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Montreal skyline in the year 2030
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Snow slides in local parks
I confess that I had been entirely unaware that such a structures were ever installed and now am thinking that it'd be pretty amazing if we could get the city to re-commence such installations in the future.
Anybody who knows about these amazing toboggan runs please share in the comments section below.
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Why the job losses?
Times are tough for Quebec workers: 25,000 full-time workers got handed their walking papers in March, which amounts to over 1,000 axes falling per working day here.StatsCan reported that 8,300 new jobs were created during the same period, so the net loss was a still-nasty 16,800 jobs in a single month.
About 80 percent of the 25,000 jobs lost were in manufacturing and exporting. The province has been losing 10,000 jobs a month in that sector this year alone because the world won't buy the stuff we can make.
So unemployment ticked up from 7.4% to 7.7% percent, meanwhile Ontario's rate stayed the same and they lost one-third fewer jobs during that same time with a much-larger economy.
Attempts to explain Quebec's disastrous job situation result in a series of biased interpretations.
-The PQ government doesn't care much about employment or the economy because they're obsessed with independence and language, and as a result, jobs get lost every time they get in power.
- Manufacturing is simply not viable here because we overpay our highly-unionized workers.
-Companies are hoarding cash and opting not to spend it on workers.
- Canada, as a petroleum exporting nation, has seen its population fall victim to the situation common on many petroleum-exporting companies, which is that the population gets lazy and the culture of financing start-ups and inventing new businesses stagnates.
-We don't need workers to make things anymore, we need them to make websites better, and this is just part of the switch over to that reality.
Manufacturing jobs are largely outside of the city of Montreal, so the regions probably suffered more than the city. But to those of us who recall the painful 1990s in Quebec, the current situation feels like an alarming return to a dark era we had hoped was behind us forever.
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How indifference killed Oxford Park: my CBC "hyperlocal" essay
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| Random folk doing Tae Chi on the last-remaining slice of green space in Oxford Park |
Please have a look at it here, and feel free to comment on that site.
By the way, I don't know what hyperlocal means and I certainly don't want to encourage its use, so don't start peppering your conversation with that word and blaming me for it.
And as a further treat, here are some photos by Conrad Poirier shot of Oxford Park, the top two in 1938 and the last one, the doggie show, in 1940.
Thanks to HaroldRo for finding these among thousands of pics in the Poirier archive.
And if anybody seeks to know why the CDN-NDG administration has been so ineffective in dealing with serious issues, (and I include recent issues such as their inability to keep charity groups from placing awful metal industrial boxes around the area), then have a look at this video of the most recent borough council meeting. Borough mayor Lionel Perez and fellow party member Marvin Rotrand bicker unpleasantly with councillor Peter McQueen, all of them looking like children in a schoolyard fight insulting each others' backpacks. Shameful and pathetic all round. 
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Another part of Montreal rejects traffic lights
Another Montreal municipality has wisely joined Nuns' Island in successfully existing without a single traffic light on its territory, thereby rejecting a counterproductive technology that only benefits the companies that sell the costly gizmos to the city.
Montreal West used to have a half a traffic light, at Westminister and Westover, which it shared with the next-bedroom-over municipality of Cote St. Luc. But that contraption now requires $130,000 of repairs, so they've opted to simply leave it flashing, it now effectively serves as a stop sign.
There's a good chance those lights could get scrapped permanently and replaced with an actual stop sign, I am told.
Mo-West has long disproved the need for stop signs by allowing its busiest and most complicated intersection to be controlled by stop sign since its inception.
The corner of Westminster and Avon (aka St. James St. W).- right in front of town hall and near the large Royal West Academy high school - handles traffic from five directions, some coming up a hill, and has not had a single accident or a hit pedestrian in living memory, according to a town official I spoke to at length.
Driving through that stop sign-controlled intersection brings out everybody's innate generosity and cooperation. It's as close as motoring can come to offering a life-affirming experience, as it leaves you feeling good about humanity's ability to get along in a civil manner.
The benefits of stop signs as opposed to lights are many: firstly they don't cost millions to install and maintain, they don't suck any electricity and they're totally easy for all to understand.
Drivers approach stop signs at a slower speed than traffic lights because they are not preoccupied with trying to catch a green light. They also keep their eyes on the street rather than up at a light making them aware of other motorists, cyclists and pedestrians in their midst.
Montreal has shown a lack of imagination in creating safe and efficient roads, for example countless intersections would be made better with the installation of roundabouts as well (indeed Montreal West had seriously considered putting a roundabout at that corner but that would have required a little extra land) yet it remains a tenaciously-held myth that Montreal drivers are too stupid and reckless to understand how to navigate a roundabout.
Montreal traffic planners have instead opted to spent tens of millions installing lights at every possible opportunity, raising suspicions about their relationship with traffic light manufacturers, perhaps something that could be examined at the ongoing Charbonneau commission.
Meanwhile, this is an election year, so talk to your candidates about allowing a more humane and enlightened approach to traffic control, starting with stop signs.
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| Westminister and Avon (aka St. James) proves that traffic lights aren't needed |
There's a good chance those lights could get scrapped permanently and replaced with an actual stop sign, I am told.
Mo-West has long disproved the need for stop signs by allowing its busiest and most complicated intersection to be controlled by stop sign since its inception.
The corner of Westminster and Avon (aka St. James St. W).- right in front of town hall and near the large Royal West Academy high school - handles traffic from five directions, some coming up a hill, and has not had a single accident or a hit pedestrian in living memory, according to a town official I spoke to at length.
Driving through that stop sign-controlled intersection brings out everybody's innate generosity and cooperation. It's as close as motoring can come to offering a life-affirming experience, as it leaves you feeling good about humanity's ability to get along in a civil manner.
The benefits of stop signs as opposed to lights are many: firstly they don't cost millions to install and maintain, they don't suck any electricity and they're totally easy for all to understand.
Drivers approach stop signs at a slower speed than traffic lights because they are not preoccupied with trying to catch a green light. They also keep their eyes on the street rather than up at a light making them aware of other motorists, cyclists and pedestrians in their midst.
Montreal has shown a lack of imagination in creating safe and efficient roads, for example countless intersections would be made better with the installation of roundabouts as well (indeed Montreal West had seriously considered putting a roundabout at that corner but that would have required a little extra land) yet it remains a tenaciously-held myth that Montreal drivers are too stupid and reckless to understand how to navigate a roundabout.
Montreal traffic planners have instead opted to spent tens of millions installing lights at every possible opportunity, raising suspicions about their relationship with traffic light manufacturers, perhaps something that could be examined at the ongoing Charbonneau commission.
Meanwhile, this is an election year, so talk to your candidates about allowing a more humane and enlightened approach to traffic control, starting with stop signs.
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Empty wheelchair prompts internet probe
I am led to conclude that the wheelchair-user is either 1-invisible 2 just been cured of his handicap by the magical appearance of the Google Street View mobile 3-has died and his 'chair is there for anybody to take 4-has been kidnapped by murderous east end biker gangs who descend on anybody not wise enough to wield nunchcuks in the face of the ever-present, unrelenting violence that grips the eastern side of Montreal day and night.
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Greg Kramer - Jay Baruchel's Sherlock co-star - found dead
Sad news has accompanied something that should have been quite delightful.
Firstly, we were surprised to learn that Montreal-born-resident-o-phile actor Jay Baruchel is starring in a play at the Segal Centre starting May 5 called Sherlock.
We really can't get rid of this Baruchel guy, it seems. Yet it's hard not to be impressed by his devotion to local drama when he could easily be doing similar stuff far away in some other place.
Even more surprising, and far less fun to learn, is that his co-star Greg Kramer, 51, a well-known local actor who moved here from Britain in 1981, and was to play Inspector Lestrade, was recently found dead in his apartment in Montreal.
Greg Kramer, as Richard Burnett's excellent obit explains, had previously suffered a series of health setbacks, including coping with cancer and HIV and having lost a lung. Nevertheless he looked in pretty good shape in his photos.
A cause of death hasn't been determined, perhaps a real-life Sherlock Holmes could be required to figure it out.
Firstly, we were surprised to learn that Montreal-born-resident-o-phile actor Jay Baruchel is starring in a play at the Segal Centre starting May 5 called Sherlock.
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| Jay Baruchel will play Sherlock Holmes, sadly Greg Weston won't be playing Lestrade |
Even more surprising, and far less fun to learn, is that his co-star Greg Kramer, 51, a well-known local actor who moved here from Britain in 1981, and was to play Inspector Lestrade, was recently found dead in his apartment in Montreal.
Greg Kramer, as Richard Burnett's excellent obit explains, had previously suffered a series of health setbacks, including coping with cancer and HIV and having lost a lung. Nevertheless he looked in pretty good shape in his photos.
A cause of death hasn't been determined, perhaps a real-life Sherlock Holmes could be required to figure it out.
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Canada's fugitive bikers - worth tracking down in the tropics?
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| Photoshop re-enactment of what fugitive biker Marcellin Morin did today |
Morin, a compact 5'8" who turned 46 on March 18, was a member of the Rowdy Crew, a Lavaltrie-based puppet gang of the Trois Rivieres Hells Angels.
The gang committed a wide variety of crimes, the worst of which was the shocking murder of Terrebonne bar owner Francis Laforest who was killed by baseball bat on October 17, 2000 after refusing to let the gang deal drugs on his premises.
A couple of possible suspects disappeared soon after and attempts to charge other gang members failed.
The gang leader Aurele Brouillete was rounded up in Cabarete, Dominican Republic three or four years ago but Morin, sought on charges which included murder, drug dealing and gangsterism, remains at large.
The Hells Angels have a reputation of being quite open in the Dominican Republic, having been seen prominently in Cabarete when I was there a few years back.
They were said to own businesses, including one security guard business.
I recall that they were constantly wary of a young Quebecois man whose father owned a motel and died a while back.
The young man, slim, about 6'1" with a shaved head, appeared glassy eyed-when I saw him, he'd bump into people hoping to fight.
One time the young man was showering in an outdoor shower next to a pool and a two year old child came near his feet and he made a motion as if he was going to kick the child full force.
Anyway, I am convinced that a good number of bikers who dominated Canada's most wanted list are hanging out in Cabarete, probably being only slightly more discreet after an unimpressive international roundup a couple of years ago, which means they might not be wearing the patch but are otherwise continuing apace.
So are these most wanted criminals, are they really are wanted at all?
It would appear that there's no big rush to get them back here.
If we leave them in the tropics, they remain effectively in exile and don't cost us a dime in taxpayer dollars or costly trials which might end up in acquittals.
Their passports have likely long since expired and I doubt they'll be making applications for new ones, so they could likely be living out their days in the Caribbean.
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Andrei Markov dealing with the dollars
Habs' defenceman Andrei Markov, 34, has helped elevate the Canadiens from the pavement to the penthouse this season upon his return from various knee injuries.
But one little-known fact is that the Russian-born Canadian citizen is, in the great tradition of fellow-Hab miracle worker Guy Lafleur, an avid cigarette smoker.
This fact came out in a Superior Court court decision issued Tuesday dealing with a conflict over Markov's cash money.
Markov has made approximately $46-million since signing with the Habs in 1989, most of which rolled in after 2007. He'll make another $5.75 million after his contract ends next year.
In a deal struck with a financial guy named Rand Simon, Markov hands his salary over to Newport Sports Management to handle.
In 2007 Markov signed an insurance policy with Eric Niskanen of Great West Life but in 2010 William Johnston took over the handling of Markov's funds and decided that the insurance policy was not a good deal and has sued Great West Life to get the $1.2 million insurance money back.
The litigation briefly points out that there are some inaccuracies on the life insurance documents, for example, it incorrectly reports that Markov is a non-smoker.
It appears that Markov was under the impression that his survivors would get a big payout after his death but that would only happen if he died soon, as the death compensation diminishes with age.
They incorrectly listed his address as being in Maple, Ontario, (indeed the newer document incorrectly lists him as living in Westmount) but it's well-known that the chrome-domed rearguard resides in Quebec, specifically South Shore Candiac.
So Markov, whose advancing age and history of injury have contributed to some skepticism about his ability to last much longer as power play passing genius, now has an additional pecuniary predicament distracting him just as the Habs head into the playoffs.
But one little-known fact is that the Russian-born Canadian citizen is, in the great tradition of fellow-Hab miracle worker Guy Lafleur, an avid cigarette smoker.
This fact came out in a Superior Court court decision issued Tuesday dealing with a conflict over Markov's cash money.
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| Photoshop re-enactment of Markov lightin' up in Candiac |
In a deal struck with a financial guy named Rand Simon, Markov hands his salary over to Newport Sports Management to handle.
In 2007 Markov signed an insurance policy with Eric Niskanen of Great West Life but in 2010 William Johnston took over the handling of Markov's funds and decided that the insurance policy was not a good deal and has sued Great West Life to get the $1.2 million insurance money back.
The litigation briefly points out that there are some inaccuracies on the life insurance documents, for example, it incorrectly reports that Markov is a non-smoker.
It appears that Markov was under the impression that his survivors would get a big payout after his death but that would only happen if he died soon, as the death compensation diminishes with age.
They incorrectly listed his address as being in Maple, Ontario, (indeed the newer document incorrectly lists him as living in Westmount) but it's well-known that the chrome-domed rearguard resides in Quebec, specifically South Shore Candiac.
So Markov, whose advancing age and history of injury have contributed to some skepticism about his ability to last much longer as power play passing genius, now has an additional pecuniary predicament distracting him just as the Habs head into the playoffs.
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CDN-NDG blunders, allows explosion of industrial box eyesores
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| Politicians have allowed the streets of NDG to be littered with hideous industrial boxes |
Now the borough is scrambling to manage the subsequent complaints relating to their failure to prevent residents from such eyesores.
Unlike well-run areas of town, the borough has little or no restrictions on what sort of junk landowners can place upon their property, so when some clothing collection charity called property owners to ask them to host one of their clothing-for-the-poor depots, they popped one on every site that said yes. The property owners should have simply said, "I wish you luck with your charity but borough restrictions will not allow me to place such a thing in front of my property."
But those landowners do not actually live in their buildings so they are no more sensitive to the area residents than the local politicians, who appear more interested in bickering than looking in on the voters.
Incredibly, three such boxes sit within 400 metres of each other between Girouard and Melrose, plus another there's one about 200 metres away on St. James W., far more than needed, which is zero.
There are also boxes in front of the Amazones strip club and the Chinada restaurant in that ghetto building on St. James and Elmherst, So that makes six boxes in a 3.4 km linear strip, and there are possibly others as well.
Anybody unhappy with the offputting presence of such boxes can complain to the borough by dialling 311 or simply contacting the property owners themselves.
Amazones 514-484-8695, 1089 Girouard Mark Filippelli, 5566 Upper Lachine Giacomo Mariani, 5800 Upper Lachine Frank Zhu.
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Brossard-bred Asian megastar Christy Chung not good enough for Musique Plus
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| Brossard's Christy Chung demonstrates the positive, negative, religious and fake orgasm, the last of which involves knocking over the interviewer |
Brossard's Christy Chung has seen her fame decline somewhat since her meteoric rise from local obscurity to top superstardom in China, as motherhood has taken her away from her A-list acting career, but Chung is still alive, as demonstrated in this clip where she explains the four types of female orgasm..
I had the pleasure of interviewing Chung in late December 2001, when she was at the height of her fame as China's top female star.
Here's the article I ended up writing, in which she reveals her surprising rise to fame, her ordeal giving birth in Montreal during the ice storm and her failed audition for a job as MusiquePlus VJ.
Hong Kong Handover
Miss Chinese Montreal 1992 is the most famous movie star you’ve never heard of
by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR
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| Chung seen here being crowned Miss Chinese Montreal 1993 |
Chung says she’s still surprised by the twist of fate that has vaulted her to the top of the Hong Kong star firmament since 1993, earning her top billing in films alongside such megastars as Jet Li.“I never thought I’d become an actress, I really feel that everything came like a dream. Sometimes I m sitting down and I can’t believe it. I feel that I was very blessed and have this destiny laid down to me, it’s amazing.” Chung’s serendipitous rise to glory started in 1992 when as a Marketing student at Ecole Polytechnique her boyfriend brought her along on a visit to Miss Chinese Montreal organizer Ruth Koo Lam. The boy was trying to land a singing gig at the upcoming pageant but Lam’s eyes were on Chung, who she eventually persuaded to enter the contest.
After bagging the crown, Chung was entered into the Miss Chinese International Pageant in Hong Kong. At the time Chung, who had once failed an audition as a VJ at Musique Plus for being “too shy,” was in the process of being hired as a TV weather reporter at Radio Canada. “That was a point in my life to decide to stay in Montreal and be a weather girl or go to Hong Kong and try to make my fame,” she says.
Chung’s wanderlust won out. “It was my first trip away, I had never left Montreal. I was in awe of the buildings, I was just happy to be here,” she says in a phone interview from Hong Kong. And to her surprise she won the bigger title. “I never through in a million years I d win the title because at that time I couldn’t speak Cantonese. When they called my name, I didn’t realize it. The girl sitting next to me had to explain ‘you just won the title.’”Although Chung’s film experience consisted of a mere10 second appearance as a gum chewing prostitute in Love and Human Remains, she found herself immediately getting top billing in Hong Kong films, a rarity in a system that generally requires actors to apprentice in afternoon soaps. “I was a foreigner, a westernized woman, here I was suddenly doing movies, it was pretty awesome considering that I didn’t speak the language at all,”
says Chung who reports that her language skills have improved somewhat since.
After making Asian crowd pleasers as Bodyguard from Beijing and Aces Go Places, Chung - who shuns limos, fancy clothes and makeup and dreams about “driving a Winnebago around the Maritimes” - found herself hounded by the gossip-mongering Hong Kong press. Her spot in the Asian film firmament is apparently high enough to merit wild rumours about her romantic life and getting tailed around Montreal by Hong Kong reporters, one of whom was apparently unprepared for our cold climes. “I felt sorry for him, he wasn’t used to the weather, he got very sick.”
Eventually Chung returned to give birth with now-ex-husband Glen Ross at the Royal Vic, during the famous Ice Storm no less and amazingly, without regrets. “I’m definitely going to go back if I have another baby, Canada has the best services and I just feel very relaxed there,” she says.
But Chung soon learned that the Hong Kong tabloids don’t consider giving birth a brilliant career move. “They couldn’t comprehend why I went to have a baby, they thought I was at the top of my career and now I’d have to just shoot mother roles. I’m trying to change this misconception, I feel that mothers don’t lose their appeal, that’s why I’ve been working hard for three years, even though I’m a mother, I’m still the same,” she says.Her attack on the maternal stereotype has entailed a break from her squeaky clean past roles for more off-the-beaten path stuff, including the Thai-shot filmJan Dara, set for an upcoming Canadian release. It’s about a young man’s doomed quest to find deeper answers through sensual relief. Chung plays the boy’s temptress in a role described by the Bangkok Post as “magnificent,” particularly in what it calls “the now-famous I'm-so-hot-please-rub-ice-on-my-sexy-back sequence.”
But Chung also wants to administer a few screaming high kicks in the future, as she bemoans that her martial arts are featured in only two of her flicks. “I love fighting, a lot of actors here don’t. It’s very hard. You get very tired and all bruised.” Although Chung squandered an invite to star in Rumble in the Bronx because she was busy shooting a film where plays a helpless rich chick, she’s set to appear in Jackie Chan’s upcoming High Binders, (retitled The Medallion) set to be the most expensive ever Hong Kong production. “All the female actors who work with Jackie complain of getting bruised and falling off trains but I’ve always wanted to work with him.”
Chung, who has also recently served as the Asian Lara Croft, says part of her heart remains in our city under the cross in spite of her being the focus of seemingly unlimited Hong Kong adulation. Though she “can’t stand the minus 30 degree days,” Chung misses the poutine and outdoor terraces. “Montreal is very trendy,” she says. “The energy is really very good. Montrealers are so hot, I tell people if you want to go to see the beautiful people, don’t go to Toronto or Vancouver, go to Montreal.”
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Monday in Montreal: don't effen touch me!
Well as a sign of the times this young slob was spotted flaunting all the traditional rules of social decorum by sitting prominently in the window of a west end laundromat Sunday evening sporting a bright "don't fucking touch me" patch affixed to the back of his brown vinyl jacket with safety pin.
I got a peek at his face and he didn't look insane: big glasses and a chubby John Belushi-esque face.
I had a halfway notion that he was a victim of a prank and had no idea what his jacket was telling the world but I didn't care enough to ask.
Now I'm not much of a rap guy but sometimes the little ambitious rap singer tells the story of a neighbourhood better than any other source. This guy Silky, aka Silky da Kid, is well-known in the west end, St. Raymond's specifically, for his ongoing attempts to find fame. This video is shot around the area with local kids.
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Lili St. Cyr's Montreal lovers
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| Stripper Lili St. Cyr blew Montreal away |
The six-time married St. Cyr did not go lonely long in her days around Montreal, indeed she was only unwed between 1953 and 1955 but a select group of well-known Montrealers vied for her heart throughout.
Thankfully I have the inside story. Before he died, I developed a friendship with Norman Olson, who had a hot gossip column in the 50s. He'd get his stories by strolling right up to gangsters and other powerful people and ask his trademark question: "so who do you hate?"
Olson later went into PR and did well enough to retire young but he always kept his ear to the ground about local gossip.
Olson was protegee of the great Al Palmer, who he said was one of the kindness, most encouraging people he had ever met.
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| Norman Olson was a primo gossip columnist |
Indeed when she was on her deathbed in 1999, Montreal reporter Alan Hustak got her on the phone. St. Cyr, then elderly and confused, wondered if the Montreal reporter could be her old lover Palmer, who had actually died several decades earlier.
When Hustak explained that no, he was not Al Palmer, St. Cyr said “Too bad. He was the best fuck I ever had.”
Palmer was said to have burned a longtime flame for St. Cyr, and apparently was quite deeply in love with her.
St. Cyr was frequently seen on the arm of good lookin' Detroit Red Wing tough-guy Jimmy Orlando, who was forced into early retirement because he was no longer welcome in the U.S.A., apparently because he fudged his job history to discourage being re-enlisted in WWII.
Orlando became an employee of hustlin' Eddie Quinn, best known as a wrestling promoter. Orlando worked doorman at the El Morrocco and was frequently seen escorting St. Cyr around town, leading many to assume that he was her lover. But that was just a ruse, as he was just her beard.
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| Eddie Quinn, Jimmy Orlando and Al Palmer were all romantically linked to Lili St. Cyr |
The secret and unlikely truth was that St. Cyr was Quinn's mistress and he did his best to keep it hush-hush.
Indeed he went on some sort of cruise and would sneak into her chambers when his wife dozed off. Quinn, a devout Catholic, was considered one of the most homely men in the city.
Quinn died at age 59, in 1965. Palmer died aged 58, in 1971. Orlando died in 1992, aged 76. St. Cyr died in 1999, at the age of 80.
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Eviction standoffs
Sad story from this morning about a resident who died after he was kicked out of his coop unit for non-payment.
The man refused to leave when the bailiff showed up at his unit at 12350 Lapierre in the city's north end at 9 a.m.
Instead the man barricaded himself inside.
Neighbours were evacuated.
He was soon after found dead inside the unit.
The identity of the person was not disclosed but it might have been William Zanetti, the only person to be ordered out of that building in recent months.
Zanetti had failed to pay his rent since December, which was just $250 per month. Zanetti only had a Sept 2012-July 2013 lease.
But Zanetti also had a case before the board at the same building in 2005. The details of that case are unclear as the Rental Board records only went only online after 2009, but it's clear he was not new to the building.
It's not the first time someone has barricaded themselves inside at the moment of their expulsion.
Here are some other local eviction standoffs.
-Victor Rayca, a Pole who had been interned by Russians in WWII, failed to pay a $300 court decision after his dog bit a neighbour. His $23,000 south shore home went up for auction and someone bought it for $5,000 in 1985. He threatened to kill himself rather than let the bailiff take it over. Random Montreal media consumers, moved by his story, chipped in $17,000 to help him buy it back at the last minute.
-A renegade priest barricaded himself into a church in St. Michel in 1975 after being dismissed for failing to preach the proper Catholic doctrine.
- Elderly hippie Bert Rakovski, 66, also threatened crazy violence upon his expulsion from his Baie d'Urfe home in 1971 but that ended up peacefully.
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Photoshop re-enactment : Aldo Nova comes up with the golden toaster
He hadn't a clue what to get.
But by some fluke he managed to talk to the great guitar-hero-rock-god-Montreal celebrity Aldo Nova, who was also invited.
Rather than be flummoxed or perplexed, the heavy-metal axe-wielding musical legend knew absolutely what to do.
He brought the guy to buy a toaster. A plain, old boring metal toaster.
They then zoomed up to a weird little place in St. Leonard and gave it to an old grizzled artisan.
Nova told him straight: "I want you to gold plait this here toaster."
A few days later the guy went to pick it up and the plain old toaster had become a golden toaster.
The couple, already enjoying wedded bliss, were enthralled and delighted with the gift, which goes to show that Aldo Nova knows stuff. He really does.
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The time I minded the Stanley Cup
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| Claude Mouton popped the cup into the trunk of his Cadillac Seville, leaving me to mind it as re-enacted in this photoshopped image |
So on weekdays from about ages 13 to 18 I'd sit there from about 3:15 to 6 p.m. after school, I'd be in charge of the parking operations.
Among those who parked there was rugged right winger Bob Gainey, who was a really super guy at all times and Jean Beliveau, then a member of the brass with the club. He was also a prince, although I didn't chat with him much at length. Habs broadcaster Dick Irvine often parked there too, he was alternately kind and not-so-kind.
Then there was announcer Claude Mouton, who was standoffish.
The Canadiens were winning the Stanley Cup just about every year back then so the cup was a relatively familiar sight.One day after the team had won yet again, this would likely be 1977 or '78, Claude Mouton strolled up and popped it into the angled trunk of his champagne-coloured Cadillac Seville, which sat about 20 feet away from where I was sitting in the booth.
He walked off with a little wink.
Somehow midst the myriad thoughts swirling through the mind of a 16-year-old fraught with existential teen angst, the sudden task of guarding the Stanley Cup didn't seem to hold any particular magnitude.
I recall feeling slightly disoriented and a little more aware of what I was doing. I had been held up twice at that job already and anything could happen at any time, I realized.
As I tinkered with my biology and chemistry homework I peeked at the copy of Mouton's keys hanging on hook screwed into the wall of the shack.
I figured nobody would care if I popped the trunk and had a look, maybe held it up, even lifted it up over my head.
But then the phone rang, or a customer popped in to pay him .75 cents for a half hour of parking, or something like that. Whatever it was, the mundane tasks of doing one thing or another retook control of the moment.
Mouton drove off a while later and I suppose my best chance of being entirely alone with the Stanley Cup was gone forever.
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Family Guy tribute to Montreal strip clubs
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| Actual Chez Paree staffers' bodies combined through amazing modern technology with actual Family Guy cartoon characters' heads. Wow. I mean. Wow. |
It's sorta awkward and a little bit gross but, yeah whatever, good publicity nonetheless.
Now the inside of the cartoon club would suggest that the upscale-downtown Chez Paree inspired the clip, which makes reference to the liberal-mindedness of the women who ply their trade in such places, which are apparently considerably more enjoyable than their American counterparts.
I rang up Chez Paree to ask if they knew anything about it but the guy who answered hadn't heard a thing about it.
The cartoon supports my argument that strip clubs are a much-larger factor in attracting tourists to Montreal than many other heavily-promoted attractions and the city maintains the longstanding naughty-by-nature rep we've had since the days of prohibition.
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A harrowing encounter with Montreal police - a Coolopolis exclusive
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| This Photoshop re-enactment shows how police aggressively went after three young people buying pizza on Mountain St. Tuesday night |
On Monday at about 11 p.m. two men and a woman, all in their mid-twenties, pulled up on Mountain just below St. Catherine.
The driver parked behind a police cruiser from Station 52 and went into a friendly pizza joint called Chez Dany, just below St. Cat.
The post-hockey crowds had dispersed but a significant group of police remained assembled at the spot.
The young woman stayed in the pickup to watch a dog, a Labrador Retriever, while the two men went to get the take-out pizza,
The three were presentable young people from relatively well-off backgrounds who had finished a long day of work, no radical appearance, no subversive tendency, no visible minority cultural misunderstandings.
The young woman wondered why so many police had congregated at that spot.
"I thought they were looking for a person and it had nothing to do with us," she told Coolopolis Tuesday.
"They were going up to people walking by, asking them stuff. It’s like they were really bored and wanted something to do. I’ve never seen cops do that for absolutely no reason."
A police officer asked her to roll down the window. She obliged. He asked what she was doing. She explained that she was waiting for food.
The officer walked away but returned a few seconds later and asked her to roll the window down again, whereupon he took out what appeared to be an iPhone, put it inside the window and pressed a button.
A beep came from the device and the officer accused her of smoking drugs in her car.
The young woman replied that she had done no such thing and that it wasn't even her car. But the officer came around to the other side and entered the vehicle from the driver's side and proceeded to search it.
The officer found several envelopes of cash, the day's receipts from the store that one of the young men operates. He hadn't gotten around to depositing the day's receipts in the bank yet.
The officer also found a tiny bit of hashish for personal consumption.
He accused the young man of being a drug dealer, cuffed both men and and proceeded to question them about the money.
While searching the vehicle, officers carelessly tossed computer equipment to the ground, as other police officers stood by chuckling, according to the young man.
The officer told the two men, "You're being arrested now for possession and distribution We are reading you your rights.."
The man said that other officers were also stopping other passersby, apparently at random.
"They started harassing everybody, going through their pockets. A car drove by and they ran his plate for no reason."
The officers kept telling the three that they would never be able to get into the US with a criminal record, so they'd never be able to get to Disneyland.
The police repeated the Disneyland motif several times throughout the ordeal.
(One might speculate that the references to the USA hints that the police were acting strangely because of the explosions in Boston earlier in the day.)
After a long time refusing to uncuff the men, the officers eventually decided to release them without charge, as there was ample proof that the cash came from legitimate retail transactions.
But even after his handcuffs were finally removed, the young man realized that he didn't have his phone. He dreaded having to return to ask the officers for his phone.
"I was scared shitless," he said. "I shouldn't have been. I did nothing wrong. I walked up to one of them and asked, 'do you have my phone?' Immediately another cop starts putting his hands in my pocket."
The entire pointless and harrowing ordeal took about two hours.
The three remained shaken and upset and have had their views of local police modified by the experience.
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Antenna expert explains how to get free HDTV
Montrealers toss billions of hard-earned dollars out the window each year by subscribing to costly cable TV packages, while failing to realize that a lot of that same high-definition TV content can be grabbed for free by simply putting up an HDTV antenna on your roof.I discussed this with veteran antenna installer Mario Trottier, 53, who will hook you up for $250, all labour and equipment included.
1-What's the best way to lower your internet/cable/phone bill?
"I use Distributel for unlimited internet and a MagicJack and subscribe to Netflix. We’re sometimes five people using it all at once and it's still fast."
2-A very high percentage of people still have cable, why is that?
"With the advent of HDTV, people were misinformed - especially the older folks - they misunderstood and thought that their antenna signal would be cut and they wouldn't have any TV, so they thought 'let's call Videotron.' They didn't know that the signal was going to be much better and the antenna technology was going to be amazing compared to the old analog broadcasts where you had a ghostly image."
3-Some people have the expensive cable but don't connect it all the TVs in their home because that costs $10 more per month per TV. So those other TVs only get the basic 40 channel low-def. Is there any way to combine an HD antenna feed with that 40 channel thing?
"Yes, it's easy, you can toggle between the inputs by using your remote.
4-You say there's 22 channels on the HD feed, but some of those look a little boring, which ones do you watch?
" I like NBC, CBS, PBS, the French stations, CBC, CityTV from Toronto and Memorable Entertainment TV with Jeannie, Mannix, the Fugitive, all old shows. There's a new station coming soon called ICI International with Romanian, Polish, German broadcasting beamed from Mount Royal."
5-Where do the signals come from?
"In Montreal we’re dealing with four transmitters, the Mount Royal broadcast tower, the Olympic Stadium, Mansfield in Burlington and Plattsburgh."
6-Most Montrealers are renters and might have to negotiate with their landlords to allow someone to install something on the roof. Is that a problem?
"Not that much. The people don’t say anything and often already have satellite dishes on the roof."
7-People can install their own HD antenna without hiring you, why should they hire you?
"I'm 53, I've been doing this for 25 years. It's important to know your city and how to catch the signal with, the mountains and buildings and how they affect the signal. When I go up there, even before I pull out the spectrum analyzer I know how to make it work."
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Quiz - who is this former Montrealer?
Quiz: name this former Montrealer whose turbulent domestic life earned her multiple headlines since moving stateside 25 years ago.↧