Meet the swinging softies

No these cats haven't eaten any canaries. At least not that they admit. They don't even look all that happy. But that's unmistakable pride beaming from their hearts. Pride that comes from being on top, of their league and of their game -- softball, that is. In case you didn't recognize their shirt logos, they're players with Amicale St. Paul, leaders both of the National League and of the Eastern League for Municipal Oil. Seventy-five years ago this week, they pummeled challengers Le Chic by a score of 17-3 to take first overall. The chaps are, from left to right: right fielders M. Chartrand and Albert Brodeur, centre fielder Lucien Tremblay and left fielder E. Davies.

Montreal cycling

This is the future of cycling once time turns around and starts going backwards. It was taken in 1885. It's the MAAA Boneshaker bicycling team. Notice how almost all of them wear moustaches? Hard to believe that there were so many gay male cyclists back then. Print this fuggin picture now. Your fridge is begging for it. So is scrapbook album. Whatcha waitin' for, click the goldarn icon already!

The lost pavillion

This is perhaps Verdun's most historically significant building. It's where the first meetings were held when the village was formed in 1875 and when it became a city in 1907 (yep. 100 years ago). So what became of this treasure at Church and Lasalle known as the Pavillion? It was demolished in 1954, that's Mayor Edward Wilson's reign. It was demolished for a gas station.

Lachine Canal...picture of the day...

Our canal, looking north from the offices of the Grand Trunk Railroad, at 130 St. Etienne, corner Mill Street. Not sure the date, but the Ogilvie Mill on the right was built in 1837. The building long had the Fives Roses Flour sign atop of it.

Dominion Provisions, a bit ahead of its time

Montreal used to have an innovative food subscription service that replaced the time-consuming act of shopping. For $20 they'd supply you with food for a family and an Amana freezer.

The concept was apparently not sticky enough to last long enough to become a permanent fixture here.

It seems a little complicated. You need to read a list and sign and such stuff.
The joint was run out of 9000 Park Avenue, just above Laurier, it's now a mattress shop. Perhaps it was ahead of its time, like the old Hypermache, Montreal's short-lived original big box grocery pioneer in Decarie Square. (Hypermarche's TV commercial had Montreal's catchiest ever ditty). Perhaps a revamped meal-planning food subscription system, including fridge and food delivery is the next big trend.

Hot new fashion trend: the paper collar!

Didja notice how you felt melancholy on July 20? That's cuz 130 years prior local thespian Thomas Placide died. Placide was so broke that he pioneered a new fashion trend as the following passage from Franklin T. Graham's excellent Histrionic Montreal (1972, page 52) explains:

Thomas Placide was a boisterous performer who never rose to much distinction. He greatly resembled his brother Henry, but his work did not begin to compare with the latter's. Thomas was born at Charleston, S.C. in 1808. His stage career began early, and his regular debut was at the Chatham Street Theatre, New York in 1828. He was manager of the Park Theatre for several seasons, and in 1853 became a member of Wallack's company, retiring a few seasons later, and dying 20 July, 1877. He was the first man to wear paper collars in Montreal, not being in good credit standing with his laundry, and set a fashion followed out some years later.

Our national dish - extinct pigeon meat!

The 93rd anniversary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon is upon us in a few weeks.

These gorgeous, fast-flying feathered friends were once so common that their flocks would blot out the sky in North America. The flow of these birds was likened to a river in the heavens. Audubon reported a flock covering the sky for three full days. It was a moveable aviary eclipse. The poop bombing was quite impressive too.

The mass murder of every single one of these birds - estimated at around two billion - must've been quite a source of pride for humankind back then.

Their extinction screwed up the food chain and led to Lyme disease in humans. Passenger Pigeons would feast on nuts and acorns. Once they went extinct that left a whole lot more food for deer mice, which thrived and gave us Lyme disease.

So what does this have to do with Montreal, Coolopolis, Coolopolis Towers, Montreal culture, Chimples the Intelligent Chimp or any of those things we usually discuss here?

Well, the French term for passenger pigeon is: la tourte. And what is our national dish here in Quebec? Tourtiere, known as meat pie. Well, in fact, tourtiere means Passenger Pigeon Pie. What kind of meat do you think they used?

The tiny Ile au tourte, now just the footing for eponymous bridge off the western tip of our island is another rare reminder of the onetime presence of these lovable winged creatures.

Nowadays tourtiere is made of pork and beef spiced with clove. But the original recipe involved meat from this now-extinct beautiful bird.Maybe if we didn't enjoy tourtiere so much we'd still have a couple of these birds around with us today.

Quaint Montreal - end of article

(quaint Montreal article continued ...)
The truth of the matter is that it isn't a church at all, although it used to be St. Michael's church around the beginning of the century. The new St. Michael's stands at the corner of St. Viateur and St. Urbain streets and is rated one of the most artistic churches on the North American continent.

But the old St. Michael's was turned into a school, aligned with Mount St. Michael's across the street. Some years later it became a cake shop in which pastry was cooked. The parish limits were later altered and the school across the street became St. Agnes School.

Now they are using the little church as a school again, but for special men's classes in conjunction with an educational programme.

"Quaint?" Uh-huh.

Report No. 6...Lachine Park is Different
Usually parks are not fussy about who sits in them but LaSalle Park, the new relief project at Lachine is different. One's education and morals are considered before admittance is granted.

New signs have been placed around the park during the last week which read: "Persons of good education and morals are invited in this park...La Cite de Lachine.

There is a reason behind everything and it is gleaned that the because of the amazing signs is simply that several shady individuals have been sneaking around in the dark of night stealing the bronze plaques off the monumental features around the park.

This riled the good City Fathers to such a degree that they made the sign extra sarcastic.

Lasalle, the explorer of the Mississippi founded Lachine back in 1669 but it is doubtful that he saw anything more "quaint"...ie. fanciful which means, "Unreal", "odd" ...that grace the trees of the park which proudly bears this name in this modern day and age.

Report No. 7...Cops Wear Winter Jackets
Now and again the old story pops into print about Americans landing in Montreal in the middle of summer with skis and fur coats...apparently they had been going to the movies too often.

Well, believe it or not, there are actually public officers in Montreal who wear winter clothes all summer. . . yes even with the thermometers registered up in the 80s in the sun!

They are the poor constables on the beat and directing traffic on the street corners, for those heaven woolen jackets, buttoned up to their lobster-red necks are actually made for winter wear!

One can wear the jackets for about two hours in the sun, a cop told me, and then you begin to wilt away and hear bells ringing.

The odd part about it is that the City provides the lads with nice, light summer helmets and gives the motorcycle cops -- who have the breeziest jobs in town -- nice light shirts to wear in the summer.

Odd? Yes and therefore "fanciful!" ...which in turn means, "Quaint."

Report No. 8...Outremont's Kind Cops
Usually when you want to catch somebody doing something you keep it a secret. That is considered especially true of police investigations when sleuths shadow offenders for hours and even resort to phoney whiskers.

But not the Outremont cops -- they're kind-hearted and warn would-be offenders that they lie in wait for 'em.

Take for example, the usual signs appearing around the city of Outremont, saying: "Speed traps ahead."

The idea was a good one and according to chief Dulude, speeding dropped 90 per cent because of the sign.

As the motorists become used to the signs, however, they grew cynical and speeders are beginning to appear again - especially during the racing season when autos surge through bound for the tracks. The cops are now putting out patrols to catch doubting Thomases, but the speeding is still down 80 per cent as compared with the pres-sign ear.

"Quaint?"...well, maybe.

Report No. 9...Hydrant You'll Trip Over
These are hot days and the nights are sultry. Perhaps you seek a cooling walk in really rustic atmosphere - roamin' to the gloamin', as it were, with maybe a lassie by your side?

Well, it might be suggested that you take a Cartierville street car to the end of the line and then stroll from there across the Cartierville bridge and along the sidewalk leadign to L'Abord de Plouffe.

Before you can say Jack Robinson more than three or four times, you'll find yourself in the community which bears that name... but watch your step in case the shades of night are falling!

Believe it or not, protruding from the exact centre of the sidewalk and rising about two feet above it, is a water hydrant.

Just why it is there will always remain a mystery, but an ancient resident nearby seems inclined to believe that it represents a dispute between the street paving and water works departments. Anyway, they built the sidewalk around the hydrant or plunked the hydrant right into the sidewalk. it's there to trip over, just the same

What would you call it, "Quaint?" "Quaint" means whimsical and "whimsical" means "oddly constructed as if due to some whim?"

Enoughs enough and at this point in the investigation the Committee of Two held a meeting at which it was duly moved and seconded to let the whole business drop. There were no dissenters.

Which in turn, is quaint old Committee custom.

Quiz answer

The answer to the recent quiz - is indeed the CBC Tower. Here's a photo of the building from around 1971. We'll have more on that building as soon as we can pry the digital camera away from Chimples who has been flinging poop from the window of his office at Coolopolis Towers ever since the implant wire fell out of his brain.

Ironic fact of the day

You're aware that Wednesday August 2 is the 40 th anniversary of Adrien Arcand's death. In the 1930s this Montreal-based fascist anti-Semite leader recommended that Quebec's Jews be given Hudson's Bay, where they'd enjoy a nice, but chilly homeland away from the good Christians. Had that happened Quebec would have had to negotiate with those very same deported Jews for the electricity that fuels the province. It's a ridiculously bad idea that became even even worse with time.

Bonus: a few recollections of what it like to be Jewish in Quebec in 1955.

There are curious hangovers of mediaeval beliefs among the French Canadians. A Jewish friend of mine went to a French Canadian home to hire the sixteen-year-old daughter of the house as a nursemaid. The girl kept staring at her hair. Finally my friend put up her hand uneasily, and asked if it were untidy. The girl giggled and said, "Oh no. I was just wondering about your horns. The sisters told us all Jews had little horns on their foreheads that they hid under their hair. But yours is so smooth, and I can't see anyl" Still, the girl was entirely amiable about the matter, and came to work next day.

In spite of the indoctrination, there is often great friendliness to Jewish people among French Canadians. A Jewish salesman told me he prefers to sell in Quebec rather than in Ontario. (He speaks good French.) In the English places, he said, the storekeeper greets him with a cold, polite "Nothing today." In rural Quebec his counterpart grins and says, "Maudit Juif, what are you going to cheat me on this time?" And gives a good order.

Today's Quiz - where was ...is..this?

Anybody? Want to try guessing where this is?

Is Montreal ready to ride it forward?

You might've noticed an unlocked girls Sears 12-speed crapbox hybrid bike in random places downtown. It's there for the taking, accompanied by a sign that reads:

RIF 0001 Ride it Forward. Hop on this bike and ride it to where you want to go. Leave it in a prominent place. Send details of your trip and pictures to rideitforward@gmail.com. And to follow its progress, go to www.rideitforward.blogspot.com. Drive carefully and at your own risk.

The concept is a little like bookcrossing (leaving books around town hoping people find them and discuss their experience on their website) meets bicycle eco-do-gooder Maoist Utopianism.

Tragically, after a couple of encouraging days of impromptu bike sharing, RIF 001 has disappeared.

Ride it Forward founder, president and chief strategist Mark Boghen tells Coolopolis, "Whether or not the experiment has been strangled in its infancy or is still continuing out there in the urban petri dish, we don't know.

"Feedback has been so powerfully positive from everyone who's heard of the idea that we are feeling kind of loathe to leave this at one bike and out. If a week or two goes by without hearing from RIF 0001, we may consider scrounging up other bikes, making some small adjustments to our launch method (PR first?) and restarting."

So donate a bike. Support this excellent urban ecologically-friendly sociological experiment.

DG anthem

The evil that went down here....

Sure we all lo-o-ve Montreal! It's a charming place with smoked meat and a hill. But don't forget the dolphins! We got these guys up here and put 'em in an aquarium. Then came a labour dispute and city workers allowed these brain fishoids to slowly die of starvation. This is one of them. So, remember your sweet moments in Montreal but also remember the madness and evil and callous sense of entitlement that also makes us unique.

St. Jean Baptiste Day in Chinatown 1988

Coolopolis' newly-hired Director of Foreign Affairs and Marketing in Asia Gu Fu Chiang presented us these photos taken in Monyhall on Jean Baptiste Day 1988. Bad photos of a bad event.Those were the years that provincial politicians were drooling over the notion of cashing in on the Hong Kong handover, but when they finally started scoring some of the moneyed Chinese set, they realized that just about 100% of them were immediately moving on to other provinces after moving here, something like what's happening again today. So here are the fruits of your tax contributions, an overfunded and highly-contrived celebration of the provincial holiday - my favourite being the ridiculously tacky oversized lamb at the bottom - amid the city's Chinese community. Nowadays there's nothing like this going on in Chinatown, in fact there's nothing going on in Chinatown at all, even the ol' tradition of the annual Chinese celebration has been shelved. Any input from someone who knows the Chinese community is welcome. Unlike in the past when there were always one or two spokesmen for the Chinese community in Montreal, there's not a soul who can speak for the gang nowadays.

Photo of the day - Lachine's waterfront in olden times

Duped orphans

So what do you do when you're trying to get compensated for a government wrong? You put someone in charge but how can you ensure that the leader doesn't make a sly deal and sell out the rest of the gang? Some suggest that this is precisely what happened to the Duplessis Orphans, children forced to live in insane asylums as a provincial government scam to extract federal grants.The plight of these children has been widely documented. They were subject to a wide variety of shocking abuse, five year olds chained to radiators, given false permanent labels of "incurable and dangerous," and were never educated.

The feds provided more grants for mental patients than orphans, so Premier Duplesis simply transferred the children from orphanages to insane asylums. That's how the devious Duplessis administration cashed in on a giant money making scheme. When provincial ombudsman Daniel Jacoby denounced Premier Bouchard's laughably small settlement offer in the provincial legislature in 1999, the orphans suddenly had some momentum. Surely time was ripe to cry havoc and let slip the dogs. However instead of laying a big fat lawsuit against the government - as is universally done in similar cases elsewhere - Bruno Roy signed these papers two and a half months later and lawyer Yves Lauzon was never asked to bring the case to court. These recently released never-before-seen documents display that Roy had been been conducting friendly negotiations with the provincial government.

The orphans leader Bruno Roy was a big name. Not only was he an orphan himself but he was president of Quebec's Writers Federation. What's less-known is that he - unknown to others - actually joined the Clercs de St. Viateur de Joliette at the St. Georges Orphanage from 1964 to 1970. Some of the brothers of that sect allegedly committed acts of sexual abuse on orphans there as well as at other orphanages.

The orphans eventually went on to get about $10,000 to $15,000 each after a controversial show-of-hands closed door vote on the offer. Roy recommended they accept the paltry sum.

The settlement is shockingly bad. In every other similar situation of institutional abuse in North America the settlements are far higher. Two weeks ago in LA,500 similarly abused orphans were awarded $691 million - that's over a million dollars each. The Duplessis orphans received no apology and never had their fake mental records erased. Meanwhile Roy and Lauzon received considerably more than that for themselves. In fact, even the pencil-pushing administrators charged with compiling the list of legitimate recipients were paid $1,000 per day for their efforts. That's the same amount that each orphan received for an entire year of abuse. The orphans have repeatedly attempted to get legal aid to finally get a fair settlement, but the government has turned down every attempt to get it into court.

The snack bar at Montreal's municipal golf course

This chilling photo portrays 10 golfers being served at the Snack Bar at Montreal's city golf course. They're attended to by a waitress and a waiter who looks like he'd rather be anywhere else on planet earth. It was shot in what we'd imagine to be the mid to late forties or fifties or possibly the early sixties, or not. The customer on the left may or may not be Joseph Mengele, who was widely rumoured to have visited the famous mind-control doctor Heinz Lehman in Montreal in 1962. The other customers may or may not be Mengele's minions, doing their minion work tirelessly and with great devotion. Just a theory.

Westmount - birthplace of road hockey

Ice hockey was invented in Montreal, McGill 1875, the Victoria Rink ...and so forth, but where was the joyously awful sport of road hockey - complete with its shin splits and smacks to the hands and cherry-pickin' glory hogs - invented? Westmount, around 1895.

Yep, rich kids in Westmount were the progenitors of the sport of ball hockey.

And not just any rich kids. Kids whose names live on today.

Westmount was one of the first areas where road surfaces were paved with asphalt or macadam as it was called then.

One young man loaded with cash was named Art Ross. He started playing on the newly paved surfaces in Westmount with his best friend - and later rival Lester Patrick.

Patrick's family had come to Dunham in the Townships from Ireland in 1848 and moved to Drummondville in 1870 and then on to Montreal as their father's lumber business did increasingly well. Joseph Patrick had an office at Guy and St. Catherine (northwest corner) and Dorchester and Fort.

Other Westmount kids involved in those first road hockey games would also go on to glory. As a kid Montreal Wanderer D-man Sprague Cleghorn would also play along in the road wars. Cleghorn was a Westmounter (Lovells lists Cleghorns at Mount Pleasant). His brother Odie also played a lick, but more on that later.

When it came to ice hockey, Art Ross wasn't always kind to his hometown of Westmount. Rather than play for the Wanderers, whose home rink was the Westmount Rink at the corner of Wood and St. Catherine - Ross chose to play against his buddies. In 1907 Ross was reportedly paid a staggering $1,000 to play two games for the Kenora Thistles - where he battled his old buddy Lester Patrick for Lord Stanley's Cup. Kenora beat the Wanderers but the challenge system saw the Wanderers go to Kenora and win the trophy back two months later. Ross went on to play for the Wanderers from 1910 to 1916 with one year away in Ottawa.

A lot of these details are in the excellent biography of the Patrick family, which is on google books. It's a well-written yarn, although we dispute the contention that the Patricks lived on Guy Street in the Point. (In fact the most likely listing for the Patricks during their brief stay in the Point was on Paris Street. The Guy and St. Catherine address was surely dad's office.)

Back at the old school in Point St. Charles, a good deal of the neighborhood hockey was played on a vacant lot across the street from the Patrick's house on Guy Street. When the river ice was poor, a little sweet-talking to the chief in the firehouse a few blocks away did the trick, and the men were sent around with their hose reels.

As Joe Patrick expanded his business and founded the Pennsylvania Wood and Coal Company another family move was inevitable. An agency for anthracite coal was obtained, and several branch outlets were opened. The family affluence was growing significantly or as Lester saw it, "I must assumed that my father was prosperous to some extend, because - with each new child - we kept moving to a better residential area."

The better residential area in 1895 was Westmount, Montreal's toniest suburb. The district was so swank that some of its avenues were paved with macadam, the revolutionary new road surface that provided glorious relief from the dust and mud of Point St. Charles, and even more of downtown Montreal. It also heralded the coming age of the automobile, although Montreal was not yet ready to plunge into the era begun just that year down in Indiana,

The Patrick boys and their new buddies saw the blessing in a different light: It was great for street shinny, which was a summer version of ice hockey. Macadam was in a sense sport's first artificial "turf," and its immediate effect was to produce a record crop of skinned knees and elbows.

Said Lester, "We played street shinny in Westmount each year until the rinks froze, but most of our summers were taken up by another game: baseball. I'd never seen the game before, but we played it instead of the lacrosse we used to play in Point St. Charles. I guess the kids in Westmount figured they were too refined for a roughhouse game like lacrosse."

One of the refined kids who showed up to play ball one summer afternoon was a cocky ten-year old named Art Ross. This was a name that would dog the Patrick brothers for most of the next half century in a strange mix of bitter rivalry and warm friendship. It was a name that would come to mean to the Boston Bruins almost what the name Lester Patrick would be to the New York Rangers.

"In our neighborhood, " wrote Lester, "Art Ross was Mr. Big. He wouldn't have liked me to have referred to him as a rich man's kid, but we certainly thought he was just that. He had the baseball, the bat, glove, catcher's mitt and mask - he had everything. When he showed up, the game could start. He also had a lot of talent. He was a fine athlete, even then." Among the other youngsters who became part of the Westmount gang in games on the streets and the corner lots were Walter Smaill and the Cleghorn brothers, Sprague and Odie, three others who would follow the Patricks into big league hockey and onto the sport's honour roll.

From The Patricks: Hockey's Royal Family by Eric Whitehead.

The Patricks built the Westmount Rink at Wood and St. Catherine and it's said to be the first rink designed specifically for hockey. It's where the Wanderers and the French Canadian team, known as the Canadiens played until 1917, when it burned down. The Patricks soon after moved to Victoria BC and became hockey pioneers on the wet coast.

Art Ross played in the NHL and became a prominent executive with the Boston Bruins, although although unlike streetwise homeboy Eddie Johnston who rallied much of Montreal's West End to become Bruins fans - Ross didn't exactly get Westmount cheering for the Bs. Ross donated a trophy to the league which still bears his name. It goes to the top point getter.

Sprague Cleghorn graduated those road hockey games to the Wanderers from 1912 until their sad demise, which occurred when the rink burnt down in 1917 following a dismal losing streak. He then suited up for Ottawa, but refused to report to both Hamilton and Toronto. He eventually played for a few games in TO prior to suiting up for the the Canadiens from 1921 to 1923. Sprague Cleghorn died in 1956. His brother Odie, who played together with Sprague on the Canadiens for a while and then went on to become an innovative coach - being the first to rotate lines - died of a heart attack just prior to his brother Sprague's funeral on June 14, 1956.

So hats off to the boys who brought road hockey to this town.

Summer sports in Lafontaine Park

This rather fruity looking photo op was conducted in the mid 1950s show to prove that Montrealers were willing to skate outdoors in June. These photos were shot in Lafontaine Park where an outdoor rink was launched in the sweltering heat. This required massive refrigeration and the experiment didn't last long, although five of the city's 177 rinks were artificially refrigerated during that period, presumably from fall to spring. Nowadays there are more indoor rinks than in our hockey heyday and only the outdoor skating rink at the Old Port remains of the pipe-in coldness variety. The killer is sunshine which tends to melt ice quite fast. Cote St. Luc contemplated building an outdoor artificially-refrigerated rink a few years back but realized that a roof protecting the ice from the sun would be necessary. That sucker would have cost somewhere around half a mil. By the mid 60s the city offered 237 rinks, by the mid 70s that total rose to 274 but 1980 Drapeau slashed service at many and the total has now diminished to about 168 in the city. More would have surely been cut but rinkis are less labour intensive than they once were, as small zambonis are used to freshen up the ice at regular intervals. So next Sunday let's all show up at Lafontaine Park with a pair of skates and a tray of icecubes and try to re-enact this magic, rare moment of outdoor summertime skating in Montreal.

Artwork du jour

JC Franchere doodled this jaunty little likeness of Jacques Cartier Square in Old Montreal in 1899. He then invited that young woman with the straw boater and berry basket to his place to "sample" the rest of his work.

Whatever floats your boat

Cool ship, eh? Plans to build her were signed by Abe Lincoln, but drunk politicians delayed its construction until after the weirdly-bearded Honest Dude got shot by that guy, Booth, who by the way had spent time conspring in Montreal, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, this ol' floater was called the U.S.S. Essex -- and how original! It was the third of four U.S. ships to bear that name but the only one never to serve in wartime (not that that makes it yeller).
We only mention it because it was on this date -- July 22 -- in 1904 that this here shipperoonie was just one of a jillion docked in the port of Montreal, no less. It was here to be handed over by some guy called Lieut. Nicklett to some other guy with even more stripes on his shoulders, Captain Edward McNelly. It had a hapless trip south: the picture shows her trapped on some U.S. river shoal just one month after the handover.
Already more than 30 years old by that time, the ol' creeper ended up doing some kinda Great Lakes service. In 1931, its new owner, A.J. Klatzky of Minnesota, took whatever was worth saving from 'er and set her alight on Lake Superior -- yee haw! If this story tugs at your hamstrings, don't tell us. It's way out of our jurisdiction. Call the folks at the Minnesota Historical Society. They'll talk your ear off.

Montreal where the folks live for fashion !

Photo du jour, Montreal's old thyme riverside....

Verdun's storefront challenge

A few years ago Verdun decided to tackle its empty storefront woes by zoning Wellington and Church (between Wellington and Verdun) commercial and everything else residential. This means that if you had a little store anywhere other than these places and it went empty for a bit, you lost the right to run a store there. Thus you'll see plenty of weird looking ground floor homes with huge storefront windows such as these. However if you had an empty storefront on the commercially-zoned places, you do not have the right to switch it to a home, unless you pay the borough $5,000 and hope nobody objects. If a single person opposes, then there's a mandatory local referendum on the proposed zoning change. A few years ago Wellington was hurting, getting killed by the big boxes, it full of empty storefronts and shitty little dollars stores. It bounced back with a few high profile posh joints like Naked Lunch, however it seems that the urban rot might be making its bitter return. Stroll down Wellington, Verdun's homey high street and you'll find that it's not been a kind summer for commerces along the strip. The empty shops include a Videoself, last year's hot-new thing, apparently those machine-operated video joints cost $100,000 for a franchise, so you know there were tears shed - or bankruptcy papers filed - when that one went belly up. In fairness Wellington is a very long street with tons of little shops so the vacancy rate isn't necessarily all that bad but these photos might suggest some cause for concern. Coolopolis believes Wellington needs a gimmick, some sort of beautiful attraction, perhaps a massive waterfeature or something to make some jaws drop. If someone has an idea, pop it in the comments section and we'll lobby for it.

When cycling wasn't free

A buck thirty-three may not sound like a whole lot nowadays. But back on May 1, 1941 -- when these cyclists lined up to pay that much for a permit giving their wheels access to Montreal streets -- average wages were south of a buck an hour. Still, if you had a bike to ride, $1.33 was cheaper than riding streetcars eight months of the year. But if your license wasn't up to date, a flatfoot had the right to nail you for a fine. Hence the annual permit-buying ritual. At the head of this queue outside City Hall stood Jacques Dube of 1403 Gouin Blvd. West. His reward for being first was the honour of having bike license No. 1. You see, just as many Chinese motorists spurn the unlucky digit "four" in their licenses, old-time Montrealers wanted to sport the lowest possible plate numbers on their leg-cranked machines. It was kind of a status symbol. So congratulations Jacques, whever you are! Now before you go dismissing bicycle taxes (oops, licenses) as a thing of the past, remember that it was as recently as 1991 that ex-mayor Jean Dore floated a trial balloon about reinstating mandatory bike licenses. It would be good for us, he said. Licence plates on every bike would make it easier for cops to bust us when we did what only comes naturally to cyclists: burn lights and stop signs. Party pooper. Even bicycle activist Bob Silverman was for licences, saying it would help tackle the problem of bike theft. (Only hacksaws to thieves' hands can do that, Bob.) All Coolopolis can say is, with all the talk of automobile tolls coming back, and with highways collapsing, don't be surprised if more people start pedaling. Then it's only a matter of time before Montreal will mutter about bringin' bike licences back again. So keep your folding chair ready if you plan to be Number One.

Godless bohemians running amok

"It'll still look great in thirteen years when you play Derek Smalls in Spinal Tap."

It was a sunny Friday afternoon in June, 1971, when these surreptitious evidence pictures were taken at what was then called the Artists Corner. But don't worry: that was then; we live in the new, improved now. There can be no doubt that the activity depicted in these photographs was decadent, repulsive and vile. Who did these feckless hippies and beatniks think they were, taking over the west side of McGill College, south of St. Catherine, hanging their communist clown velvets on an exterior wall of the Capitol Theatre (gone), a few steps south of Woolworth's (gone), as loitering crowds in need of shoving along had their portraits drawn and generally thought they were having fun? (Gone, gone, gone.) Thank You, Progress! Thank you, voters, for bringing us Mayor Jean Drapeau and his planning Sani-Vac. Today, these layabouts and palm-readers no longer cast their wicked shadows across what is now an exquisitely modern, meditative stretch of homogenous pavement.

"Make me look dangerous."


"He's wax."


"Eat your heart out, Peter Fonda."



"Puff, miss?"

"One day, this will all be yours. But it won't be here."

PVM's cement terrace

Once upon a time we loved cement. We didn't like to eat our lunch with a view of the city, or bucolic woody ferns, no we wanted to watch cement, up down around and below. This photo taken at the Place Ville Marie in June 1971 shows how happy concrete can make people feel. Click to see it large baby.

Catholix party down

Back in the 40s and 50s on St. Jean Baptiste Day you didn't get drunk and stoned while listening to hairy rock guitarists. No sir. The church fathers would give you a nice long robe and expect you to stand around cheek to jowl while they discussed the finer theological points written up in the bible. Party on Joseph! And check out the Zouaves, the religious army with the worst uniforms in history perched at the top of the photo. Meanwhile a real bastard of a religious skirt patrols to make sure you lap up every precious word. Religious doctrine suggests that life is a sort of misery to be endured and heaven is the big payoff. Well they were evidently working their hardest to fulfill that description.

Crusin' shopgirls in 1919

WE MUST RID MONTREAL OF DON JUANS IN AUTOMOBILES

Chiefs Pierre Belanger and M.A. Lepage declare a war without mercy.

La Patrie, 21 July, 1919

Police are determined to declare a war without pity against the "gallant" motorists who wait for young girls at the doors of large, west-end stores to offer them a ride, which ends up being unpleasant, and in some cases disastrous. Chiefs Belanger and Lepage have undertaken a campaign to get rid of these modern Don Juans.

Several complaints have been made by young salesgirls at these stores who have been ceaselessly solicited by these men on the prowl at closing time every night. The girls are reluctant to file complaints for fear of the resulting publicity, a fact that makes it difficult to arrest these contemptible persons.

"Most of these people," say chiefs Belanger and Lepage, "don't have a cent. They use their bosses' cars and make the girls believe they belong to them. The girls allow themselves to be tempted by these people."

These cars park at the door of large stores in the city, and the people in them solicit the young girls to join them; often the young girls give into the temptation and take a ride with strangers.

The new system has already produced results and has led to the recovery of several stolen automobiles and the arrest of two of the alleged "flirts." It is well known that many automobiles are stolen in Montreal, but up to now it cost the owners of stolen cars at least $60 to initiate a police process. Today, thanks to the system started by chiefs Belanger and Lepage, it is sufficient to fill out a card listing all the details of the vehicle, and our police officers get to work and the owner has to pay only $1.50.

All the bridges and ferries on the Island of Montreal are closely monitored, and every machine that passes is reported to the police. In such a way, it is possible to locate almost any car, to know whether they are in the city or outside, and take appropriate action.

It is believed that an organized gang operating in Canada and the United States. They steal automobiles in one district and transport them to another, where they undergo alterations to make them unrecognizable -- even their modors are changed, and finally they are sold in another district. But the methods used by these individuals are now known to police, and the required protection will be offered to the public.

The stupidity tax and its Montreal roots

The pioneer of government financial enslavement of the financially stupid was Jean Drapeau. Here is a 1968 photo of an Alexis Nihon Plaza lotto booth he set up to raise bucks to pay off Expo 67 and the Metro. Two bucks for a greedy dream. The Supreme Court later ruled that it was illegal. Here's a quickie history of lottos. The world's first lottery was the 5/90 in Genoa. In 1569 Queen Elizabeth launched a lottery that allowed freedom from arrest for a week. Here in Kweebeck in 1684 the ruling elite ran lottos to get rid of unwanted goods and 100 years later we had another lottery to pay for the city's prison system. Lower Canada outlawed gambling in 1817, but only for "workmen, journeymen, apprentices or servants." In 1967 Justice Minister Trudeau introduced a bill in the Commons that would allow for legal lottos. It became law on January 1, 1970. Lotto Quebec was immediately created and on March 14 held the first lotto here. It was televised. In 1993 we opened our casino, it was the first in North America to be based in a large urban area. So there you have it. Drapeau and Trudeau, pioneers in taking money from suckers.

An iron horse fit for a champ

He may not be as famous as he once was, but somewhere in the universe, the putt-putt-putt of Alphonse Barreyre's motorcycle is echoing between distant asteroids. Here, the Montreal motorcycle racer is seen training cyclist Francois Pujol (who is probably not closely related to the celebrated farter, Joseph "Le Pétomane" Pujol). Barreyre's motorcycle was the latest and best. He was able to do an English mile in 47-1/5 seconds (what's that, about 70 mph/105 kmh?). This picture was taken a hundred years ago this month and was published in a Montreal paper a week before a scheduled race at Brighton Beach, which is now part of New York City. No word on how he finished, but he must have scored high marks for dashingness!

Beansie bites the bullet: the Montreal angle

Talk about organized crime nowadays and people think of Sporanos-style Italian hoods, Vietnamese grow-op masterminds, or motorcycle brotherhoods.

But the North American brand of organized crime you know and love had its roots in the brawling 19th-century Irish gangs of New York. By the early 20th century, Jewish and Italian immigrants fought for and won a thick slice of the crime pie. Cops willing to look the other way for a price made things smooth and profitable. Here's a nugget of historical crime with a Montreal footnote:

It was exactly 85 years ago today that Herman "Beansie" Rosenthal -- a New York gambling-house owner who decided to blow the whistle on the crooked cops he felt had double-crossed him -- was shot dead in Times Square (then a sleazy area known as the Tenderloin). His assailants staged an incompetent getaway in a leased taxicab (getaway cars were a novelty back in 1912), and no-good NYPD cop Charles Becker -- who wanted Rosenthal dead for ratting him out to the DA -- was eventually convicted and sent to the electric chair for masterminding the hit.

In his book, The Execution of Officer Becker, author Stanley Cohen argued that this hit and its aftermath actually launched organized crime as we know it today.
So what's the Montreal angle? Well, Beansie Rosenthal was well known in Montreal circles. During the two years before he was shot dead outside the Metropole Hotel, Rosenthal had been working on a scheme to bribe Quebec officials and set up a gambling operation in Montreal. Here's the original story from the Quebec Chronicle:

ROSENTHAL KNOWN IN MONTREAL

Man killed in New York wanted gambling privileges in Montreal

Montreal, July 16 -- The dramatic killing of Herman Rosenthal in New York, at an early hour this morning, is of interest to Canadians, particularly in view of the fact that within the past two years he made an effort to establish a gambling syndicate in this city. The nom-de-plume under which he worked was that of "Beansy" Rosenthal. Rosenthal, upon his arrival in Montreal, started to [tell] several local gambelers that he controlled a large portion of the "game" in New York.
Rosenthal suggested that he could bring here a half million dollars with which to control the authorities if it were necessary, and he suggested the purchase of a residence on Sherbrooke Street East at a cost of a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, including the fittings and furniture.
Rosenthal then made overtures for the purchase of the controlling interest in a well-known amusement concern, on condition that gambling privileges would be secured, and he hinted if they would do the same thing in Montreal as in New York, he was willing to pay $100,000 to know who could control the police. That his efforts were fruitless is quite apparent.

Dorchester 1957

The tall building's the Laurentian Hotel at the southwest corner of Peel. It was there until the early '80s. (Tweak: it came down in '78; see comments.) The two-storey job at the far right is the old bus station, before it was moved to a prestigious site on Berri by Junkie Square.

The Golfodrome dream that died

Exactly 15 years ago the Golfodrome was announced on the land featured in the bright spot of this picture. This land was known as the Glen Extension Yard. The City of Montreal (SODIM, the Industrial Development Society of the City of Montreal, to be precise) bought it from Canadian Pacific for $12.8 million in 1990. The western part of the turf was a Coca Cola bottling plant. The city paid $8.4 million for that chunk in 1989.

The city sought to sell it off for industrial purposes but didn't get a sniff. It might've helped had the city built a tunnel underneath the darn thing to make it accessible with the rest of NDG but they didn't think of that. Right now Cavendish and Elmhurst are the only routes over the train tracks. It's crazy.

So it was announced on July 16, 1992 that Anderton Burke and Johan Nachmanson were to buy a 3.6 acre chunk on the east side of this spot for $3.5 million. Coolopolis couldn't reach either person to reminisce on the would-be affair, but found much evidence that Nachmanson was, and perhaps is, a solid proponent of French-only politics.

Most city councillors slammed the proposal. Sam Boskey insisted that the area was a great opportunity for NDG to develop an "industrial base." Surely he was having sweet Marxist dreams of muscular overall-clad workers carrying metal lunchboxes ridin' the bus to the factory. Someone named Godley-Demers was against it. Sharon Leslie was for it. Rotrand colourfully opposed.

Golfdrome was to include a golf range that would welcome 144 duffers simultaneously, an 18 hole miniputt, a small bowling alley, baseball batting cages, an exercise gym, a kids play area, a golf school and golf stores, a restaurant and meeting halls and offices as well as 600 parking spots.

It would have an inflatable plastic dome roof. So you could golf in winter.

Construction of the $13 million project was to begin in September, 1992. But the developers couldn't raise the loot. By December the developers failed to file the necessary papers. The file was closed. This was only revealed much later.

In February 1994, the city announced that the developers wouldn't be permitted to build the thing for another 10 years. A few weeks later the dynamic developing duo fessed up to the obvious fact that the Golfodrome would never be built.

On March 2, 1995 Len Altilia, mastermind of Loyola High School bought 350,000 square feet at the eastern side of that parcel from the city of Montreal for $2.7 million to build a hockey arena, and a football and soccer field. The city sold it on the condition that Montreal residents would be allowed to use it. The rink was never built but the fields are there now.

It's a bit strange considering there are already soccer fields right across the tracks at Trenholme and others Concordia's Loyola campus, which the high school apparently no longer wanted to share with the university.

The terrain that Loyola purchased eventually went on to house a Reno Depot and a Gazette printing plant, so presumably the Jesuits made a buck or two spinning off those properties in subsequent deals.

The terrain surely didn't include the commercial properties on the north side of St. James Street West near Cavendish, which are also currently undergoing much construction, including a new motel being built by Peter Sergakis near Cavendish and St. James.

So next time you swing your rod, try getting a little tear to well up for the Golfodrome, a noble dream from 15 years ago today, that should have been ...but never was.

Montreal 50s SKYTOWER woot-woot!!!!

This, of course, is Dorchester Boulevard looking towards the West. The same view now would feature PVM on the right and the IBM Tower on the left. But in the '50s there was a tall, thin tower jauntily sticking up around that same spot. It apparently lit up in green and red. You can see it in this photo (click on it to see it large). It looks like a six story smokestack. Coolopolis' team of seven unpaid summer interns has been ordered to work 20 hours a day throughout the construction holidays until the get an explanation of what this fine symbol was. If anybody can solve this issue, these youngsters will be free to frolic by the pool.

Photo du jour: the rise of the general

That's the Montreal General Hospital going up back on this date in '53. Completion of the 19-storey structure was set for 1955.

Accident? Say cheese!

Who said crashing Dad's wheels has to spoil a swell time out? Nobody told these night hounds and their matronly escort, that's who. It was a July night back in 1953. Four cars smashed up in Ville St. Pierre. They bandaged these "victims," walked them over to the mangled heap, and coaxed at least one lipstickey smile out of the bunch. Nothing like a camera to cure whiplash. Interesting fact #445: the fridge magnet hadn't been invented back then. So to put clippings like this on your fridge, you needed a hammer and a nail.

The loneliest millionaire

Fifty years ago today, lonely spinsters all over the world had their dreams and fantasies dashed after they learned that the Loneliest Millionaire -- a scintillating love machine from Montreal -- had come down with a fatal disease. By the time the last teardrop fell in early 1958, the fantastically successful, world-famous, diamond-cartel-busting Dr. John Thronburn Williamson was dead of throat cancer.
Williamson's stroke of genius was figuring out that some diamonds are pushed up from the centre of the earth through gem-rich underground tunnels. Fellow geologists dismissed him as a flake. But Williamson spent years searching for diamonds where others had failed before in what was then called Tanganyika -- and he was proved right.

The statue is a likeness of this unmarried, Laurentians-born, former McGill University professor by the baobab tree where he once dug a fire pit and stumbled across his first diamond in Mwadui, Tanzania. Later, a giant pink diamond (the inspiration for the stone Leonardo Di Caprio chased in Blood Diamond, perhaps) was found there, just lying on the ground. Williamson had the pink cut and handed it over to a young Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), who had it set into a brooch.

The Mwadui site became the world's richest diamond mine outside of South Africa -- a distinction that led the De Beers group to take more than a passing interest in Williamson, who suffered many a financial headache thanks to the international diamond cartel. But don't pity Williamson -- he played ball pretty hard right back, too.

In his day, Williamson's name frequently turned up everywhere from the gossip columns to Time magazine. While he never settled down, he was said to be quite the ladies' man. After all, if diamonds are a girl's best friend, this geologist with movie-star looks could introduce them to an endless procession of pals (no less than a hundred kilograms of diamonds a year came out of his mine at peak production).

But who remembers Williamson today? Here at Coolopolis Towers, only the nearly-retired Rogatien Plouffe -- once our speediest typesetter -- recalls the name, although he has no idea why.

Kids..sorry to break it to you but.this is your future....

Young students on a tour of the Coca Cola bottling plant, likely the one on St. James West in NDG where the Reno Depot now sits. (The one on Jean Talon near Victoria - where the Valu Village is now - was a Pepsi plant). It was around at least until 1986. Loyola bought the land - a sprawling swatch alongside the tracks - intending to build a skating rink but only ended up putting a soccer field there, they sold the rest off.

Saturday is the 20 th anniversary of.....

This was the scene 20 years ago Saturday. July 14, 1987. Decarie Expressway. Four hundred cars got stuck in waters up to a dozen feet deep. The cost of towing each vehicle was between $27 and $72, covered by insurance, as were other repairs such as all fluids being replaced and many electrical systems. One guy died, namely Ben Spielgelman, 80. The flood started when 100 millimeters hit in less than three hours. After this incident Coolopolis customized its fleet of 72 vehicles to have hydroplane capacity and can now navigate in water.

Lucien Saulnier - killer of Montreal's urban beauty

This guy, Lucien Saulnier, was Mayor Drapeau's right hand man for long enough to make the city a little more unpleasant. His crime ? He paved over the little strips of grass next to the sidewalks, as evidenced in his comments in the article from La Patrie in August 1961. Other cities, such as Winnipeg - (in the photo) have proudly maintained their grassy strips, which they dub Avenues. If you want to see the worst local example of lost public lawn, go down Willibrod in Verdun, which must have been a gorgeous streetscape before the pavers got to it. It appears that it has never occurred to city officials to rehabilitate these little bits of green. Those we've mentioned it to just shrug. So get on the phone with your city councillor right away and but 'em to get it in gear.

Haymarket Square 1859

This spot downtown at the foot of Beaver Hall Hill was initially a lake. It was filled in and named Haymarket Square. In 1860 it was renamed Victoria Square. It's all glass and skyscraper now.

Square's gone, but Moore bronzes live on

About two years ago, burglars busted into the Henry Moore Foundation north of London and stole the 1969-70 work A Reclining Figure. Police believed the bandits just wanted to melt the sculpture for its scrap value of about $10,000.

Chump change: the thing was worth more than $6 million.

Turns out, Montreal is also home to a multimillion-dollar Reclining Figure by Moore, but so far it remains safe and sound. This three-piece abstract work was installed in the front yard of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building after the 45-storey HQ was completed in 1962.

There it is, soaking up the ozone-softened June 1971 sun at the corner of Peel and Dorchester. If the location looks unrecognizable, that's because the square was glassed in -- complete with sculpture -- by the building's owners back in the late 1980s.

In '89, the usual critics (i.e., Jean-Claide Marsan of the U. of M. and Dinu Bumbaru, prez of Save Montreal) came out both against glassing in the square and moving the sculpture indoors. But a flack working for the building owners insisted that the indoor site would protect the sculpture from acid rain. We guess it's safer from melt-it-down burglars, too.

The cutest kid in Quebec

A tragically extinct locally tradition is the choosing of the cutest possible boy in Quebec to serve as the symbolic mascot for the St. Jean Baptiste parade. You might have fond memories of this. But hopefully not too fond. If you have excessively enthusiastic memories of this tradition, maybe you shouldn't tell anybody about it...or perhaps you should consider the priesthood. Here's a photo of a boy who symbolizes all that was nice and passive about Quebec before they got all belligerent and politically in-your-face. He's beaming with pride, knowing what awaits him on parade day! Anyway good for him. This is as good as it gets for him the rest of the way. I'm betting this kid went bald at 20 and became a fall-down drunk and spent the rest of his life in and out of penitentiary. But he sure had his moment in the sun.

Montrealer leaves, does well, works on tan

You recognize this section of Dorchester looking East from Guy, but you surely don't recognize 19 year old Robert Lozoff (aka Bobby Lozoff) who grew up at 5641 Waverly, but moved to San Francisco at 19 where he became the manager of the legendary 400 seat bar known as The Trident. In SF, Lozoff became close friends with such pacemakers as the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones. He was mentioned in Rolling Stone magazine repeatedly and got a tattoo at a party at Janis Joplin's house in 1972. He hired a bus boy named Robin Williams and he invented - along with his bartender - a drink known as the Tequila Sunrise. In 1975 he moved to Maui and opened a bar called the Blue Max which also became famous. In 1983 he got into computer technology and now, nearing sixty, spends much of his time sailing the Pacific, apparently not such a bad fate for a kid from Montreal.

Lozoff has only returned to Montreal twice, once in this photo, shot in the big downer year of 1970, and again in 1983 when he was given a rough ride by cops. He tells Coolopolis: "I was arrested by police for jaywalking in Westmount. I wasn’t jaywalking. They were brutal and beat me until they realized I had on a real Rolex President and plenty of cash, but that was only back in station 10. Since I had Hawaiian flip flops and shorts on they assumed I was a vagrant."

For those curious about the photo, the building on the right sold cars and car parts and was demolished around 1980. The highly underrated Hotel Colonnade, designed by another FOC (friend of Coolopolis) Michael Fish, is the big-windowed joint behind it and it was demolished just before the millennium.

Lozoff assures Coolopolis readers that Hawaii is an amazing place to be. We're hoping he drops in again to see how the city has grown and changed.

Parking's elevated future

Robotic parking lots are the next big thing. You just drive your car in onto a platform and you leave. The platform moves down somewhere inside a building and stacks your car in an efficient manner. On your way back you just ring up a special number on your cell phone and it'll be ready and waiting on the same platform. These suckers exist in a bunch of places, such as Washington, Tokyo, and Dubai and one day we'll get 'em here. However in 1952 a similar system already existed on St. James Street West, (north side, somewhere around University in an area that has since been totally demolished). It featured an elevator for cars that hauled 'em up to the roof. It could fit five dozen big old clunkers up there. Long live progress!

Photo du jour: Mile End CPR Station

So you want to live in Mile End. We've heard that one before. Now here's the train station you'll never be able to visit (unless you're about a hundred). But on the bright side, if this pile hadn't been cleared away, you wouldn't have been able to buy exciting flooring products at Million Carpets and Tiles. Why it's the old Canadian Pacific Railway's Mile End Station. And HERE's about where it was. In case you're wondering, that's the Frontenac Brewing Company behind. It was torn down in '73, almost 50 years after the company buckled in a price war against rival breweries Molson and Dawes. Come to think of it, perhaps that's where Peter MacAuslan took the name for his Frontenac Pale Ale, which just happens to be the house pale ale at McKibbin's Irish Pub (better than the Moosehead, which always seems flat). To make a short story long, here's a picture of a purportedly collectible tray from the old Frontenac Brewery.

Cafe Sarajevo resurfaces on the Main

Turns out when Osman Koulenovitch closed the doors of Cafe Sarajevo for the last time in April of last year, it wasn't for the last time. Stunned by the outpouring of attention he received when locking up his beloved watering hole, he started talking about reopening somewhere else. It would have to be elsewhere because he had sold the building on Clarke Street that was its home for more than a decade (the pile fetched more than three-quarters of a mil compared to the hundred or so he shelled out in the early nineties). But who really believed the club would be reborn? After all, he had spent years putting up with permit hassles, noise complaints (wouldn't you complain about a young Rufus Wainwright's piano ticklings?), professed plans to sail solo across the Atlantic and other waters to the Bosnian homeland he shucked in the early seventies. Nevertheless, his wishful promises would be rehashed and reheated. In fact, during a night of Balkan and Gypsy music at the packed hall of the Lion d'Or one cold March night he even made public his pledge that Cafe Sarajevo would rise from the ashes -- all this to a smattering of disbelieving applause from concertgoers who just wish he'd finish talking and get off stage so the music could resume. But props to the sixtiesish Osman. He did it. Cafe Sarajevo is back. It opened last night at 6548 St. Lawrence Boulevard, albeit in a smokeless space that subs gyproc for fieldstone. As one patroness put it, the old place made you feel like you were somewhere else. But this venue, at least, had some of the old place's charm, which was substantial, and the regular lot of local Bosnians were out in force to hug a little and slap backs to the sounds of accomplished tunesmiths Soleil Tsigane. Congratulations, Oz.

Carifiesta 2007

The annual Caribbean movable feast proved once again this year why it's worlds ahead of any other parade this city has ever known. Leeroy the Wanderer (that's the elderly oddball from Coursol street hauling flags below) was offered a emphatic whine from overexuberant participant (mercifully unreproduced herein). All was joyous and smiles abounded. One motif this year was participants efforts to stash cell phones, they put 'em down panties, bras or on holsters on naked hips. Big prize to whoever can count the number of cell phones stealthily stashed in tasty places in the pix below (click photos to see them in pervert size).

whodat?

This guy was spotted downtown on Peel Street today, which got a few people excited. What does it mean? Why is he here? What's going on? You recognize him..surelly... ( Thanks to Stradale for the photo. )

Looking for work? Get stuffed!

If dressing up like a giant sock puppet is your idea of career nirvana, then Acme Mascots are looking for you. This local company is advertising for five buskers -- that's technical speak for an all-dressed, air-punching, stuffed-animal type of mascot not unlike Youppi! Just think, you can join the ranks of Ping the Penguin, Le Teen des Neiges and Lutin Barbiche! Pay is in the $12.75- to $17-an-hour range. Here's what you need to be: between 5'7" and 6'2", honest and energetic. Here's what you mustn't have: a tendency to sleep in, smelliness and a criminal record. Expect to perform at sporting and corporate events all over the place.

It's always fun...until....

Drug dealing, in case you haven't read up on it, is about the worst job you can have in the world.