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Lime: a married disco duo that marked Montreal

November 16, 2013, 10:00 pm
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   Let's talk Lime.
   Sometimes implanting your trademark sound on an era isn't something to be proud of.
   One married Montreal duo did just that in the early 80s, churning out synth pop dance hits from the shadows of their living room and painting an age with  a cringeworthy Canadian-content soundtrack with their whump-whump-whump-whump-wahhh-waah tunes that seeped out of Au Cotons and VW Rabbit windows often enough to make their music the unofficial anthem of the denizens of Mulletville.
   Denis Lepage and wife Denyse Lepage, aka, Denyse Savaria, started out as serious jazz musicians performing in Old Montreal clubs before realizing that the cash was in dance ditties.
  She sang background on a minor dance hit by Vogue and then the duo then put out a minor club tune under the name Kat Mandu and they eventually started pumping out Lime albums at a pace of about one per year until people stopped buying them.
  The couple - who were married from about 1975 to 2000 and parented a daughter together - had an ear for a harmony but were less successful when singing alone. His voice pushes to do his best in a raspy, grating growl, while she does a helium-voice Minnie Mouse thing which one commentator likened to a chihuahua with a lit firecracker up her ass.
  Radio, hungry for danceable Cancon gave them a load of playtime and radio stations beamed many hours of diamond-tipped needles digging into rotating copies of Babe We're Gonna Love Tonight.
Hired imitators
   Denis was an everyman with a ponytail whose conversational utterances were peppered with Brossard-ism like  "t'se""faique""ben."
   Perhaps because of their rough edges, or because they were 15-years-or-so older than many of the youth music consumers, the duo appeared none-too-assured of their telegenic potential, so they actually hired musicians to play them on stage in concert.
  They never claimed outright that the actors doing their songs on stage live were the real studio musicians, so there's no Black Box or Milli Vanilli thing going on but it's not far off.
   One of those younger blondes, Joy Dorris, is still doing it, or at least was until four years ago and isn't really young anymore so that's a bit awkward.
  They have their detractors but their defenders as well.
 For those of us who came of age as these tunes were ubiquitous, hearing them now evokes mixed feelings of nostalgia mixed with that same frequent irritation.
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Tunnels beneath the mountain

November 18, 2013, 7:58 am
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   Unbeknownst to many of us (not me - Chimples) the train tunnel under Mount Royal dug one century ago came close to becoming just one of many tunnels for an entire transportation network that would have offered service to 15 other towns in the mid-60s at a cost of $2 million per mile dug.
   St. Laurent, Pierrefonds, Roxboro, DDO were the only ones to survive in the scaled-down version of the plan proposed in 1965 however.
   By that time CNR chief Donald Gordon was clearly running out of patience and probably suspected that deep down, nobody dug the plan.
   There were about 10,000 people taking the train daily in the mid-60s and the plan aimed to raise that to 40,000. Nowadays 30,000 take the train daily. There was some recent grumbling that being buried so far beneath the surface of the mountain makes it hard to create escape routes in case of emergency.

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Berri metro new development: critical mass starting to happen

November 18, 2013, 8:30 am
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How the area would look if the building, at top left, ever gets built
   Quebec's ever-iffy PQ minority government announced yet another spending plan Monday, promising to move Revenue Quebec out of Complexes Desjardins into a new four-storey structure between the Emilie Gamlin Square and the Voyageur block on Berri.
   The Voyageur block was, of course, the site of an incredibly overambitious French university white elephant project that led to much bleeding in the educational system here that helped spur some pretty intense student protests.
   The new $246 million project, to be completed in about five years, would entail the demolition of the buildings that are currently on the property, which includes the old bus station and a restaurant that once housed Butch Bouchard's diner.
   A developer had unfurled some other plans to complete the Voyageur block as condos so those half-completed concrete monuments will also one day be a cool building as well.
   The development starts to give some critical mass to the Berri and De Masonneuve area with the bus station, big provincial library, Voyageur block, Berri metro, Place Dupuis and a pretty big UQAM building all within a stone's toss.
   So Mayor Drapeau's old dream of building a significant downtown area in the eastern part of the city is finally taking shape.
   Seems to me that some underground tunnels linking the buildings would go very nicely, as it would be pretty cool to be able to walk from Place Dupuis to the big library, to the metro and so forth.

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Battling for turf in the Gay Village

November 19, 2013, 8:17 am
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   Montreal's Gay Village is a North America's most-sprawling gay neighbourhood, taking up about two linear kilometers of formerly-dilapidated downtown-adjacent real estate, putting it on what appears to be inevitable collision course with change, as demand for downtown real estate grows.
  The area is said to span from St. Hubert to De Lorimier, mostly along St.Catherine. That's a lot of turf to keep gay, although in practice, the area seems slightly smaller, from about Amherst to Papineau.
   The area has been a boon for Montreal, as a good number of the 14 million tourists who come here each year do so just to spend money and hang out there.
   Former Mayor Gerald Tremblay recognized the value of the gay tourist buck and even once sponsored a sort of Gay Olympics, called the Gay Games, to add to the other many local gay festivals.
   Yet there is no controlling real estate or consumer demand, or movement of populations within a city, so whether the area can sustain its gay identity at current levels is far from assured.
   If one or two bar owners in the area suddenly decided to serve a heterosexual clientele, the local gay chamber of commerce might not be thrilled but also might be legally powerless to stop it. An eventual erosion of the identity of the area would ensue.
   Some of these issues are addressed in Donald Hinrichs'Montreal's Gay Village: The Story of a Unique Urban Neighborhood Through the Sociological Lens (2012), as the author explores many issues concerning the area, including its future sustainability.
   Hinrichs makes the case for the merits of gay villages - which also exist in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, San Francisco and many other cities - as places that offer like-minded people a place to meet and feel secure.
   But he also notes that some within the gay community also see a downside to gay segregation in a dedicated area.
   One gay intellectual, in 1996, described Montreal's Village as an area, "tolerated as an expression of the needs of gay consumers within a capitalist economy; it is not a space of gay liberation or a queer utopia. At best it is a symbol of some gay men's ability to care out an accommodating space within a generally hostile culture, without significantly challenging that culture's basic structure and without suffering a loss of the economic privilege that comes with being male.”
  On the downside, a thriving Gay Village can encourage excesses, for example some gay youth who come to the city to attend university find themselves distracted by all of the partying opportunities and end up dropping out of school. Other gays in couples consider it a threat, as the opportunities to hook up are many.
  But perhaps the biggest issue with the area, based on media reports, is that gays are not  always entirely safe.
  Just yesterday it was reported that a young gay male bar-goer was beaten and robbed by two assailants who called him nasty homophobic epithets. Indeed in the 1990s many gays were robbed and murdered after pick-ups in the area.
  Gays aren't entirely helpless, however, and aren't afraid to push back. A heterosexual friend recounted to me that he was kissing his girlfriend on the street there a couple of years ago when gays started loudly pleading with him to desist, noting that that's the only part of town where gays can feel at home and heterosexuals kissing didn't help the vibe.
   The area will never be 100 percent gay and indeed nobody would want it to be. However a certain gay numerical dominance would appear necessary in order to maintain the safety and identity of the area and controlling that dominance over such a large space might be a tricky task.
   Populations are, after all, free to move where they want and kissing any other consenting adult in any part of town is still entirely legal.
   And maintaining a preponderance of gays in the area is no slam dunk, as the once-threadbare area has attracted a lot of new offices, including those of such media outlets as TVA, CJAD, CBC and CTV which have all moved their offices nearby.
   Other major developments east of the Main, such as the upcoming French superhospital will also raise demand on housing in the area.
   A developer friend told me that he had no trouble selling any the new condo units that he recently erected in the area, so there is an impression that the area is increasingly in demand.
   As Hinrichs notes, one major gay club recently set up shop outside the Gay Village at the Main and Bernard. If that proves to be a sign of a drift - even a minor one - it could be just a matter of time before straight clubs start setting up shop in the Village and if there's a demand for such a thing, it would seem of questionable legitimacy to try to block it and gay retrenchment could ensue.
   The Village grew spontaneously in the 1980s without government intervention, as the local gay population outgrew their old bar strip on Stanley and leaped on the cheaper real estate to the east. And while it appears farfetched to imagine that Montreal's Gay Village will ever completely disappear, there's no assurance that it will continue to be as sprawling or quite as gay as it is now. 
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Coderre's attack on massage parlours: a bad idea

November 19, 2013, 10:02 am
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  Mayor Denis Coderre announced Monday that he will be taking aim at massage parlours, a business that has done the city a great service by taking prostitution off of street corners.
  Police report that now only about three percent of all of Montreal's prostitution is of the shady and dangerous streetwalking variety and part of the credit for this improvement must go to massage parlours.
   Not long ago, many streets frequently had prostitutes patrolling at a high frequency, nowadays street prostitution is scattered and only has significant concentrations along St. Catherine between Prefontaine and Pie IX.
   Street prostitution is something that residents are united against, as the practice casts a dark shadow of drugs and sex onto an area. (An upcoming Supreme Court decision might open the floodgates to street prostitution, so that too could be a problem).
Massage parlour opens on the Main
   Prostitution has largely found a more appropriate home indoors, as women put their services now onto the internet and welcome their customers into private premises.
   Often those premises are apartments, which is something that can irritate neighbours, as nobody likes frequent comings-and-goings around the clock.
   But massage parlours take that issue out of apartment buildings and inside commercial buildings that are further away from homes, so it's the perfect place for sexual services to take place.
   The number of massage parlours has rapidly increased in Montreal but there have been no corresponding rise in murders, or attacks, or Molotov cocktails tossed into such places, so it's hard to sustain an argument against these discreet places being a nuisance to a community.
   The city administration says it will refuse business licenses to those applying to open massage parlours, but this obstruction of legitimate commerce will leave storefronts empty and commercial landlords without an income to pay their taxes.
   Also, the women who work in such establishments are often people who are shunned in the hiring process. You don't see Hydro Quebec banging on their doors to offer them receptionist jobs, so forcing them out of their rug-n-tug handiwork is also an economic attack on vulnerable people.

View Larger Map   Selling sexual services is not a crime. There are no victims involved in someone getting a massage that may or may not include some degree of sexual stimulation.
   Coderre's puritanical initiative suggests that he doesn't necessarily understand the way Montreal works and reeks of early-era MCM's misguided attempt to ban strip club signs from downtown, one which floundered and cost them a lot of wasted time and effort.  
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Guercy Edmond awaits taxi license revocation decision

November 19, 2013, 12:56 pm
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Taxi driver Guercy Edmond, who drove his car over a Frenchman named Benoit Capelli on April 27, 2012, is awaiting a letter to see if he'll be allowed to continue driving his taxi.
  Edmond was summoned to the Quebec Transport Commission Nov. 5 month and forced to make his case in front of the authorities concerning the events which spawned the shocking video.
  Commission rep Guy Maillot told Coolopolis that the QTC orders a hearing when a driver is awaiting charges. If the commission (a single judge) decides that Edmond is a danger, the commission will order the SAAQ and the taxi bureau to revoke his permits.  
  Capelli, whose named has been spelled Kapelli in previous media reports, is no longer in Canada and might be brought back at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer when the case goes to court in 2014.
   The man, seen kicking at the taxi with the encouragement of his other French buddies, eventually recovered from his injuries.
   In an earlier step of the process, a judge condemned the prosecutor for failing to take the time to watch the video, which some believe pretty much tells the whole story.
   The case spawned much passionate outrage among other Montreal taxi drivers, many of them also Haitian, who felt that the 49-year-old Guercy should not even face charges for fleeing after the attackers kicked repeatedly at his car.

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Beauty and horror in Old Montreal

November 23, 2013, 5:44 pm
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Some of our more sumptuous surroundings were once-upon-a-time scenes of horror, death and heartbreak.
   Such is the case of this lovely building in the heart of our city's tourist zone, right near the city's loveliest vista from Notre Dame to the statue atop Bonsecours market.
  This building was the scene of a blood-curdling death-tastic experience that claimed many lives of January 1946 when a blaze broke out at a rooming house at 387 St. Paul E., corner Bonsec, now one of the loveliest parts of the city if you can put up with the shtoopid brick roads. About 25 were stuck in the fire but four proved particularly unlucky as they  tried climbing to the top of the building to outrun the flames but ran out of racetrack and were found dead.
   Hector Marjotte, 50, and Maxime Robillard, 60, died as did two others who couldn't be immediately identified.
   Adelard Millette, 53, and his wife were injured as was their 15-year-old daughter Therese, although I dunno many teenage girls living in rooming houses, but  as I've mentioned before there was a pretty tight squeeze on housing after the war.
  Another suffered a broken leg as he leaped out of the third floor window to the icy ground below.


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Jack Seligman, from bagels to abortions

November 25, 2013, 11:51 am
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   When last we mentioned Montreal baker Jack Seligman, it was to discuss his role in the drowning of 12 children, who didn't survive one of his boat rides in July 1954.
  The very next year Seligman was busted in relation to the botched abortion death of Dora Blackburn, 33, whose body was dumped in an east end alley after she died from his attempted abortion on May 22 1955. (scroll up and to the left for the link Mtl Gaz June 2, '55 p.3)
  His address was listed as 3955 St. Lawrence, now a sorta hipsterish are.
   Of course the Seligman baking clan are famous for creating the Montreal bagel at 3835 St. L, That's just a few doors down from Seligman's listed address.
     Blackburn needed an abortion so she got Mrs. Benny Bahanna, 47, to help. She, in turn, got Moses Pellatt, 55 to fix a meeting with a guy named Meyer Nachfolger. (Blackburn paid $200 and Cahanna got $100 of it). Meyer Nachfolger, 40, a drug store clerk, drove Blackburn to Jack Seligman's special place on Colonial.
   Another $200 was split between Jack and Nachfolger. Seligman later telephoned Nachfolger to explain that Blackburn died. 
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Thugs beat politicians at beauty pageant in the Point - 1958 mayhem

November 27, 2013, 2:16 pm
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Pageant runner-up Joan Dwyer
   Only in Point St. Charles could a beauty pageant end up with thugs beating politicians.
  That ugly incident occurred when Betty Simpkins, 18, was announced the victor of the contest over Joan Dwyer, by a score of 163 votes to 117 in front of 400 people at the Ukrainian Hall  on Saturday May 10, 1958.
   Local dignitaries were invited on stage and city councillors Adeodat Crompt and MP/Councillor Gerard Loiselle came up, but Councillor Frank Hanley and M. Colette declined, suggesting that they disapproved of the result.
Councillor Frank Hanley
  Then a young man who identified himself as Dwyer's brother stood up and demanded a recount. "It's a set-up man!" he yelled.
   The organizers were intimidated and agreed to count anew, but when they returned to the ballots they noticed that 100 votes for the winner had gone missing and about 30 young thugs appeared, leading to confusion as people scurried to escape the increasingly ominous gathering.
Gerard Loiselle
Point St. Charles
MP and City Councillor
   The thugs beat Crompt up and smashed his glasses.
   Someone tossed a beer into Loiselle's face and stole his wife's fur coat, while the editor of a local paper, M.A. Allard was hurt in a beating as was a cop outside. About 20 more police officers showed up and restored order. The prizes of $1,000 to be distributed among the contestants had been kept in a safe place and were not stolen.
   Loiselle later told Alain Stanke of the Petit Journal that his car and house windows had previously been smashed, as had his office equipment and that he had been threatened repeatedly. He said that his wife bas suffered a nervous shock and couldn't stop crying after the pageant.
  Councillor Andre Lecourt didn't attend because he had been repeatedly threatened. "For 15 days my family and me have been living under threats, we've been getting phone calls night and day and it's almost impossible for me to go out unaccompanied."
Councillor Adeodat Crompt
after the beating
   Allard, editor of a local newspaper, also said that he had been threatened.
   Hanley declined to comment on the issue.
   Not sure what became of the lovely young Simpkins. We believe she grew up at 2151 Grand Trunk and her father Harold was a foreman at Continental Can, according to Lovells. 
   Joan Dwyer had a lot of family in the Point, including adults Doug (driver for CN), Jason, a chauffeur for Hydro Quebec and Joan a typist at Northern Electric, all of whom lived at 547 Fortune. She could also have been in the family of Continental Can foreman Harold Dwyer's family at 1773 Grand Trunk, just down the street from the Simpkins residence and right next to the Ukrainain Hall.
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Buried alive in Montreal

November 28, 2013, 11:35 am
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Survivor Laurent Theoret, 23
Getting buried alive is one of those things that you really don't want to have happen to you. But it was once relatively frequent, less so now, in spite of a recent construction mishap which saw a worker lose his life precisely in that way.
    According to one report, 11 workers died when their pit caved in while building the bridge foundation for what's now the Mederic Martin Bridge on Highway 15 over the Back River on March 5, 1958.
   Fourteen workers were down in a 40 foot pit when water rushed in, drowning all but three. The walls collapsed under pressure of spring ice that had unexpectedly broken away. The ice broke a steel bar that was holding walls apart, leading to a collapse.  
   Laurent Theoret, 23, of Ste. Eustache was among the few survivors. He said the whole thing lasted 30 seconds. He said most of the guys who died were aged between 18 and 24. Can't find the names listed anywhere. Theoret would be aged about 78 now if he's still alive.
   Seven workers died on Dec. 16, 1965 at 12:45 p.m. when wet cement came crashing down from the ceiling of a section of the Turcot Interchange on Notre Dame. There were 18 workers atop the structure and 12 below and the seven who were buried alive didn't make it.
   The CSN still makes reference to this as a particularly nasty disaster.
  The dead included Moise Curadeau, 34, Joseph Girard, 23, Pascale Racaniello, 26, Jean Poirier, 24, Vito Paradiso, 26. The botched work was done by the Shorring Erector Firm, a subsidiary of Dominic Supports and Forms.
  Rescue squads had to work extra hard because the cement that fell on the men had been poured four hours prior and it only takes eight hours to dry, so there was some risk that the victims would become encased in the dried concrete.
   To this day about 18 construction workers die on the job every year in the Kweebecs.
   Two young men were buried alive in a pile of coal on April 1, 1934 when they went to fetch some extra pieces for their families on St. Patrick St in Lasalle. Conrad Lefebvre, 20 and Armand Lemire, 13 both died after being crushed in the coal.
   Their families were poor and the employees of the Lasalle Coke company would permit them to grab a few pieces of coal lying around. The piles of coal were covered in snow, so an employee had dug a tunnel in the huge pile to better access the material. But it collapsed when the three boys were inside, only Rene Verroneau, 16 managed to get out alive.  
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A purse is lost, a writer is found

December 2, 2013, 12:02 pm
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   Sarah Goodrich wrote this rather lively note, published in full below, in hopes that it would help get her beloved stolen purse back.
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I was having a beautiful morning today I had breakfast on Monkland street eating bagels.
   I bought a beautiful new bedroom set my second one I EVER bought in my whole life, I had gone to seven stores.
   I finally got a beautiful one and even got free delivery for tomorrow! Ha better than Ikea!
   I headed to Metro grocery first on Somerled. I was shopping for five minutes heading into the meat department and was smelling a horrible smell and seemed to make me dizzy and it also seemed the sweet potatoes were round like potatoes and there was like 3 in the basket! Like someone in Montreal was having a sweet potato party.
   It also seemed like the quality of the fruits were half as good as where I usually go to Loblaws. So I actually for the first time I walked away from my half filled basket and got into car and drove to Loblaws on St.Jacques. The cross street is Cavendish.
   I was cold and tired and my uggs were soaked in the toes...stupid uggs. Since i was out for so long today since 12:30 for the Perfect bedroom set. I swear in 27 years i never did this but also feeling so anxious and overwhelmed and relieved I found the bedroom set I left my Limited Edition Michael Kors purse.
   I jumped out of car and ran into windy snowfall into Loblaws. Trying to be quick and grabbing what i needed also thinking of my poor Gucci (my pug dog if you don't know) waiting by the door for me at home. I was in Loblaws no more than 20 minutes and headed to cash.
   Where a young guy cashier probably I was crazy when handing him two containers of strawberries and saying "Can you please weigh these two and tell me which one is heavier? I stand back and watch all these woman handpicking strawberries from one container to the next switching the bad one for new ones and well if I am going to pay $5.00 for a container of strawberries,I want the heavier one ".
   He smiles and says sure and ha one ways like 3.5 lets say and the other was like 4.5. So i bad my stuff and put in cart. He asks "do you have the new points card?""oh shit it's in my purse" He prints my bill and says I can go on the Loblaws website and add points.
   I am done grocery I zip up my jacket and put on hood and wish I parked closer in the parking for handicap with the signs having snow on them like I was going to do in the first place. I walked to car....first of all my windows are tinted pretty dark but not illegal. So I open the trunk to put bags there, I close it . I go and get in car and close my door. Smash my drivers back window smashes in or at least i heard that type of sound. I turn around and window glass everywhere but when i got out the car no one was there i just had broken more glass off with the heavy slam i gave my door..... and my purse is gone. SIGH The one and only time i have ever left my purse in the car. Loblaws does not have video cameras in their parking lot..... Someone working in their store said something about it being illigal? What if someone got raped in their parking lot? Killed ?
   What if a child got Kidnapped? What if it was like the time where the car hit a woman in a wheelchair in a grocery parking lot and she died... I don't understand. I feel like I have I been well.... what I was going to write probably would of really really bad but sigh this is fucked up!
   My knees are shaking not even the medical stuff can stop my knees from shaking. I have never stolen one penny from anyone. Anyone who truly knows me, I am a giver not a taker. I will be starting nursing school in January and I been going to church every Sunday now for two months and hopefully I will pray enough for strength from God not to want to dream of hurting this person very badly who broke into my car like this.
  I cried like a baby and now feel so confused. I always heard of other people going through this experience never thought it would be me. Stupid me My beautiful Michael Kors purse is a one of a kind and Limited Edition. There is a dent in the MK circle hanging from the purse. I am getting the picture of it tomorrow and going to be circling the picture in the NDG area and downtown.
   This purse was given to me by someone very special. My health card, my social insurance card, my drivers permit,my birth certificate. 700$ in money. 1000$ diamond earrings. 10$ of medical weed. Advil gel pills, 30$ in change. CAA card. A really nice Victoria secret pouch my best friend bought for me. A really awesome pink and leopard Baby Phat wallet I have had since I was 18 years old.
   I am offering a 2,500$ reward for my belongings or for who did this.
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Montreal realtor ordered to pay back gambling debts

December 2, 2013, 1:46 pm
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 Mtl Re-Max agent Ting-Sheng Chao
Crouching tiger, hidden gambler
 The verdict is in on Ting-Sheng Chao, a local real estate agent, involved in a wild lawsuit centred around high stakes gambling, an alleged knife-threat and wildly differing testimonies.
  The story begins with  a random encounter at the roulette wheel at the Montreal casino between Chao and financial planner Chi-Wei Lin in November of 2007.
   The two knew each other when they were younger and were happy to bump into each other.
    Lin had been going to the casino for about five years by then and Chao had just started getting into the habit out of boredom after having been sidelined from work due to a car accident.
   According to Chao, her dazzling roulette skills attracted a a partner named John to join forces with her. She never did find out his last name, however.
  They each put in $3,500 and shared profits of up to 65 percent for a few months.
   She said Lin was invited in to the moneymaking gambling scheme, but she eventually lost their money at the tables.
   She admitted signing debts of $53,000 to Lin but said she had only done it at knifepoint and had reported it to police.
   Lin, however, had a radically different story. He said that he started by lending Chao small amounts of cash, which she promised higher interest rates on. He lent her $23,000 early in 2008 and Chao paid back $36,000 three months later.
   Lin then lent Chao a series of loans totaling $51,000 for which she promised a return of $78,000 around 90 days after. Lin said he never threatened her with a knife but raised his voice at her.
   According to the court, Chao's testimony included an incomprehensible tirade of explanations concerning her debts. Chao's lawyer said that Lin was addicted to gambling but the judge said that didn't make sense because if he liked it so much he'd be shooting craps and watching the roulette wheel spin on his own.
   The court determined that Chao gambled at the casino at least five times a week and was extremely intense when discussing her strategies, and promised a return of 65 percent on loans. The court didn't believe that Lin threatened her with a knife either.
    On Nov. 27 Judge Nicole M. Gibeau sided against Chao and ordered her to pay Lin $49,300 back.
   The moral of the story: don't lend money to a gambler.  
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Who else did Canadian serial killer Michael McGray murder?

December 3, 2013, 11:24 am
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      Michael McGray is a Canadian serial killer who claims to have killed 16 people but has only been nailed for six of those murders.
   Or make that seven, as he recently killed his cellmate in B.C. and is now incarcerated in Ste. Anne des Plaines prison, Canada's maximum-est prison, where Mom Boucher is locked up and Clifford Olson called home.  
   The obvious question, which seems to have gone unanswered and perhaps even unasked, is: who else did he kill?
   According to one site, McGray has offered to reveal who his other victims were in exchange for special favours.
   Presumably the authorities aren't willing to negotiate any such terms.
   Or else they simply don't believe that he killed others.
   But perhaps it might be time to get him to talk, in order to help close some unsolved homicides here and elsewhere.
   McGray's local crimes consist of killing two gay men he picked up while on a pass from a federal penitentiary in the Spring of 1991.
   McGray, who is not gay, rolled into town and figured he'd have a couple of easy kills. He hooked up with Robert Assaly, who was a 59-year-old retired schoolteacher working as a bartender in the Gay Village.
   Assaly's brother Rudy later said that he never knew his brother was gay and had a hard time believing it.
   Assaly brought McGray back to his Nuns' Island condo. The two fell asleep until McGray fell asleep on the couch. McGray woke earlyy and threatened Assaly with a knife. Assaly laughed at him. McGray smashed him on the head with a lamp and then stabbed him 16 times.
   On the same weekend McGray returned to the villager and got picked up by Gaetan Ethier, an unemployed salesman. They went to Ethier's small place on St. Andre and they watched hockey and drank wine in the small apartment. McGray dozed off after turning down an invitation for sex. He awoke at 6 a.m. and attacked Ethier with a knife an a beer bottle.
  He was only tied to the two murders almost a decade later, after he killed Joan Hicks, 48 and her daughter  Nina, 11 in Moncton. 
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The fighting Hiltons, rags to riches, to rags

December 3, 2013, 11:41 am
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   Hard not to watch this documentary on the fighting Hilton family.
   The brothers appear to have had their brains scrambled pretty bad by brutality, which likely helped them make some pretty bad decisions.
   Thankfully people hit each other in the heads less these days than back then.
   Blaise Pascal said that, "All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone," and that seems to apply to these guys.
   But people have learned to sit in a quiet room alone, in front of laptops and TVs,so the world is getting better and less brutal.
   I still like Alex, spoke to him a few times some years ago at that restaurant his wife's family had on Notre DAme, called the Maison Egg Roll.
   Alex seemed very chill and was like a loving dad to his little Asian girl.
    I later told him I'd help get him get elected as city councillor in Verdun but he was arrested a few weeks later for something, so that never happened.
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Montreal's first microbrewery opens in 1693

December 4, 2013, 7:32 am
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   Back around 1700 the entire population of New France was somewhere about 17,000 people, roughly the equivalent of say... what Point St. Charles is now and only maybe half of those were living in Montreal, so we're talking a small, lonely town.
   But thanks to the Charon family, Montrealers at least had a place to drown their sorrows.
   This building at Youville and Saint Pierre was the site of the first-ever brewery in Montreal, set up by Jean-Francois Charon, sieur de la Barre, who came to Montreal in 1684.
   He made a lot of money fast and four years later joined with a pair of brothers Pierre and Jean Lebert  and Jean Fredin to built a hospital. They wanted it to be and elementary school, old folks hospital and an art/professional school, so that's what this spot became, along with a bar.
  In 1692, they got permission to open their brewery and they produced their first batch of beer came out in 1693, thus making this little spot of Old Montreal a buzzin', hoppin' corner by then surely with a juke box playing Zep and big furred pimps stomping fat heels onto wood floors while shaking loose ashes below.
   And the reputation of the HoneyBrew with a hint of melon and cinnamon became, no doubt, a big attraction for Frenchmen who have been streaming here ever since in quest of getting a sip of that sacred delicious brew.
   It was not the first microbrewery in New France, however. Jean Talon founded a brewery in 1663, in Champlain, Quebec City. It burned down three times and was rebuilt even bigger each time. Americans destroyed it in 1775 but in 1855 Joseph Knight Boswell got a permit to expand his brewery and during excavation they found the remains of Talon's brewery. That spot served as the reception hall for the Dow brewery, which spent a ton on restoration. It was a big tourist draw in the capital 50 years ago, not sure if it is still.
   *Source: Petit Journal 29 Jan. 1961
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The killer blaze that left that gap on St. Cat

December 4, 2013, 8:03 am
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This long-vacant spot at 64 St. Catherine E. was left that way due to the sudden disappearance by fire of the American Spaghetti House, which burned down in a conflagration that began at around 1 a.m. on February 24, 1959, killing two firefighters in the process.
   Edward Normoyle, 53, and Hubert Daudelin, 26, were killed in the blaze after the roof collapsed.
   The restaurant was on the top two floors, and the fire started in one of the first-floor units which housed a shoe store, a gown store and a sewing shop.
   The fire squad also had a couple of other blazes to tame that very night, calling all 1,800 firemen into action.
   Fire Chief Raymond Pare, 62, stood atop a ladder for six hours straight in the freezing cold temperatures in the futile hope of getting a rope down to save his two trapped colleagues, which included Normoyle, his brother-in-law, whose title on the fire squad was Acting Assistant Director.


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Flying ambulances might finally be coming

December 4, 2013, 8:43 am
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   Amazon's new proposed system of delivering packages via tiny helicopters evokes a plan from many years back to get folks to hospital in a sorta similar way.  
   Those needing ambulances were to not only get the fun of going to a hospital, but they were also going to get a free helicopter ride, according to a program launched in Montreal on Aug. 30, 1959.    The city bought 21 station wagons to help with the plan and conducted a dry run one year later that would see a helicopter take off from Dorval, land at Benny Farm to pick up a patient and bring him to Champ de Mars where Mayor Fournier would nod on approvingly.
   The amazin' display was meant to prove that you could get someone to a hospital emergency room in just five minutes.
   Except the chopper had mechanical difficulties and never got off the ground, according to Doug Connor of Autair Helicopter Services.
   Guess good ol' Doug didn't think of having a back-up chopper on hand in case of such an event.
   Councilor Harold Cummings, who was also a used car dealer, was left with egg on his face, although he also noted that he was able to drive to hospital in just 17 minutes, so maybe he was behind a conspiracy to subvert the choppers in favour of cars.
   Anyway, we envisage a day when the program can be resurrected, except by using tiny little helicopters similar to what Amazon is proposing.
  Yeah it might be ridiculous, but in 1983 the idea of people  talking on what we once called "car phones" while riding the bus seemed equally absurd.       
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Quebec singer Coeur de Pirate tries to sing the Star Spangled Banner

December 5, 2013, 3:25 pm
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This Quebec singing sensation reportedly asked to sing the Star Spangled Banner in French because the task of singing it in English proved too daunting. We say yes!
 
Oh , disons que vous pouvez voir par la première lumière de l'aube Que si fièrement nous avons salué enfin miroitement du crépuscule ? Ces larges bandes et des étoiles lumineuses à travers le périlleux combat , O'er les remparts nous avons regardé ont si vaillamment en streaming ? Et lueur rouge de la fusée , les bombes explosant dans l'air , Donné la preuve à travers la nuit que notre drapeau était toujours là . Oh , dit-il que la bannière étoilée flotte encore O'er la terre de la liberté et la patrie des braves ? Sur la rive , vu vaguement à travers les brumes de l'abîme , Où les orgueilleuses de l'ennemi dans un silence de mort repose , Quel est celui qui la brise , o'er la forte domination, Comme il souffle de façon intermittente , dissimule moitié , divulgue et demi ? Maintenant, il attrape la lueur de la première poutre du matin , En pleine gloire , maintenant elle brille dans le flux : « C'est la bannière étoilée ! Oh pourvu que ça vagues O'er la terre de la liberté et la patrie des braves ! Et où est cette horde qui jurait dédaigneusement Que les ravages de la guerre et la confusion de la bataille , Une maison et un pays devraient nous laisser pas plus! Leur sang a lavé la pollution qu'ils ont foulée . Aucun refuge n'a pu sauver leurs mercenaires et leurs De la terreur de vol , ou l'obscurité de la tombe : Et la bannière étoilée en triomphe doth vague O'er la terre de la liberté et la patrie des braves ! Oh ! ainsi soit-il , que les hommes libres se Entre leur domicile aimé et la désolation de la guerre ! Béni avec la victoire et de la paix , peut terres du heav'n sauvé Louez le Puissant qui a créé et préservé notre nation . Alors nous vaincrons , car notre cause est juste, Et ce sera notre devise : " En Dieu est notre confiance . " Et la bannière étoilée dans son triomphe flottera O'er la terre de la liberté et la patrie des braves !
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Long haired rebels from the early 60s

December 6, 2013, 12:26 pm
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Brian Nation in early 60s (photo: Anna McGarrigle)
Artist Brian Nation, who is from Montreal but now lives in B.C., generously shared this very cool story about his struggles wearing long hair in the workplace in Montreal in 1962. He said that in those early days, wearers of long hair were not known as hippies, but rather existentialists. The story appeared on his site: boppin.com. 

Rusty normally gave me my pay envelope but this particular Friday he said Bernstein had it. The Boss. He wanted to see me for some reason. So there I was on the carpet when I should have been halfway home on the bus by now.
   “Brian, what’s with the hair?”
   Seven or eight months earlier, on the Monday morning of my new job, getting myself ready, something to eat and put on my shoes, washing up, I decided no more shaves, no more haircuts, and took the bus to Pointe St Charles. The first few days were hell. The work was hard, and the days were hot. I sweated like a pig and drank coke after coke, which only made it worse. I hated the work at first, but I eventually got used to it and even liked it eventually. I was in a scrap metal yard, moving and sorting tons of steel and iron from one place to another, loading or unloading trucks, sorting and piling aluminum, brass, copper, lead. Trucks pulled into the yard and I’d hop into the passenger seat and we’d drive to the scales a few blocks away. We’d weigh the truck, drive back to the yard, unload it by hand, then go back and weigh it again and the difference was what the driver got paid for. I drank cokes and learned to smoke on that job. Those first days I worked with Roy, a black guy from the States who talked nonstop about sex and told me I had to smoke because if you took a break the boss would say whaddya standing around for?, but if you stopped for a cigarette he’d see you were just having a smoke — a guy had to smoke. He rolled his own (takes even longer, he explained) and started rolling for me, too. The next day I bought my own makings.
   It wasn’t a bad job. I sweated, got dirty, wore a hard hat. Traded jokes with the guys, mostly poor French Canadians and a couple of immigrant labourers, like the Italian Bruno who barely spoke English or French and was strong as an ox. Within a few months I worked my way up the ladder of scrapyard success. The Boss and his manager, Rusty, figured I had brains and when things were slow had me help out in the office or organizing the yard. Lucien was the foreman and lived in a poor slum shack next to the yard but pretty soon I was taking on more of his duties as he really wasn’t all that bright, though a good worker.
   They had a used machinery side to the business, too. A warehouse filled with motors, air compressors, etc. It was all a mess so they asked me to figure out what was where and to keep it all in a book. I devised a system so that when someone came in looking, for example, a 5-horsepower generator I could find it in a minute and tell them what they paid for it so they could add their markup and make money.
   Meanwhile my beard grew and my hair reached my shoulders. I took a hell of a lot of ribbing from everyone but didn’t mind. After all it was my own choice. I got called Jesus a lot. This is 1962, remember. I did my job, got along with everyone, laughed off the jokes, so I was just this weird guy with long hair and that was all there was to it. Till Bernstein gets me in his office.
   “Brian, what’s with the hair?”
   “What about it?”
   “You can’t have hair like that. The beard we don’t mind. Just trim it. But the hair’s not acceptable.”
   “Why not?”
   “We get comments from our customers. Doesn’t look good.”
   “I know your customers. We get along fine.  They kid me but no one really cares. It’s a junkyard.”
   “Listen, Brian. You got more on the ball than anyone else here. You’re smart and do a good job.       
   We’d like to promote you. Make you the foreman.”
   “I don’t want to be foreman. Lucien’s the foreman and needs it more than me. He’s got a family to feed.”
   “Eventually we’ll make you a salesman — send you out on the road.”
   “Thanks, Mr. Bernstein, but I like it fine where I am. I like the job, like the guys I work with. I don’t want a promotion and definitely don’t want to be a traveling salesman.”
   This floored Bernstein. He was speechless for a moment. Not want a promotion? On the road with car, expense account, whores, drunken parties and conventions? Success, progress, money? I sensed his brain struggling to comprehend, then give up.
   He handed me the pay envelope.
   “Listen, get your hair cut or don’t bother coming in Monday.”
   Which I didn’t.
   Six months later I was broke and had been for some time. I met this guy, Petur. A friend of Karen’s. He needed a place so I let him stay at mine a while. He knew I had unemployment money coming but I had to get the book from my ex boss. In those days every week you worked your boss put a stamp in the book. You paid half, the boss paid half. Probably two bucks a week back then.When you were out of work you took your book to the unemployment office and they gave you a weekly cheque for every stamp in it. It was just laziness that kept me from going to get the book all these months. Even broke I was having too much fun, partying most nights and sleeping too late to make it to the scrap yard before closing. Petur got work and paid part of my rent ($40 a month total) and thought I was crazy to be broke when I had this money coming, so he got me up one day and dragged me to the bus stop and took me out to Point St Charles. Rusty got me my book and told me, with a hint of resentment in his voice, that no one could figure out my stock system or keep shit organized as I had. Bernstein came out of his office, surprised to see me.
   “How are you, Brian?”
   “Doing great, thanks.”
   “Have you found another job?”
   “Nope.”
   “Listen . . . we’d like you to come back to work here.”
   My hair was even longer than when I left.
   “Thanks, Irving, but no thanks.”
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Quiz- who is this legendary former Montrealer?

December 6, 2013, 7:05 pm
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((

In the bottom image she's the one in black. (Photo supplied by Brian Nation of boppin.com)
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