the most interesting neighbour in the world

Granted, I've only been on speaking terms with him for the past month or so, but I'm starting to think my neighbour in the apartment here might just be the world's most interesting man.

I first got to know him one Saturday afternoon this spring, when Fitz, Tamoobs and myself stopped in at my place to grab a thing or two before heading out to (or was it back from?) the park. We were a beer or two in and Collective Soul-voice (which is the precursor to the Creed voice, which in turn spawned the Nickelback voice. Did the Metallica voice start all of this?) singing a few of their mid-1990s classics. We'd seen my neighbour on our way in and we did the perfunctory head nod. He lives above the street on the main floor and spends a lot of his time on his balcony.

On our way out of my place, Fitz is singing "...hu-what's the hu-world I-hi hu-know..." and my neighbour pokes his head out his door. We get outside and I'm talking about my stationary non-stationary bike and my myriad problems keeping the tire filled (yes, I've changed the tube multiple times and ground down the rim edges where the hole was.) My neighbour starts asking me about the bike and gives me his bike pump and tools and doo-hickeys galore, suggesting likely problems, and pointing out other issues on my bike, like he's inspected it multiple times. I should say, my neighbour is, I'd venture, in his late-50s or early 60s, and he speaks French with a thick Eastern European accent. He lends me all sorts of gear and I tell him, well, I'm kind of busy now, but I'll give it a fix tomorrow. He says he'll give me a hand and then he tells me, in French, "you know, I grew up 30 minutes from Dracula."

I laugh, but he's one of those guys that doesn't know when he says something funny - or else, he doesn't dispense with the laughs very easily. I tell him that's interesting, but we have to go. And we go and I thank Fitzy for singing.

I forget to get home to get a new tire for the next day and I don't see him for a while. When I do, we talk about my bike. He doesn't understand why I haven't fixed it yet. I can't give him a legitimate answer other than, I work, I play baseball, I hang out with my girlfriend and friends and... He shrugs and gives me more advice. He says he needs his bike to get to his girlfriend's place. "Ma blonde," he calls her in his accent. It sounds more like "moh blond." He says there is a guy - likely some enemy who has a crush on his girlfriend - who he knows has punctured his tires twice with a pin when he stays over at her place for the night. He is sympathizing with my plight. I appreciate that.

The next time I see him, he tosses me a new brake line for my back tire and gives me more advice. It's a Sunday afternoon and it's hot as hell and I go out equipped with a cold Corona, but inadequate tools to replace the brake line and it's humid and it's not happening. The tube in the tire is shot to hell again. Here I thought I'd remedied the problem after discovering two brand new tires lying on Sherbrooke the night before. My neighbour is watching me from his balcony the whole time. I can feel his eyes on me, but for some reason, I can't ask him for help. Once I find out that he's gone inside, I slink back in with my tire in my hand and drop it on the floor. My apartment now looks like the Yellowknife dump - ripe for scavenging. There is junk everywhere. Coolers, tents, bike parts, bed shrapnel, Christmas lights and a Christmas tree...

I go to my computer to watch a video on bike repair and my buzzer rings. I answer it and go to my door and there is my neighbour, dressed in his biker shorts and jogger's t-shirt, with a bike skeleton in his hand.

"Where did you get this?"

He was on his way to visit his 'blonde' when he saw a bike - minus its front tire - in an alley. He brought it back and was offering it to me. I laughed and grabbed it and added it to the collection. He said I could use his bike pump whenever. His son would be up.

I didn't fix the damn bike, though. I went to sleep, sprawled on top of my blanket in my undies with my fan billowing warm air onto me. The next night, I got home late and ran to the supermarket to get a frozen pizza and I walked by his apartment and could hear lively accordion coming from inside. I walked to where he wouldn't be able to see me - partly ashamed at still not having fixed my tire - and listened for a while. It sounded really good.

Tonight, I got home with some more takeout food and I saw him on his balcony, as usual. I asked him about the accordion and he said it had been him playing. He said his father was very good and that he had been taught the instrument when he was young. He plays now for fun. Of course, my French isn't the greatest, and his accent is one that I'm not used to, so I'm not entirely sure of all that he said, but the guy seems like he is full of stories.

His father died five years ago in Romania and left him a lot, including that accordion. Now this is where I can't tell you exactly what he was saying, but apparently, his home country wouldn't send him the accordion for some official reason. But he has a friend who is a judge and he got a special exemption from this rule and received the accordion.

He said he used to work in aerospace before he got sick. He said he's been in Montreal for 19 years and has never left the region - he has stayed within the area from "St. Hubert to Mirabel." He said he feels like an exile. He's only been home once since he left. Yet he has family here and different visitors all the time. He speaks a bunch of languages with these visitors. (Allegedly) he's got a more robust sex life than most of my friends, despite being old enough to be their grandfather in some cases.

I've talked to him a half dozen times and he's told me he comes from Dracula's land, he plays an accordion in the dark, he feels my bike pain and his tiny apartment is seemingly a storage space for bicycle-related gadgets and gizmos.

I told him we should have a beer on his balcony sometime. I want to confirm my suspicion that he might be the most interesting man in the world. He's definitely the most interesting person in this apartment.

productivity burps

Judging by where I woke up Sunday morning, it didn't figure to be a productive day.

After a Friday evening, where I imbibed a tad too liberally, I woke up in full-hermit mode Saturday afternoon and shunned invitations to pick up beds and watch fireworks, in favor of trudging down Papineau to Ontario to find some kind of nourishment before visiting my girlfriend's cat, which I said I'd do last week.

I found a delicious Portuguese bakery and, with corned beef sandwich, cheesecake and Coca-Cola in tow, I marched toward my destination, to visit a cat that had been meowing at passerbys at her window since being left to herself Thursday evening. When I arrived, the grey-black enigma, which has so far treated me in a very hot-and-cold fashion, followed me around like my shadow as I dumped some kitty chow into her bowl and blew my allergies into a kleenex in the bathroom and then turned the lights on. I laid down and started into my sammy, sharing pieces of beef with the culinarily curious kitty. I opened a book, stared at the words for five minutes, before opting for some Planet Earth. After the Future disc, I went to Great Plains and, after that, the Pole to Pole one and then Caves. I could hear the fireworks, but I didn't want to think about them or anything. I wanted to marvel at the world's greatest and most inspiring creations, while simultaneously retreating from them inside a small, black apartment with a cat that just wanted to lay next to something. (It's debatable whether I did more for the cat than it did for me.)

Nine hours of Planet Earth later: I woke up crusty-eyed (no allergy pills) and hacking, nearly fully-clothed (always too hot to wear a t-shirt inside here in the summer) sometime around dawn, on an improvised duvet, not meant for sleeping on. I laid there, reluctantly coming to terms with the upcoming day, debating whether I should turn off the Planet Earth menu, which ended up playing on a 15-second loop for probably about three hours. (At one point, I had each of the 18 shots memorized in sequence. These are things I probably shouldn't be telling anyone.)

After a day where I literally laid on a couch with a cat, I couldn't fathom how I'd be able to muster the energy to do all the things I had to do - ie. haul a bed frame home at noon, fix my bike tire... and that's it. That's the state I was in.

When the menu had driven me to my breaking point, I got up, turned it off, gave the cat one last pet and one last treat, threw on my shirt and hoofed it home. From there, I received a call from the Fitz, asking when I'd be by to pick up the bed frame. I called my buddy Jones and he said he'd be there at noon. I started off. I got there. We taped up the bed. Jones arrived and we hauled it painstakingly from West of St. Laurent, down Sherbrooke, to my place East of Park Lafontaine, to the amusement of nearly everyone we passed. That's how I roll. Stubbornly.

I was tired, but I felt good, knocking something so important off my list of ever-expanding things to do. Hey, it only took me 8 months to acquire a bed!

We called up Heee-Ren and went up to a Vegan spot to eat some lunch. (Who does this Herbiberous think he is? Don't worry, it gets better.) On our way up there, I spy a garage sale of sorts and say, hey boys, we should go check out what they've got.

Good call.

Turns out these kids are selling a record player. "How much?"

"Oh everything's cheap. Five bucks?"

"It works?" I asked, shocked.

"Yeah, I think it just needs a new needle."

Sold. I look over and beside the turntable, they've got a stack of records. Sgt. Peppers, Dark Side of the Moon, James Bond themes....

"How much for the records?"

"Cheap. 50 cents each," the chick says.

I look at the boys and we start to laugh. Score.

We throw her $15 and now I own a record player with a burgeoning record collection.

(Aside: If you're keeping track at home, this now means that I'm a fixed-speed bike and smoking habit away from becoming a fully functioning Hipster. Actually, I also need an ironic moustache, since part of my hermitude on Saturday morning had me shaving off my faux-handlebar nose-neighbour in disgust. I'm clean-shaven for the first time since before St. Patricks day. A girl at work called me "little boy" today.)

So, how's that for productive? We have a healthy lunch (for a change.) I had a vegan BLT, with the bacon substituted for bacon-smoked coconut chips. If you're through Montreal, check this place out - Aux Vivres. You eat these huge wraps and the food just floats inside you. You don't feel heavy at all.

With the boys heading off to baseball, I decide to try for a trifecta of sorts: let's get this damned bike fixed.

So I walk all the way from Mont Royal and St. Laurent to the Canadian Tire in Hochelaga. By this time, the chafe has set in. My inner thighs are like two slightly moist pieces of rubber rubbing against each other. My balls are sandpaper. I'm in pain. But I press on. I've been walking all day. I get to Canadian Tire finally at five after 5 p.m. and, somehow, on a Sunday, the store is closed. Shake of the head. Wag of the finger. Tears for the ballsack.

Oh well. I get home and have a rest and wait for Fitz to call, as he's got some more stuff for me. Eventually, he rings back at around 10 p.m. and I set out again and, after a glass of vino and a semi-goodbye, I'm back out the door with a electrical fan in my right hand, a plant in my left and a bookbag packed with various knick-knacks that I may never need.

I got home last night and dropped the new apartment accoutrement on the floor and I barely recognized my place. It reminded me of that skit in the Simpsons were Homer takes advantage of Flanders' financial troubles and buys all his furniture from him at a bargain-basement price and then he's sitting around outside, watching TV, drinking beers and BBQ-ing with Flanders' stuff. I'm living in the Casa del Fitzy, right now.

This whole episode taught me that life is all about balance. Well, balance for normal people. And for me too, in a way, in that I'll probably always wind up at some median level of ambition, energy, etc., but that I ride the peaks and valleys hard... and with a vengeance.

Sadly though, this story also illustrates that Montreal has lost another hero in the gradual, but seemingly endless exodus of great folks from the city. Fitzy and Tameens, I'll see you guys in July, but I've had a grand old time getting to know you guys over the last year or so. I'll tell you that in a much more intimate and slurred way this time next month.

there are things that happen...

You think I'm going to get on here to start huffing and puffing about my temporary disillusionment with the Vancouver Canucks and how it's turning a poor young-middle-aged biberous into a jittery, nervous, bipolarized crack pot, don't you?

Well, if I had any energy after last night's 8 - 1 fisting, I probably would have, but cooler (read: sweatier and better fed) heads did prevail and even though my emotional journey this last month would have made for must-read drama, I am far too friggin superstitious to get into any of it right now.

(Brief tangent: The old man and I speak carefully like polished politicians when discussing the Canucks' chances these days. Whenever I've been away from Yellowknife for any length of time, the Nucks have dominated our phone call conversations to the point where we'll argue for 30 minutes about whether we think Cody Hodgson is a defensive liability or not. (For the record: I say he isn't.) In recent calls home though, talk of the team is limited to a scant sentence or two: "We're in the Finals." "Yes, it certainly is exciting..." "Ah... (one of us will say before the other gets too worked up) but Boston has a good team, let us not forget." "Indeed." We both twirl the corners of our moustaches.)

So I'm left to shrug it off and hope for the best tomorrow night. I will say that I didn't do my part by getting obliterated at the Sports Station, like I did before/during/after games one and two, so I'll be pulling up a seat to one of their beer tap tables tomorrow night to muck it up for the boys. (Yes, beer tap tables. The taps are built into the table and you pay by fluid ounce or something.)

All I'm going to give you right now is my immediate reaction to Game 3:

"Shea Weber did have a beard."

And don't think I don't remember that Happy Gilmore, one of my childhood heroes, is a Bruins fan. Happy? We're on hiatus, brotha.

Don't take it personal. I had to boycott Neil Young during our San Jose Sharks series. And we're cool, right?

Note: The herbiberous beard is at shaggy, patchiness never before seen and, as a result, I've gained a new respect for bearded folk. Unless you've dealt with one of these things before, you have no idea how often you get sauce or crumbs or boogers caught in there and there's no way to tell they're there unless you get all Howard Hughes about it.

Rant time:

There are things that happen to you as you get older: you find yourself only thinking about sex around 4,000 times a day; your back is sore, but when you crack it, it's still not fixed; you can get boogers stuck in your beard; and, unfortunately, you start becoming a little too serious about your life and what you're doing with it.

Now, my hiatus with this blog has nothing to do with Happy Gilmore superstitions or excuses. It has more to do with my inability to process the past month or two into any relatable narrative, since I still feel weird about everything.

Here's an attempt:

Long story short: I went up to Fort Simpson, NT to work for my old newspaper company for two weeks and then went home for three days and it was there that I realized how much things had changed... or more accurately, how much life had gone on.

I felt like an obsolete data processor trying to deal with all the information I was being fed: houses, weddings, babies, projects. It was overload, but in a fucking awesome way really, in that I saw all my best and closest friends in the world - my brothers - becoming adults or, I should say, men.

I was so proud looking at Slader, with his baby girl (a future Canucks fan! kidding) splayed out on his stomach, while we watched hockey. Brook was barely six weeks old at the time and Slader looked like he'd been a dad for time eternal. We had two dinners at Mindy and Mindy's new house, which is a perfect spot and I was so impressed - even when Mindy showed off the entertainment centre he made in Charlie's woodshop. Patch made us a gigantic, improvised fish dinner from scratch that 10 of us couldn't polish off. Feltch was talking new house and relationship and dog and bringing over home brews. I seriously sat in awe at all of these guys, whom I inexcusably hadn't seen in more than a year, and how they'd grown and matured into these people.

I was only back for three days and I tried to have a good time and connect with everyone like the old days, but I felt really distant, in that I knew I would soon be leaving again with return unknown, without a suitable explanation as to why I was heading back to Montreal. I felt like it was the elephant in the room and I felt insincere, not being able to say why I was leaving all these people that I care about and who care about me, when I don't really have a career or something keeping me down here.

The thing is, I love Montreal. This city is what all organized conglomerations of people should aspire to become and I invite anyone to come visit me here. On a summer day, the parks are full of people picnicking, drinking beers and wine, the streets are closed for festivals, there are free shows and festivals everywhere and things are cheap. I've seen a ton of shows, ate some scrumptious food, met a lot of new people with wild interests from around the globe, including some like-minded writerly-comedy types.

Montreal hasn't lost its luster yet.

Since I've been back, I've wanted to start getting something going for myself down here, mostly fueled by my own dissatisfaction with my current work situation, but also, pathetically, in a small way in order to partially justify my move here. (A girl, who I had only met for one night, boiled me down to two words: "sensitive and restless." Yep and yep.)

Where this blog rant fits in? Because I've wanted to start freelancing stories or articles or whatever, I've viewed the blog as a roadblock, as a venue where I was writing goofy things for free that I could maybe pitch to a magazine or paper or website for some $$$ or at least publication. And that's what happened, really.

And you want to know what happened, really? I stopped writing altogether. This isn't to say that the last month has been a complete loss or anything. Quite the opposite, actually. I've met a girl who I'm really getting on with (and who I may be guilty of doing the 'don't talk about it' superstition stuff with) and it feels like I'm busy doing something every night/day.

But that writing stuff has dried up like a turd in the sun and that has got to stop.

And I know I shouldn't have to explain myself for what I want to do and I know all my buddies are happy for me, but because I am who I am and because I over think everything, I wanted to get this off of my chest. We'll always be brothers, brothers.

(And you have to put up with these crazy rants every once in a while on here. You should know that by now.)

random thoughts

My brother Slader just became a father yesterday, giving birth figuratively to baby Brooklyn. I say figuratively because Steph was the one to actually birth Brooklyn. Good work, Steph and I can't wait to see the little bundle o' joy.

One thing though, Slader: I think Brooklyn may be trying to tell you something. She decided to pick March 15, 2011 as her day of birth. Now, on the surface, that's an amazing day: the sun is starting to make real inroads into the day again, the Snow King Festival is in full force and, hell, the playoffs are almost at our feet. But, I have a feeling that Brooklyn is trying to tell you something by having picked March 15, 2011.

She's gonna be a Canucks fan, dogg. It's right there to see-din....

Brooklyn was born during the afternoon of March 15, 2011, when the Edmonton Oilers were dead last - DEAD LAST - in the NHL with 55 points and the Vancouver Canucks - for the first time in franchise history, this late in the season, I might add for gravitas - were 1st in the league with 101 points. If that isn't a message, I don't know what is?

Now when I told DA the news, his immediate reaction was that you were bringing Brooklyn into the world at the lowest point in franchise history so that she wouldn't remember these times and she'd only start to really get into things as guys like Eberle, Hall and Paajarvi were nearing their primes and Hemsky was in his, but I don't know if I buy it.

I think she might just be a Canucklehead. Don't take it too hard, Slader. It could be worse. She could be a Flames fan.

I'm kidding guys. Can't wait to see y'all.

With this in mind, here's a little random time capsule of March 15, 2011 - one day late...

GOOD: The seagulls are back. I always love the sound of seagulls in March. It means this shat we call winter is almost over. All that snow that murdered my shoes five nights ago has basically been eroded away to sad little outcrops of greyish-ice by two and a half days of WARM rain. Still, the City of Montreal managed to wake me up at 3 a.m. yesterday by clearing my street with alarms, loaders, snow-blowers, dump-trucks and flashing lights, even though it was raining and the snow was trickling into the storm drains.

BAD: St. Patrick's Day is approaching and one unfortunate symptom of this yearly pissfest in Montreal is how the McGill/downtown area is invaded by douchebag American 18 to 20-year-olds here on Spring Break. I've been here for less than two years and noticed that the young drunks are louder and more abrasive during this week/weekend than other times of the year. While I find it annoying to have to walk to work through the crowds of shade-wearing guys and girls -talking about even more inane things than I talk about - who hang outside the Hilton on Sherbrooke because they all have money and can afford to drop hundreds per night to get shit-tanked in a foreign city while they are in school, I can't fault them because, if I was 18 and could get drunk legally in an awesome student city three years before I could at home, I'd be there as often as possible.

Still doesn't excuse the douchiness.

GOOD: Nothing funnier than watching a down-and-out white gangster complain about his lot in life. Extra points if he's a ginger.

BAD: Nate Dogg died. He died of lung cancer, right? Yeah? Okay, so as a legacy project, his family should go back through his entire catalogue and edit every song he's ever done to try to persuade kids from smoking.

"Hey Hey Hey Hey......... Smoke-free every day."

No?

GOOD: McGill girls. Seriously, I wish I'd come here for school. Like I said about girls at Columbia so many years ago (okay, 18 months) McGill girls have their own look: They are like between 5'2" and 5'5", with black hair and slightly tanned. I feel like I could point out a McGill girl from a suspect line just based on this stereotype. Yep, I'm officially a weird, old guy.

BAD: Losing that hour this weekend. Didn't this feel like the shortest weekend ever? Really, it was 5 p.m. Saturday before I'd even taken a breath. And that was before Spring Back.

GOOD: As a result of that lost hour, the days are ending later and I've actually walked home from work with the sun at my back a couple times this week. It's mad how amazing it makes me feel. It's bringing this weird kind of depth back to things, like I looked at an apartment complex that I walk by on Berri every day and it just looked different... like maybe it was the fact that I actually looked at it, instead of rushing past it in a cold hurry. Anyways, I'm about a month away from hanging out in parks again. I can't be happier.

BAD: CBC Montreal. I check out their website at least ten times a day at the coal mine and, lately, it's just been sad. They've had stories about the city going on a pothole blitz and it was one of laziest, most useless things I've ever read. It was like they rewrote a press release. And I've been applying there for every opening they have and can't even get a response and it just makes me sulk. Come on, guys. Give me a shot!

But today takes the cake: They had a BREAKING NEWS story about an earthquake striking the Montreal-area. We all know that earthquake stories are big business right now, but come on, this thing registered a 4.3. That's like a fart in a bathtub. We really are pussies here in Canada.

What's happening in Japan is horrifying. It really hits home, I find, because this disaster occurred in probably the most prepared and well-organized society on the planet and all the planning and precaution still couldn't forecast something of this magnitude.

When I saw the videos of the tsunami slowly but relentlessly invading the towns and cities in Japan, I couldn't help but think how small and trivial humans are in the grand scheme of the universe. A tremor in the earth just overwhelms land with water, carelessly and without reason, like a kid splashing around in a puddle and regardless of what we do, the wave can't be stopped and houses, cars and lives just get swept up in the ceaseless wave. It's just all so bizarre.

I've worked with a bunch of great people from Japan and I'm hoping that the situation quickly becomes controllable again and life starts to get back to some sort of normalcy again.

twill anger a few

herbiberous is fully aware that he should not antagonize his friends living in an area where the thermometre sunk to -40C today, but...

he is going to...

I'm not lying when I say something like: I would prefer -30C right now to the snow storm then rain then snow storm then rain pattern we've been getting here. Keep in mind that I have holes in my shoes and every time I walk to work, my feet are basically reenacting that scene from Disney's Alice in Wonderland where that door knob chokes up water and drowns and Alice flows through. And just pretend that water is like slushy and icy cold.

I spend entire days with wet feet and, right now, I really just want to thank my heart for being strong enough to pump blood through to my feet to keep them warm and to keep me from getting sick.

Tonight, Montreal is a fucking mess. You're basically living out a video game walking on the sidewalks - and the less popular the street, the more difficult the level. You hop from ice chunk to bare sidewalk if you find a good street. You jump from puddle to deeper puddle on the shittier streets. Every dang crosswalk has turned into a minor waterway. I basically gave up at one point, walking home on Rachel, and started walking down the middle of the street, like I would have in Yellowknife. But I got honked off the road by waves of impatient motorists pushing up bigger waves of slush water and so I wound up in the murky, icy Parc la Fontaine sidewalk swamps.

This evening, we walked to a show to find out the show was almost over and so we walked to another show. I pretty much endured an hour long frozen soaker. I could tell that my feet were drenched, but I would keep from trying to drift into the puddles anyways to keep them from getting wetter and I could tell when I did soak deeper when my poor feet went from warm wet to icy-fucking-cold-wet.

Seriously, I'll take -30C over this. The ground is stable. It's predictable. You can dress for it. You can walk around. In the most articulate way I can put it, this shit sucks shit. Period. I just sneezed. Uh oh....

good/bad

Unless you're Charlie Sheen, I've come to realize that life always seems to find a way to level you out. If you're feeling too great, something will knock you down a peg and vice versa. I come to look at this as a universal law.

Minor example:

A friend had asked me to check the Smith Westerns show with her last night, but I felt I really needed to get some things done after a hectic two weeks. I came home feeling particularly zombie-ish, after another 8 hours at the coal mine, knowing that there was work to do. For instance, there were two years of income taxes to be submitted, some medical forms for prescription rebates that needed to be sent, an apartment that required tidying for a pending dinner guest (ooh la la) job boards that had to be searched, a bunch of story ideas that were asking to be hashed out, an even bigger pile of stories that begged to be completed, a few travel plans for upcoming events that required some coordination, and a future that probably necessitated a second look, if not a complete overhaul.

So like I said, there was work to do.

I made some dinner quickly and then set to filling out the tax forms until I realized that I didn't have my 2010 info printed off and - more importantly - I didn't have the tax forms. They'll have to wait. I then got out my prescription receipts - for the old foe, rosacea - only to discover I'd completely filled out the form I had to send in six months ago and forgot to send it. Since then, I had collected an additional $32 receipt and - again, more importantly - changed addresses. I'll need to get a new form so... that one will have to wait.

I then went onto the job boards and found the same old, rehashed, phony recruiter, analyst, marketing specialists jobs posted at each site and gave up.

I did find this beauty though:

Uncle Sam wants you... and your clarinet

Since I was on the computer, I thought, why not jot down some of the story ideas that were popping around in my head. Easy enough. I opened an old Word document called 'story ideas' and then added a few to the ever-growing list. These things are like seeds buried in a pot in a dark, dry attic. After seeing all these ideas, I lost hope and lost any energy I had to flesh out some of the partially-watered plants.

So what was I left with? My dishes? Meh... Make future plans? I think about those enough, so because I hadn't slept well the night before and since wanted to tire myself out, I grabbed my hockey skates and stick and set outside for Parc Lafontaine.

Now initially when I moved into this apartment, I was giddy in anticipation of a winter spent on the park's two rinks, as I would only be five minutes away. But with an upswing in general activity (and my hockey homey, Freduardo, also becoming increasingly busy and leaving me with no one to head out there with) I've only found the time to get out maybe a half dozen times. Due to this, every hockey outing has left me doubled over on the ice, sucking wind through burning lungs after only 15 minutes, while dudes twice my age skate circles around me. It hasn't been very enjoyable.

But last night, I walked over slowly, taking in the blue-nearly-black sky and the stars shining. It's sad how little I look up at the sky here in Montreal. The snow was hard from weeks of melting and freezing and melting again and dogs ran on top of it and then fell into it, as their owners stood laughing, smoking and chatting. It felt like I was seeing the park for the first time almost.

I put on my skates standing up and then joined a game. The first time the puck was passed to me, I gave it away immediately, because it had been a few weeks since I'd played. This went on for a while until finally I started to catch up mentally and then I started threading some passes and deking some guys and I got so into the game that I forgot to be tired and forgot to be winded and I forgot my job and my worries and I just played.

We went from four-on-four, to three-on-three, to two-on-two and eventually, taber-knackered (as the Lazer would say) we decided to leave. I was sweating buckets and was completely bagged, but I felt like I'd just had a full-body and mind massage. I felt the cold air on my throbbing face and it was like awaking completely into the moment. I wondered why I hadn't done this every night.

To tie this back to my original point, I got home, threw my skates and sticks on the floor and started at the dishes. Right away though, I felt that something was up. As I dipped my hands into the dishwater, I noticed that I couldn't see them if I kept my gaze at the tap. This temporary blind spot is the first warning I get of an oncoming migraine headache.

I hadn't had one in about a year and four months and I was surprised that my body would choose now of all times to give me one, but when I look back at my history, it makes sense. Whenever I'm stressed out and then I go and have a euphoric workout, my body completely de-stresses and that changes something about my blood pressure or blood flow or something, and that leaves me prone to these headaches.

Seeing as I had a really bad one about three years ago, where I lost feeling slowly from my left foot to leg to chest to arms to hands to face to tongue and had trouble forming a simple sentence, I took care to notice if any of those symptoms were reoccurring. My left foot felt a little funny, but I figured it was just from the hockey. I took a shower and that's when my auras (think of a blind spot that takes a weird shape and becomes like a greyish, twitching and pulsing puddle or blotch over your line of sight) went into full-blown mode. It was like I had the Northern Lights going off between my eyes and the world and I had to try to look through them. It's typically this part of the migraine experience that scares me most because I don't know what causes this to happen and the experience is completely debilitating since I really can't see. These auras were probably the worst I've ever had and so I made my way to bed and turned off the lights and tried to sleep before the pain hit. Didn't happen, when the auras started to subside 20 to 30 minutes later, the stabbing feeling had kicked in right behind my right eye, which is where it always happens. Last night, it was worse than most. It felt like someone was coring into my brain and then injecting something into it that was expanding that core. It felt awful and then I started getting nauseous. I started to recite easy to remember quotes or lyrics to make sure I wasn't having any of the speech difficulties. I was sweating and rolling around in bed and I couldn't take my mind off of the pain. I then decided to get an old movie - Donnie Brasco - that I can nearly remember word for word, and I put it on while turning my laptop screen off, so I would just listen to the movie.

I think I probably fell asleep at 3 a.m.

Anyhow, that's a long-winded way of saying that life always finds a way to sprinkle some bad into the good or give you some good when you're feasting on bad. This might be the only thing I am sure of in life. That's almost how I would define life. ie. When I start to get back into some kind of fiscal comfort and I start planning a short trip or a small purchase I need, a long-lost bill always arrives in the mail. "That's life," I think to myself.

Also, I probably wrote this whole thing because I might have felt guilty for missing work today seeing as I wasn't 'sick' in the traditional sense. I mean, I didn't get any sleep and my head still hurts, but I probably could have gone in if I needed to. Yet, I was sort of suffering from a 'migraine hangover,' where I wasn't really thinking clearly most of the day, evidenced by my foray out for some groceries, where I tried speaking to a grocery clerk in French and I found myself stuttering on a word for a good three seconds.

10 things i learned about sports tonight

It was a moderately noteworthy night in Montreal sports here, with the TIM HORTON'S Heritage Classic and all, so I met a couple friends at one of the city's best (read: cheapest) sports bars, located in the heart of the gay village (read: correctly.)

It's been a while since I sat down in front of a wall of television screens at the Sports Station for a good ole fashioned night of sports osmosis. We were surrounded by acronyms - NHL, NBA All-Stars, WWE, ATP - and even some bass fishing superstars, as they all scrapped it out for screen supremacy and after my fair share of the brews from our $16 4-L pitchers and a $7 burger combo, I feel like I learned some things tonight and since I nearly died on my way home, with Sherbrooke from Lafontaine to Papineau basically one malicious strip of ice, I realized how fragile life is and, therefore, how important it is that I pass on these vital tidbits.

So with that: a TOP 10 LIST!

10. Canadian tennis fans have a reason to be excited

Even though he lost to Andy Roddick in the finals of some garbage tournament tonight, this Milos Raonic kid really has some juice. Now I know that no one cares about tennis, but if you haven't watched it in a while, well, there's a Canadian who can win a tournament with his serve now. A friend of mine who is a nationally-ranked player has a whole lot of good stuff to say about this guy, so I'm gonna go ahead and co-sign.

9. Two of the NBA's ten best players look like Wire characters

Now maybe you can tally this up to the fact that I've been deep into the Wire these last few days, but while watching the first half of the NBA All-Star game tonight, I couldn't help but think that two of the league's best players look a lot like the leaders of Baltimore's West Side.

Avon Barksdale = Kevin Durant

Stringer Bell = Amar'e Stoudamire

Come on, admit it. I'm right. They both look alike? Don't they?

I couldn't stop seeing the parallels while I watched, but maybe keep in mind that I'm the same guy that said Jacques Martin looks like Fievel from Fievel Goes West and that one of my buddy's mom's looks like Canadian Olympic curler Russ Howard.

I apologize.

8. Lenny Kravitz is still alive

I couldn't believe it either. Somehow he wiggled his way into the NBA All-Star starting line-up intros and it seemed like he was on TV for like 15 minutes. The All-Star game was muted so I couldn't hear what he was playing, but let me guess...

American Woman, followed by Are You Gonna Go My Way, followed by Fly Away.

Either way, the entire time he was on screen we were trying to remember the chick he used to be banging.

7. Kobe Bryant is totally unlikeable

What made him less palatable: the mock sincerity and humility he showed when shaking Bill Russell and Ms. Bill Russell's hands court side or him jacking up like a bazillion first half shots in the All-Star game?

Kobe, we know the game is in your house. We know you want to win MVP in front of the home crowd. We know you are the two-time defending champ. But damn man, let the game come to you and take over later. You don't need to drop 21 in the first half on like 30 shots. People are gonna defer to you later, because they semi-respect you.

Come on!

(P.S. I only watched the first half.)

6. Andy Roddick is bald

Cheap shot, but on the last point of his championship set against Raonic, he dove and his hat fell off. He hit the beauty winner, but it was revealed that he is Ryan Getzlaf/Herc from the Wire bald. I wouldn't have noticed it, except he reacted oddly to the situation. Instead of celebrating a championship won on an amazing winner, he rushed to put his hat on and then got up somewhat hesitantly and put his hands in the air, relieved. All in all, it was very unRoddick-like.

I laughed to myself... until I remembered he's banging Brooklyn Decker.

And then I ordered myself another drink.

5. Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta are pansies

Guys, it's -10C, you don't need to be doing the whole balaclava, over-the-ears get-up for the game just because it's outside. I mean, Brent Sutter and Fievel didn't even cover their ears, but you guys felt it suitable to dress like you were skidooers in Yellowknife. I think that right there says enough about the Habs' toughness this year.

4. Jerry Lawler is a face *

Somehow, Jerry "Burger King" Lawler is a face?!?!? WHAT? How could anyone ever cheer for this guy? It's been 18 years and I still don't forgive him for this...

Lawler got what was coming to him tonight though. He got beat down hard by the Miz.

Note: Who would have thought that in 2011 Jerry "the King" Lawler would be capable of a 15-minute main event match and Bret "the Hitman" Hart would be walking around like a fragile relic.

Note #2: WWE, listen to me, you've got to stop doing that Wrestlemania board promo thing. They keep shooting people with this camera angle so that this gigantic Wrestlemania board hanging in the rafters appears behind them and it's so obvious they are only doing it so they can use it later in promos. It probably looked cool the first time they did it, but they're doing it for every match.

Note #3: I realized tonight that the WWE is all about branding. That's it. Catch phrases and finishers and that's it. I bet some of the best and most creative ad execs grew up as wrestling fans.

Note #4: My buddy huuuuuuh-Reeeehn sums up Lawler's old school appeal perfectly: "How ridiculous is the one piece unitard? What the fuck?"

Note #5: Did you know that Triple H has a movie coming out?

Check this:

Is that curly haired kid the evolution of the ginger from the Big Green. Man, talk about a crap sandwich. I actually can't wait to see this thing. Bad Movie Marathon Entry #1.

3. RDS hockey exists with Joel Bouchard's hair

Maybe the most disappointing part of the evening: RDS covered up Joel Bouchard's hair during tonight's game. I didn't think I could watch a Habs game here without seeing Joel Bouchard's rubbery, unnatural doo.

If I had paid money to watch the game, I would have asked for it back.

Apparently the Habs weren't all that impressed either, because they chose to drop that gigantic coiler out there tonight. To be truthful though, it didn't seem like people were all that fired up for tonight's game.

Note: By the way, search 'Joel Bouchard' on google images and I guarantee you will not find a more out-of-er results for a quasi-celebrity. You would expect the kind of 'passed out, looking gonzo' results that come up from a good friend's facebook photos, not from a 'respected' professional hockey commentator.

2. Lebron is illuminati

Or maybe he was just shouting out his boy Jay-Z. Or showing off his favourite geometric shape.

Nah, I'm gonna go with the secret society angle. Oh Lebron, I saw it. You guys were all dancing around during your introductions and you were goofing around until, right at the end, you threw up the diamond sign right before the cameras panned away.

As the message board fanatics say "in before the illuminati shitstorm/"

Yep, we have irrefutable proof that Lebron supports the globalists' agenda, people. Lebron, like illuminati brothers Jay-Z and Eminem and Diamond Dallas Paige, is just a puppet in the Rockefeller and Rothchild plan for global enslavement.

DDP - Drive Down Proletariat?

1. Do not cut from a Habs game to Bass fishing in Montreal

The Sports Station in the Village has about 40 flat-screens pasted to the walls. When I arrived, 90 percent of the TVs had the Habs-Flames game, with the remaining screens showing the end of the Roddick-Raonic match. Once that ended, they all went to the hockey game. At one point, during the second period, the manager of the bar decided to throw the NBA All-Star game on because someone had asked.

Unfortunately, the manager wasn't paying too much attention because he threw on a bass fishing show. I didn't notice, because I was facing a wall with seven flat-screens, but the people facing me starting making a scene since two of their three screens were showcasing a snake slithering through some water.

The manager came over and reassured everyone that he was trying to put on the basketball game, but the bass fishing continued and, with the game still close, people started to lose their patience. At one point, the fisherman's line tensed up like he caught something and we all started to cheer. He reeled the puppy in and his buddy scooped it up in the net. The fisherman grabbed the fresh-water fish and posed with it and we all went crazy. The manager got the picture and he quickly turned the game back on.

Sadly, that was probably the only thing that Habs fans got to cheer about tonight.

* Sports Entertainment tidbit

walking conscious

If I ever find a serious job, I think I'll have to get it written into my contract that I can't be held responsible for any tardiness, absenteeism or poor job performance caused by the sleep I've lost from viewing the Wire. As an addict would say, I'm powerless to fight it. I just started re-watching it online - at sidereel.com - and ever since, I've been crashing later and later and even getting up super early every morning to check the next episode (you know, cause Megavideo understands the Wire's potency and only allows you to watch it in 72-minute intervals. It makes you confront reality for at least 30 minutes before letting you jump back in again.) Even though I know Kima's going to get shot or Wallace is on his way back to the West Side pit, I can't help sitting through it and that pushes my departure time from the apartment back further and further every morning.

On Friday, I pushed it the furthest I have yet. I didn't even notice what time it was when the episode ended and so when I saw it was 9:40, I nearly lost my shit. I've got a 35-minute walk to work and I was still laying in bed. So I hustle-bustled and was out the door in my gigantic winter coat, forgetting of course that it had rained the entire day previously, meaning it was like +5C and Montreal was a gigantic puddle concealing a sheet of ice.

Being late, I sped-walked to work, but any time I thought I'd save and all the effort I was exerting was wasted on a decision I made to cut through Parc Lafontaine. Terrible idea. The 'snow' was ice, covered with slush and water. It was messy and the sidewalks and paths are all 'code level: orange' dangerous, in Homeland Security talk.

I'm kind of frustrated because I'm late and I'm sliding all over the place like Bambi learning to walk on ice. (obscure reference?) I'm rushing and slipping and worrying about whether today would be the day I caught shit from my superiors, Ervin Burrell-style, but every step I take flushes those thoughts away because the ground is so awkward and potentially hazardous that I have to concentrate on where to drop my feet to make sure I don't fall.

It's really odd to be conscious of walking. It really is. It's something that I take for granted. Each step put me on precarious ground, so I had to use all my conscious thought to carefully navigate each stride. But after a while, I came to the realization that I didn't know how that would help, since I could predict where my foot would land, but there was no way to know exactly how it would feel once it went down and how that would affect my balance. It was like I was trying to be conscious of something that I still wasn't completely in control of because my body was going to self-adjust regardless of what I did intentionally.

It was a bizarre distraction, that I forgot immediately once I got to the thawed and cleared sidewalks.

I can see now though why those robotics engineers have so much trouble creating robots that can walk, because they have to calculate each variable and adjust for that and it's something that's programmed into us without us even being completely aware.

Anyways, I got to work and went from walking on ice to walking on eggshells. No one seemed to know I was late and so I guess I'll be pushing the limit again on Monday.

d.p.a., baby

Back when I was still just getting comfortable in my pubes, a few years before the Y2K Bug changed our lives forever, I found myself manning the grill in a McDonalds kitchen, flipping burgers, snacking on nuggets and pickles (try it) and working, unknowingly, as an WWF proselytizer.

I wore a Stone Cold t-shirt (later replaced by an eyebrow-raised The Rock.) I had a WWF hat. I even, embarrassingly, taped as many WWF Raws and Smackdowns (and eventually, WCW Monday Nitros even) as I could and I even went so far as labeling them. Oooh, this smarts.

Anyhow, back then it was all about catch phrases, and one of the best came from Mr. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. The Texas Rattlesnake (what a name!?!? Shit, am I proselytizing again?) was a paranoid dude and he taught his minions to watch their backs by wearing his patented "D.T.A.: Don't Trust Anyone" shirt.

I loved that slogan and I probably would have purchased that shirt for myself if our Wal-Mart sold it. (And I probably would have ended up on some pre-9/11 version of a no-fly list too.)

I bring this up now because I recently witnessed something in the underground mall beside the metro near work that made me recall that motto.

I'd say I buy lunch about 90 percent of my workdays, usually because I'm too lazy or, more often, too late in the morning to make myself a sandwich to take with me. So me and my rag-tag group of coal miners head down to either the Promenade or the EC (Eaton's Centre) where we try to get in a sufficient amount of commissary in our alloted 30-minute break period (minus the five to eight minutes we burn waiting for the elevator and walking to the food courts.)

This daily walk takes us past the entrance to the McGill Metro station and down a corridor that I affectionately call the "Hallway of Broken Dreams." There are people huddled along the walls in various states of disrepair. There is the guy with the super red face, who is dressed nicely enough that you think he might be a genius, serial killer. (I have actually seen him cash his change in at one of our Promenade food joints, too. He asked for a five like he was going to deposit it in a bank account. For this reason, it has never even crossed my mind to give him any money.) There is the fat, white, balding, bearded guy with face tattoos who I never try to make eye contact with because he's always smiling and he doesn't look like he should legally be allowed to smile because a smile doesn't look right on his face. There is the tall black dude who comes up to you with his empty fast food cup but doesn't ask for money... he just puts out the cup. I'm not really sure why he does it though, because he is typically dressed better than I am and I have to be done up all business casual (BiziCajji.) And then there's the guy right outside the Promenade turnoff who looks somewhat like the professor from Tintin, but sits in his wheelchair, shrinking away, and on occasion, he will summon within me a bit of pity and I'll throw a few coins into his collection cup.

On Monday, Fitzy and I went down to the EC, where we walked past the regulars, right up to the guy in glasses who is always parked at that spot right where the doors open and where thousands of people rush past him every day. He sits in one of those mechanized wheelchairs and just looks out at you sadly. I think he has Cystic Fibrosis or Multiple Sclerosis: I can't tell the difference. (I'm not trying to be insensitive here. It's all ignorance.)

On Monday though, something happened that made me completely reevaluate the Hallway of Broken Dreams and the entire "help me, I'm hungry" racket. Now I'm not the most sensitive guy when it comes to this kind of charity, as you probably know if you have spent any time around this here blog. I've devoted a lot of meta-ink towards the people asking for money and I think I find it offensive for some reason now, since I was so taken in by them and their persuasiveness when I first arrived here as a naive, small-town guy. Maybe I look at this new hard stance as the first trait that I've genuinely adapted from city living.

Either way, what I saw Monday shocked me. This meek guy in the wheelchair, curled up almost in a ball all of the time because his joints are tangled together, starts yelling something that is barely intelligible with the echo in the hall and because of his difficulties speaking. "Gooooooooo oonnnnnnnn...," it sounds like he's saying. "Goooo oooonnnnnn."

Fitzy and I stop. We see the man looking over to his left, towards a slightly-older-than-middle aged Eastern European woman with a cane, quietly and emotionally pleading for money. "Gooooo onnnnnn..." the little man continues. The lady doesn't seem to notice.

Then, the little man starts to move and he's yelling louder. "GOOOO OONNNNNN!!!" His chair is buzzing as he zips off. There are about twenty people watching now as this little man in the mechanized-wheelchair burns over to the lady and, wouldn't you know it, rams right into her. "GOOOoooOOO!" he continues to yell as he bashes her again. The lady is looking around at us all, horrified. She doesn't know what to say.

Fuck the heck? I debate stepping in between them, but fuck the heck again? What would I do? I can't berate a little man in a wheelchair, can I?

The little man bashes her again and then turns back as the woman starts crying and scurries off the other way. Damn, the little man ran her off the corner like she was some West Side kid selling crack on an East Side street corner in Baltimore, MD. That little man was straight gangsta!

Fitzy and I have lunch. He isn't even fazed. I say, "snap out of it, man! Didn't you see what just happened?" He says, "I once had a guy come up to me on the train in Toronto. He had nuts in his mouth and he just walked up to me and started spitting them in my face and he started saying 'No one is doing anything. Can you believe it?' and he kept spitting the nuts. I just walked away.'" He says he can't be bothered by anything he sees after that.

We ate lunch and then we left and we walked past the little man, looking as sad and pathetic as always. We continued walking back to the coal mine and we saw the bewildered lady, still crying, still with the cane, still frazzled, still asking for money.

And it dawned on me that Stone Cold's motto could be altered just a little bit to encapsulate that experience.

So that's why I say D.P.A: Don't Pity Anyone.

teach your kids to play the...

SAXOPHONE

No, herbiberous has not been possessed by Bleeding Gums Murphy and I'm not holed up in my apartment in a haze, listening to Murphy's seminal album, 'Sax on the Beach,' on an endless loop...

but I remember reading an interview with Deerhunter's Bradford Cox after the release of Halcyon Digest and his gushing over how the saxophone was going to be the wave of the future:

The song "Coronado" from Halcyon Digest features saxophone sounds inspired by the Rolling Stones' album Exile On Main Street. Cox recalled, "I wanted that sax on there because I was listening to the Stones' Exile On Main Street reissue a lot...I began to see a pattern forming. Saxophones are becoming this thing. That's why we did it early. Next year everyone's gonna have a saxophone on their record because saxophones are just cool.

(pulled from wikipedia cause I'm too lazy to find the actual interview...)

Not really the most well-defined or reasoned argument, but he does say that there will be more sax and while I wasn't thrilled with the out-of-place solo on Coronoda, maybe I'm tempted to side with him after hearing 'Chinatown' by Destroyer for the first time, earlier tonight. (Yes, Jung. Byron Crawford is now an essential visit every day. Happy?)

Not too shabby, that old sax, eh? Maybe you'll want to talk to your kids about sax while they're young. It might do them some good as they get older.

When I sit and really reflect on whether saxophones are appropriate in modern song, an overwhelming genetic impulse compels me to say, "Yes, they are." And that impulse comes from the area in the brain that controls annoying, thoughtless, inane play-on-word production. Listen to it and listen closely... Can you hear it? It's saying... BRING ON THE SAX PUNS!

UNRELATED NOTE:

I'm likely a little late with these guys too, but I saw Little Dragon last night at Il Motore and there are definitely a good handful of you out there who I'm sure would enjoy them. The singer was really great. (It dawned on me that I'd seen her when the Gorillaz were here this fall.)

We couldn't figure out where they were from last night. I googled them and, wouldn't you know it's Sweden. (Is everyone from fucking Sweden?) The band had elements of Battles, bjork and Animal Collective, but the only thing that I found distracting was that some of the songs sounded sort of like Mariah Carey tracks on speed. (And their songs always ended awkwardly.)

At the coal mine where I slave and toil, we ask references these long sets of questions about a job candidate all day and usually, if the reference is in a rush, they'll say something like: "Look, I'm about to go in on a conference call (read: take a shit) and I've only got a minute, so I'll sum it up by saying that I'd rehire Mr. Whoever." That's what I'm saying with Little Dragon: "I'd go see them again. Like I said though, I've got to go take a shit (er... dammit)."

how to make it in montreal

In this city, you get a chance to observe a strange person making money in a stranger way each day.

Hopefully this doesn't antagonize my Northern friends, but today was probably the first 'cold' day we've had in Montreal this winter. I had a 'shortage of coal to mine' mandatory day off from work and was planning on getting up early to get myself to a walk-in clinic by 7:30 a.m. so I could score some direly needed face drugs sometime before sun down, but the cold had infiltrated my shoddily-protected room and I couldn't get myself out of bed despite using every one of my tricks (10 more minutes, one more song, count down from 100 and... we'll stop there.)

Finally I felt brave enough to leave the cocoon four hours later and I thought the wall below my shitty, thin window felt a little colder than usual. I checked the Weather Channel site and it was -22C - and that's about ten degrees chillier than I remember it being here so far.

Anyways, I did some grocery shopping today and I was waiting for a light at Papineau and Rachel during the after-work, rush hour and this lanky, tall, bearded guy sort of pops up from beside a bus stop and walks towards me. He looks at me and tilts his head, while also appearing to stuff what look like three perfectly spherical tiny oranges into his jacket. I avert my eyes because I figured this dude was just typical Montreal crazy.

(You really do see something that makes you stop and scratch your head every single day here, whether it's someone stuffing a tree into a telephone booth, or a dude loudly claiming he's Malcolm X at at Metro stop or bizarre aerobic moms pushing their strollers through Parc Lafontaine while shooting an arm in the air and then a leg and then jogging on the spot, while a lady in a parka three sizes too big,runs up and down the line chanting encouragement. I got stuck in that line on my way to work last Friday and walked inside this throng of moms for about 10 minutes, sipping coffee from a travel cup and trying too hard to look comfortable.)

Where were we? Oh yeah, crazy bearded guy with the oranges. Anyways, the light changes and I start crossing the street. It's a piercing -22C (it really does feel colder than the dry Arctic -22 version. It's the humidity. For real.) and I see the guy out of the corner of my eye (using my peripherals) and it looks like he's running up to drop kick me in the back. Huh? I turn around to realize that, no, he's actually just running out into the intersection and jumping up comedically to greet his helpless, commuter customers (commustomers?) before going into a juggling routine.

I stop at the other end of the street to watch out of curiosity. Juggling? In this weather? Really? Is this how you make it in Montreal, bra?

I've always had a little rant about jugglers, about how expert and skilled they are at hurling these balls different ways and keeping them from hitting the ground and why they chose to spend all that time being so good at it. They unquestionably spent countless hours honing their talents, learning how to throw the objects behind their backs and how to incorporate different and dangerous instruments and elements. And that's fine. But when a juggler is out there asking for money, I always ask why this person didn't spend the time they used flipping around these balls to read a book or learn a craft like carpentry, that could eventually pay the bills. I get it, juggling is fun and they probably smoked a lot of weed, but no one sees me running around Montreal, challenging people to games of EA Sports NHL-series (except that was a gainful venture that one winter in Cow-Town... YEAH!!!) or to quoting the Simpsons for coins, even though these were the useless abilities I spent countless hours perfecting during my youth-adolescence-extended adolescence-this morning.

But to each his own, I suppose. This is, admittedly, a hard fucking place to find work and I guess if someone is willing to shell out a few cents to watch some poor schmuck juggle balls in the dead of winter while waiting for a red light, who am I to argue.

(TERRIBLE SEGUE ALERT!!!)

And here's a guy who made a shit-ton of money but walked away from a HOLY SHIT-ton of money because he would have had to sell out himself and his values in order to sign his name to the cheques.

He's been outspoken against the subtle - and not-so-subtle - ways that Hollywood and the powers that be tried to change him and his act and he's been called crazy and dismissed as a nut because of it, but we are - and certainly he is - better for what he did.

Here are some recently released bits from Chappelle's show that I stumbled upon last night. Glad to see that Dave Chappelle is still doing stand-up and is still funny as ever.

cold feet reality

It kind of all hit me for real while I was having a beer at a show at Cagibi. It wasn't anything sung in a song that made me take notice and it certainly wasn't an alcoholic epiphany that opened up this suppressed railway of thought either. Funny enough, it was a set of cold feet that made me realize that I've come back to the worries of yore: the anxiety and restlessness that possessed me on my move out of Yellowknife and down here.

Cold feet.

I'd kind of slept-walked through the day: got up late, saw a flick, ate a burger. My buddy Chocolate T told me I didn't seem myself - I'd heard that from a handful of people the past month or so. I was tired and feeling reclusive. I went off to the show, even though I wasn't really up for it. I kind of wished that I had a giant beard, like Pacino did at the end of Serpico, so my eyes could poke out of the fur like a periscope and I could watch what was happening without being detected. I would have fit right in at the Ground Zero of Montreal Hipsterdom too.

Before this starts to sound like an emo song, it's not that I didn't want to talk to anybody, it's just that I didn't feel like I had anything to say. I moved into my own place about a month and a half ago and that means a lot of time by one's self. A friend wrote me and said you are confronted by your demons in a live-alone state because it means you have a lot of time to think. That's really the last thing I need.

I have had a lot of time to think about what has gone wrong in the past few months. For one, my two best friends in Montreal - my two former roommates - had a spat and the house was disbanded as a result. Being who I am and trying, in my own way, to do right by both of them - or maybe to avoid conflict - I played Switzerland and kept my distance. I went home to sleep that last month and that was pretty much it.

Now, I don't really see much of either of them and when I do, some resentments seem to crop up or linger behind the scenes. That's mostly my fault because I find that I don't want to deal with any of this and that's maybe because Montreal has really been a fantasyland since I arrived just over a year ago, with only a backpack full of clothes and books and a sleeping bag purchased in Iceland.

I hit the ground running and saw and did something new every day. Everything in the city was new too and so close and fascinating. Saw a ton of shows. Ate amazing food. Went to some great - and some ridiculous - parties. Hung out in parks and on rooftops and skating rinks. And met new people all the time. I had the same story: just moved here on a whim, looking for work, etc. I fell into a great group in nearly the exact apartment I'd dreamt about living in, while pondering life pessimistically in Yellowknife.

Life was grand. It was new and challenging. It was starting from scratch.

But like the Roots best album, Things fall Apart. People started to leave. I found a job. Money got tight, as I started to live on my income and not my Visa. Free time shrunk. Energy got zapped. Fought with friends. Stress. Got sick of my job. Wanted something else. Got static. Had weekend rut - and hangover gut rut. Lost creativity. Pay Check. Broke. Pay Check. Broke.

Cold Feet.

Back to the cold feet. Like I said I realized, for the first time at that show, that my feet were cold and that they shouldn't be cold. I'm wearing some black Pumas that aren't equipped for winter. (I'm sure they'll somehow rust, with the amount of salt the city unloads on the sidewalks and streets.)

But the point is, I was discomforted by my cold feet. A year earlier, I wouldn't have noticed them - or if I did, I would have shrugged and sucked it up, because I was in no position to do anything about ameliorating the situation. "I need a job! Feet, you're going to have to wait until later."

Is it possible to feel worse knowing that you can better your condition? I'm less happy the more comfortable I am. Is that weird? I enjoyed living unsustainably, trying to pull myself up onto the ledge. It was exhilarating. Everything I worried about was legit. There was no time or room for idle anxiety. Now I'm on that ledge and I'm twiddling my thumbs about what ledge I should move on to. I've found a job, I've got a roof over my head, I've made friends, but now I hate my job and I'm living by myself and I have had some friend drama and so as much as I tried to fight it, it looks like real life - REAL life - has finally infiltrated Montreal. I'm back to stressing about a satisfying job, finding a spark and I'm spinning my tires about how to go about doing all that.

I want to be dependent and I'm getting there, but it doesn't feel like I'm gaining maturity. Is maturity really about knuckling down, planning, getting real and doing something about something? Am I confusing it with something? Why should deciding on a future be accompanied by so much negativity?

Or am I just thinking too much?

Note: I wrote this at a Second Cup beside a chick who was griping about THE EXACT SAME SHIT with her friend. I found her totally annoying and self-obsessed and enthralled with the sound of her own voice. Heh heh heh.... errr... self-FAIL!

a funny thing happened on google

I'm back in job search mode. I suppose I'm always in job search mode, but as happens at least once a month, a few lousy days at work and a few hopeless looks at the bank account have galvanized whatever energy I have to scouring through the craiglists, kijijis, workopolises (workopoli?) and jeffgaulins of the world to find myself something more satisfying, gratifying and... er... lucrative.

Over the past few months, I've consistently sent out cover letters and CVs and consistently got no response or a 'no' response. It's a drag, but the job market for Anglos is competitive in Montreal and, as Sir Smoke-A-Lot once said, "I understand."

However, after not hearing back about a position I was actually kind of qualified for and one I figured I'd at least get a call about, I thought I should check something out that had been bugging me for a bit. Call it paranoia or maybe careful, but I did a google search of 'herbiberous' tonight, just to see what kind of ridiculous statements and examples of poor judgement I'd let loose on the blogosphere and I wanted to see if any of them tied back to my actual name. Keep in mind folks, a lot of the things I write here are done in frustration, in jest or in a state of semi-intoxication and I imagine, at times, it's difficult to tell if something I've put on here is serious or not (and more often than not, it's not.) Really though, much of what I end up posting here isn't fully digested and instead of ridding myself of a consistent idea, I usually spend a lot of time wiping up a messy, ill-conceived thought littered with cornels of tangents that I can't ever remember ingesting (poo analogy: check!). If I was a potential employer and I read some of the things I've written on here -- there really is a substantial amount of this blog devoted to feces and masturbation -- I might hesitate to call this gentleman up. I've heard stories about hiring managers using facebook/google searches to vet candidates, so I wanted to see what kind of damage I'd done to my name and, as a consequence, my job prospects by having literally posted so much crap on the internet.

Not surprisingly, this blog appeared, as did an old myspace page. A little surprising was the amount of nerdy and angst-filled youtube -- and many other message board -- comments I stumbled upon. Maybe surprising isn't the best word. Embarrassing. Yes. Definitely, embarrassing. I suppose I'm probably the only guy in the world who uses the handle 'herbiberous.'

I was glad that the search - or at least the basic search that my limited computer skills enable me to conduct - did not link 'herbiberous' to my real identity.

Something odd did come up though. I found an interview with the band Surfer Blood (aka Montreal Bachelor Party 2010 Alumni) and shockingly 'herbiberous' was involved:

Bizarre.

Three things:

1) Laziest interviewer ever?

2) What a poorly put together and haphazard comparison. If I knew the comment would have been picked up for an interview, I would have put together an 800-word treatise on their surf-and-sun sound roots, which would have been nearly unreadable because of the hyperbole.

3) Am I entitled to some kind of compensation? If time is money, I definitely dispensed some money coming up with that hybrid-sound-comparison on youtube. It caused me great anguish (Please disregard Three Things: No. 2.) If royalties aren't likely then, do I get to at least put an interview with Surfer Blood down on my CV?

wind up radio sessions

If you're coming through old Montreal, gimme a jingle so we can meet up so we can catch up and have a few laughs and bust each others' balls and get something to eat and we'll head down to make sure we're in line to buy tickets to the place where we're able to get a few drinks and have some more laughs and bust some more balls and chat with some chicks and eventually check out the wise old gents (work father-figures) from the Wind Up Radio Sessions.

The Wind Up Radio Sessions - Little Bird from Cameron Mitchell on Vimeo.

madafakaz

The Madafakaz.

Go see these guys. They play with leotards over their heads like old-school bank robbers. I've seen them a couple times and the energy is crazy because they start kicking and pushing each other over while they play. Their stuff reminds me of Huevos Rancheros, but a little grittier and less polished (other than this track.)

I haven't seen them a while. I just had an oogle on google and saw that they played at L'Esco Bar tonight. Nards. Next time, I suppose. (It's too bad... their myspace page used to stream songs recorded at a live show and I like those a lot better than the glossed-up album versions.)

the squirrels are trying to tell me something

The days are chillier and night seems to come so dark and so early to my my office tower window that sometimes it shocks me. Not only do the years seem to slip by faster with each birthday, but these days! They barely start before they're over.

And it's been 'chilly' for a while now (although, my people in Yellowknife will not find it funny that I'm calling 0C chilly and I don't blame them.) It's also been a month since I've walked home from work with any sun. But these aren't the hints I'm using as evidence that the summer is now doing its best impression of the Yellow Pages or the physical map in the face of google ubiquity... and by that, of course, I mean it's becoming a thing of the past.

It was apparent today, as I walked through the park, that winter - in its snowy, frozen guise - is knocking on the door. And it was the squirrels - or lack of them - that showed me.

Squirrels are a little different here in Montreal than elsewhere, I've noticed. They are bigger and they are crazy and they seem to be everywhere. You'd think we were living in some post-apocalypse sometimes, the way these maniac rodents pounce on garbage bags and dive into garbage cans, ravenously ripping through bags to find some sustenance.

I once had lunch on a patch of grass near work and watched a squirrel hanging from a tree on its hind feet. His head was dangling down, arms were splayed out and his back was pressed against the tree. We wondered if this thing was dead and someone had nailed it to the tree. Nope. About five minutes later, it stretched up and ran away somewhere.

I've watched a squirrel cling motionless to the side of an apartment building for minutes at a time, trying to figure out how he was defying gravity. I've watched with amusement as two squirrels chased each other around the truck of a tree, each squirrel's tail just barely staying out of the other's grasp, like a perpetual carnival game. A squirrel ate my poutine in Parc Lafontaine a few weeks ago. And then he called over his friend and another. Soon there was an army hungry for the stuff.

And that's what I've become accustomed to when I walk through the park now. One curious squirrel will scout me. If it is comfortable with me, or if I'm eating something, it will follow and soon others will take notice and they'll do the same and before you know it, a whole gang of them will be chasing me through the park, waving up and down fluidly as they do.

It freaked out my mom when my folks were down here a few weeks ago. My dad started making squirrel sounds - tiktiktikitiktik - and he chuckled as squirrels, who were focused dead set on finding a nut, put up their heads, craned to see where the sound was coming from and then started to come toward us like he was a pied piper. He soon had 20 of the little suckers trailing him.

The squirrels really are furious here, but today, they were all gone. I walked through the park and there was nothing scurrying around. There were no scuffling leaves. The dogs didn't even beg their owners to unleash them, since they'd realized there was nothing worth chasing out there.

I guess all the squirrels must have decided it's time to pack away for the year. They must know something we don't.

This summer was so long and so hell hot - for me at least - that I can't fathom that this same place where I laid in puddles of my sweat for four months will be frozen over for the next five. I'm not mentally prepared for winter and snow and ice.

But the squirrels are and I guess I'm going to heed their advice.

I'll let you know how long it is until we are covered in snow.

Deerhunter in the taillights

I checked out a Deerhunter show about a month back with Patch and some buds and never got a chance to write about it. Days and time have been spinning past me like a warp-speed carousel, so there isn't too much I can recall, other than Bradford Cox was a sound alchemist with his pedals and self-recorded harmonies. He hit you like a wall. What else? The bassist looked like he was actively trying to get fired from his job. He showed no emotion. Nothing. It got to the point where my buddy the Lazer couldn't enjoy the show. He wanted to go up and punch the guy because he was consciously trying to look so indifferent.

Anything else? Oh yeah, we were standing outside the venue - La Tulipe - after the show. A couple of us were leaning on a van and then all we hear is "fuh dump-duh" and the van shakes a bit. We didn't think anything of it until Patch comes round to tell us that some guy got hit by a van. I walked around the van we were standing by and, sure enough, there was a guy (or girl, I couldn't see) under a coat and a blanket with people telling him (or her) to stay calm and relax. Shit. It was bad. Or it seemed bad. My immediate reaction was the person was dead, because, from what I saw, their face was covered with a blanket. From movies, I assumed that meant they were dead. There was a huge dent in van that had hit the person.

We were all a little shocked.

If anyone knows what happened to that person, please leave a comment.

Either way, great show, but the crowd was a little dead, probably because the bassist sucked the life out of them. (He also fucked up the bass line in 'Nothing Ever Happened.') We went to la Banquise for poutine afterwards, marking the third time me and Patch consumed the stuff in less than 20 hours.

life in a nutshell

I'm nearly all moved in and life is nearly back to normal. Nearly. The fridge is still lazy - it keeps its contents a little cooler than lukewarm. The oven is still odd - if you turn the stove up too high, the top, broil element comes on. And the place still smells... odd. But I'm cleaning furiously like Howard Hughes is about to move in, the heating, electricity and internet accounts are all changed over and the overall home is starting to take shape.

My folks are coming in tonight though, so the sleeping situation is a little shady. I've got a borrowed air mattress in my room, which I lay upon in a sleeping bag with a broken zipper. The stress is palatable. My ex-roommate said she would lend me a mattress while my parents were here, so I grabbed a hockey bag that I figured would hold it and set down to the old apartment.

The walk took longer than I thought. About 25 minutes or so. I walked into the apartment too stressed and too time-pressed to really feel nostalgic. I helped take a gigantic TV to the curb and then set about rolling the malleable mattress up to shove into the bag. As I found, it wasn't going to happen. After about three frustrating tries, I finally was able to stuff one side of the mattress into the corner of the bag. The mattress was about two-feet too wide to fit completely within the bag. I probably would have gotten this before I'd started out, but I was in too much of a hurry. I took the bag straps and Scotch-taped them together before having my one genius idea: I unlooped all the keys off my key-ring and fed each strap through the ring to hold them together.

I kissed my ex-roomy goodbye as people do here and walked down the stairs to unlock my bike, which I'm happy to say was not stolen this summer - probably because it's had a flat tire that I unintentionally neglected to fill.

And I was off, with the most awkward object slung over my right shoulder and a bike with a flat, being guided by my left-hand. I couldn't figure how to transport these two things simultaneously. The road sloped down to Amherst from St. Hubert on Lagauchetiere, so I just hopped on my bike and took the three blocks, trying not to ram into cars. At one point, I dipped to the right and my wheel frame screeched against the pavement. I got off fast and started to walk the bike again.

Now I had to get from Amherst below Rene-Levesque to Gauthier, which is just south of Rachel and east of Papillon. This is about a 25-minute walk, uphill. I was afraid if I was too aggressive with the mattress, it would fall out of the bag and make it impossible to carry. I couldn't turn back because my ex-roommate had set off for work. So there I was, stuck on Amherst outside the CBC with no idea what to do.

I tried to balance the mattress on the bike seat. No dice. It kept falling off. I tried to jam the mattress through the frame of the bike. Not happening. It wouldn't fit. I heaved it up on my shoulder, but it was fucking up the pinky I broke five years ago on my right hand and it felt super uncomfortable. I dropped it down and stood there, open to inspiration.

I imagined what I looked like to the people who drove by. I could picture people in their homes, watching me out their windows with a cup of tea, entertained by this guy who just couldn't figure out how to carry this stupendously clunky mattress in a hockey bag. They probably watched me like a scientist does an agitated animal test-subject trying figure out how to get food out of some jimmy-rigged experiment.

I tossed the bag over my back again. Whichever way I chose to grab the bag by the straps though, the mattress portion would hang lower and I'd fret that it would slip from the bag.

By this time, the old blue mattress had accumulated some dead grass and leaves. I was sweating with the effort and a little uncomfortable by the predicament I'd allowed myself to get in. People walked by me and looked at me with a bit of a chuckle, as they watched me struggle with my situation.

I'd basically become the human equivalent of a three-legged dog.

Finally, magically, I discovered another strap on the bottom of the bag, which was there perhaps to let the bag's owner hang it up from the top after a hockey game or something. I fit my hands between the four-inch strap and whipped the bag onto my back and slowly made my way home.

I'd have to stop every few minutes to catch my breath and massage some blood back into my fingers. On the second occasion, with the way that people were looking at me or crossing the street before they had to pass me, I got the impression that people thought I was homeless. (You should all know that I'm not the... um... sharpest dresser.) They probably had every right, too: I was standing with a dirty mattress covered in dead leaves, stuff in an old hockey while a bike with a flat tire leaned on my leg.

Self-consciously, I took out my iPod and made a show of myself searching for a song - even though the battery was dead. I put the headphones into my ears and set back off and I didn't stop once until I got home... where I bumped into the old lady 'concierge,' who said the landlord would probably replace my fridge.

VICTORY!!!

P.S. Underrated cool thing about Montreal: A lot of the womens' bathrooms are identified with the word 'Dames.' I know it's French for ladies, but still, I always imagine it's 'dames' the way Capone probably said it in Chicago back in the day.