In 1999 somebody peeked down the chimney of this building at 5910 5 th Avenue at Rosemount and noticed something strange inside. It was a man's dead body, completely mummified. Investigators concluded that it had been there since 1993. The body was found head upwards, so cops thought it wasn't a murder because a murderer would have placed a body head down. That's what I generally do. It remains a mystery to many, but perhaps not all. The only other time cops had found a dead body stuffed into a chimney in Montreal was when some junkies were sitting around with a friend who died of an o.d. and they disposed of the defunct body down a chimney. I wonder what it would be like if Dick Van Dyke (aka Penis Van Lesbian) had discovered the body. Would he still be all "I duz wot I lovez and lovez wot I do?"
The second-most evil act ever committed in Montreal happened behind this door on Beaubien East three decades ago. Anybody care to hazard a guess as to what it might be? Winner gets a donut. Write me if you have an idea megaforce@gmail.com. Otherwise I'll fill you in a little later.
More: William Duckworth was born in 1865 in Bolton England and at age 26 he married Maria Louisa Smith, born in the same year in the same town and the two moved to Montreal lived at this address from at least 1930 until he died in 1945, Maria remained here until her death in 1949. The next year the abode became Hanna Lingerie, by 1954 Kay Anna Lingerie and 1959 Gay Town Sportswear Company took over the spot. By 1961 it had become a pool hall called the Salle Rodiers, which was right across from Brasserie Moderne. Soon after a former police officer named Rejean Fortin took it over and soon he and many others would be dead in two acts of unspeakable cruelty at this address. More later.
Congratulations to Miss Ginger who guessed that this was indeed the Gargantua bar where Richard "The Cat" Blass came one week after escaping prison October 23 1974 - he smashed the glass that divided prisoners from visitors - and hopped over to this bar to murder Raymond Laurin and Roger Levesque, who he believed should also have gone to prison for the robbery the three committed ensemble. He returned January 21, 1975 with buddy Fernand Beaudet and killed everybody inside the place for fear they'd be witnesses in the prior crime. Ten men and three women were locked in a room and the door was blocked by a jukebox and torched. The 13 murders was the city's worst mass murder until Marc Lepine came along and killed 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique. Cops found Blass three days later and shot him dead.
After the catastrophe, the unit became The Twentieth Century Dance Registered in 1980 and by 1996 became something called Solidarite Psychiatre. Not sure what it is now.
There's a 1 hour and 15 minute play happening down at the Usine C, in English, called Here Lies Henry that I'd deem worthy of the $26 admission. If you've never been to the Usine C, it's an old factory just south of Ontario on that warm and fuzzy strip somewhere just west of Papineau, it's a large but welcoming space with an equally hard-to-find cafe in the back that buzzes prior to shows. I've never seen a bad play there. The site lines are good, seats are comfy, although perhaps a tad more leg room would help and the sound and lighting are superior.
As for the play itself: Henry - created and acted by Daniel Brooks, 48, is chatty gay man who starts off with a lot of nervous "umming" - the three rules of public speaking he says, are "never say 'um', never apologize and never say anyway." He then breaks the rules countless times and finally gets into gear to discuss his various disjointed observations on the experience of life. He slowly and in an increasingly endearing manner sews a crazy quilt of observation, explaining the various types of liar, the worst being the pathological liar, which "can lead to craziness" (much clever echo on that last word). The worst type of lie is the universal lie, which are the ones that we all share. His narrative is like a speeding train constantly derailing and returning to the course. At one moment he's discussing how time and beauty are at constant war and then he explains that the only response to someone calling you from the other room expecting you to come is to "stab them with a butter knife" a gesture that can be justified on four reasons which he gets into in detail, he then goes on Robin Williamsesque manic prevaricatory binge confessing to such misdeeds as giving the video camera to Carla Homolka, and teaching the 911 terrorists to fly because he hates smug New York. He bums a cigarette from an audience member, dances to CeCe Peniston's Finally and brings you on a trip to the final destination, allowing you to enjoy the manic ride along the way. He notes that we all come from a dark place into light and then return from light to dark. He then explains what happens after death, you rise from your body and then bounce off your ceiling and then your maternal grandmother aged 18 - who you don't recognize because you never saw at that age - walks you somewhere else, the post-mortem events which await us apparently includes getting to go into your best friend's closet and try on all his clothes.
The audience was clearly delighted at this very tight, yet unpredictable romp with this self-deprecating seemingly aimless persona of little conventional virtue yet whose rap is both insightful, pithy and hilarious. You've really got to get down and see this thing, it's quite a mindfuck. It's only on from 29 November to 2 December, so you've really got to get down there or dial 521-6002.
I seem to have misplaced a post on Vincent River at the Quat'sous on Pine, it's currently running, I would think. It's in French but based in East End London play and tells of a young gay man blamelessly murdered in the park by thugs. That too includes some spellbinding acting but ultimately is a less enjoyable experience than the offering at Usine C.
Ol' man Alderic Brodeur was murdered on the first floor of this unit at 6649 D'Iberville. He was 83 and lived at the above abode with his wife a daughter and a 16 year old granddaughter. On the evening of 15 November 1945 Brodeur was sitting around listening to the radio, Theatre Chez Nous. Sixteen year old Liane asked Brodeur to change a light bulb in the shed out back. The old man waited for the program to end and then brought his dog out back. He apparently fell and died. But the cops were suspicious and a coroner determined that the massive head wound was too severe to be from a fall from a ladder. Dead man Bordeur's wife pointed out that it was odd that the dog didn't bark through any of this. Cops started to think it must be a family member, because the dog would surely have barked at a stranger. Well Liane had a 19 year old boyfriend who had recently moved here from Detroit. His dad died when he was four and his mother returned here to her French Canadian homeland. Edsel Harris had been laid off from Continental Can two weeks prior to the old man's demise. He was spending most of his time as a pool shark. Liane had told him that her grandpa sometimes pinned up to $200 to his underwear. So Harris unscrewed lightbulb, and Liane sent the old man in and Harris hit him with undue force and grabbed the cash and bought a new suit. Liane got three years in prison, her mom got 5 years for perjury. The jury took 10 minutes to find Harris guilty. In spite of pleas to have the teen's sentence reduced to manslaughter (manslaughter is man's laughter, as the anarchists used to say). Judge Wilfred Lazure ordered Harris hanged 23 August 1946, two weeks after he turned 20. Harris told the hangman, "It's okay, I'd rather hang than spend the rest of my days in a jail cell." After all this, the home was inhabited by a guy named Romain Bertrand and then by the late 50s some nobody named Henri Legault lived there and stayed for quite a long time.
So do you believe in Raoul? Do you believe that he went to this bar on Common Street and befriended small time hood James Earl Ray and eventually persuaded him to murder Martin Luther King Jr. ? Personally I do not. Others, who count more than myself, do. Raoul may or may not have walked into this door long ago and initiated a chain of events that would lead to one of the great tragedies of the 20 th century, the murder of Martin Luther King Junior. James Earl Ray was living in Montreal after having escaped a Missouri jail. He claims that he was approached by a smallish red haired guy named Raoul who proceeded to persuade him to enact him a series of events that culminated with the murder of King. Did Raoul really exist? It has been endlessly debated since. The slain civil rights leader had a son Dexter who eventually got to know Ray and he ended up believing the story about Raoul. The bar was called the Neptune Tavern back then. It was around at least since 1947, according to this Time magazine article. It was a rowdy place full of drinking sailors. When the sailors left the port it became a gay club that launched an international association called the Neptune Club. Now it's part of a hotel, called Cafe Helios, run by a nice Greek guy who leaves it closed most of the time. I think somebody should turn it back into a real hard drinking place full of sailing paraphernalia..
Final vote on the Park Avenue renaming issue was 41 in favour, 22 against. The opposition voted against the motion and the only ones on Tremblay's team that voted against it were Allmand, Zajdel, Applebaum, Fotopulos, a guy from the St. Laurent and three from the Plateau. The mayor said "Democracy has spoken."
Justice delayed is justice granted Yves Dupont, 46, of Disraeli was busted 18 January 2003 for dangerous driving and assault. He was driving back from the Adstock ski hill near Thetford Mines and found himself being chased by another car occupied by a man, woman and a child also apparently returning from a fine time at the ski hill. Dupont figured it was a crazy road rage guy so he pulled over. The pursuant identified himself as a provincial police officer who wanted to give Dupont a ticket for cutting him off. Seemed dodgy. The case went to court, was delayed, and the preliminary inquiry happened a full year later. Subsequent attempts to hold the trial were delayed because the prosecutor was later replaced, then the cop was on sick leave, a witness was unable to attend. It was delayed 13 times over 33 months until finally this spring defense lawyer Luc Oullette convinced the judge to just drop the case. Dupont is a free man.
Bingo Ontario style. Okay, this isn't Quebec but it's not far. Yousif Youkhana, 58 of Brampton was beaten to death in a theft of the $1,000 he had won playing bingo in April. Four women were busted for the deed.
Bomb toting French tourists strike again French tourist Daniel Peronnin visiting his son in Quebec City caused panic at the Jean Lesage airport in April. Officials asked him if he had guns and bombs in his bag. He ironically replied "yes yes." He was quickly arrested. His bags searched. He plead guilty to mischief and was forced to pay $200 in a fine to the Maison Dauphine. He returned to France a week late.
The joy of junkiedom Druggie Marc Laliberte returned from a fishing trip 8 October 2005 got totally freaken baked and beat his friend up. The next month he went to a depanneur and ordered him to empty his cash, walking off with $400. He was arrested soon after and kept behind bars until a prosecutor got a chance to tongue lash him in front of a judge, describing his drug dependency which has afflicted him since age 13. Laliberte frequently injected cocaine and also indulged in the pleasures of wife beating and criminal harassment. He has managed to stay clean for two years following an intensive therapy. This spring he was released after time served and remains on probie.
He found dealing with children a touching experience Daniel Gamache, 48, of Quebec City hung out near the Saint-Roch school and encouraged girls aged 10 to 13 to touch him. He had no priors and got bail on $1,000. He'll have to report to the local cops once a week and will be prevented from communicating with his two victims and is no longer allowed in any public place where children under 14 are present. He'll also have to go to the CLSC and visit a health professional.
Scratch lottery mania Therese Guibeault, 62, of Three Rivers Quebec plead guilty to cocaine trafficking, an activity she got into in the aims of buying more scratch lottery tickets. She'd go around to local bars to sling her 'caine as us gangstas like to put it. Ai-ight? She was busted 21 March and got 12 months to serve "in the collectivity" which means she didn't actually go to prison. She had no prior criminal record.
Calling people assholes is quite legal Donald Levesque, who has served on city council in Matane for 20 years, laid a $60,000 lawsuit against Renee Cote, who called him an "asshole" in front of city council 8 June 2004. Cote was pissed off during a debate about a waste treatment plant proposed in Matane-sur-Mer. A judge rejected the suit earlier this year. Can I offer you a beer ? Andre Bertrand, 52, of Laliberte street in Jonquiere was charged with armed assault after allegedly tossing a giant beer bottle into the face of police officer Denis Bouliane. Bertrand was involved in a fight with his roommate, but the cops managed to calm it down, until suddenly it flared anew and Betrand shoved Bouliane. The cop didn't fall down, but Bertrand did and got angry and threw the beer bottle which busted the cops nose and cut his face. The apartment was a bloody mess.
Bad aim arson An arson that ended claimed the lives of two innocents while the intended target went unscathed remains unsolved. On 24 May 2004, 3:05 am, firefighters were called to 12370 Rolland in Montreal North. The elderly Marie-Josee Jean-Pierre managed to get out from the gas-fuelled blaze with little Roberta but her husband Simeon Cediu, 70 and tiny Anastasia Napon, 4 were too deep in the conflagration to save. The two children were staying there while waiting for their mother to return from Haiti. The theory behind the arson was that the Reds gang believed that a particular member of the rival Blues, who had a reputation for beating women, was inside the home. The targeted man had decided to sleep elsewhere that night.
Another hooker-murdering lawyer in Chicoutimi - Luc Dumont of esteemed Chicoutimi law firm Mason and Gagnon, on Racine Street was charged with manslaughter in the death of Nadia Caron, 22 and he was charged with drug dealing as well and faced life in prison due to an incident from August 2005. Cops came to 626 Audet street, a rooming house in Chicoutimi known for prostitution. When cops arrived to the home, Caron was in bad shape and soon died of a cocaine overdose, without any explanation of events. Ai-ight? After seven months of investigation, cops pinned the deed on Dumont who had two prior convictions for drunk driving.
See the hair salon in the middle of this photo? It was the scene of an infamous crime that left three dead in 1951. Luckie was a street hood born Thomas Lucinkewich in St. Lambert in 1927. His father, a Spaniard, died 10 years later of TB and Luckie's financially-challenged mom took her six kids to Goose Village, a rough part of the Point that was demolished in 1964, it's east of the Club Price. Luckie didn't turn out so great. He went to Shawbridge as a juvenile delinquent at age 12 and his mom died when he was 24. He was depressed about this and decided to committ a robbery. On January 1951 he went out with his girlfriend's brother Thomas Mullins, a plumber with a long criminal record. Mullins was living on Wellington with his widowed mother, who had nine children. They were looking for a place to rob and an acquaintance named Thomas Paris suggested they visit Sloan's depanneur at 1986 St. Antoine Street West, which was long owned by Thomas Sloan, 65. The building is still there near the Georges Vanier metro. Paris told the would-be robbing duo that Sloan was unarmed and would comply by emptying his till. When the duo arrived at the store on January 21, 1951, Sloan was in the back listening to the radio for news about two accidents. One day earlier his mother-in-law had been killed by a bus and on the same day his son-in-law was killed in a separate car accident. He was probably not in the mood for bullshit. But soon Luckie and Mullins were fumbling and bumbling with the register. Sloan attempted to stop them and Luckie shot the storeowner Sloan with a .38 and Sloan later died in hospital. The duo fled but the guy who steered them there, Paris, feared he'd be implicated in the crime and informed on them to the police. In court, Luckie claimed his gun went off by accident as he was ducking Sloan, who was about to fire, but a ballistics experts said it was impossible. The duo were found guilty by a jury in 15 minutes and sentenced to hang. Many, including legendary city councillor Frank Hanley, lobbied to have Mullins escape the noose, seeing as he didn't do much in the robbery, but the two were hanged side by side nonetheless at the Bordeaux prison on May 2, 1952.
This empty lot at Bridge and Wellington was where 625 Bridge sat. It's where John Monastyrski moved in 1929 from Bukovina to live with his old girlfriend Tekla, with whom he had been sweet most of his life. She had moved there five years earlier and was waiting for him so they could be together. Except Tekla, 29, had married Wasyl Sportana, 39, and the duo had a three year old together. John took this surprisingly well and moved in with the couple and became best friends with Wasyl. John worked at a steel mill but when Tekla had her second child with Wasyl in 1931 John moved out and started drinking heavily. On Monday June 8 he tried to visit but Tekla refused to allow him in because he was drunk. The next morning John returned with knives taped to his wrists and knocked on the door of the home and slashed Wasyl, who later died of his injuries. Tekla tried to stop him but he ran down Bridge street and was confronted by rookie cop Paul-Emile Beaucage, 27, and veteran Camil Liboiron, 49. John stabbed Liboiron deeply in the chest but he would later recover. Beaucage died three months after getting slashed, he succumbed to infection. On his way to court to be tried for the two grisly murders in October, John fought off two police escorts and jumped over a balcony but fell a dozen feet and broke both ankles and spent the rest of his life in the Bordeaux Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The police officer Beaucage died just as his 19 year old wife Hilda was giving birth to his son Paul, who grow up and join the very same city police force. And his wife Hilda also joined the force in the 1940s and solved a high profile case, making them a rather unique mother-son due of Montreal police officers.
I always admired this strange yellow building at St. Lawrence and St. Catherine. I don't think I ever had any reason to go inside, although I think I did once. I went in and asked what kind of place it was and a very professional and presentable young woman explained some sort of service which involves men attaining the heights of orgasm. I salute anybody with the industry and initiative to set up a gimmick faux-sex joint. I can only imagine going in to a bank to get a loan for a place where customers put suction devices on their privates for sexual gratification. Anyway the place was owned by a guy in Malasia who didn't want to sell it but the city twisted his arm until it bled and now they're going to knock it down and put something guaranteed to harden the nipples of francophone bureaucrats in all of French North America.
Some random shots of Mountain Street taken today. It's an underrated street. Click the pictures to see a larger version of the photos.
The tiny house near Wellington is pretty wild. A friend lived there until about 8 years ago. I've been inside many times. The second floor has an incredibly low ceiling but the first floor is normal. A fair sized basement.
Spent some time today with Luisa Durante of the Canada Tibet Committee, who told me about some of the excellent initiatives they are undertaking to help free Tibet from Chinese occupation. They sell some pretty neat little nicknacks to fund their cause and always welcome support. Check out their site at www.tibet.ca or ring them at 514-487-0665 to find out how you can help the Tibetans regain their freedom.
When destiny yanks your bingo card away So two guys were sitting in the The Original Bar in Granby. One took a sip from the other’s glass, which causes a small disagreement. Soon the two are outside hitting each other pretty good. Robert Lafleur, 38, – old enough to know better, stomped and battered Michel Quirion, 46, who is the man with the temerity to have dared take the fatal sip. Quirion ended up in a coma for 12 days. The brutal battering was caught on tape. Quirion lost a lot of cognitive abilities. In court Quirion reported that he’s saddest because he can’t play bingo with as many cards as usual due to his inability to concentrate. Bingo is his passion. His doctor suggested he play a lot of bingo because it’s a super way to exercise your memory. But he’s not able to do it and is sad about it. Lafleur expressed regret and got 15 months in prison.
The reason we have such a serious ADD problem Education Ministry bureaucrat Sylvie Grenier, 44, managed to defraud $200,000 over a period of two years (January 2002 to February 2004) taking a load of money earmarked for children with attention deficit disorders. She wrote 18 cheques of between $2,000 and $19,000 and deposited them in her personal account and one that she shared with her spouse who later denied any knowledge of the scheme. Credit card statements showed that she spent $120,000 in stores in Quebec City but she reported no memory of making all those purchases. She also said spent $2,000 a day on cocaine and $300 on Tylenol per week while working. This didn’t impress the judge who didn’t believe that one could take so much drugs and still work in an office. Perhaps he should have asked Andre Boisclair. She was tried in February.
No crowing in court In March Sabin Johnson, 37, was in court for possession of a small amount of marijuana in Gatineau, near Ottawa. He was asked to explain why he was walking down the street crowing like a chicken. Johnson – for the sake of accuracy - decided to show the court his buzzed out chicken routine, which left judge Jean-Francois Gosselin laughing so hard that they were unable to continue the proceedings. He eventually returned and gave Johnson, who made money selling crack to hookers in Hull, 41 months. Johnson had already served 10 months while waiting his trial, time served is doubled, so he got 20 months in the pen.
The fake refund scam Rita Monette, 61, of Papineauville was a cashier with 15 years service at Tigre Geant who developed a way to bag $20,000 of store cash for herself over 13 months between 2003 and 2004 - all entirely undetected ! … err.. for a while anyway. She pretended that someone came and bought cartons of cigarettes and brought them back a few hours later saying she quit smoking. She did this and other variations of the phantom reimbursement scheme, always givingthe stub for the reimbursement to the boss and who refunded her cash, which went right into her dainty little purse. Video surveillance sealed her deal. She was given one month in the community and 80 hours of public service.
Tip to the wise - don't return to bars you've been bounced outta Jason Fortier, 23, a bouncer at Pub Delzie in Quebec City kicked out a 20-year-old rowdy drunk on August 23, 2003. He led the man out efficiently and entirely by-the-book but the customer returned and Fortier was less diplomatique the second time, punching him on the side of the head and launching him down the stairs where his head smashed against the ground, causing a concussion. The vic woke two days later in the hospital, his brain not quite working the same. Fortier was tried in February 2006.
The hooker-to-pimp transition A 19-year-old former child prostitute was charged with pimping after she admitted in court that she hooked up three to five female friends aged 14 to 16 with former clients. She claimed she was giving the girls phone numbers of her former clients thinking that they could help them, giving the girls lifts, and whatnot. She claimed that the girls had anxiously demanded the numbers for her former clients. The judge reminded her that her many contradictions and ever-changing testimony wouldn’t help her when the final gavel sounded. The 19 year old finally fessed up. The girls, like the accused pimp, lived in the l’Escale foster home in Quebec City. A probation officer who worked with the young women called them “immature, irrational, irritable, narcissistic, with the ability to manipulate others through their bodies.”
In 2003 Nelson Lechasseur was arrested, as he had been many, many times since being convicted of murder at age 16, this time the crime was armed assault. Cops took a routine DNA sample and bingo, his double helix DNA spiral betrayed him. Cops tied his body to two previously unsolved murders. The Beaie Comeau native, who hung his hate in Drummondville faced charges on two murders, one committed in 1984 of a drug dealer and the other 1993 of a high class hooker. Other tests could link him to a third murder.
In August 1984 a Longeuil resident walking with his dog in the woods found the body of John Deliva, reported missing two months previously. The body had been tied to a tree. Deliva, 35, was killed by two bullets in the head. The investigation reveled that the victim was kidnapped in Montreal and brought to the South Shore. According to police, Deliva was a small drug dealer who owed a debt of under $200. His vehicle was found burnt a few day after his disappearance and DNA samples were taken from the car.
In November 1993 firefighters were called to a blaze at 6300 Lennox apartment 205 in Outremont. The calcified body of Claude F. Ferron, 55 was found on the bed. Two metal wires attached to the head, one the mouth and another at the neck. The autopsy revealed that the prostitute had been strangled to death. The pathologist found sperm in the victim. The victim's boyfriend was investigated as police suspected that the lover - now dead - had tired of the woman and ordered her murdered.
At the time the DNA identification hadn’t been perfected. Labs needed a large sample to make the test. In 1985 Britain’s Alex Jeffereys invented a new method to identitify genes of each person from the DNA.
Techniques improved and the old samples - in both cases - linked Lechasseur to the grisly deeds.
The Gaz surveyed all of the city councillors about the Park Avenue name changing thing. The following plan to vote against it next week: Nousig Eloyan,Michael Applebaum, Warren Allmand, Marvin Rotrand, Saulie Zajdel, Lyn Theriault Faust, Laurent Blanchard, Gaetan Primeau, Claire-Saint-Arnaud, Helen Fotopulos, Richard Bergeron, Michel Labreque, Michel Prescott, Nicolas Montmorency, Francois Purcell, Jean-Yves Cartier, Anie Samson, Mary Deros.
Those who plan to vote in favour of it are Marcel Tremblay, Claude Dauphin, Richer Dompierre, Cosmo Maciocia, and Claude Trudel.
So it's 18 against, 5 for with the remaining 41 refusing to answer or saying that they were undecided.
Benoit Labonte, considered Tremblay's likely successor - and it's widely speculated that he won't run again - says he's undecided. As is Zampino, another possible successor. Their votes could dictate what happens to the rest of their careers.
Great moments in accounting Andre Roy, 45, was a clerk for the Caisse Populaire who embezzled $800,000 between June 1995 and August 2003.His luxurious life raised suspicions, as he traveled frequently to very expensive places, so they undertook an internal inquiry on him. Roy was sentenced to two years in prison. He says he spent all his money. It may or may not be buried somewhere however. He was on welfare and owes $436,988.00
Get lost!..damn lost object saint!St. Antoine is the patron saint of lost objects. The Clarisse Nunnery in Beauharnois had a statue of him on its premises, but it keeps getting lost. It's a two-foot tall cement number, not worth much, but kept inside an enclosed and locked yard. In November 2005 thieves grabbed it and a statue of the Virgin Mary and broke the arm off a statue of St. Bernadette. It’s the second time that the statue of St. Antoine disappeared from the monastery. The first time it was found along a road in the area. Presumably this time the thieves tossed it farther into the forest.
Bringing kitchen utensils to a word fight A mother in Gatineau, 41, freaked out at her son over his choice of friends. The family scene was no Kodak moment, as cops showed up to a bloodbath at a housing project where four children lived with their mom. They found the 18 year old boy covered in blood and complaining of pain in his ribs. His mom had thrown plates, glasses, knives, forks, pots and pans at him, causing the damage. The child didn’t want to make a complaint against his mother but after consulting with the authorities, including the youth protection, the file went ahead. The mom lost custody of the four year old.
High School not-so-confidential A 13 year old girl attending the St. Joseph High School in Mount Laurier hit it off with a 16 year old boy from the same school who asked her to email him nude pictures of herself. Soon they were all over school. Five kids were apprehended in relation to this affair and charged with possession and distribution of child porn.
Short careers in the cocaine industry Denis Delisle, 39, went on trial for stabbing Yannick Lafontaine, 25, 47 times in June 2004. It was Lafontaine's first day on the job as a cocaine dealer. These valued citizens lived in Ancienne Lorette in Quebec City and sure liked to sniff that blow. Delisle's girlfriend Guylaine Pellerin was helping him do just that until they ran out. They wanted more but had no money. They ordered the dealer over anyway. Delisle told Pellerin that he'd work something out and left the apartment. She noticed he had taken his son’s gloves and a long kitchen knife. A few minutes later he returned but seemed agitated and bleeding from the leg. He showered and stared nervously out the window. He gave two bags of coke to Pellerin. A few days later he told her that the dealer was dead and showed her the body in a car.
I attended a magazine launch last night for a magazine called.. (uhh.. let me check it and get back to you ..I can assure you that it was a socially-relevant thing, not a gossip rag discussing stuff like anorexic Natasha Stillwell's implants, etc) the magazine runs articles about the damage mining does to communities around the world and there were some excellent people there underlining this issue, including the very bright communications guy Martin St. Pierre, at Cafe Toc Toc on Park and Van Horne. Among the performers was this Columbian guy and his 7 year old daughter. It was her first time on stage, although she played like a pro.
This bar on Ontario advertises so many activities you wouldn't bat an eyelash if Alec Guinness strode in wearing a loincloth quoting Shakespeare while banging a drum. Their official activities include Karaoke, permanently emblazoned on the sign and the slightly more tentative "DARDS" on paper in the window. Last year the boys at the lurvely Urbania magazine asked me if I could locate a "Bienvenue aux dames" sign anywhere left in this town. I found one a couple of blocks east of this place but didn't see it upon my return this week. Anyway, the 2801 won't disappoint, they've got that angle covered too.
Media don't run stories like this anymore largely because it is said to promote a very harmful phenomenon, so hopefully this won't put any weird ideas in your head. I don't know if the voluntary ban on suicide discussion is entirely useful though, perhaps some discussion could lead to prevention. Anyway this is typed from an old microfilm, a few lines were omitted due to visibility issues. --- February 4, 1933 Montreal Herald. Tragedy and grim humor in suicide -types of self destruction varied and weird -Herald reporter discovers in check up with morgue official s- man who sketched his own death –fear and worry believed major causes of suicide – many and varied are the rendez vous with death in this city.
– A man this week blew his head off with a dynamite cap. An inquiry at the local morgue revealed that this suicide was but one of a series extending over a long period in which people have chosen methods ranging from swift, speedy termination of their lives to elaborate, carefully worked out schemes. Perhaps the most nonchalant case on record is that of a man three years ago who turned on the gas and at drawing cartoons about the whole business, while the poisoning atmosphere slowly arrested the moving pencil on the last drawing in which he presented himself thumbing his nose at Death. Another made sure of his end. He combined poisoning, a shot-gun and hanging all in one blow to end his troubles. One grim story after another lies hidden in the local morgue, one tragedy after another of life misspent, of disillusion, suffering, struggle and mental aberration leading to death. Perhaps the most popular way out of the troubles of life morgue officials agree is through gas, whether it be illuminating gas, carbon monoxide or coal gas… suicides by carbon monoxide gases seems to have been passed with the ..coming of colder weather. Drowning as gleaned from impressions of near suicides is considered ‘very easy’.’ The razor and penknife has been used to some extent through this method is usually reversed to crazed persons. –revolver out – the revolver seems to have lost its popularity.. recently there was such a case at the local morgue a 12 year old boy, ordered to stay within doors by his father one day as punishment for a minor fault when to the shed at the rear of his home and hung himself from one of the beams. Another similar case occurred about a year go when a young Finnish lad, aged 15 hung himself from a bed post because he had broke the handle of a small coffee machine the repair of which would not have cost more than a few dollars. Many suicides result from lover quarrels...occasionally one hears of a person committing a rather complicated suicide. Such cases are not unusual some time ago a prominent young man in one of Montreal’s suburbs poisoned himself, shot himself with a rifle and was found hanging in a barn at the rear of his home and yet, he was not dead until the noose strangled him though each of the treatments would have been fatal in themselves… another case is recalled of a woman a short tie ago who swallowed a large quantity of javel water and then hanged herself by a cord from a water pipe in her bathroom. Only once has the Montreal morgue received a suicide who in ending his own life wrote down his sensations while death was creeping upon him. It was the case of a young man on Park Avenue some months ago who turned on the gas in his room. He sat at a table and wrote notes at intervals of one or two minutes. Such phrases as a “pleasant feeling,” "seem to be floating very tired” and “sleeping” and “it wont be long now,” were used by the writer to describe his exit from this life. The last note was but an unreadable scribble which trailed off into nothingness, he was found pen in his hand resting on the note.
Make time to see one of the last four performances of the excellent To the Green Fields Beyond at the Chapel Theatre, 3700 St. Dump (aka Dominique) it's 8 pm every night but only a matinee Sunday, call 843-7738 with your usual dumb questions. Anyway the play is a spirited tale of a dozen World War One soldiers on the eve of what they feel will be their toughest battle. Some suggest that they somehow get lost on the way to the battle and this debate becomes the centerpiece for some excellent dialogue. The cast sparkles and includes the ever-stalwart Tristan D. Lalla (playing a Jamaican guy,) Alexandra Valassis (as the hooker) and the following excellent act a variety of Brits and other characters: Aaron Turner, Neil Napier, Colin lalonde, Christopher Moore, Timothy Diamond, Toma Weideman, Dustrin Ruck, Frayne McCarthy and David Potter. The script by Nick Whitby is the work of a genius and the local boys do it justice. We managed to have a quick Question and Answer session with the cast (pictured above) which was pretty neat considering they were all likely drained by quite an energetic performance. I've been highly impressed by some of the talent bubbling up this year in Montreal's English theatre world. Lots of energy and exuberance and risk taking out there, and that's nice to see.
The previous building at this place, 2153 Wolfe was home to Lucienne Cazeault and her hubby Eugene who, aged 29 in 1933, was distracted from his marital financial duties by a sexy religious cult. On Friday 10 February 1933, Lucienne hauled him to the Court of Summary Convictions to face Judge Victor Cussion. She complained of her husband's preoccupation with fellow lady worshipers with whom Eugene spent every Saturday night fulfilling the Rites of the Sect of Crucified Ones, held on Visitation Street. She claimed that Eugene had only given her $2.50 over the previous six weeks. Ovila Gerard, leader of the sect, had also faced charges charges of preforming an illegal marriage ceremony. Lucienne had only observed the rites once and concluded that "it was no place for a husband," because "women prayed in scandalous attire," and her husband had "no right to forsake her to watch people offend God while in scanty clothes." Eugene claimed that he was "old enough to do as he pleased and go where he chose" and denied paying his wife insufficient support. The case was adjourned for a month and Lucienne asked that her husband be ordered to leave with her and not go with "these people," known as adherents of the sect, who were also in attendance at court. She left the courthoom on the heels of her husband. "Apparently not relishing the watchdog attitude of his wife, Cazeualt attemtped to evade her in the crossed halls but she followed him out." (Feb 10, 1933 Herald).
January 31, 1933. The 'eadless body of Victor Petitjean, 66, was found in the rear of this home at 1847 Dandurand Street. A detonator cap was used in the suicide. The murder theory was discounted upon investigation by police. The verdict was "suicide while of unsound mind," according to Coroner Lorenzo Prince. Petitjean, 66, was a widower. His headless body was found in the lane way behind his the home by his brother-in-law, Adelard Martineau. It had been blown off by a cap of dynamite.
May 2, 1934. Constable Eugene Maleric, 33, of 4651 Chambord Street, who had won the Montreal Hearald's traffic cop contest in 1929 for his good natured guidance of cars at Francois Xavier and Notre Dame. Coroner Prince returned a verdict of natural death. He died at home of acute indigestion, aged 33. He was a popular and well-known figure in downtown Montreal.
May 1, 1933. Alcide Lagace, 6437 Clarke street, was charged with "holding by violence property not his own,"he refused to vacate a house into which he had moved without the owner’s permission. The case was heard before Judge Enright. Lagace pleaded not guilty and was committed for trial on May 9, being released in the meantime on personal recognizance. He was "workless, it was shown, and almost completely destitute. He was advised by Judge Enright to vacate the house." (Herald)
Sometime around 1994 me and my brother JD organized a meeting of Michael Sarrazin and his equally famous lifelong buddy Nick Auf der Maur at Grumpy’s Bar on Bishop. We videotaped the interview for our Montreal TV show Behind the Scenes, but never got around to airing it. One day I'll go through the old pile and find the video and pop it on the net, until then here's a transcript of the interview. Nick: When kids say they want to be a race car driver, or a pilot you don't really quite take it seriously. Michael Sarrazin always said that he wanted to be an actor. You really had it in your head that is you wanted to do? Sarrazin: Almost from the very beginning. Well we were in a high school play together, weren't we? Nick: Yeah that's right, but I didn't take it seriously. Sarrazin: Yeah. But there was a period of time I went to art school for a year, but basically that was my focus, Nick: But there is one thing to want to be it and another to actually do it, how did you get to do it? And the actual fact, I remember it was the drudgery and work and an awful lot of not working? Sarrazin: Yes the first test you go to is the test of your commitment and whether or not you can stick with it. At the beginning was very tough and spare as you know my early days in Montreal were virtually nothing. But suddenly things got momentum. Nick: Do you remember your first paying job? Sarrazin: Yeah the National Film Board was doing a historical series. I was 17 they were doing the Fathers of Confederation. I was hired as a stand-in for Robert Christie because I was the only guy tall enough. He was playing Sir John A. MacDonald. Nick: You were a stand-in for Sir John A? Sarrazin: As played by Robert Christie. Nick: You were 17 years old. Sarrazin: Yes the pay was $15 a day and I was actually on a movie set. I think everyone know what a stand in is, except for you Nick. In order to give the principal actors a rest during the lighting set ups they have people with their size and shapes to stand there so the actors won't be tired to perform, so I did that and it took all of one summer. Nick: How did you get the job? Sarrazin: You just hear things, like: "The National Film Board needs stands in." I think I initially applied initially as an extra and then they singled me out because I was the right height for Bob Christie. So that meant I had a regular job and would be working through the series and then the next thing that evolved out of that is we went out and did crowd scenes, I started doing work as an extra with business. I was singled out like a crowd scene...simulating a riot. I made a little extra money, the reason I remember that is that I used that money to join the union. And I became a professional actor at 17. Nick: And then that went on a little bit work, but you did some studying too. Sarrazin: Yes I joined up with a group in Montreal who worked with the Actors Studio and they formed a workshop on St. Lawrence Street. And a lot of actors from the studio flew up to give seminars 4 or 5 days at a time then. I filled that up with up work with some of thesemi-professional theatre companies here in Montreal that we had at that time, the Trinity Players and Studio Club Nick: Yes I remember The Studio Club. I was the assistant stage manager. Sarrazin: I think I was your assistant (laughs).. Nick: Well then at one point you decided you couldn't do it in Montreal then you decided to go to New York and then Toronto. Sarrazin: New York I went to primarily to study because I was given through the teachers here, who were connected to the actors studio and I was introduced to Lee Strasberg and he accepted me into his private classes so I went down there for not quite a full year to study with him and roam around New York and support myself whichever way I could. I couldn't work, I just studied, I couldn't work because I didn't have the proper documentation. Nick: Then you went to Toronto. Sarrazin: Then I came back briefly to Montreal and did a play here which got some notice and somebody wrote me a letter of recommendation to producers at the CBC and I went up to Toronto. So I joined a workshop in Toronto with George Luscombe and with this letter I went to see the casting people at CBC TV. Nick: We're talking what year here? Sarrazin: About (19)63, 64, Nick: And then you got the Hollywood contract and you became a studioactor? Sarrazin: Yeah they had contacts in Toronto, they still had those talent programs then, where they signed people to seven year deals and they would also make a trip up to Toronto on scouting missions they'd go to Stratford and Toronto ....and they called me one day. I was living in this rooming house in Toronto and they called me from New York told me they wanted to talk to me first thing. I thought it was some friends playing a joke on me so I hung up on them and then I called back and the next thing you know I was in New York havinga meeting with Universal studios and then they subsequently flew me to Los Angeles to look around at the studios and eventually I signed for 7 years. Nick: That system doesn't work anymore.. where the studio signs an actor to a seven year deal and then they stick you into as many movies as they want, or can. What was your first Hollywood movie then? Sarrazin: The first year, once they have you under contract you visit all the TV shows that they make you do a guest star. Of course your big fear is that they put you in a TV series. Nick: Why? Is there a fear you get stuck in a series? Sarrazin: Yeah you get stuck in a series, in those days it was all those Western and things like that.. yeah so I did a year, I guested on the Virginians there was show called Bob Hope Chrysler theatre, which was a dramatic show and a lot of Westerns in those days verypopular, Universal Studios did B Westerns, I did a ton of those well maybe not a ton about 5 or 6 the first of which was called "Gunfight in Abeline" with Bobby Darin, remember the singer, he'sa wonderful guy. Nick: And did you get to like.. pull a gun and stuff? Sarrazin: Yeah, yeah. It was done in 14 days. I think it was just an atrocious Western, it was a rehash of an old Western from the 1930s and I was afraid of horses, the usual story. It was just a disaster but I remember that as being my first feature. Nick: You mentioned horses which oddly enough the film which brought you to prominence was They Shoot Horses Don't They in which you starred with Jane Fonda. How long after did you do that film? Sarrazin: Well I signed with Universal in 1965. There was one big moviebefore it called "The Flim Flam Man" which I tested for and I won the role...and that got very good public response. Nick: That was with George C. Scott, I recall you mention that workingwith George C. you learned a lot. He was a father figure of some sort? Sarrazin: Yeah he's an extraordinary actor, he's still one of my favourites. He was exceptionally generous with me. I had heard rumours that he could be very temperamental, that he didn't suffer fools and stuff like that, but for some reason he took me under his wing and we got along really well and it played well for the film because it the story about a relationship between an older man and a young boy. Nick: It was also comedy too, and you haven't done much comedy. Sarrazin: Yes it was a comedy and it was very well received, I got very good critiques and that subsequently led to They Shoot Horses... Nick: That was a depressing film, I mean you went from a comedy to this, you're talking about going from white to black. It was a pretty bleak picture about a bleak era, what was it like working on that film..bleak? Sarrazin: Yes it was in fact. It was an intense, moving story. I think everyone involved in it was totally committed to it. It was almost as though we were living the parts and I have nothing but good memories of it, but we didn't party much. All of the cast was intothe t in the dance marathons as a teenager and she wrote a good book about it, there is a great amount of research material, plus, a lot of the cast, most of the principal players started a week early in rehearsal of experiencing staying up 24 hours a day, with a 10 minute break on the hour. Nick: You weren't partying? Sarrazin: Hah no! We actually went to the stage where the set was built, at Warner Brothers and played music and danced for 15 minutes and lay down for 10 and then danced for 15, and got used to all the sirens and the bells, all of the stuff that was in the movie, it wasactually completely accurate. Nick: You mean you lived it before you shot it. Sarrazin: Yeah just to get the sense we went home at night, we didn't stay up for three months, but it was just to get a sense of what these people went through. Nick: Then The Pursuit of Happiness which you didn't get with telling of that story. Nick: A film like that seems depressing, actors read histories andbiographies to get a feel for it, did you? Sarrazin: Yeah we saw a lot of actual documentary footage about the dance marathons that did occur. We read some books on the subject, Olivia de Havilland, oddly enough washey shoot horses.. Sarrazin: No they only thing I remember about that was it was the first film I made after my contract with Universal ended, so I was making real money (laughs) as opposed to the little salary when you're under contract, the studio makes the money and you get a salary, so The Pursuit of Happiness with Barbara Hershey and Richard Mulligan, a very very good director, I didn't think the story was so good and it came and went, the public didn't catch on to it, it had a great title song by Randy Newman, that's all I remember about it.. Nick: We have some clippings of you from the Montreal Gazette and there is a photo of you in a bathtub with Barbra Streisand in For Pete's Sake. I mean not many of us get in a bathtub with her. What was it like working with a super vedette ? Sarrazin: Great. Great we got along well, I liked her, I admired her tremendously, it was a lot of fun, it wasn't too demanding, because it was a nice light comedy. She is an extraordinary person, a lot of fun, a great sense of humour, we shot it on the lot because you can't go on the street with Barbra Streiseand, it starts a riot. So, it was a kind of light weight kinda movie, but the film experience and meeting her it was a happy time. Nick: She collects antiques.. Sarrazin: Yeah. Nick: My mom has an antique coat racks, and every time you get to Montreal my mom asks me to get you to ask Barbra for a coat rack but it hasn't worked out. You get the impression that alot of the stars are bitchy in private. Sarrazin: I can't measure that, I'm sure they are, and I've run into a few temperaments in my time and I suppose I have a temper in my own right, but generally speaking, they're nice people professional people, if you catch me on a bad day I won't be as agreeable as ona nice day Nick: I also saw you in Playboy nude with Raquel Welch? Sarrazin: No I don't think so.. Nick: Who was it? Sarrazin: I didn't pose specifically for Playboy. Nick: Yeah but who was it? Sarrazin: I really don't remember. Nick: It was kind of like a Tarzan thing. Sarrazin: In those days there were obligatory nude scenes with the actress at which time all of the stills were either pirated or sold by the studio to Playboy and went around the world so everybody thinks I was having I mean they were just still photos taken during the course of your working day they always had a market value, Playboy ran that every year, "Sex in the cinema", I was in a number of years, with whom I can't recall. Nick: You can't recall? Photographed in the nude with Racquel Welch andyou can't remember? Sarrazin: It couldn't have been her, I haven't worked with her. Nick: Who was it? I would be able to remember! Sarrazin: I'm getting old now and I have a girlfriend, I don't want to brag about these things. Nick: I used to call you up to speak French with your old girlfriend Jacqueline Bisset. Sarrazin: We made two films together. Nick: What films? Sarrazin: Some terrible bikini beach ball thing, called The Sweet Ride, it was kind of fun to make though it had a Canadian director Harvey Hart and then a few years later we made a serious film called Believe in Me about drug addiction. Nick: There are a lot of Canadians working in Hollywood, writers and stuff and even reporters on TV, Peter Jennings, and others and as I recall in the American TV if you had a background at the CBC it was regarded as a big plus as well as the NFB, did being Canadian help or hurt? Sarrazin: It helped the way I got my contract was the studios would actively recruit in plays and watch Canadian TV shows and they also hadcontacts in the industry, so when asked about anybody was interesting, they'd come up and look at your stuff. I thought thereason was because we were already acting, and working. Because once you're down in Hollywood, you're not there to train, you're there to do photographs and meet new agents and producers, there's not much time to develop a background, whereas the time Universalspoke to me, I had been a professional actor for 8 years. Nick: So your advice is if you want to become an actor, don't run away to Hollywood or New York become an actor where you are. Sarrazin: Get a foundation. Form a commitment to it, experience the theatre. I think I did just about everything before I went exclusively into film. I had a taste of a little bit of everything, it gives you abackground. Nick: You did documentaries, radio, schlock stuff ? Sarrazin: That's not schlock. Nick: I know.. I know...but… Sarrazin: Background, you don't know it at the time, but it's like a layer of experience, another coat of varnish to harden you, once you're down there the focus shifts, you go into a commercial high gear. Nick: I remember meeting you doing Caravans in Iran a year before the Iranian revolution. Sarrazin: Four months before! Nick: Here you are with a big huge Hollywood production with the Western culture and values that the Iranian revolution was rejecting. Sarrazin: We couldn't put our finger on it but we knew they didn't like us! Or a certain segment of the population didn't like us. It was hellish. It was a desert epic, and we were really out there in the desert, it difficult physically to work in film under those conditions, but it left a great impression on me, the culture, we were there five months, started in June and got out in December 77 and the real guns and firing began in February, March the following year, so 3, 4 months. Nick: Who was that with? Sarrazin: It was Anthony Quinn and Jennifer (O'Neill)... oh she'll kill me! She's a famous actress. Nick: The one you were with in Playboy. Sarrazin: Yes. yes! (laughs) Nick: How we forget. Sarrazin: Jennifer O'Neill! Sorry Jennifer! Nick: You're talking George C. Scott and Anthony Quinn, two guys you've worked with, monuments of filmdom, you just go up and shake their hands and call him Tony? Sarrazin: You just be yourself I guess, Quinn and I got along fine, I can't remember any film l've been in whe had a big personality problem with somebody. It's not my style. Nick: Do you remain friends and see them afterwards? Sarrazin: That's one of the sad things about films. The relationships are longish, 3, 4, 5 months they're very intense, because you'reperforming together, living together, sharing hardship together, plus you all have the same focus, trying to accomplish and make the best movie possible, you're very close, then suddenly someone says,"It's a wrap" and you're gone and you very rarely reconnect unless it's on another project and its never the same dynamic. Nick: So in the wrap party you say you'll stay in touch and then you don't? Sarrazin: Yeah I have drawers full of addresses. Well you do run into some of the people again and it's always warm but the specialness of the event that brought you together is gone. Nick: Train Killer. Sarrazin: Train killer? Nick:The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Sarrazin: I saw that! Nick: That's one of those films that plays on late night TV again. Sarrazin: It's very popular. I get stopped about it a lot. I did it with Margot Kidder and Jennifer O'Neill that's two films I did with her, it's all about reincarnation, contrary to those notes you have, it was a big hit at the time of its release, in proportion I mean, itwasn't Jurassic Park, but it made a good sum of money and it continues to be a favourite now in TV and video rentals. Nick: Ever find yourself in a hotel room late at night and you turn on the TV and see yourself ? Sarrazin: Yeah, my big fear is to be trapped on the airplane with one of my movies, because airplane movies are not very good and to be stuck 35,000 feet with some not-very-good movie that you're in it hasn't happened though. Nick: Yeah I was in Florida last year it was about 3 in the morning I came in and turned on the TV and there you were. Sarrazin: Well that's a sign of how old I'm getting because 10, 15 years ago I was like the Saturday 9 o'clock movie and I was like "Wow Hey" and now I get up in the middle of the night to do whatever and I'm on the 3 AM late show! Nick: Well that makes you ubiquitous. Your face remains familiar continuously with all that stuff, do people recognize you wherever you are? Sarrazin: Just about anywhere, or else people do a double take because you are out, and in their consciousness, don't forget these films play worldwide. I have a friend who just came back from Italy and saw me on the late show. I don't think about it, but you're face isslowly being burned in, you're part of the loop. Nick: Right and you can't even remember who you are in Playboy nude with! Sarrazin: Exactly. Nick: You did a great film, it was an interesting story, which never came out, shot worked in Hungary over several months and it never cameout. Sarrazin: It's out on video. Nick: In Hungary? Sarrazin: (laughs) They changed the name to the Train Killer. To be perfectly honest with you, it just wasn't a very good film, it was a wonderful story, great director, done in 1982. Nick: In Hungarian. How is your Hungarian? Sarrazin: That was the funny part, it was the drawback, I was the onlyEnglish-speaking person in the film everybody else was Hungarian Nick: So they spoke their lines in Hungarian and what did you say? Sarrazin: I said some English dialogue, it was kind of excruciating but I think the reason it didn't make the theatres was because it wasn't up to it. But now a lot of films are made these days and they don't really mind that it doesn't get a theatrical opening, they just godirect to video and there are a lot of sales there. Nick: So now you are living in Beverly Hills on one of those canyon roads and you return here and the first thing you want is Cote St. Luc barbecue chicken or smoked meat. Sarrazin: Well if you're a Montrealer what else are you going to want? Yeah. I always come back 2, 3 times a year and curiously it's always for the stuff of my childhood Nick: Michael Sarrazin is a product of Darcy McGee High School in downtown Montreal and take that Baron Byng High! `
This building at St. Remy and St. James West at the northwestern tip of St. Henry is a classic ramshackle Montreal building with a whole ton'o'parking out front if you can handle the mud. However the city has a secret agenda to eventually turf out the residents of the 780 St. Remy abd turn it into a commercial building with satellite offices for the MUHC (Montreal Unrelentingly Hypnotizing Contraption) Superhospital. They say that the building is not zoned residential and there's no reason anybody should be allowed to live there. The owner and tenants say they're unaware of these plans but I've been a fly on the wall when the officials were stating their plans. I think it'd be a shame to zap residents from this area. Plenty of empty land to build around the site, they've just got to get off their butts and build it.
I've got to confess that I ..uh..sorta got lost in Angry Nun Park in the pouring rain on Saturday afternoon. I was walking on De Laverendrye and snuck in through a hole in the fence at the Southwest corner of the park and was soon on the path to know-wear and was descended upon by hungry tag teams of ravenous squirrels emboldened undoubtedly by their staggering numerical superiority. There were a few black squirrels which aren't incredibly rare anymore, but I found this little albino squirrel and as you know I have a longstanding albino fetish. (them's words that'll bring a few search engines here). When these critters realized I slung no squirrel dope they lost interest in me, the lousy little buggers and let me off the hook. My attempt to access the metro met resistance in a large lake, which sadly had no bridge. I ended up walking in the mud and rain for quite a while, ending up an empty field which a neighbour tells me is owned by the local cegep, and she hopes they don't develop it, although it was pretty useless and stark. So I exited Angrignon Park nowhere near the Angrignon metro and ended up catching a hack with a Sikh.who moved here in 1977 from Ludhiana. I tried to convince him that the era of educational deferred gratification is over and kids should just go to work at 18 in blue collardom nowadays, but he didn't concur. We changed the subject to hookers on St. James Street West, apparently the closure of the seedier motels has led to the demise of the flesh peddling female. Maybe that huge overall drop in testosterone has lowered demand. Here's a brief film of my struggle in the Angrignon forest.
I went to borough council in NDG with specific ideas about how to improve St. James Street West. The pencil pushers explained that they couldn't do a damn thing. Pretty lame, ain't it? The video below should explain what I'm talking about.
I used to go to the Maison Egg Roll, informally considered a wacky heritage site for the city ever since a retired Pierre Trudeau opted to hold an important speech about the constitution at the place. His flunky Marc Lalonde eventually did the same thing. You could pick up a bunch of decent take-out downstairs and upstairs there was a banquet hall. About five years back flamboyant restaurant/strip club owner Peter Sergakis who tells me that he owns about 48 establishments (many in the gay village) held a meeting of bar owners at the meeting hall. There were maybe three or four dozen people there discussing the biker war arsons that had seen a ton of bars go up in flames, particularly in the South West. There were plenty of empty seats in Sergakis' building that night and the police were notable by their absence. Sergakis was with a sizzlin' hot much younger babe who I spent much of the meeting trying to lock eyes with, succeeding once or twice. I admire any man who makes a stripper babe his girlfriend. Afterwards I bumped into Alex Hilton, 41, whose wife's family ran the Chinky joint. Alex cradled a tiny baby in his arms and it was a touching sight. The restaurant relocated to Wellington and Alex was later seen schlepping around Mom's Fish and Chips on Church as a helper. Around this time I suggested to him that he run for city council. I thought it would be a great story of redemption of someone who had seen some very tough times. I suggested this to some city insiders and they were intrigued by the possibility of having a local hero turned bum turn hero again. But after talking to him once I realized that his ability to articulate ideas wasn't as high as it should be. I talked to his dad, the boxing trainer who also suggested that his son Alex wasn't someone he held in high esteem lately. Another junkie from the neighbourhood assured me that "Alex likes to party." There was also the issue of a baseball bat robbery of a depanneur. By then of course he was estranged from his wife and has recently allegedly beaten and threatened his wife's brother with a gun. So Linda Mark is watching the two kids and I don't envy her the task of trying to cope amid mayhem. Hard to believe that only a couple of years ago the situation seemed so sweet and rosy. So much for the healing process. As for the Maison Egg Roll, as you can see from the photo, the empty building isn't looking so great these days either.
This glorious animal grooming and pet food shop was, up to recently, an ugly old air conditioner repair place. It was then abandoned and boarded up. About a year ago it reopened with all of the gorgeous stained glass lovingly restored. Sadly, however, stained glass is getting fast removed for the more energy efficient alternatives. Homes and stores are getting theirs popped out and replaced with oppressive clear uniformity. Yet stained glass is still putting up a fight in Verdun, at places like this joint at Bannantyne and Desmarchais. They should get an award or something. I'll go over to the dollar store later and buy them some gold star stickers or sumpin. If you need your dog combed or something drop in there.
June 30, 1933 - Elizabeth Papps fell out of the window in the middle, at 443 Congregation Street in the Point. She was brought to the Montreal General Hospital but died. She was three years old. Walter Papps, her father, testified that they had moved into the house on Saturday and had opened the window to air the dwelling. While both he and his wife were in the kitchen, the child climbed on to the sill and, lost her balance and fell to the sidewalk.
Apartment for rent. Lower duplex across from beautiful tree lined park. For Dec 1, excellent, quiet, friendly neighbourhood, with bakeries, restaurants. Five minutes walk to the Vendome metro, which is just 2 stops away on the 90 bus. It's near a newly-opened community centre with gym, very close to two adult schools, daycare, and astroturf athletic field. The apartment is spacious and clean. Heated by baseboard electric. Washer, dryer, fridge and stove included. Excellent street parking, 3 minutes to downtown on highway 20. $690.00 514-487-0101
Spent a few minutes goofing off in this store around lunchtime today, even though I was anxious to get back to the twins who I've been co-watching yesterday and today. She has some pretty cool ancient Montreal stuff, a very neat old street sign from the 50s that she was selling for $145, old street signs bottles of pop and beer from now-forgotten beverage makers. The nicest had a silhouette of the city, she wanted eightbeen bones for it. She had a variety of other kitschy, inexpensive neat keepsakes, many with local significance. Check her out and then cross the street to Dilallo's and get a buckburger and fries. Retro Ville 2652 Notre Dame W in St. Henry 514-939-2007
Whoever says that the nuns can't cook had better say it very...very..quietly.
This home at2036 Favardin the Point was once a printer shop that was busted in late January 1933 for publishing the Spartakus pamphlet written by a revolutionary local court stenographer named St. Martin. The printers had helped the stenographer get his "blasphemous" Spartakus out in the streets since the October prior. One of the controversial articles was entitled "Sandwiches," which according to the Montreal Herald, "attacks the methods of giving out charity to unemployed and particularly the quality of the sandwiches handed out by several religious institutions." The paper also printed the words to the "International" the socialist march song. The paper purported to be published at the "request of the unemployed," "whenever funds are available."
The Do Drop In, a now-closed neighbourhood bar at 1867 Wellingtonin the Point wasn't for sissies. I have obtained a government report that details the smashive-aggressive violence that went on in this hangout for hoods and thugs.
The bar was owned by Carol Gingera, a woman who also owns a corner store nearby on Wellington. She shut the bar down around Christmas 2005, but was brought onto the carpet by the booze bureaucrats February 28, 2006. The Regie des Alcools Courses et Jeux (the provincial body which regulates booze, racing and gambling) wanted to decide whether the chronic misadventures inside her bar should preclude her from holding a grocery permit for her depanneur. Ultimately her depanneur license was not revoked.
On 1 April 2005 a shooting took place a block away in plain daylight. A couple of black guys came down with guns blazing, killing one young drug dealer and also injuring Lawrence Cooney. Both shooting victims were regulars at the bar. The dead victim's goods were later placed around the bar as a memorial.
A source close to the deceased tells me that the young victim was a nice young guy and was not the intended target of the shooting. Cooney, meanwhile, had survived a previous shooting in June 2003 in Chateauguay. Police considered it likely that another attack would occur.
Cooney continued hanging around the Do Drop In, standing around in front, sitting inside or upstairs in the apartment. Others known-to-police, such as Richard Matticks, an aging member of the West End Gang, were regulars. Matticks - a member of the legendary clan long suspected of controlling much naughtiness at Montreal's port - would even receive phone calls on the bar telephone.
Armed attacks - some including guns - repeatedly took place in the bar. According to the government report, the victims were almost all too scared to press charges. On 29 April 2003 a victim was beaten but refused to make an official complaint for fear of reprisal. Again 31 May, same thing, Cooney was present and possibly involved in these affairs. On 3 December 2004 a client told police he was attacked by three people and beaten with a chair and punched and kicked upon entering the Do Drop In. He had a broken leg and 2 broken ankles. He too zipped his lip. One known criminal Abraham Brandon was suspected, according to the report.
On 7 December 2004, three people were assaulted. No complaints. The window of the bar was smashed. The manager Wesley Gingera (the owner's son) was inside working the bar. The doorman and Brandon were suspected by police in the assaults.
Another complained of a beating on 27 Feb 2005. On 3 May 2005 police received a complaint about an aggressive pit bull roaming in the bar. The dog had killed a cat in the back yard of the establishment. No witnesses came forward to to make an official complaint about the affair, according to the report, it was due to fear of reprisal.
On 13 May 2005 a mother told police her that cocaine-addict son, who lived upstairs from the bar, had been beaten up in the establishment two days prior. On 25 May 2005 cops found a baseball bat concealed inside a cupboard near the entrance. On 27 August 20005 Coooney allegedly threatened a passerby waiting for a taxi near the bar with a gun and then returned to the bar. Cooney faced weapons and assault charges from the incident.
The owner herself - Carol Gingera - was never present when inspectors visited. The bartender, Lisha Soucy, usually worked alone. Carol's son, Wesley Gingera, managed the Do Drop In and told inspectors that he came in for about four hours a day. Gingera has criminal convictions for armed robbery and weapons charges from 1989.
And there were drugs aplenty. Cops came on 22 April to answer a call about an armed man in the bar. Upon entering police witnessed a client rolling a joint at the pool table. The waitress, Soucy had three bags of marijuana on her. Two months later cops found 6 marijuana butts behind the bar. And in October they found several empty bags with drug residue inside the pool table and 11 bags of quarter gram were taken from someone present. Cartons of cigarettes were found out back. There were also repeated instances of unlabeled booze found on the premises.
The report also stated lesser violations, such as the fact that prices weren't listed and the fire exit was often locked.
They had the borough council meeting for my area last night. I skipped that sucker. My borough includes Cote des Neiges, it's ridiculously huge and it makes no sense. They alternate between putting it in NDG and CDN. Last night the meeting was held at 6767 Cote des Neiges, 7.1 kilometers from my house.
They claim to allow questions but in fact they don't get to many of them. Usually up to a couple of hundred people show up and something like 30 or 40 want to ask questions, about eight or so actually get the chance. The politicians get rid of the pesky citizens by taking questions for an hour and then voting to do their official business and returning to the questions after that is done. These people had already waited around three or so hours to get the mike they're not going to wait another three hours just to ask a question, so this sneaky approach clears the hall.
Michele Senecal, Saulie Zajdel and Marcel Tremblay all support this sneakiness, but I believe that Allmand and Rotrand voted against this snaggle-toothed deception. Obviously they should let everybody ask their question until they're done.
They don't really publicize who asked what either, you've got to nose around the pdfs to find out. It's in French only. Here's my translation of the September 5, 2006 citizen questions that got asked. It's the most recent I could find. They clearly don't want these questions publicized, so that's what I'm doing.
Neighbourhood institution Simone's Hardware, which has been on Upper Lachine and Girouard since 1964 is up for rent. It will be sad to see them go because they're super nice people and there's a great vibe to the place, but if they have to scoot, I'd rather there be something nice there to replace it, such as a funky little cafe to serve the two nearby adult schools. She's asking something around $2 k a month, which is a bit steep, so far no takers. An industrial equipment shop was interested in renting it out but they wanted her out by Christmas and she says that's too fast. I'd prefer that there not be an industrial equipment shop there, so if you're thinking of opening up some little nice place with a built in clientele, come on down and barter with the fine Calabrian Missis and her hubby, the venerable Signor Simone. Good folk, good neighbourhood, good times.
Today was the city auction for tax defaulted properties. Those who haven't paid their municipal tax for a while have it claimed and sold off. The initial list of several hundred tax deadbeats was whittled down to 30 by this morning and even a couple of those were knocked off when the non-payers rushed in with last minute bill payments.
Those who lose their properties have a year to buy it back from the owner at what he paid plus ten percent. The bidders have to have a certified cheque and pay the entire amount in full
A lot of the 30 were empty lots.
The final list included 6211 Cote St. Luc Road #403 owned by Sergio Papadopoulos, who owed $6,000 on a property evaluated at $108,000. I don't know what that sold for.
In Kirkland: 139 Meaney, Suzanne Pinter owed $13,800 on the place evaluated at $267,000. And on 35 Reginald Brown, Mario Delisle et al owed $7,900 on a place evaluated at $177,400.
In Westmount the perennial 1 Wood, which always seemed to make the list in one form or another had a property owned by Tracage Tivido, Inc, upon which $4,300 was owed. It was unit 151 which sold for $55,000 to a preppy short anglo blonde guy in a sweater. There were a few others at 1 Wood owed by a guy named Nick Nanas and I'm not sure what became of those.
In Outremont 6220-6222 Hutchison, owned by 36988637 Canada Inc, which owed $12,00 on the property evaluated at $225,000 went for $186,000.
244 Cote St. Catherine, owned by Lise Pothier, who owed a mere $1,300 on the property evaluated at $413,100, went for $420,000.
10770 Moisan, owned by VS Car Rental in Montreal North, which owed $16,300 on the property which was worth $129,400, sold to a guy named Gagnon, after much budding against a Hassid named Boris Adler, of Toval, who seemed to be having a jolly good time.
1786 St. Christophe #1, a co property unit owed by Mei Chun Chen, who had failed to pay $3,300 in taxes on the unit evaluated at $61,600 was snapped up by a young bald Italian guy for $84,000.
They went for lunch after that and so I scooted but a few of the more interesting things on the block after lunch were 2230-2234 Church Street (aka de l'Eglise) owned by 3669874 Canada Inc, which owed $13,700 on the property evaluated at $138,200.
833-837 Mount Royal East, owned by Saloua Cherqaoui, who owed $39,800 on the property evaluated at $515,000.
1447-1449 Theodore, owned by 3398978 Canada Inc which owed $9,700 on a property evaluated at $184,700.
There was 4021 Villeray owned by Leonard Toussaint who flunked out on $4,100 of taxes on a property evaluated at $75,000.
8654 St. Michel, owned by Natasha Giraldo Mohammed and others. They owned $3,400 in taxes on the building evaluated at $100,000.
4020 Jean-Renouin Lachine, owned by Francis Dell Higgerty, who owed $6,500 on a place worth $148,600.
6702 Coolbrok, owned by Gino Momesso, who owed $8,400 on an evaluation of $178,300.
1868 St. Christophe, owned by Mei Chun Chun who owed a mere $500 on a place evaluated to be worth $5,100.
I don't know if those I listed after I left actually went to auction or what they sold for but I'll try to find out and report back here.
In my ongoing efforts to prove myself the worst videomaker known to man (I hope to reverse that reputation forthwith), I offer this presentation of my recent efforts in the batting cage at the Angry Nun Mall in Lasalle. I entered the cage whimsically thinking that this activity would read from the same action script as the adjacent mini-putt, I'd dig in, do a little hip swivel and lazily shake the ol' toothpick at a few fat pitches down the middle. Once in the box I realized I was in the grips of a death struggle against this indifferent robotic arm putting my manly manood to the test. It hearkened to old war movies on Matinee With Joe Van. Like a soldier, you're wearing a helmet, holding your ground in a high pitched battle against an unrelenting machine whistling potentially hurtful objects at you. That cage is closed for the win-tyre but perhaps later this month I'll juice up a bit on the testosterone, hit the gym and jet down to Florida to enact some devastating revenge for the balls I whiffed.
I awoke today irked by my oldest grudge against an adult stranger. At nine the Montreal Expos were my everything. I knew the difference between Pepe Mangual - whose disappointing career ended when he busted his ankle jogging on a beach in the DR - and Pepe Frias, the hot fielding shortstop who could barely hit a buck ninety. I tingled with anticipation about Balor Moore, the youngest pitcher in the league and his batterymate Terry Humphrey who give the impression that he didn't care much about baseball. Surely he never hit bothered to learn to hit, which would have been a small courtesy to the fans. I'd watch the weekly Expos game in solitude on a tiny black and white TV on the balcony of 227 Westminster in Mo'West. This required hooking up the TV with an extension cord. It seemed worth the trouble at the time. For a while I cheered against the Expos. A brother suggested that I should cheer for them. Thus I instantly transformed into a lifelong diehard Expo fan only recently cured of my affliction by their extinction. One day in around 1972 the TV broadcast introduced a new segment. During the final minutes they kill after a game until the next show starts, they would speak to a fan over the phone and broadcast the conversation on air. The fan would be rewarded with an autographed baseball from the Expos as recompense. I mailed in. Near the end of a game I received a call from Brodie Snyder, a longtime sportswriter who presumably also had a role in the production of the TV show. I would be interviewed. The gameroonie ended and I anxiously awaited my chance to speak on TV about the Expos. The phone rang. I clutched my notes. It was Snyder. He told me that they'd be forgoing the ritual for this evening due to time constraints. I was crestfallen. Snyder assured me that I'd still receive an autographed baseball. The hosts, Dave Van Horne and Russ Taylor kept blabbing for quite a while after the game anyway. There had in fact been plenty of time to interview me. I had been lied to. I was a victim of ageism. I never received the autographed baseball either. So Brodie Snyder, if you're still alive I shake my head disapprovingly in your direction. The next year, my father's friend - newspaper photographer Aussie Whiting - brought me up to a baseball practice at Jarry Field in in a car which had floor rusted clean through. You could see the road under your feet. The concrete zoomed by at a good clip. They should invent glass bottomed cars. That old rustbox was the coolest. We toured the locker rooms of the Expos and the Phillies and watched practice from the empty stands where a strangely belligerent Dave Van Horne watched on in a trenchcoat. Tim Foli field a grounder and Dave quipped loudly : "Tin foil wraps it up!" Maybe the much married Dave Man Hornee nixed me as the TV guest. I shall find out when I reach that omniscient state following death. I got an autographed baseball thanks to Aussie. Whiting died around 1990, while working for the Montreal Daily News. There was a whole story around his life, about how he came here on a boat from Australia and his sister was actually his mom or something. I never heard the full story. Alas I believe I ended up using that autographed baseball as an actual baseball. The autographs got rubbed off and eventually ended up wherever old baseballs end up.
You know that little white silhouette of the man walking - (how racist is that anyway?) that suggests that you can cross while cars which should otherwise have a green wait? They don't make much sense to me. They cause such a backlog at the Sherbrooke street entrance to the Expressway that cars are routinely blocking the intersection of Decarie and Sherbrooke. Today some old coot tried so hard to cut in front of me into my lane that his mirror hit my mirror. I was amazed that this old geriatric and his wife would have the gall to do this and she even rolled down her window, whereupon I offered to break their mirror as recompense for this recklessness. This got these entitlement-crazed Westmount scum to shut up pretty quick. As you can see, I'm a very patient and kind driver.
I had this unbelievably brilliant British speciality the other day. It is, as the name suggests, apple pie and ground pork pie all in one. It has a cult following on Monkland Street's Le Gryphon D'Or, the Celtic foodie cafe landmark run by onetime cegep teacher Peggy Regan. You can only get it on designated days, this time it was on a Friday, it is said that its many adherents make a special trip there just to get this treat.
Sothese were some of the contestants I was forced to choose between last night as a judge of the Miss Exotika contest, (minus Rosalyn, the Vietnamese girl who was MIA). The seven judges (four men - three whiteys and one older Haitian and three women, all Haitians) were given sheets and asked to evaluate the contestants on three criteria, their articulation, presentation (the ol' catwalk) and presence, (which the four male judges surely interpreted as hotness).
Our marks were added up and factored into three predetermined totals that they had already racked up based on their participation in the rehearsals. Some were coming in with as many as 28 points and some as little as 11, therefore regardless of how we voted, some were far more likely to advance to the final five than others. Some like Alexandra, (the excellent well-spoken Russian with the long red hair pictured here) who otherwise acquitted herself nobly, were doomed by this process. Early on all girls were asked to state their dream in life. Most suggested some variation about making it a better world for children. One said her dream was to find her biological father, which got a reaction from the crowd, not all favourable, perhaps male audience members worried that it might be them.
I was a little surprised Sephora didn't make it to the next level (pictured here with white hoody and giant smile), she must've been close to making it, I think she might've had a tattoo on her arm which isn't always a great idea, (although last year's winner showed up head shaven with a biggie tramp stamp all down her back, not sure if she had the tat when she won though).
Of the 15 girls, five made the next level: Nadege, Keisha, Josiane, Carine and Jihane (check the Miss Exotika link above to see all candidates). The final five all had to do some sort of show of talent and then answer a question. Nadege did a dance with her boyfriend which was drab but fared well in her question which was: "if you had 24 hours left to live, what would you do?" She replied that she'd "pray and ask forgiveness for all the bad things I did." This got much applause.
Keisha, who was slightly heavier than the others, wore a long denim dress and did a sort of peasant dance with a Haitian flag. It was flawless, her question was something like, "your friend is heartbroken, what do you tell her?" (the "your friend ...what do you tell her?" was a frequent formula). Like the others, her reply was a bit too brief for my liking. She suggested that she'd just be supportive and not judgmental. They all answered something along these lines.
Josiane's talent display was preacher-style speech asking why there's so much cruelty in the world and unfairness to children. Some of the audience was chatting, the mike a bit echo-ey and so the spoken format didn't work as well.
Jihane, a Lebanese girl with a big family cheering section - some waving the Green Tree flag - did a sort of Lebanese-looking belly dance wearing a skirt laden with shiny metal circles that clinked when she shimmied and swiveled. She knows how to dance.
Carine read her story a spirit coming to her room and giving her advice, which at the end she recognized to be her father. It was heartfelt and gutsy, she moved about dramatically and even wept a bit at the end. Carine had mastered the technique of making serious eye contact with the jury which surely helped her score but her reply to the your-friend-is-in-a-crisis question wasn't too great, she just said she wouldn't say a thing, she'd just hold her and reassure her. So based on their excellent dances, (I felt bad for those who didn't make the final five as undoubtedly their talent performances will never see the light of day) - Keisha (with the brown shirt) and Jihane (dark long hair) motored through to the final two thanks to their baking shaking.
Both had vocal fan support but the Lebanese Jihane Chiccru - who's very pretty, perhaps not the tallest, most svelte model you'll ever see, but nonetheless quite striking - won and deservedly so. Congrats to her. The hosts, a Haitian woman, former contestant (name?) and jovial, chubby Haitian film director Raynald Delerme, both did well.
My fellow judges included Daphney Augstin who works as an agent for fashion models (she pointed out that the tall Russian Lana who didn't make the final five, has the best potential for runway modeling), a cool young Greek community radio guy named Bobby Giorgas (name abbreviated for brevity). He has a show in Greek all Saturday afternoon. Past runner-up Melissa Francois(she's just finishing a Statistics degree at Con U and planning to enter a national beauty pageant, she's much hotter than the photo on the link) and Nicolas Montmorency, the city's youngest and undoubtedly best-looking city councillor who however looked a bit exhausted perhaps due a day dealing with pesky, unrelenting citizen requests.
A slew of beauty pageant winners from other contests also showed up clad in tiaras, including New York Haitian Miss Citronelle and a really adorable 9 year old kid named Miss De Demain.
The entertainment between events ranged from excellent to terrible. The showstoppers being six young local Haitian male dancers called Fresh to Death. The worst being a gospel singer who awkwardly insisted on getting to sing two songs rather than one and a rap duo whose standard "yo, yo" thing didn't win much favour. I shot a few seconds of some of the other acts, the three girls are from Ottawa and the boy/girl singing duo was excellent and I'll add their name as soon as I can figure it out, here are a few seconds:
I've never been a MichelTremblay fan, although I've only seen one of his plays actually performed in French and enjoyed it. Tonight was the third or fourth I've vidied in English and was tempted to show up with earplugs, wary of another over-the-top screamer about the misery of life in the 50s for French Canadian Montrealers suffering from the Grand Noirceur doldrums. But Assorted Candies- an autobiographical revisit to a childhood among his threadbare matriarchs - errs only on the side of the airy. A young Michel Tremblay, hangs out beneath the table overhearing his mother, grandmother and aunt discussing their problems, while occasionally getting a glimpse of panty which gets unnecessarily described in detail by the narrator.
Leni Parker (photo above) who has done a ton of local theatre since returning from Hollywood after making a few bucks playing an alien in one of those Star Trek type shows for a few years, (where salaries can touch about a quarter mil per annum) gets many of the plumb lines. One soliloquy has her blasting paint off the walls and ears off the young boy - played steadily by Centaur boss Gordon McCall - who's handily something of a Tremblay lookalike. He ably alternates between narration and dumb-eyed childishness.
The maybe too-loud Parker later gets another showy scene, playing a fairy to impress the young boy, which leads to much unlikely humiliation, clumsily cut by the narrator who suggests that the awkward moment should be forgotten rather than dragged out, but only after it's dragged out, leaving a solid sense of who-cares? into the proceedings.
Two boozy, roguish male characters show up relatively late in the play, the father - played by the excellent Michel Perron playing yet another variation of his Mambo Italiano chubby old man thing, and a charismatic, carousing old uncle who charms the boy with his yarns. The two end up upstaging the drab female characters who get most of the lines.
The play kicks off with three women fretting about what to buy a neighbour woman for her wedding gift. Tremblay's mother ultimately sacrifices her prized ornamental bowl. It's not valued by the neighbour, but after much build up the gift issue gets played for laughs and forgotten.
Granny gets a few scenes discussing her imminent death, a theme which does not return, so much for the adage about showing the gun in the first scene and being obliged to use it by the last.
Dad gets a scene holding his son's hand watching lightning on the roof. Dat don't go too far beyond the visual guffaw of dad standing on an unseen pedestal appearing much taller than the adult-playing-a-child McCall. Dad's a warmhearted lump. He's been laid off by the printers and refuses to look for work elsewhere. But that doesn't get played up as an issue either.
The second half of the play (there is no intermission) is set around Christmas where the women worry about decoration and the men get drunk and laugh a lot.
Those in the 250 seat theatre, (the better one, on the right hand side) laughed and clapped at the right moments but many were later seen in the lobby shrugging and offering less than flattering assessments. Tremblay made an impact on Quebec theatre recounting the bucolic whimsy of the newly-urbanized and subtle political implications of the lives of penury lived by the French speaking commonfolk, but it now seems a bit unclear what message this play is meant to convey to an audience in an entirely different, much faster world 50 years later.
This plays like a quickie, Christmas special rushed under deadline by Tremblay while overlooking the lake at his cottage.
There's the usual requisite crazy shouting, without Tremblay's precription doses of over-the-top Quebecois dysfunction. Its one brief moment of tender father-son bonding seems like hollow plot contrivance, another wasted motif on the storyboard floor. None of the frenzied dialogue provokes further insight, the slice-of-life tale fails to ratchet up the drama, which makes this a definitive light play. It's a yarn that fails to enchant, or seduce the audience into empathy for the difficulties of the picaresque underclass of Tremblay's world. The author's series of slick emotional lures fail to reel in the audience with this effort.
If you're up for some drama, get thee over to the Monument National on the Main and Dorchester for one the 50 seats for the final shows of Neal Bell's Monster. It's only ten bucks but it ends November 5. Every actor in this original play shines: Brad Carmichael as Doc Frankenstein, Adrien Desbiens-Benn in a dual role, Tim Diamond as the dumb little brother and an exquisite turn as a cat, Vanessa Matsui as the horny young chick, John Topor in a dual role, Carolyn-Fe Trinidad as the mother and cleaning lady and Prank Patrol star Andre Simoneau whose acting and make-up as the monster will nab your attention.
Grab a seat at the very front if possible. The actors are dynamite and it's hard to believe that they're working almost for free. The costumes, make up, vitality and body count will not leave you feeling cheated, it's a steamy, sensational ride... as an added bonus, a studly young anglo TV star does a full frontal in it as well, good stuff for those who like that kind of thing anyway.
