Rebel Without A Brain

Not all horses go to pasture ...

griffintown-cartoon
Originally uploaded by Mr. Boggedy.

Mr. Boggedy muses on the future of Griffintown's horses.

The Devimco Wears Prada

The Devimco Wears Prada
Originally uploaded by kinalaya.

The sign to the left? That was my creation, inspired by this report in La Presse.

How to Not Get to Second Base

EXT. CITY STREET. MIDNIGHT.

The first warm evening of Spring. A young man and woman exit a bar and continue talking along the street.

Him: I've read Mein Kampf three times.
Her: (warily) Oh, really.
Him: I've also read the little red book.
Her: You mean Mao's Little Red Book?
Him: No...
Her: The Communist Manifesto?
Him: Yeah. That one. But, I liked Mein Kampf much better.
Her: (stopping) What exactly did you like?
Him: Facism has a lot going for it.
Her: Like what? Authoritarianism. Violent oppression of opposition?
Him: Well...yeah....
Her: I'm crossing to the other side of the street now. If you follow me, I'll scream.

Maybe You Can Fight City Hall

Today was a glorious day. I was forced out of the house before 10:00 a.m., something I rarely do even when I'm working. As I was locking the door, my entire body came to life as I realized that I was surrounded by warmth on all sides of me...even the bits of me that weren't properly covered.

I made my way the Darling Foundry, where the CSRG (Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown) had organized a press conference. One of our fabulous urbanist "advisors" had managed to entice Phyllis Lambert to use this venue to voice her opposition to the City's all-too-hasty approval of the Griffintown project. I had played a small role in planning the conference, and my sole role today was to publish the press release as soon as the conference was over.

Mme Lambert was just what the "movement" needed, as all of us were despairing that we could find any significant opposition to this wacky, tacky project. She referred to the Milton Park opposition movement of the 70s, which managed to forestall the erection of many more "La Cite's"  in the McGill ghetto area. In attendance at the conference were two key players in Montreal's urban renewal movement, Joseph Baker and Lucia Kowaluk. The latter made a personal appeal from the floor of the conference to insist that the project be sent back for proper and thorough analysis. When I queried Mr. Baker as to whether we had a chance of stalling the project, he said, "Of course. We did it before."

After the conference, I walked back along Ottawa street with one of the conference organizers and a McGill Master's student who wants to do his project based on redeveloping Griffintown's Horse Palace. The Horse Palace is one of the last stables in the city, and its structures and layout represent a past that will be permanently erased if this project goes through. Walking into the compound, it was amazing to smell the sweet odour of hay and horse manure and contemplate the skyline of one of North America's most livable citys.

City Hall, you don't seem so big anymore.

Mirror, Mirror

I tend to come to conclusions whilst on road trips. Needless to say, it is unbearably embarrassing that I need to resort to fossil fuels to sort out my thoughts. However, the fact that I must steer the car in a particular direction in order to avoid obstacles is metaphor enough to get the brain juices flowing.

Today, I pointed the car backwards in time. I started in a place that did (not) exist when I was a child. The "Premiere Moisson" on the main street of my home town used to be a Bar Laitier called "Caillette". It had a kick-ass neon sign of a cow on the front and sold the freshest curd cheese. That the vastly expanded building now sells honest-to-goodness-buttery croissant makes it a worthy successor.

Further down the street, the Miss Dorion has seen better days. The pool is closed and the rooms are for rent (one presumes) by the half hour. I remember "Miss Dorion" represented by a neon sign of a freshed-faced waitress ably holding a tray of steaming food.

Opposite Miss Dorion is the "Loyola Schmidt" hardware store. I always wondered who Loyola Schmidt was and how he found himself in Dorion. Of course, this tiny town attracted my family and its weird-ass name, so who am I to question?

The Valdo bowling alley is still there, as is the house where Neil Black, the grade seven hunk lived. M. Sarrazin still runs his small furrier business, but the depanneur beside him (where I bought cigarettes for my sister) is gone. Past the Scott's, the Robitaille's, the Guay's, and there it is: my childhood home.

The blue slate roof, which distinguished it from the other homes on the block, is now black slate. The two maple trees my father planted have been replaced by a single mystery tree. The shed my brother and father built is replaced with an aluminum-clad garage. Everything is smaller, rougher, and meaner. I wonder if I'm somehow smaller, rougher, and meaner, too. After all, what am I looking for except remnants of a "me" that is shorter, smoother, and certainly innocent of most everything I experienced after the age of twelve.

Maybe because the ground is still covered in sooty, crusty snow, or maybe because I'm old and tall enough to now see over a car's steering wheel, I conclude there is nothing here--at least there is nothing at this moment. What restores my equilibrium? The mirror in the bathroom; specifically the mirror in the bathroom of Tim Horton's, a new addition to the main street of my childhood 'hood. The mirrors in any Tim Horton's are invariable. They are all a bit smoky, complementing the fluorescent lighting that tends to the (more flattering) green side. I look fabulous, and today is no exception. Today, in this Tim Horton's bathroom, after finding my past wholly lacking in insight, I look like my cheekbones have been re-chiseled by the gods, my lips have been plumped by some bee-stung cherubs, and my skin has been smoothed by the buffing of the friction of a thousand cumulus clouds.

Truth be told, this is all I need to feel like myself again and steel myself to take on ... whatever you want to toss at me.

Aluminum is People!

With the recent death of Charlton Heston, this branding campaign from Alcoa, in which they exhort that "aluminum is made of people", takes on added resonance.

Alcoa is also clearcutting, the second best polluter in Ontario, and a host of other things.

Take your hands off me, you shiny, creepy corporation!

High Fidelity and the City

Saturday evening was spent cross-pollinating a scene from "Sex and the City" with a sequel to "High Fidelity" (the movie). The evening started with three of my girlfriends and I getting together for dinner. And, yes, we talked about sex and relationships. This topic of conversation is actually a rare occurrence among us, so I feel compelled to remark upon it. Normally, we talk about whether we'd bike or carpool to the revolution, or which lock is better to use when you chain yourself to a bulldozer slated to demolish that darling industrial space in Griffintown.

After a couple of litres of cheap red wine, we headed down to an acquaintance's used record store. It was full of boys. And vinyl. Being in a closed second-hand music shop at 11:00 p.m. is like being in a friend's basement when her older brother is gone. You get to rifle through his music collection (and stash of porn badly hidden between his box spring and mattress). You are overwhelmed by the music selection, but manage to boogie to 10CC ("I don't like reggae! I love it!") and realize that most of Black Sabbath should be played at a much higher speed (only possible on a record player). It was almost primal to browse the selection of LPs, pull a selection gently from its sleeve and admire the (mostly) pristine grooves that magically contain the rattles and hums of the artists.

Girls. Vinyl. Boys. Hum.

One last thought...

...before I succumb to a "hot toddy" stupor.

I want to learn how to play guitar. Operators are standing by.

Three Great Things About Having a Wicked-Ass Cold

1. You sound downright sexy on the phone, with a twinge of pitiful. Sexy and pitiful = someone  offers to do something "nice" for you.
2. You can watch all three Terminator movies in the middle of the afternoon. It doesn't matter that you fall asleep during Sarah Connor's dream sequence; your's is worse (or better, depending on your apocalyptic perspective).
3. All that cheap booze in your cupboard can now be incorporated into hot toddies, which you drink throughout the day to (ahem) soothe your cough and help you get much-needed sleep.

So long, it's been good to know ya'

I used to know a lot of Woody Guthrie songs. Now, I'm lucky if I can hum any of his tunes.

I've gotten all nostalgic-like as I try to divine a way to explain the current divide in global economic thought. How do you make relevant the debate between old-school liberal democrats and neoconservatists (the moniker "neoliberalism" gives them too much credit, AFAIK).

The turning point in the debate between a fettered and unfettered economy was, of course, the Great Depression. In the 1930s, the Great Depressions wasn't solved with prescription drugs, one-on-one therapy, or easy credit, but with government intervention. If you were Canadian or American, the cure (apart from the war) was okay. If you were German-- especially if you were gay, militant, or Jewish--was beyond the exact opposite of okay. Well beyond. It was, un-fucking-not-"okay".

There are two books that have made me cry in my lifetime. The first was Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath", the great American novel of the Depression. In the final scene, Tom Joad's sister, who has just lost her baby, gives her mother's milk to a starving man. This is an unfathomable event, both in fiction and reality, which is why it resonates so strongly. "Of course," you say to yourself as you close the book. Of course, we'll do what we can to nourish our fellow (wo)man. The other book is an even vaguer memory of Ted Allen's closing chapter of his biography of Norman Bethune "The Scalpel and the Sword". As far as I remember , the last chapter recounted his final hours, and I wept like the 17 year-old that I was when I read the depiction of his death and the sorrow of those around him.

I can't explain why I value this kind of heroism, except that it is seemingly brave and selfless.  How do I convey this to an audience whose memory may not go beyond 1985 (if I'm lucky)? How do I instill the belief in "man's humanity to man"?

I. am. (again). fucked.