemed to have no previous known bands but went on to form Circle Storm, Later in the 90's.

On Guitar there was Ryan Hoffman, who previously was in Justice League, who transpired as a major influence in COS' sound. He also joined Circle storm with Curt.

Other guitars were done by the mysterious Frosty aka Paul Hertz, who had no prior band experience. His nickname comes from his childhood, where, as a chubby kid, he was called Frosty the Snowman. Later on he joined Man Will Surrender.

On bass there was Alex Barreto who was at the same time part of Hardstance, then Inside Out, along with Zack De La Rocha in both bands. More recently, he played along Walter Schreifels in World's Fastest Car and also in the one hit wonder band Alien Ant Farm.

Finally there is Chris Bratton on drums, who was also part, along with Ryan, of Justice League. Bratton was also playing in No For An Answer and later on in Inside Out with Alex. His resume now includes great acts like Wool and Drive Like Jehu.

Towards the last months of Chain, Alex and Chris were working on a side project called Statue. The first Statue recordings are actually truely reminescent of the late COS sound. I highly recommend them to any Chain fan, and beyond.

Chain Of Strength came together in 1988, when the second wave of straight edge hardcore was at it's peak. With the few connections they had and the interest Ray Cappo from REV gave them, they released their first 7", True Till Death, on Revelation in 1989. In 1991 they released their second 7" on their own label, Foundation Records, called What Holds Us Apart. During that period they accomplished to tour across the country on a few occasions.

Their contemporaries recall COS as one of the most intense live straight edge bands. They inspired hundreds, like Mouthpiece's Tim Mcmahon, for instance, to start a band and live it like Chain did.

This upload includes their two records and an unreleased song, which finally appeared on 1996 Revelation's CD discography.

To finish off, here's a post-break up interview with Curt Canales. It has a bitter tone, but covers lots of stories and rumors related to the band.

So why did Chain of Strength break up?

Alex and Chris left the band. They have a band of their own called Statue. I guess Chain of Strength was just dying to them and they wanted to do something else. That’s pretty much where their minds were (Statue). We saw it coming, and when it did we talked it over and played together one last time. Nobody has any hard feelings about it. We had two guys who filled in for them when they couldn’t play and we could have made them a part of the band, but Frosty and Ryan weren’t into it as far as having other guys play. I wanted to do it and do one last tour, but as far as Ryan was concerned, he just wanted to end it. I guess he just figured it wouldn’t be the same without Alex and Chris.

I hear you’re training to become a police officer.

Yeah. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

Will you still sing for a band once you become a cop?

No, that will be it for me. I don’t see anything in the future as far as singing for a band is concerned.

Why didn’t you get along with Gorilla Biscuits on your first tour of the East Coast?

When we were in New York, there was a lot of tension between the bands. It was apparent that everyone was trying to out-do each other. We thought that was really stupid. I was really disappointed. Everyone wasn’t as tight as I was led to believe. They were all bad-mouthing each other. It was the same with Gorilla Biscuits. They thought we were a sham and that we made a generic straight edge record because it would sell to the hardcore kids. For them to make those kind of remarks without really knowing us was really retarded.

How did Chain of Strength get tagged with the “New Kids on the Block” image?

There were always those people from the start who were going to bring us down as much as they could. I hope they didn’t think it hurt our feelings. It was the way we dressed. We weren’t wearing the militant straight edge attire. Now, we’re hearing a lot of straight edge bands on the east coast are dressing like us (preppy Gap stuff). When we first started dressing the way we did, I guess nobody was really used to it, so they started knocking us. We just dressed however we felt most comfortable with. I thought that New Kids on the Block/Chain of Strength page in Maximum Rock n’ Roll was pretty funny. I can’t believe somebody actually went to that much trouble to take a shot at us. It shows a certain level of maturity and insecurity in that person. We have all of these straight-edge police out there who knock down any band, especially well-known ones, yet they praise all of these bands that have been around for six months and then have broken up. We’ve been around for 3 ½ years, and we never broke up once. I think that says a lot about those bands who couldn’t take it.

Apparently “New Kids on the Block” wasn’t the band’s only nick name. How did you get the name “Chain of Drunks?”

In an interview, we stated that we occasionally had a drink. We made that comment and a lot of people lost their minds over it. We explained that straight edge doesn’t mean never. It’s your own set of rules. Straight edge is turning into “don’t do this, don’t do that.” Everybody is living by everyone else’s rules. When straight edge started, it was your own set of rules. It doesn’t make you a bad person if you have a beer. Straight edge kids should worry about Ray of Today before they worry about a guy who has an occasional beer. That guy is obsessed with religion. Religion is controlling his whole life. I think that’s more abusive than alcoholism.

I have to laugh at all of these overly militant straight edge kids, because their obsessed with a movement that’s based upon non-obsession.

Their obsessed with straight edge and that obsession is making them angry and violent.

Speaking of angry and violent, why did you have problems with Cleveland?

The first time we went out there, we had a great time and played a good show. We stayed at Cubby Fresh’s house. We went out there a second time and it was more of the same. Then we didn’t go out there for a while, and the next thing we know, Chubby started these rumors saying we were smoking pot in the van across the street from his house. The singer from Die Hard never even met us, but he’d bad-mouth us every time we were in Cleveland. His band had its chance to come out to California, and they chose not to. If they thought we were going to stoop to their level and threaten them with violence, they were wrong. There’s always someone from every state that we’ve been through that has either seen us sell drugs or rip people off and rape girls. There are so many different rumors about it. It’s ridiculous. If people believe this bullshit, they might as well believe we are New Kids on the Block.

Why did Nemesis Records cancel the production of the What Holds Us Apart e.p.?

One particular show we played with Carry Nation, I supposedly said something that upset Dan O’Mahoney and Big Frank Harrison. We got in a big fight right there, which pretty much ended our friendship along with our record on Nemesis. We’ve always had a problem with Dan. With him, there was always a grudge when it came to Chain of Strength.

When that fell through, why didn’t you do the record with Revelation?

Revelation is a good label to be on, but as far as our first record went, we really didn’t get what we wanted. It took longer than we thought it would. Ryan and the other guys wanted to do a record on a California label. The second record was much easier to work on because it was done out here.

What is the “Dan O’Mahoney Kiss Ass Crew?”

I’ve never believed in idolizing anyone in hardcore. I thought that was a joke. We’d get a lot of flack for dressing the way we did and the things we did on stage, and we’d have people telling us we should be more like Dan O’Mahoney. I just got sick of it after a while. There were all of these people preaching for the guy. I always thought he was a hypocrite. I was tired of all of the worshipping kids. We’re all on the same level. I never looked at my self as someone above anybody. If somebody came up to talk to me, I’d talk with them. Their (NFAA, Carry Nation) rock star image is pretty much what brought on that statement. Dan spends a lot of time making himself out to be this big hero. I don’t think anybody should preach the way he does to kids, and make them out to be these bad kids, and he’ll turn them into the person he is. I think that’s ridiculous.

The matrix on the first side of True ‘til Death says “hey, can we play more than two songs…?” and the second side says “No is your Answer.” Is there a story?

The first time we played CBGB’s, we played with No for an Answer. We were supposed to play that night, but the promoter forgot to put us on the bill. He said the only way we’d be able to play is if NFAA trimmed their set. So we asked them if we could play more than two songs, and Dan O’Mahoney had a cow and started crying. That’s what it basically meant.

Present Tense.

Just wanna give a heads up about one of my favorite songs ever. My relation with Pearl Jam goes back when they released TEN. And that's about the age I was when it happened. My sister was back from one of her first trips on the west coast. She met cool people who tipped her on the PJ. Valerie came back home with the TEN tape, I sneaked into her cassette stash and borrowed it from her. That's how I discovered Billy Idol's Rebel Yell. Just to set the clock straight, because now you probably think she was a ultra hip cool chick, she also used to be into Corey Hart, so take that to the bank, Val.

So I continuously played that tape on a yellow Walkman I also stole from my sis. That made me think Nirvana's Bleach wasn't so cool after all. I was blown away by how the chorus kicked in on the song ONCE. It's only today that I grasp the classic rock vibe they infused in some of their verses. Some songs hardly passed the test of times, and some became instant classics that did not lost a pinch of authenticity throughout the odd 16 years that separates us.

Pearl jam being what they are, they began laying low with the next albums they released. However I was lucky to have an old pal of mine, Donald, who was very fond of them. He caught them on every tour they made. Donald filled me up on their next albums, like Vitality, Yield or No Code, for example. I gotta admit that whatever I've heard on those albums, I did not appreciate it as much as Ten. Still a few songs caught my attention and kept me from sweeping off this band under my rug.

Recently I gave another chance to No Code and I was really satisfied with what I heard this time around. The most outstanding song, to me, on this album is Present Tense. It's one of those songs you can honestly deem perfect. This one just flows smoothly from a riff to another. Different moods and grooves are given out through a nice, rich guitar sound. The words are exceptional, Eddie Vedder drops his science flawlessly and simple. I uploaded it here. Now the lyrics.


do you see the way that tree bends?
does it inspire?
leaning out to catch the sun's rays
a lesson to be applied
are you getting something out of this all encompassing trip?
you can spend your time alone, redigesting past regrets, oh
or you can come to terms and realize
you're the only one who can't forgive yourself, oh
makes much more sense to live in the present tense
have you ideas on how this life ends?
checked your hands and studied the lines
have you the belief that the road ahead ascends off into the light?
seems that needlessly it's getting harder
to find an approach and a way to live
are we getting something out of this all-encompassing trip?
you can spend your time alone redigesting past regrets, oh
or you can come to terms and realize
you're the only one who cannot forgive yourself, oh
makes much more sense to live in the present tense

Cherches-tu ton poisson?

Ca se passait sur une de mes pauses du diner. Le fait de travailler au centre-ville a ses benefices, comme le shopping sur l'heure du midi, ou regarder les gens sortir des tours a bureaux comme si ils etaient confus d'etre dehors.

J'ai decide de sortir et aller fouiller au Urban Outfitters pour voir si ils avaient des couettes en duvet ou autres articles pour mon lit. Voyez-vous, mon chien Huxley est un sale devoreur. C'est son seul default. Quand il se retrouve sur une surface molle et il decouvre qu'il est sur une couverture, il va gratter pour voir si il y a du moelleux comme des plumes ou de la mousse. Si ses doutes sont confirmes, Huxley va creuser et mordre avec un rare enthousiasme jusqu'a ce qu'il extirpe les contenus de sa proie et commence a macher fierement les fruits de ses labeurs. Bien sur, vu que les plumes ou la mousse sont degueulasses au gout il va recracher le tout. Sachez que Huxley prefere le plaisir des moyens plutot que la satisfaction de la fin. En deux ans, Huxley m'a coute plus d'un millier de dollars en articles de literie. J'ai decouvert que le nylon des sacs de couchages sont a l'epreuve des Huxleys donc je considere serieusement en transformer un en couverture. En plus on est bien dans des sac de couchages. Communiquez avec moi si vous connaissez un endroit ou je peux m'en procurer un blanc, deux places si possible.

Je m'avance au travers des detecteurs geants du Urban. Ils n'ont pas encore repare la vitrine en avant. Ah oui, c'est vrai, c'est fait de meme. Gang de caves.

je monte le premier pallier et je suis un peu degoute du presentoir de tshirts ironiques qu'ils ont. J'hais pas mal tout ce qui est ironique, specialement les morceaux de linge.

Progresssivement, en montant vers le deuxieme pallier, je vois une femme a genoux en haut des marches. En ascendant un peu plus haut je vois devant elle un tas de petits galets roses, ces petites pierres qui s'achetent au pet shop pour les aquariums. Je constate aussi la flaque d'eau entourant ces galets. Enfin arrive au meme niveau qu'elle, je lui demande:

- Cherches-tu ton poisson?

Elle se retourne, me regarde, je vois que son mascara a coule. Shit, elle est triste, elle tenait vraiment a son poisson. Je remarque aussi la bave coulant de sa bouche. Son regard montrait un vide alarmant, mais pas vraiment de tristesse.

Ensuite je comprends qu'il n'y a pas de verre brise par terre, et qu'il y a encore moins de poisson. Dans le fond il n'y a pas d'aquarium. OK, puis finalement c'est pas des petits cailloux roses qu'il y a par terre.

Oh shit. Cette fille vient de vomir son popcorn rose par terre.

Hunger.

This will possibly be the base theme for the artwork on our next release.

Crossover doesn't Suck.

Umbanda is what I would call a crossover religion that blends Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritualism, and Afro-Brazilian systems of belief. It originated in Brazil in the early 20th century through a true OG, Zélio Fernandino de Moraes, who worked among the Afro-Brazilian population of Rio de Janeiro. Then it spread faster than SARS across Brazil and to Uruguay and Argentina. The term "Umbanda" comes from Kimbundu, an Angolan language, and means "religious practitioners".

Umbanda is a syncretic religion based on the worship of Angolan deities, or spirits, brought to Brazil by the African slaves during the colonial period. After a while, elements drawn from Brazilian popular culture attached themselves to this whole weird ass mythology. Additionally, Orixás, from the Yoruba pantheon, are given something like a veto rule over the various legions of spirits. The funny part is that they are associated with a Catholic saint under whose guidance the original deities started working for.

This odd association started during a period when the african slaves in Brazil were persecuted by their owners for practicing their true spirituality. The solution they found was to hide the original worshipping objects that represented their ultimate gods, the alpha-men-up-there, under different random Catholic saint statues in order to give the slave owners the impression that they were worshipping their saints, which had vaguely similar personality or qualities of the worshipped entities.

I got introduced to Umbada - and several south american crossover and native religions- by a new friend of mine at work, Barbra. She is 35, just moved from Brazil last august. There is other weird crossover religions there, like spiritualism, that comes partly from France. It's completely fascinating.

Traditionally, children in Brazil are not being told about religion in school or by their parents. Kids grow up seeing their parents being into spirituality, then will start asking questions, when they are old enough, to their parents. The parents will push their kids to go on their own endeavour towards their spirituality, sometimes passing a book or two their way, to help them on their quest. As they grow through adolescence, they make their choices, see what corresponds to who they are and become adults with a certain sensibility towards the immaterial world. And there is enough choice and tolerance in Brazil to see dozens of philosophies, official religions, myths and crossover religions for grabs to all, coexisting oftentimes next to each other.

Back to Barbra, 2 weeks after she was in Montreal, settling in, she went to visit friends around the corner of Jean Talon and St-Denis. After her visit, past the Metro operating hours, she had to hustle a cab to go back home, around the corner of St-Laurent and Ontario. It was pouring out and she was desperate for this taxi. Close from her was a younger guy, who seemed to be also looking for a cab. Being really polite, she normally would have let the man go in the first cab she'd see. But not that night, the weather was crap, she was a woman alone in a part of town she knew nothing of, she had to put her foot down and think about her first. The man was faster than her at whistling the first taxi in sight. Being a gentleman, he offered the ride to her, but thought of asking her where she's heading, implying they could share the ride. They were both heading downtown on St-Laurent, him only getting of a little north of her destination.

In the car, they exchanged a little bit, she told him about her big move, her husband, her life over there, what she plans doing over here. She asked about what he's doing, the guy said he's a hockey player. Barbra knew that ice hockey was popular in Canada, but obviously knows nothing about the players. As he got off the ride, the cab driver asked him for an autograph, so Barbra definitely caught up on the star status he seemed to have. Her husband back home tried to find who the guy was but he also was clueless about hockey and couldn't identify him after looking the Habs up online.

On a boring thursday afternoon she told me that story and I asked her for a brief description of the guy. The second player picture I googled was Mike Komisarek's and I was right on target.

Think Green.

To me, eating hot-dogs remains one of the best ways to encourage recycling.

Some Girls.

If you're american, and you think us Quebecers are anything alike any character in the movie Some Girls, well you couldn't be more off-target.

PS: Am I the only one who cannot follow the plot of any movie Jennifer Connelly stars in? Her eyebrows have this peculiar distractive effect on me. What I meant by that is "uuaaarrggh those things are all over". And you know experiencing them wide screen won't help.

Bingo.

Synchronicity.

I met Kathryn sometimes when I was 17. She was going out with my good friend Keef. We both liked going to shows and loved to discuss the music we were into. It was great to just not party for one night and instead hang out with her, listening to music and each other stories.

And that's quite a story she had. She was born in Alberta but shortly moved in my hometown before the age of 6. She told me about her childhood as a mixed bag of good and bad memories. Bad memories mostly because her father took off when she was 6, without ever keeping in touch. Her mother told her when she was old enough that he left to South America because he was scared of the imminent arrival of World War III and wanted to go somewhere safe. Yeah, I know.

Of course, Kathryn's mother was sane and decided to stay in Canada. His father went away, deciding it would be worst to call every once in a while than not keeping in touch at all. Strangely, the departure of this crazy guy probably ended up as a redemption for the whole family. Her mother met another decent guy who stepped up as a quality father figure and also a good hubby.

Like any kid wanting to trace back their origins, Kathryn had questions about her biological father. Her mother wouldn't be too talkative about it. But she got answers from a cousin, who told her her father, Bernard, eventually moved back in a town about 30 minutes drive from where she lived. Apparently he spent the last few years mostly unemployed, working at a local bicycle shop. He also worked oil rigs in the north and other odd jobs like that. He finally settled. Probably his fear of WW3 went away when life kept on going on in the news.

We had only one conversation about it. She told me all she knew about it. She also confided that she was at a point in her life where she'd be ready to see who he is, to get that last piece of the puzzle of her own identity.

During that time, My mother was on the dating scene, still trying to meet Mr. Right. She only met idiots and I was trying to convince her to stop looking so desperately, to just hang out with her friends and that eventually the right dude will come along. Her clock was ticking and nothing I could say could have kept her from going to those stupid bars or on those dumbass dating lines she spent time on.

However one day she told me she's been seeing a guy for a few weeks now and apparently he was quite the gentlemen. She wanted to introduce him to me. Sure. In the next few days she told me details about him and his life. He told her the good, and the bad, and she related it to me in a way that wouldn't appear too sketchy.

Every friday night was almost a tradition for me and my little crew. We'd wait until my mother went out and throw a small party at my place. Every goddamn week. It was our way to celebrate the weekend and our youth.

One friday, as she was getting prepared for a night out with her new guy, she told me more about him. This is where it hit me. Every detail she gave me about his life was matching the description Kathryn gave of her father. After she told me about him leaving his family behind, I asked her what was the name of her date. First and last names matched. As she left, my friends were filling up my place and the party got started. I was recollecting everything I could to make sure there was no chance of bad coincidence. There was no way it couldn't be him. As my friends chanted upstairs, I was immediately on the phone, downstairs, with Kathryn.

- I have something to tell you. We'll have to hang out tomorrow. I can't say this like that on the phone.

I knew I couldn't do this to her. The last thing you can do to Kathryn is to leave her standing there in suspense.

- You have to tell me now.

She picked up on the somewhat alarmed tone in my voice.

- Yeah, well I think my mother's new bf happens to be your biological dad.

She came to my place the same night and as the festivities were continuing upstairs, we discussed the situation extensively and there was no other way around it.

Kathryn referred to this kind of coincidence as synchronicity. This came exactly at a crossroad in her life where she was missing that last part of the puzzle. She found it right at this moment.

In the next few weeks, with the help of me and my mother, we arranged a way for them to meet again, on their own terms. It's not up to me to tell how it went. But as I expected, communication was hard, especially when it involves a guy like him.

My mother went out with this man for over half a decade. My sister and I couldn't really stand him because all he did is to talk about himself. We tolerated him based on this unbreakable argument from my mom: "he's good to me". He also made my mother say horrible things like: "Janic, I'm so happy George W. Bush is there to fight the Iraqis and protect us against their WMD's." Up until then I never heard her express any interest in international affairs.

Other random facts about him.

- Had something like 5 cats and gave them exotic names he'd hear in documentaries.
- Owned over 3000 VHS tapes in his small apartment of random stuff he'd record off cable TV from his 4 VCR's. He would spend hours looking at the TV Guide planning carefully with his own coding system what he would record.
- No job, except for that 2 months thing where he'd sell bicycles.
- Would always be at my mother's place, only paying for groceries. However he kept his apartment where most of his cats would stay and shit all over.
- His cats outcasted our own house cat who left our home and never came back. At age 11, she probably went to hide and die alone in a bush or something.
- Always talking loudly. When I lived there, he would always be the first thing I'd hear in the morning.
- Professional pool player and went in tournaments in Vegas. He wasn't pro enough to make real revenue out of this though.
- Constantly trying to engage me in political discussions. What I would do is to pretend being dumb and let him talk his garbage. That cracked me up. I would also report to Kathryn, who seemed to find it equally amusing.

After one last crazy episode he had my mother dumped him. Kathryn is still in touch with him but this man will never be the father she hoped for.

The Playhouse.

Last night, we played the Playhouse. God I hate this venue. It was an old strip club turned into a club for shows. It became an on and off hardcore venue because it costs almost nothing to rent it. The layout of the place is really illogical, mostly because it was meant to be a titty bar.

YSR pointed out to me some stools piled up in a corner. We inspected them and came to the conclusion it couldn't be anything else than a five dollar dance stool. Somebody should investigate this. However the staff is accomodating and the bartender was really cool to me even if I couldn't tip her my promoter-paid free drinks properly.

Die Hard II (sic) opened the show and opened up with Danzig's Mother as an intro. Their singer is really chatty on stage, "more than you are" as my friend and bandmate Benny pointed out. They played a short set and we learned it was their last show. He had a Montreal Canadiens t-shirt so that officially made the guy OK to me.

Lots of our friends showed up. Including Chuck who saw us for the first time. I always have a great time with him and our own comic senses mesh well. Make sure to check out his blog. I wish I could put things the way he does.

We had a few beers and went on stage. We butchered the whole set but all the kids had the kindness of telling us we were great. Thanks anyways guys. After the set I had a few more beers with Benny, Hogan, Hyung Ju and Justin. HJ and me had an awesome drunk conversation on how our lives rule.

The night ended at my place where we threw a small party while Bloodsport was playing in the background. I met some dude from Lyon who was visiting Canada as he does every few weeks. His father lives here, that's why. I was laughing my ass off when he said anytime he comes here he dog-sleds, walks in snow shoes, goes ice fishing, trapping or to the sugar shack. He's basically into all those folkloric Canadian activities none of us canucks ever does.

Ruel.

Seriously, what can you really come up with after talking about colon cleanse and vikings? So that's writer's block? Dammit.

OK, how about that motherfucker Ruel. Yeah that guy. Here goes.

I originally met the dude in elementary school. I wasn't really friends with him but we often ended up hanging at the same places or parties.

Enter high school, we're in the same classes and we find out we're both SNES nerds and into comic books. I still had a social life outside with the friends I would listen to Onyx and play basketball with. I don't think he did, though. He was hanging out with his brothers, respectively 3 and 6 years older than him. Somehow, they all seemed the same age to me, in mentality.

Once I was done taking a leak at his bathroom. I had to walk back to Ruel's room, crossing the living room. I caught his stupid younger older brother jerking off to soft porn (Bleu Nuit). I ninja walked to my destination, trying to forget what just happened.

It started sucking when I started getting normal teenage action with girls and he wasn't. I was the one listening to his constant whining and self-pity utterances.

Once his brother six years older than us brought in his girlfriend and introduced her to all of us. She was a slightly hotter version of Adrian in Rocky. I went for gold. I arranged in the following weeks to bump into her as often as possible and be the cool guy who listens to her and make her laugh and laugh. All of this while Ruel's older, still nerdy brother was neglecting his girlfriend for comic books or a SNES rental. That was too easy, even If I was 4 year younger than this girl. We fooled around twice, in Ruel's house. I think it's the first time I mention it to anyone. That was a total asshole move but it was completely worth it. My lack of morals, ethics and judgement made me cruise through my teenage years pretty smoothly.

One night I tried to get him out of his stupor and got him out to shoot some stick at the pool hall, maybe we'd meet girls or at least get straight up shittered.

Before going he took a shower at his place while I was waiting for him in his room playing video games. Afterwards we headed to my place so I can have a shower. I invited him to play some of my games in the meantime.

I learned what happened months after. He confessed whacking off on my bed while I showered. Then he wiped himself off in my blanket. Motherfucker. How could he. I slept in his crust for about a week without even knowing it. He will pay.

Things were aggravating with his self esteem, it started getting me depressed too. Luckily I had other friends I could just chill normally with. One day, we had the brilliant idea to invite him along.

The months that followed were from awkward to worst. He didn't mesh well with others and was an asshole when confronted about it. We made him smoke pot so that relaxed him enough so it can be tolerable. But then one night we just had enough.

We were walking from a park where we'd hang out and drink (that means everything when you're 14) to go to... Another park. Don't ask. Midway through, Ruel realized he forgot his beer at the previous park. We told him he could split from us, pick up his booze and meet us on the corner, we'd be waiting for him.

We never did wait. We took off to a different part of town. The next morning he tried to call all of us. We all agreed not answering to him. Never again. For weeks I made a point ignoring his phone calls.

That was then end of it. I have no clue what happened to the guy. Here's another asshole move I can add to the list. Karma will bite my ass hard for that one. I can see him going all Bill Gates on us and have an awesome life of opulence and adventure. Well, good for you, Ruel.

I was reading the other day about rites of passages. The day I ditched this friend it was one of the first moments of my life I had the guts to not take any more shit from somebody else. It was liberating and I became more confrontational, in a sane healthy way. It unleashed my capacity of forming my opinions and expressing my discontent at stuff that sucked in life.

It was at around the same time I got into punk and hardcore music, so maybe it had something to do with my actions. Ruel always hated this noise I was listening to.

The O.C.

The Problem With Pirates.

First it started with a limited amount of friends. Then Maddox took it to a whole new level and finally came the Johnny Depp movies. Pirates are now all the rage. Lots of kids included the pirates theme in their role play and an increasing number of grown men in north america seem to do the same.

While lots of their antics can be considered the pinnacle of manhood (pillaging, sailing, treasure hunting, ass kicking), nobody seems to notice a few flagrant flaws in their character:

- Puffy shirts.
- Colorful clothes and parrots.
- Knee high leather boots.
- Bandanas on the head, or other fancy head gear.
- Earrings and other random jewelry.
- Tans (I can rule this one off as they were always under the sun).

I suspect their popularity grew because of countless nerds who felt they could relate to pirates based on the sole fact they download music illegally or steal/hack software. That's a disgrace not only to pirates but to manhood in general.

Fortunately, history thought us about other men, real ones, who did not buy into that kind of fruity stuff.

Vikings did absolutely everything pirates did, only better and in greater quantity. In addition to this, they:

- Discovered a continent.
- Killed babies
- Raped women
- Had badass ships.
- Wore equally brutal helmets with pointy horns.
- Burned down villages after pillaging them.
- Had kickass beards.
- Glorified their own vengeful, scary deities.
- Scared the shit out of everybody in the western civilization.
- All of this in the cold bitterness of sub arctic weather systems.

In the eventuality of a Pirate versus Viking death match, it's obvious wehere my money goes.

Please have a thought for them before you go out arrring like a jerk on the next Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Brooklyn Zoo.

You anglos don't realize this. It is grandiose.

I was out last week with a friend of mine. The conversation drifted and we went on about our respective childhoods and the games we used to play. Then she started telling me about nursery rhymes. The more she went out about those the more she saw I was clueless about it.

You see, those play of words are probably the most common thing to you and I'm convinced you take it for granted. To me, it was a whole new scene to get into.

I mean, I was aware anglo kindergarten teachers had to come up with something to keep the children's attention. We frenchies had "comptines" which were cool in their own way but have nothing on the institution that are the nursery rhymes.

As we pounded down a countless amount of drinks, my friend recollected an equally countless amount of nursery rhymes. Here are my favorite jamz of them all.


Pease Pudding

Pease pudding hot, Pease pudding cold,
Pease pudding in the pot - nine days old.
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot - nine days old.


There was a crooked man

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house

Georgie Porgie

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.

Cry Baby Bunting

Bye, baby bumpkin
Where’s Tony Lumpkin
My lady’s on her death-bed,
For eating half a pumpkin

Those gems were written hundreds of years ago. Syphilis was rampant, so maybe that explains some of it. Lots of those lines are just wrong while others can be plain inappropriate. And you anglos were brought up on that stuff. That says a lot.

The novelty of the thing got me clapping and cheering like a four year old. My friend was baffled at how genius I thought the rhymes were. Of course, my reactions only got her reeled up for some more.

No matter how insane ODB could have been, there's no crack rock strong enough to make him come up with something as ill as any nursery rhyme. Maybe it would have been a different story if absinthe and opium were available in Staten Island (read Shaolin). Peace.

PS: Can any english major tell me what the word "pudding" was slang for in the 17th century?

Bye Bye 1997.

"5-4-3-2-1... Happy new year!" Well it was not the biggest NYE party I ever attended. In fact it was me and 5 or 6 other friends. I don't even think there were any girls. Goodbye 1997, hello 1998. Whatever no big deal. Doesn't mean we didn't get tanked. We drank incredible amounts of various alcohol we gathered throughout our respective holidays. And there was a bit of herb that got passed around too.

We did what we used to love to do, put our records on, calling up the best riffs, some of us started playing video games some were discussing at the table. Come to think of it, that was most likely one of the most uneventful NYE I ever experienced. However, something happened that night.

Me and Babu decided to take off, it was past 4am and we just had enough. I could walk with him up to his place, from where I would in a reasonable walking distance from my father's apartment, where I could finally crash.

The trip involved walking in a familiar neighborhood where we'd hang out all the time. Then walking through a patch of woods, then crossing a boulevard, a Tim Horton's parking lot and then we'd be at Babu's.

It was freezing balls out there. We had lots of layers on so we were fine. But the night of partying wore us out and talking when it gets that cold is hard because your mouth is almost frozen.

It was after three or four minutes of walk. We were slowly approaching the elementary school we skate at in the summer. It is right next to the patch of wood we had to cross. Right above what appeared to be the school there was something apparent to lightning. Motionless, lasting lightning. I did not react, neither did Babu.

Next thing I know, I'm still walking with Babu, but we're half a mile ahead, past the school. We hear a fire alarm from a distance, it seemed like it came from the school. There was no fire but firetrucks started parking in a hurry in front of the elementary.


Once again, no clear reaction. We walked through the patch of wood, hearing the fire alarm disappearing in the background. Then came the boulevard, the Tim Horton's...

- Dude, let's have a doughnut and warm up for a while.
- No doubt.

We came in, immediately took a long leak, ordered up and sat down to devour our doughnuts. Then without any introduction...

- What happened out there?
- Beats me, man.

Me and Babu discussed this only once or twice after this. We came to the conclusion that we both have no recollection of anything after the weird lightning and before entering the patch of woods by the school. Babu just knew there was something above the school, he never pointed it out as lightning, but rather just as "something".

Funkified - More on Rocky.

Not that I'm obsessed or anything. I felt like pointing out Bill Conti's genius. He's the one who wrote all the instrumentals for the Rocky movies.

Take the time to listen again because what he did was probably unheard of in the 70's. Take classical arrangements, a goddamn orchetra is what I'm talking about. Then slowly funk it up by including drums, guitars with lots wah wah, groovy bass lines and a few disco sound effects and you get a classical music you can run to, train to or just shake your booty to. To fully get the experience try to tune your equalizer so the bass and the drums come out more.

That's all I listen to these days.

Nuclear Family.

I spent most of my life thinking I came from a normal family. Still, anytime I think back on it I realize it was really fucked up.

My mom, Nicole, met this dude Roger when she was like 23. It was in in the early 70's and ripoff bands were all the rage in Quebec City. They'd take an American song, translate it and add their shtick to it - usually a band uniform or a wack theme. Somehow my mother used to dig that whole scene, and she'd dress the part, often making her own clothes following closely the fashion du jour.

She thought he looked handsome and charming so she married him and a year after they had a kid, a beautiful girl they named Valerie. A year and a half later she smartened up, noticed he was never really sober, always playing golf, flirting with other chicks and being an overall douche bag.

She took hairdressing courses and started working at a salon with her best friend Raymonde. A few months passed and they were roommates in Montreal, a few blocks from where I live right now. She was still partying a lot at the Lion D'Or. Things didn't work out. They wanted to find glamorous jobs in Montreal, but the venture failed and they packed back home.

She worked in a few salons but found out she'd rather take up other skills in order to pay the bills. She had a daughter to raise. She took courses and learned how to be an office drone. She kept hairdressing, but from home this time. That and a part time office job.

Early 1980 she meets Jean through mutual friends. After a quick girlfriend switcheroo he ended up dating Nicole. She was 33, he was 38. They went to see the Grey Cup match with their friends. That night the Montreal Alouettes failed to put the football between the posts but my father sure did put the bun in the oven.

Two months later they were married and a couple more after I was born. Jean was already a father to Valerie, who was now 8 and already understood that Roger was a dead beat and that Jean was a more suitable father figure. I came in the picture, and things w