Wednesday, April 03, 2019

10 true things about Montreal that we don't want to admit

  1.  Montrealers got ugly. Montrealers once dazzled with their beauty, grace and je ne sais quoi. Montreal long attracted the genetic elite of every Quebec village, as rural beauties bused into the big city to share the magical force of their charms and glamour. The percentage of head-turning, jaw-dropping Gino Vanellis and Mitsous walking around the Golden Square Mile, West Island, Anjou and St. Leonard has since dipped from let's say 17% to say 9%.
  2. English are paranoid and traumatized so get ready for the rant. If you ever chat with an anglo-person from Montreal, you can just smell the political speech coming, usually in the form of something like, "what about those potholes?" Then comes the anglo consensus narrative asserting that the French Quebec majority that runs things here is incompetent and corrupt and can do nothing right, from the hockey team to the economy. Feel free to yawn.
  3. Montreal's weather is the work of the devil. It's obvious but people avoid acknowledging it: the weather here is highly wrong. Frosty cold inhabits your toes, fingers, ear lobes and everywhere else from October to May. Avoid going outside during those times. Never open a door for more than a second and forget about opening a window. Frostbite and amputation loom in our consciousness at every moment. And brace yourself for that heating bill.
  4. Montrealers have all moved to the suburbs. Suburbanites were once a little ashamed to admit their provenance. But nowadays people from those places barely care about Montreal as they enjoy the good parking and other charms of Vaudreuil, Mascouche, Candiac and far beyond and have no qualms about being there. Proof? Next time you seek to purchase some used item off kijiji wait for them to tell you where to come, if it's not a student selling it, then it'll be someone off-island. 
  5. Montrealers talk too much about restaurants. Montrealers slave all week just so they can blow their wad in a restaurant. Even out in the suburban wastlelands every strip mall has 14 restaurants to every nail salon and vape store so people can bore their moms and water cooler colleagues with tales of their exquisite meals. 
  6. Montreal is to New York City what Chicoutimi is to Montreal. We think we're in the game but we're not. Look at a map. New Yorkers, if they think about Montreal at all, think about it in the same way as Montrealers think about Chicoutimi. We're just not that important to the them (and we're even more obscure now that we have no baseball team). Look at a map to fully grasp this.
  7. Montreal doesn't hate Toronto anymore. In fact we don't even think about the place much nowadays. Whatever loved ones, or jobs, that we had that moved to Toronto are so long gone that we no longer remember them or feel anything about them. We even indifferent to the Maple Leafs. But every Montrealer knows that this is a better place to be. 
  8. Montreal dresses no better than any other place. Sure we might dress less goofy that Torontonians or Calgarians (who'll routinely show up to work in say, bright red tights, bright red stockings and bright red blouse) but every city wears the universal, black, made-in-China uniform nowadays. No Montrealer knows what an ascot, paisley, houndstooth, or pocket square is anymore. 
  9. Montrealers are largely indifferent to the things we're supposed to be crazy about. People over 55 don't ride the metro. Too many stairs. Hockey? At least half of Montrealers couldn't name one player on the Canadiens. Mount Royal Park? Many Montrealers spend their entire lives without going there once. Poutine? Who in the world would eat that crap? Smoked meat and bagels? Well, yeah... okay... people still do that. 
  10. You don't need to speak a word of French to live in Montreal. Large swathes of Montreal's population go their entire lives without knowing a word of French. Hell, many speak neither English nor French and do just fine.  
  11. Montreal used to be more exciting. A perpetual ongoing dreary campaign to correct every perceived social ill has swept over the Western world and Montreal is no exception. Busybody citizens combined with politicians and bureaucrats, who feel guilty for accepting their bloated direct deposit cheques, to tweak things better left alone. Bike paths are in, underage drinking is out, bike helmets (shudder!) are in, smoking is out. Waiting for red lights to turn green is in, cocaine sniffed off of strippers backsides is out. The city has been doused with antiseptic and it stinks.

7 comments:

  1. About your "10 True Things" - Part One

    1) Montrealers got ugly? - Immigration into the city from a wider variety of nations along with the exodus of former residents OUT of the province due to political, economic, and climatic realities has inevitably changed the "face" of our residents. Well-heeled retirees have moved to warmer locales.

    2) English are paranoid and traumatized so get ready for the rant? - People of EVERY big city will naturally gripe about the things they don't like about it. Are New Yorkers any different? Are Chicagoans happy about their crime rate? Larger cities equal more people, more crowding, more traffic, more crime, more pollution, and therefore predictably, more complaints.

    3) Montreal's weather is the work of the devil? - You either love it or hate it, but your opinion will change naturally over time. Remember when you were a kid and how much fun winter was back then? There was always something to do: snowball fights, building snow forts, sledding, the youthful fascination of watching snow removal crews at work which later, due to the inconvenience, infuriated you as that car owner forced to move your vehicle or have it towed away before the plows arrived. Winter becomes more problematic and annoying later in life when you have no choice but to commute some distance back and forth to school and/or your work place five days a week. However, if you're not a skater or skiier, there are a lot more indoor activities and distractions to keep you busy nowadays than there were decades ago such as cable-TV, the home computer, and the Internet. Retirees can tolerate winter as they're not OBLIGED to commute anymore--at least not on a regular, tiresome routine. Plus they can choose the optimum opportunity to complete errands before and after the worst weather conditions while the average working stiff who owns a car is burdened with the usual headaches of traffic and parking.

    4) Montrealers have all moved to the suburbs? - So where else CAN they move to as our living space on the island is systematically reduced? That being said, take the 48 bus to the very end of the line right through RDP and admire the clean, new homes and streets there. Besides, not everyone can afford to live in more centrally-located places like Hampstead, TMR, Outremont, and Westmount.

    5) Montrealers talk too much about restaurants? - I for one don't eat out as often as I once did simply because it has become increasingly expensive--a fact you've already covered in an earlier thread. High-end restaurants are best for special occasions such as birthdays and business meetings. Who remembers back in the day when you could actually deduct meal expenses from your income tax?
    As a matter of fact, there used to be no sales tax at all on food, books, and furniture--until the government decided to get greedy.

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  2. About your "10 True Things" - Part Two

    6) Montreal is to New York City what Chicoutimi is to Montreal? - There will always be an elitist attitude by large city dwellers toward smaller towns and country folk. However, I'll bet that many city dwellers would love to reside in a smaller, quieter, less crime-ridden, and less air-polluted location if they weren't otherwise trapped in their ongoing urban careers.

    7) Montreal doesn't hate Toronto anymore? - The few times I've visited Toronto, I enjoyed the points of interest there (a must-see: https://www.yelp.ca/biz/mztv-museum-of-television-toronto) so I have nothing against the place except for the lousy restaurant food and the urban sprawl. Torontonians, of course, gripe relentlessly about their city, presumably because they must endure its faults on a daily basis just as we do here. Familiarity can and does breed contempt.

    8) Montreal dresses no better than any other place? - Montreal's women dress more stylishly than in other big cities and they aren't shy to show it. I imagine the current prevalence of discount bargain-bins and pre-owned clothing outlets have made us more apparel-practical and an option rather than having to fork out big bucks for those overly-hyped, luxury, high-end brand names.

    9) Montrealers are largely indifferent to the things we're supposed to be crazy about? - Unless they are physically frail, plenty of seniors still use the Metro despite the stairs. They simply move along more slowly. The reduced-fare Opus card is an incentive. What about seniors who no longer hold a driver's license? Hockey lost its local lustre for many reasons. Firstly, our 1950s, dynasty Stanley Cup-winning teams are long gone and likely never to re-occur. A team is not long-term anymore because so-called top players get traded more frequently than they once did. Who was foolish enough to spend big bucks on their favourite Hab's sweater only to see him traded to another team soon afterwards? There are way too many teams with the result that there's a lack of the once-serious team rivalry between historically-competitive cities such as Montreal vs. Toronto, Don Cherry's babbling has become virtually unintelligible, and finally, ticket prices and season passes are too high for the average fan. So long as greedy "developers" are kept at bay, Mount Royal will remain a pleasant and convenient place to visit. Poutine should only be eaten infrequently. You'll appreciate it more that way. Too much of a good thing...

    10) You don't need to speak a word of French to live in Montreal? - I suppose it could be done, but why short-change yourself? The ability to work and move between both cultures is an asset.

    11) Montreal used to be more exciting? - Globalization has diminished the unique character of cities. It began with Coca-Cola everywhere, later McDonald's, Starbucks, and all the rest. More people have disposable income now than they had in the past thereby allowing them to travel more often and see the world. Because of road congestion, our so-called "bicycle paths" have been steadily invaded by joggers, dog-walkers, wheelchair people, roller bladers, skateboarders, electric motorbikes, and the soon-to-be-upon-us craze of electric scooters, thus relegating cyclists to a relative minority on congested byways they cannot enjoy the way they used to. And if underage drinking and smoking are truly "out" as you say, then isn't society better off because of it?

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  3. More True Things - Part One

    Let me add an ELEVENTH "true thing that apparently some Montrealers don't want to admit": i.e., a tendency toward revisionism based flimsy and questionable beliefs.

    So McGill University, which after considerable and relentless pressure, has decided to dump "Redmen" as the name of their football team, despite the historically known fact that it was never intended as a "racist slur"--a charge perpetrated by the selectively-outraged.

    Incidentally, yesterday's (April 12) CTV Talk Back poll asked: "Did McGill make the right decision in dropping the Redmen name?". The result: 65 said No, 35 said Yes.

    It seems that the loudest, most vocal segment of our society has resurrected the "communist under every bed and every closet" syndrome of the 1950s perfected by U.S. Senator McCarthy and others. Indeed, I'm amazed that nobody even back in those days didn't suggest that McGill's "red" named team was somehow a sympathetic gesture toward communism: the "red menace", "better dead than red!", and so on.

    As we all know by now, under similar misguided controversy the Cincinnati Reds baseball team management likewise unceremoniously dumped the Indian head logo from their uniforms and media material. Yup, there just HAD to be something terribly "wrong" with that Indian! Perhaps it was his goofy smile, who knows? And, hey, remember the Milwaukee Braves? Strange that nobody batted an eye over their logo when they were around. Personally, I find those team mascots which leap about the field and ice before and after games utterly ridiculous and unnecessary, but that's just me. Maybe they'll be next to bite the dust.

    But who WILL be next? Surely the Chicago Black Hawks? Indian heads just seem to be too controversial. Will we eventually see a black hawk BIRD replace it instead? Birds don't complain. Maybe the Detroit Red Wings will raise the ire of some group over that nasty word. Maybe our flag is "too red"? Stay tuned.

    Over time, even the word "Indian" has come under fire; a word only just recently replaced on Government of Canada websites from Indian Affairs to Indigenous Affairs.

    Pick a word and rest assured someday someone will consider it to be a slur, just as the term "used car" has somehow become softened into "pre-owned" and, most recently "pre-loved" (arrgh!). Surely a future generation shall blast "Indigenous" as "unacceptible", claiming that "It just doesn't SOUND right, therefore it MUST GO!". I'll even hazard a guess that referring to the people of India as Indians will become controversial at some point. Didn't Bombay become Mumbai and Calcutta become Kolkata?

    It is said that "there's a reason for everything", although not every reason is reasonable just as not everything that is good is popular and not everything thar is popular is good.

    Sadly, "identity" has become rife with unwarranted paranoia. Even the legitimate word Negro somehow became unpopular, replaced by "coloured", then "black", Afro-American, African-American, and now--presumably to appease everyone (a hopeless task, to be sure)--"people-of-colour". As a matter of fact, the word "negro" has traditionally been used in Salsa and other forms of Latin American music for generations without it causing a uproar. Hmmm, maybe Hispanics (if I may safely use that term) know something we don't, or are at least less sensitive to our rabid language activists.

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    Replies
    1. The name "Cincinnati Reds" never had anything to do with American Indians. The team has one of the longest histories in professional baseball. In 1890 they were called "The Red Stockings". Years later that was changed to "Red Legs". Later still they became simply the "Reds". For 4 years (1956-1960) the word "Reds" was removed from their uniforms because of the 1950s communist scare crap in the US. I can think of 3 other teams that named themselves after the colour of socks they wore, the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, and the Chicago Black Sox. In 1919 a number of Black Sox players were banned from baseball for fixing the World Series. The team you are thinking of with the cartoonish logo of an Indian brave with a huge smile was the Cleveland Indians.

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  4. More True Things - Part Two

    Music: another target of the misinformed. Incredibly, the vintage hit song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" was recently attacked as "sexist" (and worse), thereby scaring the managements of many radio stations into banning its airplay, so petrified they were of upsetting those super-sensitive super-feminists who are in reality only a mere fraction of any listening audience and who ought to be dismissed as flaky. Besides, was THAT particular song truly the WORST they could have singled out? Isn't much of Rap blatantly anti-female? The level of fury is clearly misdirected.

    How about banning "Standing on the Corner" as well? I predict that the lyrics of that harmless 1956 hit tune will be the NEXT target by those very same complainants. Read the "shocking" lyrics:

    https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/the-four-lads/standing-on-the-corner

    Yes, I can already hear the horrified shrieks, "How "disgusting" can any "real" man be to stand around ogling women he doesn't even know? Men must cease this unacceptable behaviour, otherwise our civilization is doomed!", will be the mantra repeated over and over in our sick world of navel-gazing and twisted social media. The REAL question is: WHOSE civilization?

    By the way, wolf-whistlers will not be deterred, either, no matter how many complaints are filed. Indeed, the more complaints are made, the more those "dirty construction workers" will gleefully whistle away in spite of it all. Construction Workers of the World Unite.

    And what will be the response if that standard, well-known-throughout-history wolf-whistle we've all come to know and dismiss as essentially harmless is replaced by the first six notes of "You Are So Beautiful". Compliments are simply not wanted anymore, it seems. Will whistling of ANY kind someday be considered obscene and subject to a fine, demerit points, or perhaps even jail time?

    Shall we chaperone the presumably vulnerable among us in order to keep them safe as if they were fragile baby chicks?

    Will the fascism of political correctness finally succeed in muzzling all freedom of expression?

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  5. Correction: The Cleveland Indians and not the Cincinnati Reds used and then recently discontinued using the Indian head logo following protests by overreacting pressure groups.

    Incidentally, U.S. coinage used to include an Indian head cent. Read about it here:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent

    Indeed, there even exists today some Geronimo tokens and paper currency easily found on eBay and elsewhere, so I suppose it's only a matter of time before some disgruntled person or group will raise a ruckus about that along with other ridiculous accusations concerning "cultural appropriation".

    Taking the latter even further, how long will it be before white blues musicians and singers will be accused of "stealing black culture for their own profit", while conveniently ignoring the fact that many white blues artists went out of their way to make sure that royalties were paid to the original song writers and/or their legal heirs?

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