As it was in the begining...

Today I came to a huge personal revelation.When I left the sleepy hills to move to Montreal,I really didn't have a clear idea why I was doing it.Sure ,I wanted to be rescued from small town boredom by big city life.I could have found that anywhere.There were alot of people I knew living in Montreal.Good mates,and some became good freinds,but as they fell away and moved on,I remained.There was something I had to find here,something I was searching for.It wasn't a conscious thing,more of an peripheral itch.
I don't want to come across as if I have not enjoyed my 18 years here in Quebec.I've met a beautiful woman and been with her for 16 years.I have a good job which i find very gratifying.I've moved through several cliques of freinds and never had a problem being sociable,with french or english,hippie or tough.I love living here.I could just never figure out why.
For the past few weeks ivé been aboard the daunting task of filling up my 30 GB IPod.There is this old hold over mentality from mixed tapes and cdr's that you will always run out of space before you can finish your musical train of thought.No More.With 7000+ songs to play with all the essentials barely covered 3 gigs,then I started filling in album gaps,stuff that looks good if other people pick up your IPod,"Yeah,well,the thing about John Coltrane is...".What bullshit.Then you get to the point where you start to pick around for the quirky,dirty little secret stuff.I know Wall of Voodoo had more than one single,but monkey me if I can remember it.Alot of the mid to late eighties stuff I wanted I found on P2P sites.But some stuff I couldn't.I started making a list of things I felt I was missing and every day I would search the same nine or ten entries.From searching the list over and over I came to a realization.All of the artists on my list were Canadian.Most of them were from Montreal.
Thats when it hit me.Why I came here,what this music had in common.Brave New Waves.Starting in '84 or so,I started listening to the nations overnight radio show on CBC.Right away I fell into this show and its spirit.This was something that was not commercial,not censored,and aimed at that 15 % nerd share of the 15 to 35 year old demographic pie.If you wore something that identified you as different(skateboard,sketchpad,mohawk,camera etc.)you were tuning into the show.I would get home from school,do my homework and take a nap after supper so I could stay up til 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning.Then I would pop in a cassette to tape the next 45 minutes and listen to it on the bus on the way to school the next morning.
The host,Brent Bambury,was from my hometown and had one of those calming,hypnotic CBC voices.Once every couple of years he would come home and a beach BBQ would be organized.BNW fans were unique because they had a much wider social web than anyone else in high schools.Instead of the University radio format of a 2 hour block of punk,then 1 hour of hiphop,2hours of industrial etc,the genre was flipping almost as fast as genres were being invented in the 80's.If I was small town and wanted to hear some new Black Flag,I had to listen through Skinny Puppy and Joy division to get it.And I got it.I got it all.
What really stood out was the fact that while broadcast from Montreal,Brent,Ava Rave,KevinKamoda managed to highlight local acts as often as possible.but it wasn't just the music.It was the stories ..."As I was walking in to work tonight,..."or .."They'll be at Station 10 tommorow night.."There were weekend overnight shows as well called Nightlines,fron Winnepeg and later from Vancouver.Didn't have the same feel at all.
For me Montreal wasnt a music scene,it was a music family.Every artist spent as much time plugging other local bands as they did flogging their own product.Álmost as if all the bands in Montreal all lived in a big block apartment together that bled art and dripped party.
So now that I know what brought me here,the real search is about to begin.Scouring the Internet for whispers of S.c.u.m.,Genetic Control,the Asexuals,Three Oclock Train,Jerry Jerry,My Dog Popper,the Doughboys(at right) ,the Nils,Deja Voodoo(seen above),the Gruesomes,Ray Condo ...and many others.Those are just the ones that were already gone by the time I got here.
So now I have a new mission-to build a angloMontreal music archive of stuff from the 80s.It would have been so easy for these people to go and try to make it in T.O.But they stayed.And others came.By 1990-91 Montreal almost blew up.Seattle had better coffee and more overdoses.But it didn't have history.Or a voice in the night.

Carnavale Will Never Be The Same.

This year was a historic year for Canada and Quebec.First the flood of same sex partners arriving to celebrate their nuptuals from all over the globe.Then the enthusiasm with which Montreal welcomed gays and lesbians from dozens of countries for the Gay Games last summer.The citizens of La Belle Provence behaved themselves very well. There were no major demonstrations,no beatings in the streets.Everything went flawlessly.

Then the bomb dropped.First it was whispered rumors around the watercooler.Then grumblings along the bar and in the corners of brasseries and taverns.Finally the story broke in Allo Police.Bonhomme,the cultural icon ,the cornerstone of the Quebec tourist industry,was outed.

Who could have known.All those years waving and wearing a rainbow colored belt.At first,there was disappointment.Then outrage .The pictures that circulated silenced any doubters.There he was,larger than life,rolling aroung in the snow with gangs of half naked men.What would they tell their children?Would the carnavale still go on?Of course it would.But without its famous face.

He understood.And it wouldn't be hard to find other work.Afterall,you can't keep a good man down(get it?good man/bonhomme?).The best thing to do was get back on the horse.He's been doing the rounds on the festival circuit(Sundance,TIFF,the Barrie Butternut Squash Festival).No takers so far,but its better than doing commercials.He just needs to find that town that will believe in him.

So,for now,Quebec City has to look for a new mascot to bring the hoards to carnavale each winter.A contest for suggestions is underway,and early favorites include a Pirate,a caribou and Ron Jeremy.I keep trying to suggest an indigenous green frog called the Kebecwa,but everytime I click submit my computer freezes up.Must be a glitch on the website.

The lesson here is that given a few more years,tolerance and acceptance will dance hand and hand,allowing anyone to admit thier sexuality without fear of consequences.Maybe by that time,even Don Cherry will be brave enough to come out of the closet.

Every shadow starts in the light....

....even if you are groping in the dark.Saloo toot mond.Way,say m'way le grow tet karay!Thats right sportsfans.This is the place.Somewhere everyone can come to when they wonder why they left La Belle Province or to shake thier heads at why they've stayed so long.And now that we have been recognized as a nation within a nation(along with Labrador,Cape Breton,Toronto's Tent City,and those sixteen guys in northern Saskatchewan who have stopped wearing clothes...)things are only going to get better.Allow me to be your guide to the things Canadians never really find out about life in La Solitude.
This new Blogger format is soooo much better than MySpace.Three months of posting and commenting there got me three friends:A scientologist,a guy from L.A. who sent me a picture of his lost chihuahua in case I find it(?!!?)and a speed metal band from east Texas called My Truck Goes Fast that want me to tell everyone about their page.I felt so loved.
The first thing I want to talk about is a very sensitive subject in the city right now and for the past few months.All you ex-pats might not know it but owr glorificus mayor Gerald Tremblay has tabled and had passed in city council a motion to rename Park Avenue.Unless something miraculous happens soon many beautiful,diverse ethnic communities will be sharing addresses on Robert Bourassa Avenue.The city says its no big deal.They changed Dorchester to Rene Levesque and there were no problems.Sure.But Rene Levesques is home to office buildings and historical buildings not a thriving neighborhood of family owned businesses and restaurants.Make no mistake,Mr Bourassa was a great polititian and deserves to be remembered.Maybe they could find a better way to honor him though.
I hope anyone who receives this invite passes it on and comments often.A tonto.