MontrealMontreal

How to Drive a Car Cooler Than You

2011-01-23T17:18:00.003-05:00

So, there is this 2011 Inferno Orange Camaro SS sitting outside the house, almost rumbling as it sits still, daring me to turn the key again. In only 36 hours, certain realizations have occurred to me, as in "Dude, this car is so much cooler than you.
How you gonna act?"

So, in no particular order are some of the things I've learned, should anyone out there be considering this beautiful and dangerous ride:

• The car actually rumbles. It vibrates when you're sitting at the light. Don't be ascared. It's actually pretty cool.

• No big drag strip starts, cowboy (More on that later). It's a six-speed V8, the most powerful car you've ever driven. Don't take the chance that you're gonna stall it in an intersection. And you will.

• There is a certain studied (but not studied) insouciance that you must maintain. When you park it and walk away, don't point the remote at it. Look forward, keep walking and just click it. The car's not going anywhere, and everyone saw you get out of it, anyway.

• You already attract attention. Don't act the fool. No "Displays of Speed," as the law calls it. Seriously.

• Every girl at every drive-thru window will coo, and say, "Nice car!" Just smile, say "thanks." Don't rev it when you drive out. You've already made the impression.

• If you really need to prove a point, like to that 22 year-old in a 2003 Prelude who keeps mad-dogging you, here's the deal: DON"T look at him. Get yourself to the top of the next light. Eyes forward. This is a drag strip start, but you don't know when the light will go green. Rev it a little, be ready. Never look at him. Don't acknowledge him at all. Glance at the radio, glance at the light. When the light turns, STAND on it. Be careful. You will either vanish from his view in a burst of engine, smoke and rubber, or you will stall. If it's the former, you will shock the hell out of him. If it's the latter, there is no place to hide. So, you might want to practice this move beforehand.

• Don't arrive anywhere with the windows rolled down and the stereo blasting. That was cool when you were 20, but.... You can crank it up to 11, but keep the windows closed. They'll hear you (and see you) coming, anyway.

• Use the parking valet.

• Everyone is watching. Don't pick your nose, don't wear a t-shirt from Opening Day at LegoLand. And change those sunglasses.

How you gonna act?

Another late Christmas Card...

2010-12-29T14:19:00.001-05:00

Oh man! I forgot to post this. But I didn't forget You.

A lil Christmas Card...

2010-11-30T00:34:00.002-05:00

Shiny Cars!

2010-11-19T13:59:00.001-05:00

It's Press Day at the LA Auto Show, and you are so there.

Got a Good Reason

2010-10-10T22:09:00.001-04:00

From the other day. Im pretty sure my band in high school was better than this one (No, not you, Dave), but it's the spirit of the thing, you know? (If you-know-who can re-invent himself as a 75 year-old black bluesman from the South Side of Chicago, I can do this. ;-) )

Rock on, so to speak.

Just a Guy on the Street

2010-10-07T18:22:00.002-04:00

I took that band to this year's Eagle Rock Music Festival, too many miles away from your place. It bears repeating that you should have been there with me.

My Tumultuous Advertising Career

2010-09-06T19:37:00.001-04:00

Cable Cars and Coffee

2010-08-16T12:01:00.000-04:00

So this is how it goes, I think. You struggle into work, bleary-eyed and nothing but a full day of work staring you hard in the face. You check your e-mail accordingly ("No thanks," "Not him/her again!," "I'm saving that one...."), and then you think, "What's that GuyinTheWorld guy up to?" Well, maybe you don't, but now you have.

You sip your coffee, you go somewhere, and then you're back at work. Just like that.

Last week, Paris. This week, you're standing, precariously clinging to the rail of a San Francisco cable on the Powell/Market line through the city to Fisherman's Wharf, and you're thinking, "That just saved me five bucks." Actually, you're thinking, "I'd so rather be there. With that guy."

Enjoy your coffee, astronauts.

Where Have I Been? Um, Right Here and There, Mostly Here

2010-06-23T01:15:00.001-04:00

Yes, Astronauts, It's been a little while. Um, I moved-ish. I got a new job. I went here. I went there. I took my guitar and some friends to Laguna Beach, and it looked and sounded like this...

Stairway to San Jacinto

2010-02-28T22:28:00.002-05:00

Continuing the Itty Bitty Adventure Collection©. I shot this just after returning from Europe in November. I only just put it together. It's the aerial tramway in Palm Springs, California. Now, I can't go EVERYWHERE for you, you gotta leave your house sometime, okay? Or maybe you don't.

An Afternoon in Idyllwild

2010-02-27T17:20:00.003-05:00

A quick trip to one of the top 100 art towns in America. Trees, some snow, crab enchiladas, and um, more trees. And some snow on the way.

A Neighborhood Like Mine

2010-02-22T21:18:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it's just about the way the light falls. It was such a stupidly beautiful day today, I grabbed my camera, got on the train, and went from just about here to just about there.

And now, while you're taking a break from all that slacking off: For our Los Angeles visitors, can you name every location in the video? First prize: Nothing. Second prize: Half of nothing. To go. With ice.

In Spain! In Spain!

2010-02-17T19:25:00.001-05:00

Hi Astronauts!
I'm just trying to catch up, sorry. Let's visit Spain today, shall we? North from Madrid to Santo Domingo de Silos, then off to visit the cathedral at Burgos. Enjoy! There won't be a quiz.

Lyon, France Day 4 Summer 2009

2010-01-29T07:44:00.001-05:00

Here's a day and evening in beautiful Lyon, France. A 'mini-Paris, it's modernity and tradition in one idyllic spot. My XShot attracted attention every where I went.

From There to Here

2010-01-25T04:55:00.000-05:00

In the space of only a few short months, my whole world turned upside down. But I'm back now. I'll be traveling throughout February. Look for me. Ill look for you.

In Pesaro, Italy.....

2009-10-13T10:45:00.001-04:00

This is out of order, but....Im trying to post whatever I can. This is from late August/Early September.

Charlie Yelverton, one of the best players to ever emerge from the legendary New York City street basketball scene of the ‘late 60s and early ’70s, a gleaming star in a select galaxy, was hanging around the bench as the Portland Trail Blazers got ready to face the Phoenix Suns on their home court.
Charlie was 25, a former high school All-American, and leader of the city Catholic school championship team at Ignatius Edmund Rice. At Fordham University, he had been All-American, all-everything, and in his senior year, had led the team to victory over the feared Austin Carr and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. (Carr had just scorched UCLA—the nation’s number one team at that time—for 61 points and that team’s only loss that year.)
He was selected early in the 1970 draft and was looking forward to a long pro basketball career. A jazz aficionado, Charlie bought his saxophone with a new hundred-dollar bill wrapped around a little glob of hashish, from former Power Memorial High School center Lew Alcindor—the man who would become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It was that kind of life.
The Trailblazers began their warm-ups, slowly, maybe halfheartedly.
They had no real stars and no real hope. It was a mid-season game, and their season had already fizzled fast. Sure, they gave the LA Lakers a scare at the Forum in Inglewood, but the Lakers were on their way to a world championship that year. The Trailblazers, metaphorically speaking, were stopping for milk and Ding-Dongs© on their way home on a rainy night, with the team bus’ failing alternator sporadically dimming the headlights, and the cheap radio sifting through the airwaves searching for a signal.
At Portland, Willie McCarter had been cut from the team a few days before, and maybe he deserved it, but the black players on the team were having none of it, though they couldn’t really agree on what kind of action to take. Charlie left a black players’ meeting that afternoon in frustration.
This was 1972, and thousands of young American men—boys, really—were dying in a crappy little strip of sweltering rice paddy called Viet Nam, a place few had ever heard of, and none could locate on a map with two hands. The protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics by John Carlos and Tommy Smith was still a fresh wound to the American sports establishment’s psyche.
Charlie wasn’t high that night in Portland, though he’d tripped on mescaline the day before. During warmups, instead of joining the two-man shooting drills, he wandered over near the center court line, sat down and assumed a yoga position. Center Dale Schleuter, a man who had no business playing in the National Basketball Association, jumped on his case from go.
“Charlie, come on, man. What are you doing? Let’s go....get your partner, shooting drills, come on!” Idiotic shit like that. You could expect that kind of behavior from a suck-up like Dale.
“I don’t have a partner,” Charlie said. McCarter had been his drill partner.
Charlie went back to the bench and waited for the game to start. He was looking forward to a little more game action that he’d been getting recently, anyway.
The National Anthem began. The players rose. The audience rose. Charlie stood, and then he just sat back down.
Most of the audience couldn’t really see him sitting down there at the end of that long bench. All across the nation, a lot of Americans in Charlie’s demographic were sitting down for the Anthem. For many of them, it would be quite a number of years before they would stand again. But not in the NBA.
Few players actually noticed what Charlie had done. But right around “And the rocket’s red glare...,” some fans noticed Charlie sitting down. Just sitting there.
And they started to boo. They booed until the song was over. Charlie didn’t really react.
When the coach put him in in the second quarter, the boo-birds started up again. Charlie took a pass just to the right of the key, feigned left, went right, drove past his man like back in high school, double-clutched, and banked in a shot so sweet it would make you and your stupid friends cry, and the fans roared.
Typically fickle motherfuckers, Charlie thought.
The next day his story was in the Portland Oregonian. The Blazers cut him like Willie a few days later.

In 1982, Teresa Fiorentini, an intense young blonde medical student, was in her last year at Bologna University, studying medicine. Charlie, now a former player for the famed Italian Varése team, was in Bologna working a youth basketball camp, and playing jazz here and there.
Teresa and her friend Leonora, an ancient lit major, would cruise the streets of Bologna, dressed in black, dark and cool and mysterious, but that was a liter of milk under Teresa’s arm.
One night, they stood off to themselves, waiting for a table to open up at a jammed local club. John Fultz, a Bologna basketball player, and his buddy Mark, a fellow free spirit with a flowing ponytail, waved them over. They had a bottle of tequila, nowhere to go, and all night to get there. At some point during the long night, John said, “You should meet my friend Charlie.”
Charlie and Teresa met a few summers later, and became fast friends. For the next four years, they would meet whenever Charlie came south for camp. They traveled some, they stayed in some, they met each other’s friends, and the years went by.
Charlie married, had two kids—a boy and a girl—got a divorce and began a life of jazz and basketball—teaching and coaching during the day, and playing his saxophone on the weekends. Teresa moved to New York City, got a punk rock haircut, and took a job at New York Hospital in the department of Internal Medicine. From there she moved to England, to Exeter near London, where she met her husband and eventually became a doctor for Her Majesty’s Prison Service.
One day three years ago, Lorenzo, a friend of Teresa’s, mentioned that he had seen Charlie again, up north in Varese. Back then, Teresa was still living with her husband Clive in England, but by this year, she had bought a hilltop villa in her home town of Pesaro, and was moving back to Italy.
Charlie called Teresa’s sister at her home in Pesaro last fall. Maybe that was safer. Teresa’s sister called her in Exeter. Teresa called Charlie in April.
Fall became winter and winter became spring and spring became summer. Charlie was headed south for something called “Jazz Basket” in Umbria in July.
Teresa would move into her new house in August.
Francesco, the bass player in Caris’ band, called Caris.
“I’m playing a jam session at the Jazz Hotel on Tuesday. Come see the show. We’re playing with some guy who played with the Harlem Globetrotters.”
We motored down the hill to the Jazz Hotel—yes, it’s really called that—and there was Charlie on sax, with a bunch of young Italian jazz guys.
Three hours later, Charley, Caris and I were negotiating the long flights of stairs up to the center of the hilltop medieval town of Perugia, where the yearly Umbria Jazz Festival was in full swing.
We sat in a friend’s restaurant and Charlie was gregarious, open and ebullient, sharing tales of his short life in the NBA, as though we were longtime friends
“Walt Frazier (’70s icon of cool) was gay,” he said. A lot of the guys were.” We laughed in shock. (Later, Caris showed me Frazier’s book, “Rockin’ Steady: A Guide to Cool” or something like that. I mean, if the guy’s gay, no problem, but I seem to recall that there was a section in the book about getting with the ladies, if you know what I mean. Even today, Frazier does commercials for a men’s hair coloring product, the message of which is “This will get you the ladies, fellas.”)
Much later that night, we drove Charlie back to his hotel.
“This was great. Man, I wish I had a doobie for you guys!” That’s OK, Charlie.
Some two weeks later, Charlie was on the phone. He was coming south to play a fundraiser at a friend’s place in Pesaro. Could we all get together and play there?
Charlie came to Caris’ place, and we rehearsed two or three times. Sort of.
We followed E45 north and turned east on S243 to Pesaro, a small coastal town between Rimini to the north and Ancona to the south, directly across the Adriatic Sea from Slovenia and Croatia.
Teresa met us at the station in her red Alfa-Romeo Spider convertible, and we followed her and Charlie on the long climb up Santa Marina Alta to the top of the “Panoramica,” high above the port of Pesaro.
Sunday evening, the night after the party, Caris, Teresa and I were walking back home from dinner and Teresa mentioned how nervous she was about living alone in the villa. There were two empty and separate apartments on the property...and....
Caris drove back home to Collemincio on Tuesday. A few days after that, Teresa and I were planning meetings for a book about her life in medicine.
And that, gentle readers, is how I came to be sitting here in Pesaro, behind the walled gates of a beautiful villa with fruit trees and five rescued cats.
I’ll be in Spain for a while this fall. I may be in England. But Pesaro, Italy is home this morning.

Rhone Valley

2009-10-13T10:43:00.001-04:00

Scenery so beautiful you have to pee. Or something. Let's get you guys caught up a little bit.

How it is

2009-08-23T15:24:00.001-04:00

EVerything is out of order, since my internet availability is limited. I have more entries ready to post, and more videos as well. but they are subject to finding a place with an Internet signal somewhere in the hill towns of Central Italy. Where is a McDonald's when you need one?

This then, is the daily pattern that life in Collemincio has become, by convenience and by necessity. Isolated in the hills, without convenient communication (Caris is leashed to the world by his mobile phone), I only recently discovered a friendly and comfortable cafe to bring forth the sacred Internet.
So, each day, Caris and I both seem to emerge from sleep in the same post-noon hour. (I could be kidding myself, though. As I make toast and heat water in the electric kettle, he makes his appearance. Fully awake and dressed, he says, “Good morning,” and we accept my foolish conceit.)
Arise, awaken, shoo flies from the dining table, eat, shower in less than a blink. dress and load the car for the 30-minute drive down through the hilly countryside to Assisi. Green hills dotted with olive trees move slowly past us as the narrow road unwinds.
I’ll sit in the Internet cafe. Caris will strum his guitar and sing in the Piazza Santa Chiara.
After 17 years, beautiful Assisi now seems tiresome to Caris, like a faded lover. I have no interest in history, he explained to me one night as he pointed his blue BMW sedan to the top of the mountain back home. But its history that bade him here: St. Francis, a catholic saint who attracted the non-catholic.
And that’s quite another story, with no great arc, so let’s move forward.
I park myself at the terrace cafe in Piazza San Ruffino in mid-afternoon, as the west coast of America is just waking. My sturdy Macbook will give me two, maybe three hours, of battery time (There are few outlets here. This isn’t Starbucks.), but the growing list of things to accomplish each day stands tall as I whittle away at it; a conversation there, an e-mail here, an assignment there.
From my perch overlooking the plaza, my back against the stone wall of the cafe, I wave away the endless cigarette smoke and watch a stream of tourists huddle and take countless photographs in the Piazza San Ruffino, a basilica of simple design two sloping stone paths up from the Piazza Santa Chiara (St. Claire) where visitors and locals gather each evening to watch the sun descend somewhere in the vicinity of Rome. Some of St. Francis’ remains were buried in the church there where the body of St. Claire still remains on view. His remains were later moved to the “new” cathedral in town, around the corner from McDonald’s
Caris opens his guitar case, displaying his CDs for sale, He strums a G, then maybe a version of C, an E minor, a D, and songs emerge, a stream of them, as he plays a repeating chord pattern. Not whole songs necessarily, or very often. Just whatever lyrics, melody or couplets come to mind. Not thematic, just stream of consciousness. Simon and Garfunkel’s “America” begets “Homeward Bound” begets “Who’ll Stop the Rain” begets “Slip Sliding Away,” and you now have the idea. What holds the tunes together is his strong voice and a simple subtle passion for making music.
These days 30-ish women approach him and tell him they remember him singing there when they were little girls. That can’t be good.
This week there’s been talk of a new album, new songs, all of that attendant energy. That can’t be bad.
(Reading this, Caris offers, “I’ll marry the first one of your female readers who brings me toll house cookies.” I’m left wondering what second prize is. www.myspace.com/carisarkin. You’re on your own.)
Sitting in my conning tower at the terrace cafe, I’m surrounded by smokers, talkers and tourists. German tourists going on and on and on and on in their dark, guttural language, the English with their maps and tour books, and Italians with their cigarettes.
As darkness falls, the piazzas, both large and small, take on a new energy. Families stroll and young boys on bicycles sweep across the piazza always thisclose to an accident, but never colliding with anyone or anything. Bars (we call them restaurants) sell gelato (ice cream) as fast as they can scoop it Franciscan monks walk away, in full habit, happily holding cups of gelato, chatting up friends and tourists. We’ll get to them in a minute.
The tiniest cars I’ve ever seen whiz up and down the narrow medieval streets. Much of the medieval part of Assisi was severely damaged in the earthquake of 1997, and has been rebuilt to much of the original design and specifications. As in most European plazas, buildings are lit upward, highlighting their dramatic stance, something American landscapers and builders never seemed to get the hang of.
Tourist shops sell the usual postcards, cheap Franciscan monk bobblehead dolls, and full suits of armor. How does anyone get those things through airport security?
I need to stop here for now.
Next time, what is the deal with those monks, anyway? Plus, more video, Charlie Yelverton, and busking in gas station.s

Da Capo...

2009-08-11T13:06:00.003-04:00

So....lets get updated-ish here. I have not had any Internet for quite a few days, so, let's do this: This is the first actual video from my trip to France, and it covers the first day--LA to Paris and on to Lyon. I'll post more videos and stories soon enough. There are quite a number of them yet.

Adventures in Vaughantown

2009-08-01T10:45:00.003-04:00

This is the first in a series of videos from my week in Vaughtown, Salamanca, Spain. Two of my cameras have broken on this trip, an Im using my macbook as my video camera. Anyway, this is the first--singing at the first evening of entertainment for the Spanish students. To skip a long explanation, visit www.vaughantown.com

As you know, I've been traveling for the last month, and I have a LOT of things to update here; lots of stories to finish, new stories to tell you, and lots of new videos to show you. I'll be parked in Italy for a month, and I'll start updating again, as soon as I can.( I'm not sure if Italy is aware of the Internets. We shall see.)

Actually Singing...

2009-06-09T03:25:00.003-04:00

My friend Jimmy Semple, from Glasgow, and I, the other night, at the Hilton in Huntington Beach. Actually, I think I mentioned him here once before, in a blog entry called, "No Sleep Till Sherbrooke." Anyway, it's ragged, but hey, it's been four years.

I realized that after writing so much about singing and playing, blah blah blah, I had not done something like this here in a while. So enjoy, I hope, maybe....

(Psst! Im going to Europe in July. Watch this space, he said again......)

The Lost Video!

2009-05-30T21:49:00.002-04:00

I "found" this video somewhere on a gallery far far away. I think it's a video I made last fall after returning from my first trip to Madrid last July. I thought it was lost forever when my hard drive crashed in October of 2008. Apparently, it lives! I won't bore you with the technical explanation of how it was resurrected. I will simply say, "Did you ever see this?"

The LA Marathon...

2009-05-27T05:12:00.001-04:00

There we were. 8 a.m. Waking up the entire neighborhood on a cloudy Monday morning.

Something Completely Different......

2009-04-27T16:19:00.001-04:00

It's a cooking contest, guys! Quick! Go vote!

http://www.cooking-hits.com/main.jsp?recipeId=190

Take me out to the You-Know-What

2009-04-20T15:07:00.009-04:00

This is a little sportswriter-ish. Sorry:

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA—It’s my favorite spot in the city. The downtown skyline looms over my shoulder and the upper level entrance to Dodger Stadium beckons. It’s a view I never tire of. It’s a Friday evening in the Dodger’s first home stand against the Colorado Rockies. Riding a five-game home streak, the Dodgers’ new season evokes memories of games permanently affixed in the hearts of fans. You know them all, and I won’t replay them here for you.

But entering the field as Colorado takes its batting practice, I spot one-time megastar turned TV color analyst Fernando Valenzuela, leaning against a dugout railing. I reminded him of our first interview, way back in the 1981 season, his second with the team, in the year the Dodgers won the World Series. He spoke no English. I spoke no Spanish. It went about as well as you can imagine.

After I stumbled through a “no speak English” interview with his parents in a tiny village in Sonora, Mexico, the story, for Newsweek’s Inside Sports, appeared on newstands all over America, with no inkling that I was linguistically challlenged. As I laughingly reminded him of the story—in the same dugout where I’d stammered through that interview—He looked up at me, and asked dryly, “And what’s your point?” Gee, he speaks English so well now. Cue the embarassing music. But I digress.

Every Dodger visit is like walking through a living scrapbook. There’s former manager Tommy Lasorda (two world championships, four National League titles, and eight division banners) cutting up with friends in a hallway. Dodger legend Don Newcombe chats with players near the batting cage. Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully passes me in the hallway, nods hello. (I once stood next to him in the press box restroom. That was surreal.) Former players hang out in the press dining room. It’s a baseball fan’s little nirvana.

The Dodger press dining room, I recall, used to be filled with overweight sportswriters, since food is served non-stop throughout the game, but not so much anymore. Tonight the most popular item is the salad. Who knew? (No, the press doesn’t eat for free. Dinner is $9, up from $7 last year.)

Nirvana aside, the Dodgers, led by manager Joe Torres, are out to expand upon last year, when they finally managed to win a game they had to win, the first in more than twenty years. They swept the Chicago Cubs in three games, then were treated like punks by the eventual world champion Philadelphia Phillies, who thumped them four games to one.

The 2008 Dodgers had two new faces who instantly made an impact on the team’s fortunes—stellar manager Joe Torre, he of the hated New York Yankees, and slugger Manny Ramirez, he of the dreadlocks and the deadly bat. Torre took the Dodgers to their first playoff appearance in eons, his thirteenth in a row. Manny was, well, Manny. In two months, he led baseball with a .396 batting average, and a .489 on-base percentage, along with a .743 slugging percentage. He hit four home runs in his first six days, the first Dodger to ever do so. He and newly acquired Casey Blake banged out 27 homers in the last five weeks of the season, and the Dodgers are reasonably expecting more of the same in 2009.

Visiting the 45 year-old Dodger Stadium for the first time in a couple of seasons, the physical improvements, begun in 2007, are readily apparent. The field level concourse was renovated following the 2007 season, as the Dodgers revamped the field level concourse, increasing the number of concession stands and restrooms, and adding two Baseline Clubs for baseline season ticket holders.

This year the Dodgers will also stage fireworks (that I can see from my house) after every Friday night home game. (That makes 14 of them through September. FYI, that Dodger Trolley Friday night shuttle service that was so popular last year, providing a slow but convenient ride from Union Station to the Stadium, is no more. It was supported by LA and the MTA last year without participation from the Dodgers. who have once again opted not to pay for it. Write your councilman.)

On to the game itself: LA’s five-game hot streak is in trouble immediately after a first inning two-run shot by Colorado’s Brad Hawpe puts them ahead. All is silent upstairs in the Dodger press box, but not because the Dodger are losing. Cheering, or any favoritism, is not allowed, and can get you removed.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Dodgers got four runs in the bottom of the seventh—including a single by Manny— to defeat the Rockies and extend their win streak to six games. Later, Dodger tough guy Jonathan Broxton eased out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the eighth with the game at 4-3, and finished the game to record a five-out save. Of his four saves, it’s his first of more than one inning.

The Dodgers have high hopes this season, though few experts are expecting them to vie for any titles. But maybe the future was foretold on this season’s first afternoon home game. Dodger newcomer and switchhitter Orlando Hudson “hit for the cycle” in his first four at-bats. He opened with a single, then banged out a home run, then a double; then a triple, against the Giants, who were clobbered by the Dodgers, 11-1. Both the cycle and the big win were a surprise for Dodger fans, since the Dodgers have never really been stellar on Opening Day.

As Hudson told an MLB reporter, “Please don’t expect this every game. This is a hard enough game as it is.”

But therein lies the beauty of every new season. We are filled with hope and short memories. Like children, we believe in everything good, and see blue skies ahead. Yes, that would be Dodger Blue.

Hope springs eternal. And sorry about the Habs.

Matter of the Heart

2009-04-13T05:15:00.000-04:00

This is just the video. Im still working on the story......

Avalon Days

2009-03-25T16:47:00.001-04:00

Today, dear viewers, we visit the enchanting town of Avalon, on Catalina Island, just 26 miles off the Southern California coast. The X Shot was perfect for the beautiful background views, and all that golf cart maneuvering I did while reporting. Don't try this at home, or your car, office, or boat.

Next week: Madrid, Spain!

From Another Island....

2009-03-03T19:49:00.001-05:00

A Simian Response

2009-02-25T16:52:00.003-05:00

Monkeys, monkeys who need monkeys, are the luckiest monkeys in the world....

An Update from California

2009-02-24T01:27:00.003-05:00

Im obviously doing everything to keep from typing. But there is much to do here on Mosher Avenue. I'll have lots more to say here, and arent you sick of reading that? ;-)

Keeping in Touch-ish

2009-02-13T21:30:00.006-05:00

Okay, my Montreal friends, (and some local friends) might not find this very compelling. But I am trying to stay connected even as life takes over, and my blog entries become less frequent. Not that I'm not thinking of all of you, though, because I am. My work on the Montreal book continues apace—the problem is production-related, not literary.

This is a video I put together for some friends of mine here in LA. I've known some of them since I was 17 (!) We all worked together at a summer camp in the wilds of Los Angeles, hundreds of years ago. This was our latest reunion, and I wanted to make a little something special for them. This video was originally posted on YouTube, who promptly removed the audio portion from it, claiming some type of copyright infriingment. Au contraire, but rather than argue, I posted it here for you guys.

So....Im taking a course to be certified to teach English as a second language, planning a trip to Europe in the spring, working on a CD ("Solo Spinout") and writing like a fiend to pay the rent.

You and I are SO up to date now, and yes, of course, I miss you. And you. And you.

"Are we getting a calkulatah?"

2009-01-02T21:25:00.000-05:00

Sorry. It just makes me laugh too *&*^$#! much.

Coming Soon to Amazon.com:

2008-12-24T04:23:00.001-05:00

The Only Christmas Song

2008-12-24T03:45:00.001-05:00

Minutes from Madrid - Chapter 2

2008-10-24T05:46:00.003-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkrUBP5r0zA

For those of you still paying attention, I've been in Madrid a couple times this year, and this is the saga of the second trip. OK, I know I've been slow, Habs fans. I kinda promise to work a little faster-ish.

I hope to be back in Montreal in the Springtime, so wear that little outfit I like, would ya?

Minutes from Madrid-Chapter 1

2008-10-15T23:41:00.006-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfb46DVWuus

Here's how it's gonna be: Having now returned from Madrid with new photos and video, I'll start to tell the story.

The video I shot is high-definition,which means a lot of memory is required to create these videos. So the chapters will be short. You have a far longer attention span than I do, so you'll be just fine. (Yes, I did travel to Geneva in the early '80s to have an attention span implanted, but it didn't take. However, I did manage to have my birthday surgically removed, so....)

That said, here's day one and two.

Brought to you by Degree© deodorant. Used by smart travelers everywhere, but except in Europe, per se.

Move Your Seat Back, Please

2008-10-12T17:16:00.005-04:00

Do you know this guy? I met him on a flight from Paris to Los Angeles two weeks ago."Met" is the wrong word, but is it too much to ask NOT to put your seat back the whole way? Apparently for him it is. My hope is that someone who knows him will let him know his creepy, skull-like countenance is on YouTube. And here.

I get irritated just looking at him again. Kinda.

Ok, more to come soon, Astronauts.

Logistics, Lights and Locks

2008-09-26T11:09:00.006-04:00

MADRID, SPAIN—This is what happens when we place our trust in things dependent—dependent on power, dependent on operating systems, dependent on batteries, dependent on things undependable.

My own faith rested in a slim metal box—my MacBook’s hard drive. Purchased only a year ago, it has now failed three times. The Greatest Invention of the 20th Century, reduced to high-impact polyurethane and titanium, fancy words for plastic and metal.

So I sat at a table three floors above Avenida de Americas with a small notepad and a Pilot Razor pen, wondering how long I would have the concentration to form lines and curves into sentences. I did this until I ran out of patience and my iPod, now un-chargeable, gave up its valiant struggle. (Truman Capote wrote “In Cold Blood” lying on his stomach in bed, scratching away on legal pads. I should complain.)

This is my second trip to Madrid in the space of over a little over two months. I’ve come to explore the possibilities of living and working here, both of which ideas seem to be becoming less and less plausible each passing day. But anything can happen.

First, there is the logistical: Americans cannot legally work in the European Union (England, Italy, Spain, Greece, France, and about twenty others) without papers, and those are hard to acquire. These countries hire from within, so “immigrants” here occupy the same societal level as those in the US. Ironically, at a time when Latino immigrants are targeted and blamed, and pushed out like so many ants at a picnic, I am contemplating working in a country “illegally” as an American.

It probably won’t happen. But the irony resonates still.

Then there is the everyday of living in Europe— more things that begin with “L” this time. Like language, lights and locks.
Language. Why do I gravitate to places where I don’t speak the mother tongue? My struggles with French in Montreal are well-documented (and equally well-mocked). My Spanish improves every day, and I can shop, and say, “Can you replace my hard drive, please?” in Castilian Spanish, so that counts for something, but sometimes it’s like trying to dribble a flat basketball.
I’ve often had discussions with people where they’ll say, “Sure, they speak Spanish in Spain, but it’s not the same Spanish you know. But I think I know why no one ever actually demonstrated it to me. They didn’t know how, or only had a vague idea of what it was.

Simple. Its Spanish with a lisp. It’s Thpanish with a lithp. Thilly Thpanish. It’s “Grathias,” not “Gracias,” and “Platha,” not “Plaza.” The popular legend is that the venerated King Phillip II spoke with a lisp. Therefore, his eminently loyal subjects adopted the the style, or “thtyle.” It’s disconcerting, but believable. People have done far thtupider things in thervice to a king, so why not speak like Daffy Duck to save the National Honor?

No speech pathologist has ever really explained it, as far as I’ve been able to research. It’s all technical word noise about speech formations and derivations. But if you look at a painting of this Phillip II guy, he kinda looks like a guy who spoke with a lisp, like a guy who came up four numbers short of winning the mental national lottery.

Lights. Lights in much of Spain are motion-sensored—a nice little energy-saving trick, and certainly something simple the US could implement. But.....I didn’t know this. All I knew was that as I stood fumbling with the keys to my apartment on my first night, the lights would suddenly go out. I would straighten up, look around, and they would go back on. Probably funny for someone to watch, but for me, not so much. Part of the problem is that I was never good with...

Locks. If it has a key, forget it. Im in trouble. Who knows the reason, but keys and me never agreed. If a key can break in a lock, it will, for me. I once started my friend’s car with my car key, thinking it was the right one. You get the idea. Me and keys will never be.

Add to that little dilemma the fact that in Spain, the second floor is called the first floor. I was told my apartment was on the third floor, so, you guessed it, Peanut. There I was, at midnight, trying to open some stranger’s apartment. On the fourth floor. How fast would I have been shot in America? Faster than a speeding bullet, if you will. Faster than you could say “gun rights.” So make sure you’re opening the right door out there, OK, Astronauts?

I should have written a lot more by now. But I have lots of photos, and lots of video that I’ll put together in an epic presentation upon my arrival back in the New World. I’ll write some more this weekend, about Aranda de Dueros, about Santo Domingo de Silos and the Cathedral at Burgos. And how Madrid as a functioning city kinda makes LA look a little silly. It’s the little things, but I’ll get to that.

Places That Begin With M

2008-09-17T13:10:00.006-04:00

MADRID, SPAIN—This just in: one year goes by really, really fast.

On this date last year I had just moved into a small and shabby apartment on the dark end of Rue Boucher, a half block off St. Denis, near that weird pizza place, and eons away from Los Angeles. I spent that first week shopping for a cell phone, new sneakers, and enough ethernet cable to connect myself to my landlord's computer, unspooling it out the front window and up to their second floor apartment. You might have read that entry already. Um, a year ago, right. The memory seems vivid to me at the moment, because my subconscious has been knocking on my window a lot lately, reminding of the date.

First it was Montana, then Montreal, then Madrid. All these places that suddenly and dramatically changed my life, either physically, spiritually, or in how I viewed my own everyday. Three summers ago, I was a city dude extolling the virtues of the Cowboy Life. I didn't really want to run away and join the rodeo, but in one week at a camp high in the Gallatin Mountain Range, my LA existence was stirred up just enough to suddenly appreciate the value of fresh horses and sturdy boots.

Montreal was the first simple test of a new language and a new culture—not exactly foreign, but different enough that simple tasks were a new challenge. Ride the Metro, order lunch, shop in a store, and head back home, in French. A tiny challenge, but enough to make me play bad French pop music all day on the radio, in case any phrases might seep into my subconscious. (Sadly, few French-Canadian pop songs used the refrain, 'What is the Loonie exchange rate today?" in the chorus.)

I was lucky enough to make two trips to Montreal with you, dearest reader; once in the dwindling warmth of late September and then in the frozen snowdrifts of March. Before that there was the non-White Christmas of 2006, and then the spectacular July of 2007, when there was no city in the world as beautiful as Montreal, and no street as perfect as Laurier above St. Denis.

My first two months in Montreal were equal parts magical and mysterious. My second trip was lonely and frozen. But never regretted.

Enter Madrid. This was every adventure at once. It was the first trip to Europe, a language I understood, and one I thought I did, but one that sounded as if it was "thpoken" by cartoon characters. Theriously. But Madrid is another one of those great, eye-opening cities. I've not seen Rome or London yet, and only saw the Paris airport. Those cities are on the list for this dilletante explorer, but Spain, like America, could take a really, really, really long time to fully explore.

Loyal readers in Los Angeles and far beyond already know way more than necessary about VaughanTown, this past summer's little adventure. This time, I'm creating the Podcast thing, and may not be back at Vaughantown until next summer.

Meanwhile, I've lost ALL the video from my last Madrid trip— including the groovy little iMovie video I made, and almost every important newspaper file—in a catastrophic hard drive failure over the weekend. It will take a long time to rebuild everything.
Until then, I'm beginning to learn that not only are material things not as important as we think, but digital files, too. Everything comes and goes. Attach yourself to little, OK, astronauts?

This is Day One in Madrid, Phase Two. Don't go far. There's more to read tomorrow, depending on which side of the International Date Line you get your mail.

"MontrealMontreal" is also available at: www.justaguyintheworld.blogspot.com and edward-rivera.blogspot.com. It's the same quality product.

Forgot your password? Click here.

This is What it Looked Like

2008-09-06T05:31:00.002-04:00

You read all about it. Now you can experience it, as if you were there. Kinda. Not really.

The Kids are Still All Right

2008-09-01T09:28:00.001-04:00

The passageway to the stage at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, is narrow and hidden, deep amongst a maze of staircases leading away from the bar at stage right. You know you’re headed in the right direction, because there is a big sign on the door that says, “Artists ONLY Beyond this Point.” There, in a crowded fog-filled hallway, we tap our feet and make nervous little Spinal Tap jokes, our collective hearts pounding like jukeboxes, as we wait to play for a packed house.

These are the final hours, and final day, in fact,of Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp’s “On Tour Summer 2008” event. From the end of July to the end of August, the camp’s sleek silver tour bus traveled fromcoast to coast through 15 cities; from Boston to Chicago, to Nashville, across the South and the Midwest to Vegas, San Francisco, and finally the campus of UCLA to teach ordinary, non-rock star people to rock with the best of them.

Unlike the usual week-long Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp sessions, today’s will be one day and one day only. It’s meet your bandmates and counselor at 10 a.m., head off to rehearsal rooms to learn three songs (!), name your band, eat lunch, take a master class, jam a litle, rehearse some more, and be ready to leave for the House of Blues at 4 p.m.

This summer’s staff is a impressive lineup of working rock musicians who’ve sold mcjillions of records among themselves. There’s Gilby Clarke of Guns ‘n’ Roses, Elliot Easton of the Cars, Earl Slick, guitarist for John Lennon and David Bowie; Glenn Hughes, of Deep Purple, and 90s big hair band survivors Mark Slaughter of Slaughter, and Kip Winger of the band of the same name. Acting as head counselor is mega-producer Mark Hudson, who by himself has been responsible for the sale of nearly 50 million records (Sure, a lot of them were by Celine Dion, but a lot of them were by Aerosmith, so there.)

The camp was created by New York entrepreneuer David Fishof, who also masterminded the successful 1986 Monkees reunion tour, as well as creating Ringo Starr and his All Star Band, and too many more successful projects to name here. Over the years, nearly every rock band or musician you can think of, has gotten involved in the fantasy camp, from Slash to Roger Daltrey to Jane Weidlin, to George Thorogood to Bill Wyman to Robin Zander to Brian Wilson, and far more than you or I can think of at the moment.

Since we’re in LA, there are of, course, a host of working actors who’ve plunked down $1999.00 for their one-day rock and roll dream cum laude. In Kip Winger’s band is Angus Jones, the kid from “Two and a Half Men,” Brandon Barash, from “General Hospital,” is the lead singer in our band, led by Mark Hudson. Other cast members from CBS’ “Cold Case,” and Showtime’s “Californication” take up seats in class.

Kristin Coleman, a Los Angeles event planner, is in a cold sweat. At breakfast, she confesses she can barely play the guitar, and can barely sing. While most of the campers come to the camp with plenty of talent, just not enough cool, Coleman is in safe hands. Despite the popular notion about rock and roll attitude, each of the counselors is supportive and sympathetic, and the bonding among band mates and their leaders is nearly instantaneous.

Let’s get to rehearsal. We’re packed into several floors of the dorms at UCLA’s De Neve Plaza during Family Orientation Day, and I can only imagine the fine impression we’re giving the parents, as wave after wave of loud rock music wafts across the campus from the un-insulated rooms.

The 40 campers (plus me, ssssh) will be broken up into five bands. We’ve been given a list of songs to know before arriving, most of them tunes any self-respecting rock fan would know in a heartbeat.There is a quick discussion of butterflies and nerves, and someone describes a physical feeling too graphic to describe in a family newspaper.

“That’s called a ‘taint,’” someone a little too knowledgeable, offers.

Hudson says, “Hey, great band name!” With that out of the way, he puts The Taint to work right away.

“Okay,” he says, “This is ‘All Over Now,’ by the Stones. Everyone knows it, right? OK. I need someone to give me that Chuck Berry rhythm.”

I am so there.
He looks at me and smiles, “Yeah, you do that.”

He turns to the rest of the band members and begins handing out parts. He explains, “Guitarists, you can’t all just play the same thing, or it will be a sludge fest.” To the guitarist on the other side of the room, he says, “You do the ‘chink chink’ thing with the drummer’s beat.” The other guitarist on my left is struggling with the three chords necessary to put the song across.
But he is three chords ahead of the female singer, who is a bundle of nerves at the moment. (Names are withheld to protect the guilty.) She is clearly in over her head, but she is a trouper. She sings willfully, if nervously, and it will have to do.

Alongside me, Earl Slick, he of David Bowie fame, is cooly taking it all it in. Given his part, he sprays bursts of Excellent Loud Rock Guitar® in delicate layers all over the tune. We’re starting to sound like a band, and it’s only past 11.Hudson comes up with a spoken breakdown for the middle of the song with a chance for the singers to do a little “acting” with the band as foils. It works perfectly in rehearsal, but...

With Earl Slick playing alongside me all morning, I’m secretly hoping we’ll play “Rebel Rebel.” As it turns out, what else would we play?

He begins to play the tune’s distinctive opening riff, the drummer kicks in, the bass player does that little thing at the opening, and we sound like the radio.

Instinctively, I sing a harmony line over the bridge, and Hudson notices right away. On the next one, he is right there with me. Okay, the guy who actually played on the record is on my left, Ringo Starr’s producer is sharing my mike, and this is what the commercials and advertisements for the Fantasy Camp are all about. It’s actually kinda thrilling, and no one is even watching. Yet.

Former Monkee Mickey Dolenz visits the camp at lunchtime and tells a few rock and roll war stories, that I frankly hoped would be better, or at least funnier.

Like regular summer camp, a few of counselors get up and tell stories, only these have nothing to do with bears and a guy with a hook terrorizing young lovers in the Eastern Sierras. These are mostly about girls on the road, and stories I could never tell my kids when I was a summer counselor. (Well, maybe the one where Hudson saved Ozzy Osbourne’s life with the Heimlich Manueuver.)

Following lunch, campers have a choice of master classes in guitar, bass, drums, songwriting or producing, or a jam with Gilby Clarke.

You know where I went. As if I don’t have enough chances to play my guitar loud at home, I jump at the chance to play with a new band. This group is actually far more talented than me, and I hang on for dear life, until we get to “Bang a Gong,” something your mother should know. I was all over that one, playing the ending chorus again and again, just south of delirious.

Returning to rehearsal, Mark Hudson is just finishing his producing class.
“Remember, it’s the song first, the writer second, and the band last,” he reminds the campers. Makes sense to me.
We have one hour to learn the last tune, “Wild Thing,” before we have to pack up for the show. Hudson adds a little trick to the song, we hammer it down, and it’s time to head east on Sunset.

And there I am in that narrow little crowded hallway with my band mates, one of whom is wearing pajamas. I gotta respect that. The show is sold out, there are TV news crews in the photo pit with the shooters, and everyone in the balcony is standing. I remember once thinking about how the only way I can get into a club like this is by being in the band, and start to admire the view.

There are five bands, we go on second, and we roar like jets once we launch the set. No one makes an obvious mistake, the audience cheers after every song, girls are smiling, and I remember why anyone is in a rock and roll band.

And everything went by too fast. Like every good thing. Rock on, per se.

Rock ‘n’Roll Fantasy Camp. www.rockcamp.com. 1-888-762-BAND

OK, I'm thinking about moving over here....

2008-08-15T19:24:00.001-04:00

http://justaguyintheworld.blogspot.com/

Since, I don't seem to know where I live anymore......

VaughanTown and the Spanish Sky

2008-08-07T07:15:00.007-04:00

© Copyright 2008 The Arroyo Seco Journal

MONFRAGUE, EXTREMADURA, SPAIN—Two hundred and twenty kilometers from Madrid near the Portuguese border, the sun is bearing down on this national park like light through a magnfiying glass burning little black ants.

Three hours from Madrid, on a four-acre, four-star resort hotel property in the shadow of the Castillo del Monfrague, 10 Spanish students and 10 “Anglos” are assembled in “VaughanTown” for a week of one-on-one chats, discussions, phone calls, play performances, evening cocktails and morning coffee. The idea is to create a full-immersion learning situation for native Spanish speakers, far away from dreary classrooms.

I spent three weeks in and around Madrid this summer “working” at Vaughan Learning Systems’ two Spanish campuses, in Gredos de Avila, and Monfrague, in the region of Extremadura.

Created in 2001 by transplanted American Richard Vaughan , the Madrid-based company has conducted over 160 programs for more than 6,500 English-speaking volunteers and Spanish clients. The company also operates a radio station, as well as more traditional classroom-based English classes.

Here is the basic idea: English-speaking “Anglos,” as they are referred to, are recruited from all over the world to stay in a luxury hotel here, and spend the week conversing with Spaniards. About everything. And I mean everything. In this way, Spaniards hear English as it is actually spoken, and not just by Americans.

Easy enough, right? Well, we’ll get to that in a second.

I had two misconceptions about this place at the very outset: one, that we would be dealing with stodgy Spanish executives and middle managers, and two, that this would be a vacation. Though the ages vary, the students are all youthful and dynamic. In this first week, there’s Maria Jose, the computer physicist, serious but with a streak of silliness just begging to be coaxed out of her. We spent a walk to the nearby village discussing Cary Grant movies and the creation of new computer ISDN addresses. Earlier in the week, she’d donned a wig and hideous glasses to play one of Cinderella’s ugly sisters, in a performance for the whole group.

Jesus, a 51 year-old business management consultant, portrayed Oscar Madison in a scene from Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple,” with hilarious results.

Andres, a “master student” and engineer for a produce company, and I, engaged in an intense discussion of music from Nine Inch Nails and System of a Down to Springsteen, and then, as we walked back to the hotel from the village, he proudly showed me his new iPhone.

Among the “Anglos” are Carolyn, a charming teacher from Manchester Metropolitan University; Will, a young, exuberant former college baseball player here for a week before heading off to a small private school in Maine this fall to teach; Fiona McDonald, a recent Oxford graduate headed off to the world of financial planning; Margaret, from Leeds, a landscape artist who played the wicked stepmother and narrator for an improvised traditional English pantomime version of “Cinderella.” (Due to an accounting error, I was picked to play Prince Charming. I was also the only male in our little troupe).

That’s not everyone, but combined, the first week’s group is dynamic, gregarious, smart and really fun to hang around with.
But this is no vacation, really. Don’t get the wrong idea. Come prepared to talk. A lot.

Our first week’s campus is the Hospederia Parque de Monfrague in Extremadura, a region of Spain known for its blazing hot summers and its ham (There’s a chain or restaurants in Madrid called “The Museum of Ham,” to give you some indication of the importance of the local product.) There is also a luxurious pool alongside a spacious grass lawn, as well as gracious Spanish dining with attentive and courteous waiters.

Both campuses are in fact, luxury hotels, with differing and similar characteristics and facilities. The Gredos campus sits just outside the village of Barco de Avila and the famous walled city of Avila, the fabled home of St. Theresa de Avila.

Over the course of a week from Sunday morning to Friday afternoon, Anglos and Spaniards follow a set schedule that includes general conversations, and group presentations. Imagine being thrust in to a vacation with two dozen strangers, half of whom expect you to talk to them, all the time, non-stop. It is as rewarding and as draining as you might imagine. Our conversations ranged from American and Spanish politics, family issues, morality, business ethics, and well, a lot more sex than I expected. Many times I was asked the names of sexual parts of the body, or questioned as to my own sexual tastes. Oh, those Spaniards. (One Anglo reportedly spent his one-on-one-time showing pictures of his FaceBook female friends to his Spanish counterpart and explaining the American slang names for well, you can imagine).

The show is run and organized by a master of ceremonies and director, who change from week to week, and from location to location. Greg Stanford, a professor of drama at St. Louis’ University’s Madrid campus, led our first week, along with Carmen Villa, our charming and elegant director.

A mixture of corn and sincerity, Stanford engaged the group with a stream of silly jokes, scenes from Simon and Ionesco, and created an atmosphere which teetered easily somewhere between family and best friends.
“We were really fortunate this week to have such a great group,” said Stanford. “Everyone got along so well. That doesn’t happen very often. This one was magic.”

And they are always looking for Anglos, if you’re wondering.

Okay, now add to all of this the fact that this was my first trip to Spain, and my first trip to Europe. Ever. That backpack trip you took through Europe after college? I took it last month.

So everything was new to me. Gathering footage for an accompanying video of the trip, I told the camera more than once, that far more skillful American writers had traveled this road before me, and I wondered what I could add to the hundreds of years of insight.

I arrived on a flight from Munich to Madrid late on a Friday night. I saw little on the taxi ride from the airport to the city. Come Saturday morning. Boarding the clean and efficient (and air-conditioned) Madrid Metro at Ciudad Lineal on my way to the Sol Station, I ascended a flight of stairs to the street above.

As if in a wide-screen movie, I emerged on to Gran Via, on e of the main boulevards of Madrid. The whole of the street appeared before me—heat and crowds and beauty and history converged at once. I literally laughed out loud.

“I’m in Europe.”

Though Spanish-speaking, Madrid isn’t Los Angeles, and it certainly isn’t Mexico. Having only emerged from the shadow of former dictator Francisco Franco in the mid-70s, it has re-emerged, and re-invented itself into one of Europe’s most progressive and important cities. (Following the March 11, 2004 Madrid Metro terrorist attacks, newly elected president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero promptly withdrew Spain’s forces from Iraq. President Bush, not surprisingly, is loathed by most Spaniards.)

Madrid’s modern wide boulevards, and narrow streets in its historic section near the Plaza Del Sol, teem with people at all hours of the day and night. The afternoon slows slightly with the last vestiges of “siesta,” and then ratchets itself back up, going full-bore till long past midnight.

On the Friday night of my first week in Madrid, I joined a group of VaughanTown Anglos and Spaniards for dinner at Botin, the oldest restaurant in the world, according to Guinness. But earlier that evening, I strolled through the Plaza Meyor in the middle of Madrid near the dead center of Spain, as the plaza lights began to come up, families and couples filled the Square, and a thin line of blue and purple lit the skies just over the rooftops. Magic would be too easy a word for it.

And oh, the Spanish skies.

Standing on the terrace at Monfrague on my first night, I stared up into the deepest and biggest sky I had ever seen. Miles from Madrid, thousands of stars filled the sky from horizon to horizon in a huge, mesmerizing, and humbling display of nature.

The Spaniards may remember the idioms and phrasal verbs they learned. I will remember the Spanish sky.

www.vaughantown.com. 0034.91.591.48.30

A Week on the Island

2008-08-06T22:21:00.009-04:00

WAIKIKI, OAHU, HAWAII—"Speed, balance and direction,’ those are the three things you need to know about surfing,” our surfing instructor tells a group of us on a sleepy Wednesday morning, just across the street from the bronze statue of Duke Kahanamoku. Since I haven’t actually stood on a surfboard since the 20th Century, I listen intently, silently praying to Brian Wilson that, before lunch, I will be catching a wave and sitting on top of the world.

My morning at the Hans Hedeman Surfing School in Waikiki is only the latest in a series of excellent adventures since arriving here on Saturday afternoon, and parking myself at the Waikiki Outrigger hotel. (Full disclosure: Travel and transportation arrangements were provided gratis through the Oahu Tourism Bureau, who booked us at the Outrigger, the Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore, and the Aqua Coconut Waikiki,over a span of five nights and six days.)

Since living here in the mid-80s as the editor of the local entertainment monthly, I was startled to see the amount of new development on Kalakaua Avenue, which runs along the Waikiki beachfront. New and renovated hotels sit chock-a-block with designer stores as well as the requisite t-shirt and chotchke emporiums and ABC stores. Five-dollar t shirts hold court next to Louis Vitton and Coach merchandise. As it should be, I suppose. The effect is a dizzying whirlwind of shops and surf, coated with a fine scent of coconut oil. To this day, coconut tanning oil always reminds me of Kalakaua Avenue.

The view from the Outrigger Waikiki looks like every postcard of Hawaii you’ve ever seen. The luminescent, teal-colored water shimmers under a blazing sun that will fry you like carne asada faster than you can say, “We go power grindin’ at Zippy’s, li’dat.”

From the 14th floor, Diamond Head looms over the landscape like the Sphinx, and the horizon is a continuous monochromatic vision of blues. A $20 million renovation project, begun in September 2002, has re-imagined the once-dowdy Outrigger Hotels & Resorts' Waikiki property, including its 495 guest rooms, 30 oceanfront suites, and the 18,000-square-foot lobby. A one-hundred-year-old koa canoe sits front and center in the renovated lobby. Everything dazzles at the Outrigger, and the service and accomodations are quietly and elegantly impeccable.

Though we traveled here in the middle of summer at the height of travel season, there is really no peak season on the eight main islands that make up Hawaii. (Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and the Big Island of Hawaii, if you’re taking notes. Niihaau is privately owned, and Kahoolawe is a former military target area, not open to the public).

With Honolulu as the 11th largest metropolitan area in the US, and the largest in actual size (It’s complicated), Hawaii is unique in that there are no racial or ethnic majorities here. Everyone is a minority. Caucasians (Haoles) constitute about 34 percent; Japanese-American about 32 percent; Filipino-American about 16 percent and Chinese-American about five percent. Most of the population has some mixture of ethnicities. Very few are strictly Polynesian.

And now back to our trip, currently in progress.

Saturday evening found us beachfront at the Outrigger’s luxury Hula Grill restaurant,staring out at a cinematic sunset and staring down at plates topped with gourmet- quality entrees, only the first of several frankly spectacular dinners we would enjoy over the course of the week, each one vying for the title of “best ------ I’ve ever had.” By the time the sun dipped below the Earth’s blue edge,we were giddy and satiated with food, sun, turquoise-colored drinks with umbrellas, and the constant ringing disbelief in our heads that we were actually here.

And things would only get better from this point on, as if that were even possible.
A drive up and over H1 past Pearl City, Aiea, and the Dole Pineapple factory (now more a museum than an active factory), brought us to the entrance of the Turtle Bay Resort. Situated at Hawaii’s North Shore alongside the beach town of Haliewa and the famous surfing locations of Waimea Bay, Sunset Beach, and the Banzai Pipeline, the hotel is a spectacular bit of everything Hawaii offers.

“Depending on what you like,” explains PR rep Keoki Wallace, “You can find it here.”
The resort boasts 443 beach cottages and guest rooms, and owns nearly five miles of beachfront which is not only peaceful and secluded, but also lays claim to some of the most impressive waves in the world every winter.

It’s hard to believe as I sit,watching a quiet, peaceful bay with gently lapping waves, but those same waves become 20 and 30-foot raging monsters who take no quarter come November.

There are two pools, one with a pool slide, two golf courses, tennis courts, horseback riding, hiking and mountain bike trails, and of course, a surfing school, as well as free scuba lessons. Since the hotel’s footprint is so large and diverse, it’s the home for numerous TV and film productions, says Wallace, who has arranged close to 40 during his few years at the hotel.

Wallace points to a lush, dense clump of palm trees across the bay. “They shoot “Lost” over there.” He goes on to explain that because of the diversity of the landscape, as well as the luxurious facilities, the hotel is a popular choice among production companies.

“We can produce everything from the jungles of Viet Nam to the shores of Cape Cod here,” he says.

Just a few miles south of the resort, alongside Waimea and Sunset Beach, sits the historic beach town of Haliewa, a cozy little melange of Hawaiian cowboy shacks with restaurants, surf shops, and more surf shops. At one end of a seven-mile stretch of beaches and some 40 surf breaks, it’s a madhouse every winter, as thousands of fans converge for Uber-Surf contests like the Quiksilver Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational, with waves the size of houses roaring down toward the shore from hundreds of feet out, turbo-powered by winter Pacific storms. No hodads allowed here, bro.

We spent two luxurious nights at Turtle Bay—with daily jaunts into Haliewa for t-shirts and tourism—the highlight being the resort’s first-ever Winery Dinner, featuring Flora Springs Winery and Vineyards, a Napa Valley-based operation, hosted by owner/raconteur John Komes. He introduced each of the five courses and accompanying wines. The meal offered a pair of Chardonnays, a Cabernet Sauvigon, and a Merlot, which Komes naturally defended after its savaging in the hit film,
“Sideways.”

Courses ranged from Cajun-spiced Ahi, diver scallops, roasted duck breast and a pan-seared beef tenderloin, each of which was sublime. And devoured.

Tuesday brought us to The Aqua Coconut Wakiki hotel, a smart, stylish boutique hotel on the banks of the Ala Wai canal, where crew teams practice in the early evening twilight. This is an affordable but high-quality alternative to the pace and price of beachfront Waikiki, and within walking distance of everything you might desire Honolulu-wise.

The Aqua chain also owns the Aqua Surf and Spa, where I was treated to a surprisingly effective massage to bang out the dents I had acquired surfing.

Oh yes, surfing.

I paddled out, turned my Laird board around to face the shore, and as the next wave tucked under and lifted me, I was sailing along in a sea of foam and wind. Remembering my lesson, I stood up quickly, and for the 10-second ride, I understood again why people give up their lives to do this. Sure, I wiped out more than a few times in true surfer fashion, but standing atop the board and dreaming of the Pipeline, I surfed. I paddled out again. I surfed. I paddled out again. I surfed. Until my shoulder said, “No mas,” I surfed, dude.

How was your week?

In the Meantime...

2008-07-23T03:12:00.004-04:00

When I don't have time to write a lot, I'll tell you a little. I have lots and lots to write about Spain, and I promise to do that soon. Depending on the time-space continuum, and if I am very lucky, I just might see you in Montreal this fall. Hope springs eternal, which is what I've heard.

The Thing about MadridMadrid

2008-06-29T17:47:00.002-04:00

This is my new location for a bit: http://edward-rivera.blogspot.com/

It says "madridmadrid" when you get there, but the actual site name, madridmadrid.blogspot.com, is taken by some nitwit named Jorge. I think the only entry there is something about his sex life. I'm not sure whether its' dreaming about it or talking about it.

So Spain won the game last night as you and every person and peanut and chicken in Spain know by now. I'll be back to serious writing mañana.

Adios Astronauts.

The Madness in Madrid

2008-06-29T16:22:00.001-04:00

Montfrague Nacional Parc—The first time I am able to sit and talk to you, and the Community of Madrid and the country of Spain has come to a full stop. I meant to describe the excitement of my first visit to Europe, and I have arrived on perhaps the biggest weekend in Spain since the death of Francisco Franco in 1975.

Spain is in the finals of the Euro Cup against Germany ("Alemania"). This is their first visit to the Finals since 1964, I'm told. After a first half goal by the blond-haired Fernando Torres, Spain is leading 1-zip. Here at Vaugha town in Monfrague Parc Nacional, the entire group of students and volunteers has gathered around two television sets—one in a smoking room and one in a non-smoking room. In the center of Madrid, thousands and thousands of Spaniards, (and no Germans) are assembled in front of jumbo TV screens in the Plaza Colon in the heart of Downtown Madrid.

At ten minutes before 10 p.m. the sun is only just beginning its slow descent below the horizon. Night comes late to Spain in these early days of summer. 16 teams began the march to tonight's game in early June to tonight;s game in Vienna, Austria. The Euro Cup is second only to the World Cup in Importance in the sporting universe. And the World Cup makes the Super Bowl look like Franklin High School vs. the Widney High Junior Varsity. My sitting here with my MacBook balanced on a shaky cocktail table is roughly tantamount to a moon landing covered by the Belleville, Arkansas Bugle and Reporter society writer. Every media outlet in Europe has a correspondent here. Have no fear. Any fan looking for coverage of the tournament is not looking at this tiny blog tonight.

Spain has been on the attack all evening, and every wayward kick at the German goal draws shouts and gasps from the hometown crowd gathered in the bar here at the Monfrague Park Hotel.

Germany has mounted a brief attack with two quick shots on goal, but the match so far has been played in Spanish.

Should the Spaniards hang on to win tonight, bedlam will ensue in Madrid. If not, it will be a sad week in Vaughantown. The next 17 minutes will decide whether this is the New Summer of Love in the New Spain or the Summer of Sad.

Prepare to stand by.

I Got The News

2008-06-05T01:42:00.000-04:00

Who the F--- are the Detroit Red Wings?

Miles From Sherbrooke

2008-06-03T05:18:00.013-04:00

Gee, this is kinda like the Metro Station—leave your house early in the morning and go play music. Yes, right.

My silly little band, Ann Likes Red (long story), opened for Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jackson Browne on Sunday at a park near my house. The event, Lummis Day (www.lummisday.org), is a new one in LA, and only in its third year. Here's how it came about: (www.asjournal.net)

Okay, those explanatory things are out of the way.

I realized a couple weeks ago, that I have not played with a loud, electric rock band since, well, LAST June, at Lummis Day. I brought an old friend out from Italy to handle lead guitar for us, arranged for our bass player to come down from San Francisco, and had everyone in place here. There were only TWO rehearsals, and there was NOT ONE where every member was present. I e-mailed everyone the song list weeks ago. "These are easy," I told everyone. "Play 'em loud, fast and fierce."

There was an ongoing discussion about what to bill the band as, since, well, the story is convoluted at this point. Suffice to say, for various reasons, the band had an ongoing series of guests for the bulk of our 30-minute set. Someone to sing "DayTripper;" Randy and Scott Rodarte, from Ollin, to do the Righteous Brothers AM radio nugget, "Little Latin Lupe Lu," and local blues belter Greger Walnum, to sing "The House is Rockin'."

At our first rehearsal, Christina, the bass player had e-mailed me and said, "I can't play 'Town Called Malice,' it's too fast, not enough time to rehearse it." Eli Chartkoff of the Monolators, brought in for "Daytripper," jumped at the opportunity. That meant Eli starts the set with us, Christina is off-stage, and at the end of the song, he goes to center mic, and she takes the bass. Some tricky footwork there.

There were other issues. Deborah, the keyboard player, was caught up swirling in a series of vertigo attacks all weekend, that left her dizzy and drained. "I might have to sleep in the car in parking lot before, and come up just for the set, and go back to sleep," she said. That's how bad it was. (She left for a minute during the last song, and returned to finish. Trouper a go go).

Our last question was whether or not my friend Eric Garcetti, LA City Council president, would show up and play along with us. I had danced badly with his office scheduler since he committed back in February. (I think it was the Thursday show mention in the LA Times that convinced, him, frankly.)

But all the parts worked.

Hal Eisner from Fox 11 TV, introduced us. The set took off loud and fast, and the rest is really blurry. I counted some songs off wrong, started to play the wrong one once, and the sound guy forgot to turn my acoustic guitar on. (It was OK, I ditched it quick.) I saw thousands of faces that were new to me, I remembered all the words to "Just Some Guy," and thought about how many times I'd been playing in crowded bars, and thinking, "Gee, if I wasn't in the band, I could never get in here."

I could smell grilling burgers and strawberries. No one threw coins in a hat for me.

It all ended with five guitar players on stage— and Eric Garcetti on keyboards with Deborah—and Greger wailing away on his harmonica. Loud, fast and fierce.

Jackson Browne? He was terrific. He put on a great show. Maybe he blogged about it.

See all the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/artvillanueva/sets/72157605397334263/

Watch This Space...

2008-05-27T05:50:00.005-04:00

It's late May, summer creeping up. At the moment I'm getting ready to play a show in Los Angeles with Jackson Browne (OK,that was weird to type). It's kind of a big deal, and I'm looking forward to it, I'll admit. I think we're doing a few shows in June, actually, miles away from Sherbrooke Metro Station, where our hero will return in September.

This is also where you can locate me these days: http://edward-rivera.blogspot.com/

July will find me in Vaughantown, one of two resort complexes outside Madrid, designed for Spanish corporate executives as a place to learn English from English-speaking Americans,Brits, Australians, Texans and Canadians, if you will. Not really a traditional learning setting, but that's the idea. (www.vaughantown.com)

I don't know much about it yet. On Friday, June 27, I'll be in a hotel in Madrid, ready to explore the city, shoehorn, pencil sharpener and trombone in hand. Kinda like in Montreal, but without a lot of the snow. Sunday morning will find me on a bus to a town far, far from West Avenue 37. I'll be letting you know how things go, by video and by correo electronico.

I promise, after a fashion, to post more here. You've all been so very nice to read me with so many cups of coffee, at desks and in beds all over Canada and America. I should really have written. But there've been deadlines followed by deadlines, followed by Pepsis and Pop Tarts.

You know, LA is home, but, just the other day, someone gave me a Lonely Planet© book on Montreal, and there was a picture of cornice work on a house in Square St. Louis, along with a long section on the Metro. I saw it and well, I panged. I yearned, just a little.

I will write more, I'll be a better correspondent. I know you were just about to forget me, and just the other afternoon, something reminded you of me, and you thought for just a second, 'What ever happened to that guy from L.A. who used to do that Montreal blog? He was ...um, interesting."

I've missed you, too, Jacques Cartier.

Sorry I Haven't Written

2008-05-07T06:53:00.003-04:00

"I've been one poor correspondent, I've been too too hard to find/but it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind...."
—'Sister Golden Hair,' America

Oh my God, could that be a cheesier intro?
It's dorky, but it kinda explains my position. What's today, May 7th? I've been back in LA for almost three weeks now, and it's surprising how quickly one slips back into old patterns. I mean, I was busy the minute I landed back home. There were things to be done right now. A new issue of the paper was going to press, and the deadline was looming as I touched down. So, I hadn't written.

At a family party, everyone wanted to know about this odd place called Montreal. What was it like? Is it like Moscow? Like Paris? Does anyone speak English? I said, "Um, it snows. A lot." (When I lived in New York, my mom would call me in September, and ask, "Are you cold? Is it freezing there?" I said, "Mom, it's New York City, not Alaska." Same kinda thing.)

I know I said I would write about playing in the Metro, and actually, I still have a lot to say about that. Hopefully I'll write about that tomorrow night.

Let's see:

• Oh, Im sorry about the Canadiens. My brother, who never follows hockey (Don't be fooled by The Ducks. LA is not a hockey town), told me he was rooting for the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge, since I was his only connection to anything in the hockey world.

• This band I have, Ann Likes Red, is opening for Jackson Browne here in LA at a little park just down the hill from my house. Though he is from the neighborhood, he's never played here. Let me know you're coming, I'll try and save you a seat. We go on at 2 p.m., he goes on at 6. What time are you arriving? (If anyone knows where I can buy a t-shirt with the Montreal Metro logo, not the map, please let me know. I wanna wear one for the show.)

• This little video here is from my trip to San Luis Obispo, on California's Central Coast, about 45 minutes from Hearst Castle in San Simeon. (Look it up.)

• I'm going to Italy in July, followed by a week in Spain, then back to Rome, then home. It won't be MadridMadrid.blogspot.com, but.....hmm, maybe it might be.

• It's raining...

What I Remember About Last Week...

2008-04-18T06:17:00.003-04:00

If anyone's interested...

Sing Your Life

2008-04-18T05:50:00.003-04:00

I'm holding this space. I wanted to talk about the whole "busking" thing, and who has the right to a spot.

Apparently I'm a dilettante if I don't give up my earned slot to a drug addict who needs the gig. Don't get me started. Actually, get me started later today. I'm just getting reaccustomed to being back in LA.

I'll see you guys back on here later this afternoon. Enjoy that whole "Spring" thing. Oh, and Go Habs.

What’s on YOUR iPod?

2008-04-13T23:38:00.003-04:00

You’re excused from examining this list closely—there won’t be a quiz— but these are bits and pieces of the Winter/Spring 2008 Montreal soundtrack, such as it was.

Across The Universe 3:45 The Beatles
The Beatles - I'll Cry Instead 1:47
Radio Nowhere
You'll Be Comin' Down
Livin' In the Future 3:55 Bruce Springsteen
All That Heaven Will Allow
Brian Ferry - More Than This
For The Movies 4:35 Buckcherry
I'll Never Fall In Love 3:19 Burt Bacharach & Elvis C.
The Beatles - I'm A Loser 2:33 The Beatles
The Beatles - I've Just Seen A Face
King Of New Orleans 4:07 Better Than Ezra
Lucky Town 3:27 Bruce Springsteen
Je Reviendrai À Montréal 3:24 Charlebois, Robert _
Four Seasons In One Day 2:54 Crowded House
Better Be Home Soon 3:10 Crowded House
4/12/08 5:23 PM
I Still Have That Other Girl 2:48 Elvis Costello With Burt Bacharach
Gymnopedie No. 3 2:35 Eric Satie
Six months in a leaky boat 2:48 Finn Brothers
Chelsea Dagger 3:24 The Fratellis

Ole Black 'n' Blue Eyes 3:16 The Fratellis
Hippy Hippy Shake 1:48 Georgia Satellites
Til I Hear It From You 3:47 Gin Blossoms
Sky Blue And Black 6:07 Jackson Browne
Pipeline 3:54 Agent Orange
School's Out 3:34 Alice Cooper
Take me to the River 5:16 Ann Likes Red
They're on to Me (Acoustic) 3:47 Ari Hest
Landslide 3:59 Ari Hest
Travelin' Boy 5:03 Art Garfunkel
Jump 2:53 Aztec Camera

Pour Le Monde 5:10 Crowded House
People Are Like Suns 3:52 Crowded House
Sister Madly 2:52 Crowded House
Can't You See That She's Mine-Dave Clark five
Two Faces 3:03 Bruce Springsteen
Brilliant Disguise 4:17
Jersey Girl 6:30 Bruce Springsteen
Radio Nowhere 3:19 Bruce Springsteen
Crawling From The Wreckage 2:55 Dave Edmunds 1
Little Sister 3:32 Dave Edmunds & Robert Plant
Babylon 4:25 David Gray
Please Forgive Me David Gray
Mercury Blues 3:35 David Lindley
O Valencia 3:45 The Decemberists
Happy Girl (Instrumental)
Elvis Costello With Nick Lowe - Baby It's You
In The Darkest Place 4:21 Elvis Costello With Burt Bacharach
Toledo 4:36 Elvis Costello With Burt Bacharach

The Next Voice You Hear - The Best of Jackson Browne
In The Shape Of A Heart 5:42 Jackson Browne
My Favorite Thing
Gunslinger 3:31 John Fogerty
Mountain Of Love 2:40 Johnny Rivers
I can do without you 3:24 Kaiser Chiefs
Asking For Flowers 5:02 Kathleen Edwards
I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory 4:37
Oh Canada 3:59 Kathleen Edwards
I Won't Take The Blame 3:54 Del Amitri
Drunk In A Band 2:44 Del Amitri

Medicine 2:50 Del Amitri
Life Is Full 3:22 Del Amitri
Start With Me 4:27 Del Amitri
Here And Now 5:30 Del Amitri
Twisting By The Pool 3:30 Dire Straits
Local Hero Dire Straits
The Kids Are Alright 2:30 The Dropkick Murphys
I'm Walking On Sunshine 3:58 Katrina & The Waves
Somewhere Only We Know 3:48 Keane
This Is The Last Time 3:29 Keane
You Really Got Me 2:14 Kinks
Waterloo Sunset 3:15 The Kinks
My Sharona 4:56 The Knack
God Give Me Strength 5:20 Kristen Vigard
Suddenly I See 3:21 KT Tunsall
Summer in the City 2:40 The Lovin' Spoonful
You're My Favorite Waste of Time 2:39 Marshall Crenshaw
Whenever You're On My Mind 3:20 Marshall Crenshaw
I Am A Town 5:05 Mary Chapin Carpenter
Irish Blood English Heart 2:44 Morissey
First of the gang to Die 3:38 Morrissey/The Smiths
Ace of spades 2:49 Motorhead
Don't Dream It's Over (acoustic)) 3:44 Neil Finn & Tim Finn
Loud Music in Cars 2:49 Nick Lowe
So It Goes 2:31 Nick Lowe
True Love Travels on a Gravel Road 3:38 Nick Lowe
Time Won't Let Me 3:02 The Outsiders
So Bad 3:16 Paul McCartney
Dyslexic Heart 4:32 Paul Westerberg
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) 4:10 Paul Young
World Wide Suicide 3:27 Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam - Soldier of Love 2:54
Wish List 3:26 Pearl Jam
Baba O'Riley [live] 5:44 Pearl Jam -
What the World Needs Now 3:57 Pixies & Burt Bacharach
A Good Feelin To Know 3:54 Poco
Some Like It Hot 5:05 Power Station
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man 3:40 Prince
Little Sister 2:54 Queens Of The Stone Age
I Never Came 0:00 Queens Of The Stone Age
Johnny And Mary 3:55 Robert Palmer
You Wear It Well 4:20 Rod Stewart
Avalon 4:16 Roxy Music
Dance Away 3:26 Roxy Music
Gymnopedie #1 3:36 Satie, Erik
Black Horse & The Cherry Tree-Kt Tunsall 2:51
Everything You've Done Is Wrong 3:26 Sloan
Sing Your Life 4:00 The Smiths - Morrisey
The House is a Rocking 2:23 Stevie Ray Vaughn
When The Train Comes 3:57 Sutherland Brothers & Quiver
Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love) 2:21 The Swinging Medallions
Metal Guru 2:28 T. Rex The Slider
Persuasion 4:41 Tim Finn With Richard Thompson
Love Is The Answer - Utopia 4:18 Todd Rundgren
You Wreck Me Baby 3:22 Tom Petty Wildflowers
Downtown Train 3:53 Tom Waits
Sing 3:50 Travis
Stereophonics / Have A Nice Day 3:15
The White Stripes - While My Guitar Gently Weeps
My Generation 3:16 The Who
That Thing You Do 2:52 The Wonders
Debussy - Erik Satie Gymnopedie No 3, Orchestrated by Claude Debussy 1 3:16
Let it Rock - Rockpile (Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe & Keith Richards) 2:58
Rod Stewart - I Don't Wanna Talk About It 4:52
Crying, Waiting, Hoping - Marshall Crenshaw 2:21
The Beatles - Come Together 4:19
Tom Waits - Waltzing Matilda 6:38

A Bientôt, Montréal

2008-04-13T23:02:00.005-04:00

ABOARD THE AMTRAK ADIRONDACK, U.S. CROSSING, CANTIQ, QUEBEC, CANADA—I meant to write to you last night.

My last day and evening in Montreal was all trolling for souvenirs and chocolate, returning movies, renting more movies, and finally gathering up a loose handful of errands that bounced and skittered across the hours like marbles on a kitchen counter.

It was snowing the day I arrived, and it snowed the day I left. It will be 89 degrees American in LA today. (Um, it was in the high 90s American today...) The temperature never rose above 11 Canadian while I was here, and it sounds funny to say, but that seemed about normal to me. Everyone eventually gets used to everything, and I got used to it being cold every. Single. Day.

I had a friend who went to college in Wisconsin and she once told me about how they would have “50 Degree Days,” in those waning days of Winter when the sun would burst through the clouds, and everyone wore a t-shirt, skipping like hippies in the afternoon warmth. I thought she was a couple of nachos short of a combo plate then, but now I can kinda see it. There was that one day about two weeks ago when I threw open my front windows and listened to the guy in the Square sing badly. It was a beautiful thing, man.

I never figured out a lot of things in Montreal. When is trash day? Why aren’t book and movie titles in quotes in the newspaper? Why is that halfwit Mike Boone allowed to write a column in the Montreal Gazette? Where oh where can I find diet Coke in six-pack cans? Where is ouest? Oh, and where is est?

I did manage to figure out how all those wretched Midwest and Canadian ‘70s bands (Triumph, Reo Speedwagon, Kansas, Rush ad nauseum, etc) sold so many damn records. Canadians bought them. I think its CHUM, maybe it’s another station, but apparently those bands have found a cozy home on Canadian radio, free from the cruelty of the calendar.

Meanwhile, let's just call it even on the whole Spring thing. Summer will be here soon. Looks like Spain and Italy for me in July, and I am thinking about Hawaii maybe in August, just to make sure it's hotter than hell there.

There's the paper to do (www.asjournal.net) every month, and this loud rock and roll band that I run with is doing something big in June (Watch this space.)

I have more on my Second-Favorite City, lots more, and I need to say something about "busking." But that's for tomorrow.

A bientôt, Montréal.

One Night Only

2008-04-11T02:54:00.006-04:00

I was beginning to think I would never play the Sherbrooke Metro again, at least not on this trip. Someone had warned me that it's much more difficult to sign up and play in the winter months (I know it's Spring here. I got the memo late.)

Three times I set my alarm, got to the station early, but never early enough, apparently. So last night, I set the alarm for 4:45, and there I was in the station at 5, all alone, list in hand.

As you recall from last Fall, Campers, you gotta get up early, make two sign-up sheets with the date and hours listed; put your name in a slot, and then affix the lists to the metal music sign at each station.

And even then, it's not always a guarantee. Last year I put up a list, and came back at noon to find that someone had thrown it away and made their own list--a cardinal sin in busker circles. This afternoon, in fact, I found one of the sign-up sheets missing, and other torn halfway down the middle, but there was my name in the 5:30 spot. (Oh, I'm not a busker, by the way. That's a stupid name. I'm a guy who sometimes plays his guitar in the Metro station.)

I tossed some coins into the flute case of the guy on duty when I arrived, to his surprise, and was ready to go--no set list, no music stand, no song notebook. Just a person and that person's guitar.

I'd actually learned new songs this time around. And the guy who sings on the streets of Dublin in last year's Irish film, "Once," was wrong. You don't have to play familiar songs to attract coins to your case. The guy who was playing today at lunch time was noodling jazz/rock guitar improvisations through too many effects pedals with his eyes closed. To me it was nauseating. But there was money in his case, quite a bit, in fact.

But I began with two originals, the one about that girl, and the other one about that girl. It was slow at first, really slow. I was beginning to fear that this would be the only set where I made no money.

Twenty (!) minutes in, a little girl accompanied by her father, dropped coins in my case, and five minutes later, the same scene repeated itself. I almost thought it was the same little girl.

And then something odd happened. A tattered, toothless, dreadlocked hippie approached me, and started to look at the list. He stopped me and asked in French, "Are you on this list?"

"5:30. There's my name."

"I really need to busk. Can I have your spot?"

He seemed surprised when I said no.

"Oh man, I really need to busk....," he said, and then tossed the sign-up sheet on the ground, stomping away angrily towards the exits.

And then he was back. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, smelled him coming, actually. As he walked by me, a little too closely, he spat on the floor, in front of me, and kept walking.

Did he just spit at me? Okay, I think he was just making a point. Had he actually spat on me, it would have been International Incident time. But off he went, to convince someone else to give up their spot.

And then money started to fall. Old women, twenty-something baby chicas, business guys. I was pleasantly surprised.

Remember last year, when I said you could theoretically sing just one song for the whole two hours? Um, maybe you could actually sing five or six. People seem to really like that song about that girl, and the other one about her. And then maybe you do two or three they recognize immediately (but not the Eagles. Never the Eagles).

And then "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

I remember very clearly and distinctly. Two trains arrived at once, and a bus had just discharged passengers into the station from St. Denis. Perfect storm. Okay, they're approaching from both sides now, and from three directions.

Start in that split-second quiet moment. They hear it, and they notice, and then suddenly, they're one quickly moving group moving in and out of the station from east to west across my vision. They slow down, they step aside, they maneuver towards me. Coins fall. I metamorphisized from jukebox to guichet. Something about that song, I guess. Plus you have to make eye contact.

Ssssh. I played it twice. And then the song about that girl. And the other song about that girl.

It's 4:34 a.m right now. Hmmm.....

This Just In....

2008-04-11T02:51:00.003-04:00

Amtrak found my wallet. Last week. I didn't get a chance to tell you. Whew. UPDATE: That's Roop there. He handed me a cardboard box, and said, "Which is these is your wallet?" Just like that. And now he can be seen world-wide. (Shh... Don't say nothing. He said his boss told him not to talk to the press.)

A House Guest

2008-04-11T01:05:00.005-04:00

Yes, It's been a while. I know you are, but what am I....?

Okay, so imagine you have a house guest. Your house is fairly large, and he has never visited before. So, every day he comes to you, breathless, with a new discovery.

"Dude, if you walk down that hallway, there is another bedroom!"

"Hey, is that a kitchen??!"

"Bro, there is a whole street outside with people walking around, and stuff like that...!"

You get the idea. It's a bit how I felt recently, after visiting with my new friend Phillipe-Andre Piette, he of Le Journal Montreal. He contacted me after my last posting, which I'm beginning to think resonated with a lot of people. (A lot of nut people as well. You'll notice I had closed the comments section here. I had to, after the gates of WackadoodleTown were breached and every nut person with a salacious suggestion or conspiracy theory or spam sandwich decided this was their chance to finally reach out to me. But the comments are open again. This blog's gonna be here for a while, anyway.)

Anyway, I was seeing new bedrooms everywhere.

Phil and I met in the Square here, and then off we went to his chic urban home, smack in the middle of the Hochelaga ghetto, high above a Dollarama, near Maissonneuve. His comfortable second floor loft, which he shares with his girlfriend, was all exposed brick walls and stereo equipment—works for me.

More and more I learned—and am learning—that it's a pretty small percentage of Montrealers who live like I have been, and very few who pay anywhere near what I am paying for a home here. It's a bit like moving to LA, and the first place you find is in the Hollywood Hills, and you're startled when no one you meet lives anywhere near you. ("Dude, there is a WHOLE CITY outside!")

Thus my eyes were opened (again) as Phil and I drove through the city, east to west, and he pointed out the sights and neighborhoods at least in a small radius out to Olympic Stadium (I know, I know, that is barely east.)

Up we drove then to the winding curves of Westmount, to the view from the summit, down across The Boulevard, and eventually down into Outremont and Rue Bernard to L'Assomoir Bernard, the hip resto bar where Phillipe used to spit fire for the bar customers. (Did I get that geography right?)

We shared tapas at the bar, ate dinner, watched his former compadres juggle drinks with a flourish, (you know the drill) and watched the pretty girls. (Oh wait, that was me.)

Leaving the bar, I noted the Metro stop and thought, "Another neighborhood I have to discover." Ah, that will happen in September.

A few days later, I headed off in the direction away from the Sherbrooke Metro to stroll St. Denis across Sherbrooke and Rene Levesque down to Vieux Montreal.

"Dude, there are people going in and out of stores there, and everything!"

Call me Magellan.

The L Word

2008-03-22T19:33:00.009-04:00

No, it's not Laval, though it occurs there and in towns and cities larger and smaller.

I hadn't really noticed it until lately. There was no mention of it in local newspapers or on television.

I'm pretty familiar with it, actually. I remember it sweeping though New York City in the late winter/early spring of 1986. It happened in Honolulu in 1983 as well.

There had been local outbreaks of it in Los Angeles over the past two years, and I'm thinking its the secret reason why I ventured out to a new city where I knew no one. It couldn't be worse, I thought, and it might even be better.

I realize I haven't written a lot of travelogue stuff for any publication lately. In fact, the latest travel story I wrote was on San Diego—a trip I took in December. I'll write about the Amtrak Adirondack when I return to LA--a normal travel article with facts and figures. (The home magazine is "reorganizing," and I think we are starting a new one when I return.)

This blog, then, lies in some strange netherworld between journal and travelogue. There is little soul searching here, that's not my style. Its far easier for me to chart other people's thinking or look for patterns in the everyday that become material for columns.

This trip has been a lot different from previous trips here. I've traveled here twice with groups, and once alone. I faced the first trip alone last year with a mixture of trepidation and delight. Summer was waning, fall was stirring. I knew no one, I knew nowhere. I actually met people. New people. Everything was bright and shiny.

Fast forward five months. I'm back in Montreal. It's a LOT colder this time, but that's OK. The places I came to know and visit seem like old friends, but something is different.

I still haven't played the Metro. Tried twice, was too late. My guitar sits, restless, in a corner. Without the pressure of deadline writing, afternoons stretch on and on and on. (Check that. This is deadline week for my LA newspaper. I'll be busy this week.)

I joined a movie group at the local cinema. But all they want to talk about is movies. At home, movies stack up, unwatched. I pass crowded bars, too shy to go in. I think about things to write about--how skinny the sidewalks get when it snows, about how locals seem unable to negotiate the art of Pedestrianism, about the Great Obsession with the Habs, about why you have to dial the area code with local numbers, why a comma instead of a period, and when exactly is trash day? When is recycling day?.....grand thoughts like those.

So I go out and sit in an Internet cafe on Mount Royal, like some slacker college dweeb. Encased in my iPod, there's the feel and vibe of a crowded place without a crowd in my head. A journalism teacher once told me, "Be able to write anywhere." And I can. And I do.

I can scratch out inch-deep musings for a world of strangers, even though I know my favorite audience is me.

So, this then is what passes for soul searching on a Saturday evening, as our hero visits his second-favorite city.

The first two weeks of April will pass in a blur. And then I will be on a train. And an airplane. And it will be 68 degrees American when I get step off the plane, 81 the next day.

And I will return in late September, eager and new again, with full knowledge of what I'll face.

That L Word. Lonesome.

Le TechDork

2008-03-18T02:35:00.001-04:00

The Parade in Three Minutes

2008-03-16T20:23:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I get tired of typing.

I'll Tumble 4 Ya

2008-03-15T18:16:00.007-04:00

(Snow falling. Again.)

There I was, just a person.

But I knew it was gonna happen, though I'd been extra careful everywhere I traversed. Coming out of the shopping complex at Avenue du Parc and Prince Arthur, I took a hard left after the exit walkway, and, the process began, in far less time than it takes you to read this.

I felt my body leaning to the left, weighed down by groceries, and I leaned back, to no avail. With no purchase from the ground, my shoes went backward. I pitched forward, coming down on my hands and left knee. A loaf of bread rolled out of my Metro bag. No one hurt, no property damage. My iPod played on, of course, and I don't think anyone saw me fall. I didn't look around to check, just picked up the bread, dusted the snow off, and walked back home, chuckling to myself. "You thought you were so cool here, didn't you, Crackerjack?"

Yes I did.

I have actually learned a few things, quickly, about winter walking. ONE: WATCH where you're walking. That's the thing, gentle readers. Plant your feet and look down when you can. That dark shiny spot? Yeah, um, you don't want to walk there.

But you need to hear this from me, like I need to hear your recipe for Carne Asada, or your opinion of American Idol. (Someone told me the other day, "Dude, do not even be joking about the snow, ha ha ha, to Montrealers. They won't think it's all that funny.")

I recognize, as do you, that I'm not from around here, in a million little ways every day. Like not being able to count in French yet. That's embarrassing in the market, but the trick is, hold out the biggest bill to the merchant. I mean, I know what everything costs, but when the sales clerk says something that sounds like, ""Qui est des dollars de thirty-nine et de vingt-six cents," I just stammer and look at the cash register screen. And invariably, as I leave with my farewells en Francais, they smile and say, "Yeah, so long, cowboy." I fool nobody.

But I was telling someone today, I still love it here; the snow, the French, the culture mix, the Canadian Way, the Poutine....you get the idea.

Just watch where you walk, ça va?

$2.75, Please

2008-03-15T00:25:00.002-04:00

Montrealers, you don't have to watch this. I realize this makes about as much sense as showing you snow.

From a Window

2008-03-12T22:29:00.004-04:00

"Late yesterday night, I saw a light shine from a window,
and, as I looked again, your face came into sight....."

--'From a Window'
John Lennon/Paul McCartney

A Million Words for Snow, One Word for Ketchup

2008-03-10T22:13:00.007-04:00

Forecast for Los Angeles and Vicinity
As of 6:00 am PDT on March 9, 2008
Today...Partly cloudy after morning low clouds and fog. Local visibilities one quarter mile or less in dense fog. Highs in the 70s to lower 80s. Through and below passes and canyons...northeast winds 15 to 25 mph in the morning.
Monday...Partly cloudy. Highs in the upper 60s to mid 70s at the beaches to the upper 70s inland.

Current Montreal Conditions:
Partly cloudy
Temperature -8°C
Wind Chill -8°C
Winds 9 km/h SW
Humidity 48%

Ah yes, the weather. Our brave correspondent travels by plane and train to a wondrous land of a foreign-ish language, where the ground is covered in ice almost 5 months out of the year. Yet he presses on, with no explanation for his friends as to why. He actually likes it.

He laughs at the ridiculous amounts of snow on the ground, at the cars buried under a white blanket of frozen everything. He leans forward into a stiff wind that pushes ice at you like shrapnel. He trudges (It's the only word that works) through an empty Vieux Montreal on a weekend afternoon, with tourists gone, and store after store shuttered and closed.

(Right now the LA audience is thinking, "WHAT an idiot," while the Montreal readers think, "What an IDIOT."

Yeah, its been eye-opening. Hey, you know that popular saying about how the Eskimos have a hundred words for snow? Well, stop spreading that ignorant rumor around, Crackerjack.

According to linguistics expert Sasha Aikhenvald, it ain't so. As she explains, "The story about Inuit (or Inuktitut, or Yup'ik, or more generally, Eskimo) words for snow is completely wrong. People say that speakers of these languages have 23, or 42, or 50, or 100 words for snow --- the numbers often seem to have been picked at random. The spread of the myth was tracked in a paper by Laura Martin (American Anthropologist 88 (1986), 418-423), and publicized more widely by a later humorous embroidering of the theme by G. K. Pullum (reprinted as chapter 19 of his 1991 book of essays The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax). But the Eskimoan language group uses an extraordinary system of multiple, recursively addable derivational suffixes for word formation called postbases. The list of snow-referring roots to stick them on isn't that long: qani- for a snowflake, api- for snow considered as stuff lying on the ground and covering things up, a root meaning "slush", a root meaning "blizzard", a root meaning "drift", and a few others -- very roughly the same number of roots as in English. Nonetheless, the number of distinct words you can derive from them is not 50, or 150, or 1500, or a million, but simply unbounded. Only stamina sets a limit."

But in Montreal, there is only one word for it, mon ami. It's "snow," and it's everywhere.

Montreal's ninth major snowstorm of the season dropped snow quietly and steadily all weekend, with another storm expected Wednesday. I watched bemused as the snow piled up all around everything, burying fences, parking meters, lots of small cars, and some household pets, I'm sure.

But then I went out in it. Sweet Baby Jesus a Go Go. Saturday afternoon, the wind ripped through Prince Arthur Square like a buzz saw, sending snow sideways across the field of vision. In the mile walk from my door to the supermarket, I watched two locals take a tumble, waited for a car to spin out of a parking space (he was still trying on my way back), and realized that this was an actual blizzard gathering strength here. (This is where Montrealers shake their head at my meteorological-ish naivete.)

But I did make some new discoveries here again:

• In Canada they sell microwave bacon. ("Cooks in five seconds!")

• They don't sell flavored coffee creamers.

• They do sell pink and green tortillas.

• There is ketchup-flavored salt for sale at Blockbuster Video.

• Apparently, there is no French-Canadian word for "Ketchup."

This just in: I might be playing the Sherbrooke Metro station tomorrow. Ssshh.

Weekend in Montreal

2008-03-08T22:06:00.004-05:00

Let me just mark this space here. I have a lot to write about, in the meantime. Stay tuned.

Mr. Bruce Springsteen and the Culture of Rock and Roll Dorkiness

2008-03-08T19:40:00.014-05:00

This is late, so let me get right to it.

It's a bit of a long story, involving too many tickets, a lost wallet, sick children, and a slice of pizza. Suffice to say that its the second of March, 35 degrees American outside, and I am sitting high above and behind Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, stretched out among a few seats, with no one to dance with.

The last time I saw Bruce was in Ottawa, if you remember, and that was with my new friends, Jimmy and Gary. Now, sitting alone among 16,000 fans at the Bell Centre, I know no one.

At a certain age, you stop lining up early outside for tickets to your favorite band; you stop living your life around their schedules. Not so Bruce fans. As I'd been explaining to someone, if you have any obsession, no matter how cool it may seem—golf to tattoos to rock and roll—you walk a fine line between cool and dork.

In trying to buy tickets for the Montreal show, I strode deeply through Springsteen fandom, encountering people with CyberNoms like JaneyFreehold, Born2Rn, RosalitaSanDiego, KyleWilliam456—obscure references to characters and titles and places in the Springsteen ouevre. Kinda like Star Wars, but with leather jackets and jeans.

And very close to obsessive dork. But hey, then what am I? I try hard not to ever become so obsessed by anything it takes over any aspect of my life. But we all have our obsessions. I'm no different.

Having said all that, I can appreciate Springsteen from a fan's perspective, and from someone who knows what he is and what he isn't. Here's a guy who had every dream come true in his life, someone who can tell his life story and your life story better than you can. Someone obsessive about controlling every aspect of his career. Fans know that.

He is not the Messiah. And I would never let a celebrity tell me how to vote.

But we look for ourselves in the artists we admire, they say what we can't say. It's why you send a song to someone to tell them that you love them.

When he speaks to a larger American picture in his work, it strikes a chord in people. Simple ideas—decency, goodness, the power of rock and roll revival, the best in people—come through, but not as Pollyanna. It's delivered loud with blazing guitars and pounding drums—like Steinbeck through a Fender Twin.

This wasn't the best Springsteen show I had ever seen. That will never happen again, and I'm okay with that.

But high above the stage, as the house lights went up and everyone gleefully sang along on "Dancing in the Dark," and did that little dance like in the video when they were 20, I remembered why he means a little something to me and so many.

"...And when they said sit down, I stood up, ooh, growing up..."

—You Know Who

First Things First, Or How it Be to Be Me

2008-03-03T04:33:00.009-05:00

Tonight's entry begins back on Wednesday evening--deadline night. In order to send the latest issue of the Arroyo Seco Journal (my other day job--www.asjournal.net) (Check it tonight, not right now)to the printer, the cover has to be created and finalized by John, our art director.

So there I am at his place Wednesday night. My MacBook has been acting funny for the past few days every since he placed a folder full of fonts on my desktop, and I loaded some of them. Chaos has reigned since then. But we're trying to go to press at midnight, so I'm being extra careful with it.

So there we are. I at my laptop, writing some final stories and he on his, creating the cover. At just about 10:30, the cover is finalized and approved for uploading to our printer's FTP service. I'm just gonna head home and finish two more sections and lay out the art news. We wont make midnight, but we will make 8 a.m., which means we make our on-street schedule.

I get home, fire up the MacBook, and nothing....just a blinking clock. Not good. There isnt' even enough time to go, "SweetBabyJesusagogoOnaFreekingDirtBike, IcantbelievethisishappeningtomeAGAIN!" I have to get the paper to the press and get on a plane.

I cruise into the nearest Kinko's, pray they have the proper system available, and start working immediately. I'd saved all of the week's work on a flash drive, fortunately, so I had only to finish the remaining pages, and I was done. But this requires critical thinking at 2 in the morning. I, um, did the best I could.

By 7a.m. I was headed home, pages safely sent to the printer. Now the sun was up, and I am wide awake, on the phone to Don, my mac guy.

"Dude!!," I said.

"I can be there in two hours,"he answered.

11 a.m. He arrives, and reveals that he has forgotten a critical tool ("Your brain?", I offered, politely, under my breath.) "I'll be back in an hour," he assures me.

He is climbing the stairs to my apartment at 1 p.m. After about an hour of "tsk tsk," and "thatsfunnyhmm," I ask him if he has a loaner computer. He says his are all out with customers, but he knows where I can rent one."

"Call him right now."

3 p.m. I'm headed for Westwood (Imagine trying to drive to Laval from, let's say, Verdun, at 5 p.m., Montrealers), directly through the heart of afternoon traffic and moving deep into rush hour.

At 4:25, I am walking out of the store with another Macbook Pro, and headed up Sepulveda Blvd. north to the 101 east to the 134/5 interchange, onto the 5, to the Glendale Freeway north to the San Fernando road exit, up San Fernando to Cypress, up Roseview to the very very top, then Avenue 37, and home, with barely enough time for a shower and a dash to the airport. A 22 mile trip in about 3 hours.

Long Beach Airport is uncrowded and peaceful an hour before my flight. My bags (and guitar) are checked curbside.

Looking forward to a long dark, sleepy night, I am blazing awake until we embark at Dulles Aiport in Washington D.C. Another hour for the New York flight. I shoot a couple of video segments, we board the plane, and we are at JFK in about 11 songs.

I shared a car service into Manhattan with my two new friends, Crystal and OhMan,WHAT is her husband's name? They were traveling to NYC to help empty a friend's apartment after her father's move to LA. Long story, kinda. (They'll read this and send me an--oh wait, no they won't, but I'll get to that.)

I can't check into my hotel until noon, so I wile away the hours in a Starbucks on West 56th, watching the city's work force straggle in and walk out awake.

I stroll around Midtown for an hour or so, forgetting what real cold feels like. It's about 12 degrees, and the wind shoots through my clothes like an X-ray. I buy warmer gloves and ear muffs, and at about noon, I'm sitting in the "O" of that "L O V E" sculpture on 55th and 6th, having a hot dog and a diet coke (It's the little things, mon amis.)

By 1:30, I am in rapid eye movement, and do not anticipate any movement for several days. Alas, I am awake at 8 p.m. I board the F Train down to the Village in search of pizza. As I emerge from the West 4th Street Station, a gentle snow begins to fall, and the natives are giddy. Actual snowfall in the City is relatively rare, and the world feels like a happy place.

I found pizza on Carmine Street, in Little Italy, read the NY Post, like a New Yorker, yo, and then got back on the train. I exited again at Times Square, and barely recognized it from the 1986 version I'd been familiar with. No one brushed past me, whispering "Smoke? Smoke?," all the porn shops were gone, and the city that once looked to me like it was about to slip off the worn veneer of civilization was shiny and new again.

By now the snow had turned to rain, all the photos I took were wet and blurry, and it was getting late.

Ah, but by midnight, I was out again. My brother, in New York for three days on assigment for NBC Sports, invited me out for a late something.

We met like tourists at the Carnegie Deli, had strangers take our picture, planned my sister's surprise birthday party, then said our goodbyes. I headed back to the hotel full to the brim with every tiny, happy thing that pizza, falling snow and family fills you with.

(Oh, and why won't Crystal and her husband e-mail me? Because, dear friends, when I arrived in Montreal, I realized that I had lost my wallet. Along with the credit cards, license and all the rest, Crystal's card was in there. THAT is one more blog entry.)

Next: "Mr. Bruce Springsteen and the Culture of Rock and Roll Dorkiness." Only at www.montrealmontreal.blogspot.com, Montreal's Best Choice for Quality Low-Cost Entertainment at Work.

How YOU gonna act?

Hey Monkeys, I'm back!

2008-03-02T01:50:00.005-05:00

13. 5 hours on a train, only to lose my wallet. I promise to update this as soon as I can get VideoTron to answer their phones, and turn the Internet on in my lovely apartment. You know that coffee place on St. Laurent and Prince Arthur? That's where I am. OK, see ya tomorrow. ;-)

OK, OK, you got me. I FORGOT how cold winter can be.
What the F, David Blaine??

Arrival Plans

2008-02-13T04:46:00.007-05:00

74 Degrees today on the American Left Coast.

As I begin to edge closer to my stay in Montreal, I'm doing that Cultural Immersion Ritual Thing. French podcasts, Sur La Route (Eeky French pop music) on XM Radio, and, I hate to admit this one—Rants And Raves on the Montreal Craigslist.

People, people....All that stuff I wrote about this good and wise nation is reduced to schoolyard bullying and a really astonishing level of anti-everything? I mean, can we all get along? (Does that joke work in Canada?)

I mean, I know America takes the cake, and the candles and the frosting, when it comes to this group hating that one, ...but....Jeez Louise. Guys, your city is pretty small, and the Metro is kinda crowded. Be cool. I guess it's just the Quebecois/Anglophone dynamic bubbling quietly just below the peaceful surface, but I gotta say, I expect more from you.

Now I'm coming to realize the difference between visiting a city and thinking you know it, and actually living in a city. Seems like I don't know Jacques about the Montreal everyday.

What if someone from Montreal moved to LA and wrote about it in a similar blog? Some smartass who thought he had all the answers and looked at my city with this weird combination of wide-eyed and jaded.

Sometimes that's me, and I would understand if people thought, "Who is this Wingnut who is going to tell me about where I live?"

But I'm working on it. Like I said before, I have a plane ticket, a guitar ready to pack, a MacBook (Don't start with me) and people who know me in the second-largest French-speaking city in the Western world.

So I'll see you at Springsteen, and I'll be at Sherbrooke Station. Or maybe afraid to leave my apartment because the frozen Montreal GazetteSicle just sailed onto my porch and broke a window. I might be sitting next to the lone hockey fan at Pepsi Center. Or sitting next to you on the Montmorency train. I'll be at the Second Cup on Mont Royal. And tripping onto snowdrifts at Parc la Fontaine. And shopping at the cool Metro on Laurier below St. Denis.

And I'll be right here.

Politics as Unusual

2008-02-01T07:42:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, I've been a little busy. A major computer crash ("Sign here, sir, this says you understand that all your data is 100% unrecoverable."), some dental surgery, and the business of living, have all occupied my time.

But I have plane tickets from LA. And a train ticket from New York City to Montreal. And tickets to Springsteen at the Bell Center. Le mois de mars est seulement quelques semaines loin, sort of.

Here's how I spent last night:
(Warning! Highly American Content) www.arroyosecojournal.blogspot.com

Toto, I Don't Think We're in Montreal Anymore...

2008-01-04T21:08:00.000-05:00

6:09 p.m. American Pacific Fahrenheit Standard
Time, steady rain. /////

LOS ANGELES,CA—It's 4:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve afternoon, and I am rushing up and down the stairs from my apartment to the Car of the Week (Short 'splanation: I write about cars also, so I drive something different every week), tossing my suitcase in the back seat, and my MacBook in the shotgun seat.

It's 7.5 hours to midnight, and I have 240 miles to travel to Las Vegas. My buddy Adrian has more money than sense (sometimes), and has booked an extra room at the Renaissance Hotel....

With no one to go with, I had decided to stay home, and not fight the traffic east. But Adrian is on the cell phone every hour: "Dude, there is NO traffic! What are you gonna do? How you gonna act? ..."

I am a guy in the world. No one waiting for me to arrive. No one waiting for me to return. I am going to Vegas, baby, Vegas.

I see I am starting wrong. Let me begin again.*

6:57 p.m. American Pacific Fahrenheit Standard
Time, steady rain. /////

LOS ANGELES,CA—The city is 78 miles behind me. High winds are pushing hard across the Cajon Pass on Interstate 15, the main highway to Las Vegas from Southern California. It's a steady climb up north and out of San Bernardino County to the Mojave Desert—when the winds blow, the air funnels through the pass like a jet stream. Through the traffic headlights, I can see tractor trailer trucks either parked on makeshift shoulders or completely toppled over on the side of the road, their axles and transmissions exposed like intestines.

The winds are pushing the front end of my car left and then right, and I have to keep my speed down. About 200 miles to go before I hit Las Vegas.

I am driving to meet friends for New Year's Eve in Vegas, something I've never experienced, and clearly, I am a guy who needs to experience stuff. As I have said to Adrian more than once, "Full tank of gas, satellite radio, money in my pocket, I'm rocking the house..."

Other than that windjam on the Cajon, I am sailing along at a steady 80 per, the XM radio scanning stations every 30 seconds, and the miles peel away. ...Devore... Barstow.... Baker. I am closer to sin every moment. Soon enough, the lights of Sodom appear, a huge splash THISBRIGHT! on an otherwise dark desert palette.

This is my first drive to Vegas actually. I had flown in on previous visits, and while I like knowing my way around lots of cities, Vegas isn't yet one of them. Streets are closed for celebrations all over the city and when I finally arrived, it took another hour to actually locate the entrance to my hotel from the freeway. (Don't ask)

I got on the Vegas Monorail from the Convention Center Station on Paradise Boulevard, just outside the Renaissance. Like clockwork, a group of tourists from Dorkstick, USA, board the train and pile into seats in the rear, all lit up and talking strategy. One of the mullets says to his drunken friends, "Oh man, I am like the Casino Whisperer!" Oh man, you're like the president of Jackballville. They're in for a long, long night.

I can just picture it: Got paid yesterday, took out 600 bucks, that goes in the first hour; drunk on free drinks, he gets more credit card cash, that holds him until about 5 a.m. At 6 a.m. he is smelling like nachos and vomit, weeping copiously at a cashier station about some chips he dropped in the toilet. At 7 a.m. as the sun rises over Las Vegas Boulevard, he is holding his head in his hands, explaining to his wife, on a borrowed cell phone, why she needs to come pick him up and bring "at least $200. I'm on a hot streak, Louise!"

Okay, back to me. At 11 p.m., I found my friends at the packed Hilton, dancing and partying like it was, um, 2007.

"Eddie, I won 1400 dollars," Adrian laughs, a silly hat on his head. He adds quickly, "And I still have it."

By now, he knows the rule: "Don't spend your winnings." That's how people go home with barely enough cash for the gas home. Here's the thing: No matter how much you bring, THAT's what you play with. You win, you put it aside. You win, you put it aside. I know, it's way easier said than done. But if the next day, you have enough for the breakfast buffet, a tank of gas, and say, a pair of sunglasses, you're ahead of the game.

He had apparently sat patiently at the KENO table with his friend, Meli, drinking and laughing, steadily pushing the "Play Again" button, as his hundred dollar credit swooped and dipped. Then, the jubilant DING DING DING DING DING as his matching numbers piled up. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 thousand quarters were being rung up on the counter. (Coins don't pour out anymore..you get a paper voucher, but you HEAR coins spilling out like rain on the pavement.)

But, in the meantime, midnight snuck up on us, and we watched the City's fireworks on a dozen huge TV screens in the bar. Then we all head off in search of dinner. That Adrian is paying for.

Then out again to the casino floor. I put 20 clams in a Keno machine, selected six numbers, and just steadily pushed the PLAY button, as the funds slowly and steadily dwindled away. I stopped with ten dollars left.

I had set aside 20 bucks for a one-time toss at the Roulette table—one number, whatever happens, walk away or put it away. I met Adrian at the tables, where he was looking for an empty one for "luck."

Thing two: There is NO luck. NO System. NO Strategy. EVERYTHING is random. Once people learn that......

Adrian has learned that. From me. (Influencing the EveryDay around me, you know?)

So, he gives me the briefest roulette explanation I can stand, and I put my money on the first group of numbers, specifically "11." (No reason, no significance.)

"If the ball lands on any of the numbers in that group, you win," he says.

That seems too easy. And like he's reading my mind, he says, "Roulette is the hardest game to win at."

The ball rolls. And rolls. We watch it on a TV monitor.

"Eddie, you won $90," Adrian says.

"Say wut?"

"Do you wanna leave it there?"

"Of course not," and like a good scout, I pick up my chips and start to walk away. But Adrian wants to play one more round.

"OK, but not with your winnings."

After an explanation that I don't understand half of, he selects his number and color, and BingBangISawTheWholeGang, he wins $400. It's about 3 in the morning.

"Let's go," I tell him. "Now. You're the big winner. The only one in the casino. Let's jet." And we do.

He drives home way too early the next day, and I slept in, the icy desert sun fighting to break through the window shades.

Headed home, I fill the tank at a casino gas station and go looking for a breakfast buffet before I get perfectly lost on the way home.

You should see the cool sunglasses I bought.

* F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Joyeux Noel Per Se.....

2007-12-24T06:19:00.000-05:00

Here's my little Christmas card, Amigos.

E

You can see this a little better at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-kzJaKVlL8

(I wont play the guitar any better though, sorry. )

Christmas on This Side of the World

2007-12-22T01:12:00.000-05:00

In Australia, it is traditional for families to pack a picnic lunch and go to the beach for the day on Christmas. See, it's Summer right now on the bottom curve of the planet.

Here's a little secret: I'm not at the beach this week. It's not Australia here. It's California. For the record, we kinda actually have winter here. I will admit that it was 82 degrees the week I arrived home from Montreal. But this morning it was 48 degrees American under clear skies.

If I look across the city to the north, I can see the San Gabriel mountain range, dusted with snow from this week's rain storm (When it rains in the city, it snows in the mountains).

This was the first clear day in a few of them. This morning when I arose, the sunlight burned hard against the blinds. I got out of bed, got dressed, and walked to the hilltop at the corner of my street.

From this high vantage point looking south, I could see the City skyline over Elysian Park and Dodger Stadium. To the north were the burned-off peaks of Mt. Lee (from a fire last Spring), where the Hollywood sign rises over the city like an altar. Turning around, the canyon was varying shades of green and amber morning light.

I know there's been tons of snow in Montreal these past few weeks, and Winter only began today. And I only wanted to say that it's true the grass is always greener on the other side. When I saw photos of the snow in Montreal, I was envious. My friend in Montreal, meanwhile, made it clear that if she never saw snow again, it would be way too soon. Ah, we all want what we ain't got.

Here's the Christmas weather forecast for this side of the world: It's 49 right now, with winds out of the north northeast at 11 mph. Over the weekend it'll be 61 degrees American Saturday and Sunday, and about 65 on Christmas Day.

Santa will wear earmuffs there, sunglasses here, but it'll still be the same guy.
Joyeux Noel, amigos.

Rêver de St Louis...

2007-12-12T04:00:00.000-05:00

The other night I was on Google Earth, taking its virtual tours from my desk in a little house high on a hill in Los Angeles, to places I've been and never been. I flew over the Forbidden City in China, the former home of the Republican Guard in Iran, my old Tiger Beat office in Cresskill, New Jersey (Yes, that Tiger Beat, where I was an editor for three years in the CultureClubDuranDuranMadonnaSpringsteenU2 WeAreTheWorld 80s, and no, they didn't go out of business after you graduated to SPIN magazine), Mt. Haleakala on the Big Island of Hawaii, Vatican City, Buenos Aires, Argentina.....and then I set the coordinates for Square St. Louis, Montreal.

Whoooooooosh went the screen, like those TV weather maps, rotating the planet, and then dropping down about to 600 feet high above the square and its fountain in the park. From that slightly blurry angle, I couldn't make out the crazies in the park, or any people for that matter. But it was enough to send a sharp shiver of lonely through me.

March approaches like a zephyr, picking up speed every day. There are plane tickets to buy, arrangements to make, and then, just like that, March will be—over. See, someone else owns this apartment of my dreams, and March is the only month it is available to me until Fall again. I thought about actually swapping apartments to extend my stay through the spring, but I can't imagine living anywhere else in the City. Ah, there are worse dilemmas. (Um, maybe you know someone who wants to live in LA this spring?)

I do know I plan on trying to meet all the people who commented on the blog, and all the strangers who e-mailed me with encouragement and suggestions.

AND I'll play the Sherbrooke station again. Once, maybe twice.

Rencontrez-moi en Mars. Habillez chaudement.

Another City, Another Home...

2007-11-28T05:16:00.000-05:00

I am back home in a city 2600 miles from Square St. Louis. It was 72 degrees under partly sunny skies this afternoon. Remnant smoke from the Malibu fires blended softly into a gray to cafe au lait haze. I sit by the pool and read the Montreal Gazette online.

I have awakened too many mornings wondering where I'm sleeping. It's like I described to so many people, "Happy to be home, sad to leave home...." Like a guy who sees his ex-girlfriend in every face on the street, the most casual things remind me of my time in Montreal.

A hastily scrawled musician's list for the Sherbrooke Metro station is tossed onto my desk. My Montreal cell phone is on the kitchen counter. There are three leaves posted with magnets to my refrigerator. They were blown in behind me up the stairs and into my lobby on the one snowy afternoon I experienced. I look over at them and I can smell the inside of the 4 Freres Market on St. Laurent. "Pour La Monde" from Crowded House takes me to the narrow streets of Vieux Montreal and the Couche-Tard where I bought a diet Coke for breakfast when it was 38 degrees American outside. In Los Angeles, I hear it in a different car every week, where in Montreal, I heard it on my iPod walking to lunch at Complex Desjardin, or strolling along Laurier to the crazy, non-Mexican Mexican restaurant.

Like a radio station that suddenly changes formats one morning, I left my blog unfinished, incomplete. I think subconsciously I thought that if I finished it, it would be like locking the door behind me. I couldn't quite bring myself to do that, though I never admitted to anyone that that was the reason. During my last week, I could practically see the days like waves racing toward me, ready to send me under. So I kept paddling, boats against the current, as Fitzgerald said.

And then, suddenly, a week after I landed in Los Angeles, strangers found the site. "Guy" said I should be ashamed for not speaking French on my site. Others signed on and weighed in. Strangers were talking about me. My Secret Evil Plan to influence the Montreal Everyday was coming true. Guy, if I could have written in French, believe me, I would have been honored. As it was, I could barely order french fries in the lingua franca. But I'm working on it. And soon enough, someone, I don't know who, told Guy to zip it, and complimented the blog. It was like a kiss blown across a hallway, sweet and unexpected.

You see a lot when you're 2600 miles from wherever home might be. I worked on developing a good short answer for friends and relatives who asked why I went, why Montreal. It still changes every time someone asks. I do know that home can be wherever you are, and you can miss someplace new as hard as you miss your own doorstep.

Like a child who envies his new friend's toys, I spent a lot of time comparing the Canadian experience to the American. And the best description so far is, it's America Lite©. It's an America with purple mountains, vast prairies, deep green meadows and Wal-Mart. It's a funny version of football and a hockey team that's on the front page of the paper every day, win or lose. It's a trapper's diet without a country full of fat people.

It's a country that never invaded anyone, yet gave its young men to wars it never started. It's a land forged by hearty men and women with a huge helping of religion sprinkled on top. As I walked among the statues of explorers and poets throughout the city, I thought one day that this is a country without history. It was Boston without Paul Revere, and America without Viet Nam. But then I realized, unlike America, it's a country without a bloody history, and maybe that's all that historians use as markers.

I am no expert, but it seems to me the history of Canada was only written by families and not by soldiers. From the young women sent from France in the 1700s to help the Montreal colonists populate their new land, to the kids who populate the Pepsi Center on a Friday night, to the new Muslims and the staunch Quebecois, it's the American melting pot with French instead of Spanish. Cook slowly, and keep the flame low, we have learned over here.

The time until I return to Montreal in March will flash by, and I'll leave an LA spring for a Montreal winter. I won't pack as much this time, I'll practice my French, I'll walk the streets like I never went away, and I'll miss it twice as much when home calls me again.

Photos...

2007-11-26T02:52:00.000-05:00

You can see all the photos I took with my little cellphone camera here:

http://flickr.com/photos/21320970@N08/

2007 Montreal Metro Tour: No Sleep Till Sherbrooke

2007-10-30T00:58:00.000-04:00

"Hey!"

I looked down at my guitar to adjust my capo and re-tune slightly.

"Monsieur! Hey!"

I looked to my left down the long Metro tunnel to the turnstiles. As I did, he bowed slightly, crooked his right arm and sent a dollar rolling in my direction about 25 yards. It rolled steadily, picking up speed, and, just before it reached me, it bounced into the air.

I caught it at the top of its arc, and looked up at him. He smiled and waved and hurried to the stairs down to the Montmorency train, which was just whooshing in to the station a level below me.

Of all the culture I would cover in Montreal, Metro musicians intrigued me the most. ("Hey, I can do that!") Unlike other cities where "busking" is a casual, haphazard thing--You get somewhere, set up and play--Montreal has a system, sort of.

It goes like this: Someone (maybe you) gets to a Metro station at 5 a.m. when it opens. He scribbles out a list with the date, name of the station, and two hour slots from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. He makes two of these lists, tucks the first under the corner of a blue metal sign designating the music station. The other is usually tucked behind a tunnel billboard.

Get there early, and get your name on it. That's it. The trick is just getting there before anyone else because once the list is up, that's it for the day.

I chose the Sherbrooke station for obvious reasons—it's a block from my apartment. I could stagger out, stumble down the street with funny hair at 5 a.m., sign up and then go back home to sleep. Traversing the entire Metro system looking for the music stations (identified by a blue lyre sign) was not something I was keen to do.

The whole singing by yourself with only a guitar thing, this wasn't something I was that familiar with. Back home I have a loud, noisy rock and roll band for protection. Here I would stand alone. Just me and the new/used Takamine guitar I bought at Jack's Musique on St. Antoine. (On sale, Sylvia, OK?)

My friend Jimmy from Glasgow and I once busked on a street corner in Old Town Pasadena, and drew such a large crowd that the cops came and asked them to move along. I could not take credit for the event, though. Jimmy sings like an angel, and his Dad was in town visiting. Once Jimmy sang, his Dad had to dance. The combination was simply too irresistible. In ten minutes and 28 dollars, the moment was sealed forever.

The Metro would be different. I ain't Jimmy. I don't sing like an angel, I sing like a person. Huge difference.

My first day--the mid afternoon slot. I had only come in the hope that there was a slot available later in the day. But the 3:30 people were late. I could start right then and keep the slot for the two hours if they didn't show up.

Oh, OK, that means go! I had sort of a song list in my head and in a notebook. But I began with whatever would come out when I started strumming. Out popped out a really slowed-down version of the Supremes' "Stop in the name of Love," with just enough angst to get people to say, "Um, do I know that song?"

(In exactly 30 minutes the 3:30 people showed up. End of the first day.

I realize now that people going by were wondering where Xie Wie, the Chinese violinist who usually bogarted every available spot here, was. (I would see him every time I walked through the station. I even bought his CD. Now that I understood the system, I wonder how he always managed to be there. You only get one spot a day. There was something just a little moo goo gai pan going on here, if you ask me.)

The Song List

I probably know about 200 songs in my head, all of which leave my same head when its time to write them down, so I jotted down about 25 of them in a notebook, that I could play at the drop of a coin. Then it occurred to me as I was playing: I could play the same song for two hours. People were constantly walking by, in the middle of songs. How could they know? And sadly, the vast majority of them are wearing their iPods.

I learned that there are certain songs that have no effect on people, others that you have to learn to squeeze a little emotion out of. I resisted playing really popular, well-known songs, and never had to play the "The Fucking Eagles," as I have gently referred to them as for so many years.

And then there is the one song will always get them, will always stop someone in his or her tracks, will always make someone smile and look at me, like they know me.
The song? "Somewhere over the Rainbow," of course.

It's problematic, I know. I was telling someone about doing it, and she was appalled. Said no one but Judy could do it. Said she wouldn't even stop to listen to anyone else doing it. Ouch.

But mine is a simple, spare little version. No histrionics, I'm no one I am not, know what I mean? And people like it. Girls smile. Old women look at me kindly. Punk rockers slow down and lip-sync to their friends. And they give me money. What other song can do that?

But How Much Money?

The easy answer is, "I don't know." Money was never the object of the adventure, just the experience. My original goal was to pay for the guitar I bought, but after a few sets, that was seeming more and more unlikely. That first half hour I played? Ten bucks. I think that was the only time I counted.

After that I simply put a little change in my guitar case once I started the set,to give people the idea, and then emptied all the change into a large serving bowl once I got home. The bowl is almost full.

Most Montreal musicians make the bulk of their income from the Metro, though I could not imagine that I could, and am very glad I was not trying to. (I was explaining this to Daniel, one of the musicians, as he was packing up and making room for me, and he just stared at me. "You have a job?," he asked, incredulous. I let him have the next train.)

I didn't get rich, I didn't get famous. I'm okay. My guitar will be packed up and shipped home next week.

What I take home are these snapshots:

--An older gentleman approaches me as I arrive, and hands me money. "Here,"he says. "I meant to give this to you yesterday, but my train was arriving."

--A frenzied mother coaxes her shy young daughter to approach me. When she is unsuccessful, the older daughter hands me the money.

-A young student stops at the turnstile, walks all the way back to me, drops money in the case. "That was nice," she said.

--A couple hands their baby in a stroller money to give me. She puts it in her mouth, of course. They apologetically drop the gooey money in the case.

--A trio of black-shirted metalheads gathers about 25 feet to my right. They huddle seriously, then approach me. Three tattooed fistfuls of coins spill open at once.

Lots of people smiled and some danced. Many ignored me. Plenty of pretty women slowed down.

And that, dear reader, is the point. Every rock and roller from Carl Perkins to John Lennon to Kurt Cobain, who ever joined or started a band, every big hair metal dude who ever cranked it up to 11, every earnest college dork who ever sang "Kumbaya" at a campfire, every 12-year-old who ever begged his mother for a cheap Korean electric guitar, did it for one reason. One reason only. To impress a girl.

And I'm no different. Hope springs eternal.

Let's Make Like Tomatoes and Catch Up (Ow!)

2007-10-24T00:32:00.000-04:00

Once again, I was planning to write this a while ago. That's me and Gary and Jimmy October 14 outside the ScotiaBank Place in Kanata, Ottawa,about two hours west-ish of Montreal. We met when I was still in LA, and I answered an ad for people to travel together to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at one of his only two Canada appearances. (I know, sounds dorky, but it wasn't really.)

Though I'm sure Gary did sort of expect more than two people to respond to the ad. But there we were: a writer from Los Angeles, a Quebecois Chrysler auto parts guy (Bruce would be proud), and an Asian-Canadian computer guy dude, sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts at the Berri-UQAM Station, strategizing about how best to nab seats in "the pit." Like teenagers.

All over Ottawa, other grown-ups were having the same strategy sessions, self-imagined swashbucklers with enough money for tickets and t-shirts. And a serious mortage. And more than one car. Rock and roll grown-ups.

This was gonna be a column about the show, about how in a world where actual product barely exists, where walls and walls and walls full of albums have been replaced by less than a microchip, and where there are no record stores anymore, a middle-aged guy swinging a Fender Esquire guitar can rejuvenate and reinvigorate and reinvent. I've written about Springsteen so many times in so many places that there isn't much I can add to the ouevre. It was a night of rock and roll redemption, and all those kinds of adjectives that he generates. (See inspirational, joyful, jubilant, cathartic, all of those...)

We waited outside all day, we bonded, we stood for five and a half hours straight, and on the way home we left the radio off and we talked about music, about religion, about journalism, sports, about politics American and Canadian, and we talked about home. And we could have talked until the sun came up over Newfoundland.

Somewhere on the Trans-Canada Highway near East Hawkesbury, Gary looked up and out the window and said, "You guys have gotta see this sky. So many stars....."

It was that kind of a night.

Santa Ana Days

2007-10-22T00:05:00.000-04:00

Governor Schwarzenegger Proclaims State of Emergency in Southern California Counties Due to Wildfires

"Governor Schwarzenegger tonight proclaimed a State of Emergency in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura due to more than eleven major wildfires. Throughout the region, more than 30,000 acres have already burned, and more areas are threatened. The wildfires have caused the loss of human life and serious injuries. They have burned a number of homes, businesses and other structures. Residents have been evacuated in dangerous areas...."

I know that as I am writing this from so far away, the fires burn out of control ("zero percent contained...") in my home town as the Santa Anas roar down mountain passes like dragon's breath. I read the local news there everyday, and I recognize the familiar shots of stunned homeowners and stoic firefighters. I remember how my heart hurt as I watched the Griffith Park Fire torch a lot of my personal memories last May.

Okay, no one needs my impressions from 3600 miles away. Only that my heart goes out to the families of those lost, and to those who have lost, and to the firefighters and their families.

Photo by LA Times

Hope Springs Eternal

2007-10-20T02:53:00.000-04:00

A ray of blue light pierces a rainy sky, and sunshine dawns on Carre St. Louis. Montreal looks better now. A lot better. ;-)

Terror on the Metro (Sort Of)

2007-10-16T03:20:00.000-04:00

I had been carefully planning my move to the new apartment by moving in bits and pieces. I could actually have packed everything up in one trip, which Im gonna have to do anyway when I leave, but this gave me an excuse to visit the apartment a few times before actually moving in.

OK, remember that 70-pound suitcase, the one with the boots? Well, this is my task: bundle up warm, put on the backpack and roll the suitcase two blocks down Rue Rivard to the Laurier station. Negotiate 100 steps down into Laurier and 200 steps back up at Sherbrooke, out of the station, across the street and down to my new house.

First I gotta get into the station. Easier than it sounds. To enter, you swipe your monthly pass (if you have one) through a machine which opens a set of two heavy, air-powered glass doors to enter the actual station. The open door space is about 2 1/2 feet wide.

So, my hands are full, Im bundled up, so I am wider than usual, and the space is JUST wide enough for the suitcase. I stop outside the station, readjust and take out my card. I walk in to the station lobby, position myself in a straight line facing the doors, swipe my card, and hurry forward.

The doors closed on my suitcase behind me like steel jaws. Pushed into an angle, the suitcase was wedged tight, and nothing was moving. Looking up and out of the station, i caught the eye of a woman leaning against a bike rack smoking a cigarette. She looked at me and nodded, as if to say, "Oh right, thats my cue. Be right there." Like BatGirl spotting the BatSignal. She ground her cigarette into the sidewalk with her boot.

Rushing into the lobby, she whipped out her own Secret Monthly BatPass©, and swiped it quickly. Nothing.

"Pull! You gotta pull!" she yelled at me. Um yeah, like I wasnt? Okay, so I pull, and pull......nothing. Now suddenly there are two women standing there, both with black dyed hair, heavy eye makeup, and cigarettes dangling, like rock stars on rescue patrol; as if Joan Jett and her girlfriend were pulling the night shift that Wednesday.

"OK, Let go!" said Joan as she swiped her card again. and just like that, the doors NEXT to mine, swung open. What the ...?

Joan looked at Baby BatGirl, and KaBoom! the doors were open, and my suitcase was through. Then the doors closed again. Joan Jett and Baby BatGirl were gone behind the heavy smoked glass doors, and I remember thinking, as the doors finally swung open, "This is gonna be a pretty good blog item."

And the 200 stairs? Um, there's an escalator.

Oh Man, Am I Late.....

2007-10-12T00:07:00.000-04:00

I kinda forgot that people tune in every day when you have a blog. How sick were they of seeing Patti Smith's aging (not that there's anything wrong with that) mug day after day around the world?

I have been sequested in Le Ghetto Rue Boucher over the past week, realizing that it was affecting how I saw the city, or didnt see the city. I wasn't very motivated to move around the the neighborhood, even though that block was only the worst block in a neighborhood of great blocks.

Actually, over the past week, I did crawl out and discovered more great neighborhoods. The western end of Metro Laurier is a great street of shops and restaurants. You know how giddy everyone gets over three great stores in a row? A block of new shops in Northeast LA would be a National Event (Dont' get me started). Laurier is actually the street pictured in my "Day Un" entry here. That was from my last visit in July. I had been trying to figure out where that street was when I returned here, and "discovered" it again, while strolling up St. Laurent ("The Main") looking for a clothing store.

The point is that Montreal is an amazing collection of fascinating neighborhoods. Imagine Old Town Pasadena, Lake Avenue, Melrose, Sunset in Silver Lake, Montana Avenue, Uptown Whittier, Myrtle Avenue in Monrovia, throw in Old Town Claremont, and all around the corner from each other, separate and distinct, and a tiny part of one city. Then multiply that a few times. Thats Montreal.

Then there is Square St Louis, my new 'hood—Two Metro stops south and a world away from Le Ghetto Rue Boucher. 1870-era homes surround a square with a fountain in the center. (That's it in the pic up there on the left.) The fountain sits directly in front of my picture window--a perfect picture. As my landlords recommended, I've turned the couch around to face the park, and watch the daily parade.

I had been moving my things a little at a time throughout the week (more on that later) and was in the new apartment at dinner time on Tuesday, so I decided to go exploring. Just at the eastern end of the park, the square opens onto a three-block open courtyard/paseo filled with more of those quaint cafes, stores, AND a 24-hour Internet cafe. (Actually what there are none of here are donut shops, and that ain't right.)

It's Prince Arthur Avenue, another of Montreal's revitalized neighborhoods. Actually locals think of it as a tourist trap. Perfect for impressionable journalists like me moving through the Already Known World, thinking they're the first to see everything and tell the world about it.

I'll have more on that when MontrealMontreal returns.

Coming Up: "Our Correspondent Actually Moves" or "Terror on the Metro"

Pop Goes Montreal

2007-10-04T19:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, for the first time, I got lost. Walking down Rue Sherbrook in the wrong direction for miles.

Imagine a compass on a piece of paper pointing in four directions, Right. OK, now lay a map of a city right on top of it. Now, tilt the map clockwise about 40 degrees. Thats' Montreal. North is still north, but only if you are going to the North Pole, which I am not planning at this time.

So it was not until I was at the Ukranian Federation Hall last night to see Patti Smith with the Silver Mount Zion Orchestra Thing that this drunk guy explained it to me, along with anything else that popped into his head, from daily life in Verdun to corruption in Quebec to the state of liberal politics. His t-shirt smelled like it was dipped in sweat and whiskey, then worn, then wrung out, then dipped in sweat and whiskey.

Anyway, he said, "If you're on Sherbrooke and you are walking east, the river is on your right; if you're walking west, the river is on your left." Where was this guy when I was lost?

We were both sitting in the balcony waiting for Mademoiselle Smith on the opening night of the Montreal Pop Festival. She was doing an "improv" jam with this respected chamber orchestra, and it was as scary as you might imagine.

Here is the thing about Patti Smith: Her poet laureate/rock and roll priestess credentials aside, she kinda has no talent, really. Her poetry is only OK, and she really does not sing well. She has achieved what she has achieved through the force of her personality and sheer will. And she would probably agree.

Le example: In the second tune, a roadie helps her on with her guitar, and she has to look down at the neck to carefully form the one D chord she will be performing. As the tune begins, she begins to lose the tempo, unable to hold it steady. I'm wondering. "is it just me or is she laming out right now?"

Just before she begins to sing, she stops the band. "Maybe its better without me playing," she offers. It was, really. Seriously.

So it was her poetry, some beautiful orchestral passages, more poetry, some dissonant passages, more beautiful orchestral passages, and then a cardinal sin: as the penultimate song builds to a climax in the chorus, she leads the audience in clapping along. On the wrong beat.

(OK, do this. Count 1-2-3-4 and sing your favorite song in your head. Keeping that count in mind, CLAP on 2 and 4. If you're at work, just do it a little louder. They already think you're nuts. Okay, now start over, and do the same thing, but clap on 1 and 3. That doesnt sound jarring to you? THAT's what YOU do everytime you go see a show! And you always sit near me, so knock it off! This little tip will make you infinitely more attractive to the opposite sex. On the 2 and the 4, is that so difficult?)

So Patti Smith gleefully leads the audience on the wrong beat, the orchestra doesnt seem to mind, the drunk guy near me has already left, and the Montreal Pop Festival is off on the left foot.

Let's review: The river on your left means you are headed WEST, and you clap on the 2 and the 4.

Thank you for choosing MontrealMontreal.blogspot.com, your one-stop source for wisdom, random automotive parts and culinary espionage.

Canadian Money, Ketchup-Flavored Potato Chips, and Other Things You Have Not Considered So Much Lately

2007-10-04T01:41:00.000-04:00

In LA, I try not to leave the house without change in my pocket, in case someone asks me. So, in Montreal, the same thing happens. But they ask in French. It feels different, though not to Montrealers, Im sure. Anyway, this guy asked me for money the other day on Rue St. Denis ("Changement disponible, svp, Monsieur?"). So I gave him what I had.

I felt a little guilty, though. It was Canadian money.

LEADING with my best joke of the night! Damn, I should know better.

Okay, so here are some chance and unrelated Canadian observations occuring between September 29 and..........right ....now:

• Canadian money doesnt ring and jingle. It mostly clanks. Its made of about 90% steel, as opposed to silver, like US coins. Its also magnetic. US money is not.

• In Canada, there isn't really Canadian cuisine. There is regional cuisine, and there is Quebecois cuisine. It's called "Poutine." Think of it as Turbo Nachos. Take a basket of french fries, and pour gravy all over it. Top off that little HazMat action with cheese curds. Cheese curds are like the stuff they make string cheese out of, but its just big ragged chunks of cheese. You sprinkle those on top of the fries and gravy. It is as scrumptious and vile and as dangerous and beautiful as it sounds. Served in large and extra large in a location near you, I mean, me.

• Speaking of cuisine, Canadians LOVE hot dogs. Everywhere you go, "Hot Dog Special! $3,99!" (Oh, they use a comma instead of a period.) OK, so lets think of some American low points in terms of cuisine....In New Mexico, they slice the tops of Frito bags and pour chili in, and serve it to school children with a spork. It's called Frito Pie. In the South, well, there is nothing they wont deep fry, from cake to salads to Cheerios. But, I think I got them beat. In Canada they sell ketchup-flavored potato chips. Ketchup-flavored potato chips??!! Who thought of that? Give him a raise and make him Marketing Manager for Life. Ketchup?! Dang. Good thinkin' there, Pierre.
(Photographic documentation by yours truly with a cell phone.)

• Don't complain about gas prices. Its over 4 dollars a gallon here. They sell it in liters, so it seems less painful, but it aint, really...

• Don't ask for an ATM machine here. They will look at you wackadoodle. It's a "Guichet Automatique." ( GI-SHAY Auto-ma-TEEK, not GI-SHET, you nimrod.) Impress your date this weekend, and tell him or her, with a straight face, you need to find a "Guichet Automatique." They will look at you wackadoodle.

• My apartment still smells like microwave popcorn.

I Was Busy, I'll Have More Tonight

2007-10-02T18:33:00.000-04:00

...

Possible Permanent Popcornization of the Pad

2007-09-25T18:13:00.000-04:00

Movie night at Chez Rue Boucher. I had somehow grown weary of the Three-Channel TV©, and had ventured out to Le BlockBuster for a thin round, shiny disc that would display sound and images when inserted into the side slot of the same machine in which I create these entries for you, dear reader.

And since the dynamic of any character arc requires popcorn, I had also made provisions for that, too.

Here is the thing with popcorn: Some microwave ovens have a "popcorn" button. It regulates the time needed for perfect popcorn. At Chez Rue Boucher there is no such button.

Quick. Close your eyes and try to guess what happened. Visualize....visualize.......visualize...

Only seconds past Too Late, the virulent smell of burnt popcorn gack filled the kitchen like poison ink. Toxic, white-hot chemical butter burst out of the blackened paper bag and sprayed the interior of the microwave like a broken garden sprinkler.

The fumes quickly permeated the wood of the kitchen—the counters, the doors, the ceiling. The window glass smelled like popcorn. Everything was Redenbacher from sea to shining sea.

Less than a minute had passed since ignition, but it was already later than it had ever been. Birds flying overhead dropped like dumbbells out of the sky, stunned and never knowing what had hit them. Cargo ships passing on the St. Lawrence River miles to the southeast were already altering their courses.

Its been three days. Can you guess what the apartment smells like today? Visualize....visualize.......visualize...

Look, we know Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. But did anyone think to check his cupboards for microwave popcorn?

Le Abode Nouveau, Part Trois

2007-09-24T16:48:00.000-04:00

I meant to write this last week...

I had been thinking that my days in Montreal would be spent in my wiggity, run-down place on Rue Boucher with the fabulous 2007 Three-Channel TV® and the exclusive No-Spatula kitchen©, featuring the Non-Drain Drain© (now, because of Dollar Parity, available in the US).

So I posted that ad on Craigslist, right? The one the landlady saw. and since then, I got a handful of offers. Some just as wack as this place, and some, well, not everyone reads so good, if you know what I mean. One offer was $1500. (Mon dieu!), and another was a houseboat. Do I look like a houseboat guy?

One pattern that emerged was that I would go looking at a place, and I would see an apartment, and think, well, this is not so bad, and realize it was the wrong number. I would find the proper number, and there would be some dismal office/crash pad being paraded as a "renovated loft"!

I was ready to take this place in Outremont ("ooh-trey-mont"), described as a "contemporary second-floor furnished one-bedroom condo." Im sure it was. I never went in. When I finally walked up on it, guess what was on the first floor? A check cashing store and a 99 cent store. SO not going to happen.

And then I found St. Louis Square. Just about a mile and a half towards Downtown (I'm barely learning directions, since the city is tilted, compass-wise.) Just two blocks in from St Denis and a world away from Rue Boucher, a row of 1870-era homes sit surrounding a park with a beautiful fountain.

And once again, I am at the wrong address. Im looking for ---A. I'm stopped in front of ---, and I'm thinking, Hey, this is nice. High ceilings, hardwood floors, tall windows. Realizing I am on the wrong side, I walk across the park to ---A. Louis, the property manager, is standing in the doorway, inviting me in.

OK, this is the place. A remodeled foyer opens in to a grand living room facing the park. There is also a large dining room table, that can double as a desk (a problem at Chez Boucher). Peter, the owner, is an architect, which explains the amount of remodeling and attention to detail.

Built, as I mentioned, around 1870, the building itself was originally a birthing hospital, before being divided into apartments. I would say something at this point about new lives beginning here and all that pure fresh hope for a unmarred future, but that would be kinda obvious. I mean, wouldn't it?

There is a full size murphy bed, two (!) bedrooms, a hallway, and remodeled bathroom. There is something called an open induction oven in the remodeled kitchen, TV, DVD player, full cable and Internet service. All of which leads to the obvious: How can I ever leave?

I'll think of something.

Et Ainsi il Va (And So it Goes)

2007-09-23T20:19:00.000-04:00

This is how life should be, sort of:

At 8:26 p.m. on Saturday night, I was dawdling, tying my shoes, looking for my keys. By 8:31, I was ready to "lock up the house, turn out the lights, and step out into the night..." (Sorry, Bruce, it fit.). At 8:45, I was stepping down the stairs to the Cote de Ver train at the Mont Royal station. (No ticket booth at the Laurier station, and I didnt have a ticket,so...).

As I stepped up to the platform, the train arrived. Next stop--Berri-Uqam station, for a transfer to the Arnignon Green Line.

As I stepped up to the platform at Berri-Uquam, the train arrived.

As I emerged from the station and on to the street at St. Laurent, I looked to my left. There was the marquee for Club Soda.

No line outside. Everyone is in already. It's 9:02 p.m. I got a drink at the bar, and found a seat in the balcony stage left. I could literally see down the artists' nose. (How close was I? I took that picture up there from my seat.)

I reached for my notebook, and the lights dimmed. Opening act Teddy Thompson quietly walked on to the stage. A lanky, unassuming sort, he has a voice like Chris Isaak meets the Maverick's Raul Malo, a bit like strong coffee with just enough milk.

One guy, one guitar, a pocketful of modern cowboy country songs. A lot of them, too many of them, in fact, had that slow, loping, Bakersfield-type country shuffle, but Thompson, was assured and confident, and he delivered with style. He closed with George Jones' "She Thinks I Still Care," done sober, for perhaps one of the few times.

http://www.myspace.com/teddythompsonmusic. You decide.

Speaking of one guy, one guitar, and a pocketful of songs, the ever dapper and stylish Nick Lowe then also strolled out unassumedly, but with a roar from the loyal and endearing crowd, no members of which, and I mean, no members, were under 40. They were teens and slashed-shirt 20 year-olds then, when Nick and his early bands were filling pubs. Nick is 56 now, with a new child, and lots of grown-up albums.

After an awkward French salutation, Lowe simply settled into a comfortable row of songs, both from his new effort, "At My Age," and his vast catalogue. Nick's always been a quiet touchstone of mine over the years, and not just because we both have that same excellent hair thing going on. His cheeky 1978 elpee, "Pure Pop for Now People," was filled with wit and irony as well as great straight-on rock and roll. Years and years and years went on, and I kept waiting for him to write "And So it Goes" again. But there he was, writing these smooth Ray Charles with a Guitar Songs, and they kept gettting smoother as time went on.

OK, people get older and better at what they do. Im learning that.

He snuck "Cruel to be Kind" in there amidst the new stuff--no buildup, no icky "Thanks for making this my biggest hit ever" noise. Just kinda snuck it in as the applause was waning from his previous tune. He did the same with a slowed-down version of "Whats so Funny (About Peace, Love and Understanding)?" As cool as you wanna be, thankyouverymuch.

There were two encores, he didn't do "And So It Goes," and the Montmorency train arrived in just minutes.

Sometimes life is like that.

2007-09-20T23:11:00.000-04:00

Canadians Get Looney; Heat Wave Continues (may be too technical for younger readers)

2007-09-20T22:37:00.000-04:00

There were two interesting bits of Canada v. America this week. First, the "looney," which is the Canadian dollar, (There is a picture of a Loon on it.) was suddenly worth as much as an American Dollar. What does this mean? Well, according to ABC News, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said a weak U.S. dollar was the cause of the loonie briefly reaching parity with U.S. currency for the first time in 31 years.

"The real story here is the rather dramatic decline in the U.S. currency in recent days and as a result the Canadian dollar is up significantly," Flaherty told reporters. He said he'd just had a conversation with Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge, to discuss the implications of a Canadian dollar even in value to a U.S. dollar.

At 10:58 a.m. EDT, the loonie rose as high as $1.0004 US before closing at the end of the trading day at 99.87 cents US -- up 1.37 cents US from Wednesday."

I read and read lots of news stories about what this means, (Its a big news story here!) and the basic idea is that Canadian shoppers dont have to head south to US outlet stores anymore, In Canada, I can use American money to buy stuff, but you cannot do that in the US. That could change. A Canadian Looney rising means the US dollar is falling. A lot of Americans who know more about this stuff than you and me, blame George Bush. Personally, I dont give him any credit. He ain't no economist.

Here is the other thing:

Check out the forecast for the weekend in Montreal:

Friday Sep 21: Sunny, 10% chance of precipitation. Winds 5mph from ESE. Humidity 75% Sunrise: 6:39 AM
79 °F; Evening: Clear, 20% chance of precipitation. Winds 9mph from SSE. Humidity 84% Sunset: 6:54 PM

Los Angeles, CA
Tomorrow's Forecast (FRI): Rain, Chance of Precip: 54% Wind: 10 mph
Dewpoint: 54° High 74 with a low of 58.

Here on the shores of the St. Lawrence river, the Montreal area has been experiencing a heat wave with temps in the 80s, and Friday is the first day of Fall. The first question everyone in LA asks me is "How cold is it there now?" I tell 'em, "Walk outside."

So Friday morning, when the rain begins to fall across the LA basin, I'll be wearing a t-shirt and shorts. And some excellent sunglasses I got at Pep Boys.

In Hell the French Make the Rock and Roll

2007-09-19T23:55:00.000-04:00

There is this joke--several variations of it exist as well—but anyway, this is the gist:

In heaven, you are greeted by the Italians, the Germans organize it, the French make the food, and the English make the rock and roll. In hell, of course, you are greeted by the Germans, everything is organized by the Italians, the English make the food, and the French make the rock and roll.

(You DO know that Quebec is a French-speaking province, right? Montreal is in Quebec.)

I've been listening to "Sur La Route" (On the Road), a French station on XM Radio, and the results have been, well, uneven. The French, for all their superiority, have a wee bit of a problem in le department de originalité. Everything seems to sound like an American song that you recognize, but with different lyrics. ("Hey, that's Elvis Costello, waitaminit....what the eff?...")

Serious rock and roll just sounds a bit silly with a French accent. I dont doubt their sincerity, but a chorus of "Rock and roll! Un! Deux! Trois!" um, sounds, wiggity, and not in a good way. Then you have the usual goofy stuff with banjos and 2 string violins, and what sounds like boots stomping on the hardwood floor. Nothing as cool as Cajun, far goofier. Currently a French version of Suzanne Vega's 1985 "Luka" is in heavy rotation ("Mon nom est Luka..."). There is a lot of fake drama in minor keys from earnest young songwriters railing against life's injustices, like no one didn't ever think of that before.

But what did I expect. In Montreal they dig jazz, man. Jazz. Smooth, sophisticated, stylish wanking to eat a salad to.

And I love Montreal. I love Canada. But O Canada, someday, in a brighter, more just world somewhere, there will be atonement for the sins of Bachman-Turner Overdrive. And Rush. Ca plane pour moi, dude.

Le Abode, Part Deux

2007-09-18T00:09:00.000-04:00

Yet another episode of "Arrested Development" on CBC, but before I could settle in, "Ding!," the doorbell.

My landlady is standing there, sheet of paper in her hand.

"Hello, I have your little note," she said, seemingly a little more injured than angry. I had posted a note on Craigslist Montreal, looking for a another place, but as the current frontrunner for the Nobel Prize in Really Not that Smart, I didnt realize that she is on that site regularly. That's how I found this place. ("And the winner is...)

"If you're not happy, you can go," she said. "We can reimburse you, but I am going to Switzerland this weekend, so I need to know right away."

8:30 p.m. I am on the wrong train, headed out to see an apartment (" ..from Los Angeles, California......"). When I finally put 2 and 3 together, I am atop a 22nd floor balcony scoping out the view of Montreal to the east. The tentative new apartment is the polar opposite of this house--a Downtown high-rise. Its complicated, but if this works out, I'll be there next week. She is seriously gonna have to do something about all that Barbie furniture, though.

Hey, the Nobel Prize...isn't that awarded in Switzerland?

Riding on the Metro

2007-09-17T01:28:00.000-04:00

I will say this for this city. It shames Los Angeles in terms of public transportation. The Metro, which traverses the island in three directions, is a model of cool eficiency. According to Wikipedia, "The Metro was opened on October 14, 1966, during the tenure of Mayor Jean Drapeau. (It) now incorporates 68 stations on four lines measuring 66.0 kilometres (41.0 miles) in length, serving the north, east, and centre of the Island of Montreal with a connection to Longueuil, via the Yellow Line, and Laval, via the Orange line.

"The metro system is currently Canada's second longest and second in total annual passenger usage (in both respects to Toronto's subway system), serving 286.7 million riders a year; according to the STM website, the metro system has transported over 6 billion passengers as of 2006, which is equivalent to the world's population. The Montreal Metro was inspired by the Paris Metro and in turn is also the inspiration for the Lyon (France) Metro, constructed a few years later, which shares the same rubber-wheel car design and Montreal Metro station architecture."

I read somewhere recently that the ideal public transportation system does not create the class of the car owner and the pedestrian, rather it creates a new community where everyone shares the same ride and the same egalitarianness, if you will.
Certainly that's true in this city by the river.

Its more expensive than riding the bus, which everyone rides as well. It's $2.75 a ride with a six-ticket strip available for $11.75. But that wont get you through the week. An EZ Transit pass in LA County is $70 a month and the Montreal monthly pass is $65. But the LA pass means riding a wickedly uncomfortable bus, or the limited area subway. (Dont get me wrong. I love taking the train in LA, but it doesnt really go everywhere.) With Montreal being one-mcjillionth the size of LA, its transit system shines, as it should.

So far I've ridden from Laurier, which is just around the corner from the crib, to Downtown, but this week, I will be everywhere.

Note to self: Charge iPod.

Le Abode

2007-09-17T00:23:00.000-04:00

I am so spoiled.

When I was but a lad growing up in Highland Park, my younger brother once told me that if he was ever rich, the one thing he would always have would be socks.
"I would never go looking for socks," he said. Now as a successful adult, Im sure he has enough socks to miss innumerable wash cycles.

The point is that I never thought that growing up in a small house with six brothers and sisters, I would ever think of myself as privileged. Everything was valuable.

For the last year, I have been fortunate enough to live in a unique apartment with nearly every amenity I could ever consider. When I prepared for this trip, I showed it to a dozen applicants, some of whom I knew would never take it; others I would never sublet it to.

I took the same care in searching for an apartment in Montreal, and I thought I had found it. I was ready to pay what would be considered high rent for this city. The ad had sounded perfect, but then I was realized these nutty Quebequois were not speaking French to me, they were were speaking the far more confusing language--"real estate." The language where "cozy" means "squished," and "adjacent" means "nowhere near." "Character" means "shabby" and "negotiable" means "on their terms, not yours."

We drove though an industrial area with tagged buildings and I got nervous. "We're almost home,eh," my landlady said with some glee. I had visions of what I'd seen previously. The ad said, "We have what was formerly a 3 1/2 (one bedroom) which was converted into an open loft (approx. 700 sq/ft) Hardwood floors, high ceilings, microwave, laundry, nice courtyard with B.B.Q. Double bed. High-speed internet, linens, kitchen cookware, dishes, and utensils. Hydro, heating/electricity all included. Restaurants, boutique et café just around the corner. (Most popular street St-Denis , great location, safe and quiet. Il ne manque que vos baggages !!!"

Au contraire, mon frere.

The courtyard is a dingy porch with recycling, trapped between two buildings; the linens are well, a set of sheets. Kitchen cookware does not include a toaster. I know, I know, spoiled, but can a person be a person who eats toast around here?

And the Internet. Oh yes. that. I set my laptop on a tiny, wobbly dining table, and it instantly picked up a wireless signal. OK, whose signal is that? It's all a very long, confusing story, but there is now a 100-foot ethernet cable extending from outside their balcony on the third floor to my door, and across the floor to my router, so that I can have telephone service.

There is no cable ( they have satellite), and the remote does not work. She looked at me cockeyed when I asked if I would have to get up and change the channel each time. When I asked about cable, she said, "You're gonna want cable, eh?" Not that it matters, though. When I last checked the TV, hidden in a tangled hive of '70s components, speakers and wires, it didnt work at all.

I have placed a new ad on Craigslist Montreal. "Spoiled American Wants Toast."

I'll keep you posted

LAX

2007-09-14T01:21:00.001-04:00

I was at the airport two hours early, like a good citizen passenger in the Age of the Patriot Act. One suitcase, one guitar, a laptop, coat and a backpack.
The friendly clerk winced as I lifted my wheeled bag on to the scale.
"That might be a little over the limit," she said, nervously. "You might have to pay a charge."
"OK." I'd come this far, and was leaving for two months. Let's move forward, I thought.
"Actually, sir, I can't allow this bag on at all."
"Excuse me?"
"Its' over the weight limit, and the FAA has strict rules about this. You're four pounds over the limit."
"Um well, what can I do?"
"Do you have room in your backpack for anything from your suitcase?"
I had packed every inch of everything, and there was no room for even a paper clip.
"Is there anything you can remove from your suitcase?"
"Well......." I knelt down and opened the suitcase, marveling again at what a freakin' excellent job I had done packing. I was at a loss, though. What could I take out? Where else would it go?
Then, reaching down to the bottom level, I pulled out my favorite cowboy boots--my perfect winter avenue and prairie friends for the last twenty-odd years.
"Weigh those," I said, handing them to the clerk.
She looked over the digital scale, and chuckled, "Four pounds."
I took off my worn sneakers, and began to pull the boots on. Eyeing a trash can across the lobby, I limped over with one boot one and one boot off, and tossed them away. Twenty bucks at a Reebok outlet store, they can be replaced. I limped back and stepped into both boots.
Just a tiny bit taller, I said, "Let's fly."

Day Un

2007-09-14T01:01:00.000-04:00

You don't get more LA than me. I can tell you why not to use Fountain Avenue as a Hollywood shortcut, or where exactly to park when you go to Dodger Stadium. I know every shortcut, almost every LA soon-to-be-overdiscovered secret,and can chart the vagaries of LA's economic landscape and forgotten First District.

But now, I am in another country; on an island, in a diverse and cosmopolitan city the size of a council disrict, and I am making my way.

I'll be based in Montreal, Canada until mid-November, and will be filing stories for Foothills Living magazine. You can see a lot of those stories at our website--www.foothillsliving.com. I'll be traveling all over the eastern part of Canada and the US. But this blogsite here is a little more personal.

And in a final answer to the countless persons who've asked me "Why?," I would answer only, "Why not?" Life is short. I can do this now. Let's see the world.

Highland Park isn't going anywhere.