I recently had the pleasure of discussing the direction humanity is going in. Not because it's a particularly pleasant subject, but because HOTCHY MOTCHY I think I've got it. A sudden realization. Everyone, or so it seems, thinks we are living in the end of days. And not in a nut job sandwich board made of aluminum foil kind of way.
No, it seems that there is a general belief that we are all a part of some kind of dying empire. It's not 2012 material, but something in the water certainly isn't right. What is strange, though, is that no matter what someone is arguing, it seems to come to same logical conclusion, being that everyone is probably doomed, in one way or the other. What's also fascinating, though, is whether or not this actually effects how people live their everyday lives. Are we an anxious generation because we are living an experience no one else has? Or does EVERYONE think they're the last ones left?
Well, while this seems odd as a first post back, it's actually a good thing.
Please note that this is not meant to be an annoying ex-pat moves away and gets all self-righteous. I'm always self-righteous, and I'll be damned if I have to stop just because I jumped borders. I would comment on Canadian politics, but seeing how I'm still learning the provinces (There's a New Brunswick?) and am only barely aware of where I am on a map, I'm gonna hold off.
Dear America,
Hey there, how ya doing? You feeling ok? Yea? Great. Listen, I don't want to get on your case or anything, but I wanted to talk to you. See, I'm up here in Canada, and turns out people outside of the US can watch our news. As a result, I am forced to answer questions that inevitably end up with me signing and saying "listen, I just don't know, ok?" There's only so long I can handle answering questions regarding why Fox News exits (answer: Rupert Murdoch sold ad space to Satan and it grew out of that). So, listen, for my sake so I never have to hear about it again, please fix the following things:
Immigration As a current, uh, immigration specialist, this issue is close to my heart. Please do not repeal the 14th amendment. I mean, seriously? It was put in place, amongst other reasons, to counteract racism. Somehow it seems in poor form to modify it because of fear of Mexicans, doesn't it? In addition, please please take care of the roaming bands of neo-nazis on the Arizona border. That's just fucking scary.
Glen Beck
He gets a surprising amount of name recognition. That is problematic, as his "logic" is generally on par with the guy who screams at pigeons. Please stop letting him talk.
Glen Beck before makeup.
People Who Should Not Be Running for Public Office They make for great viral videos. Less so political leaders. And sorry, there's no sweeping these guys under the rug until after the election, what with the youtubes and all...
I still do not believe this guy is for real.
The terrifying slide into Oligrachy
If you are reading this, Bush tax cuts probably did not help you (unless some fancy and rich people read this blog, in which case, please donate to the upkeep fund). You know who makes over 200k a year right now? No one and we all live off stone soup. So getting some more money into the system, say, from people who happened to gain from the recent crises (I'm looking at you, Goldman Sachs) maybe would be a good thing. Then we could use money to buy, ya know, fun stuff. Like health care. And....roads. Maybe put out the tire fires in Detroit.
But please, don't take my word for it. I believe Rush Limbaugh (who for some inexplicably reason is still allowed to speak on multiple forms of media) recently explained that without Capital Gains Taxes, our structure would be much more stable. How stable, you ask? Why, like Chinese factories! So there you have it. Don't worry, sweat shops are the new wave of the future. At least we'll have jobs!
Listen, States, I love you, I really do. So do me a solid and fix this shit so I don't have to hear about it anymore. k, thx, bye.
Like so many "artists" before (I use quotes since I'm not really one. Or are you one when you declare it? Does someone else have to say it to make it true?), I am discovering the change in my reality as I move from the system to the outside. I'm no longer part of a collective of full time workers. And despite the obvious pitfalls (such as the ever present threat of destitution and fear of becoming shiftless), this is an incredible feeling. Like a freedom I had forgotten existed.
Freelance means every moment is work. Finding gigs, following up on connections, finding creative ways to use whatever talent you have to keep afloat. All structure is self created.
That said, I am starting to wonder how I'll ever go back to the old life...
Despite the torrential downpour that threatens to drown us all for much of this week, there are two opportunities to come out and see some great music (three if you happen to be living in a retirement community in Cote-Saint-Luc, where we'll be playing some rockin' Klezmer music ). Friday at Grumpys Bar Mind That Bird is playing. This is the first show with the whole band and it's going to be a party. And not just because we get free beer for playing. Or if you can't make that, Saturday Lisa, Dylan and I are playing at Cafe Shaika. So two times, one week. Now you have no excuse.
I've been getting a whirlwind tour of the venues of Montreal. Divan Orange with the amazing Bad Uncle, Sala Rosa for Bamboo Diet's record release (which was so much fun, they're such a tight band)...Les Pas Sage last week (or was it two weeks ago? I have been here for FIVE WEEKS what the what?)...
In an attempt to sell, well, I suppose myself, I have joined *gulp* twitter. I know. I promise to only use it to stalk others and post recaps of the Jersey Shore. You can find me as ari_swan. Creativity, first and foremost.
All of the things that I hate about New York are also the things I miss about it, currently. These include:
1. Rude subways conductors and fights on the subway. And people who pull the subway emergency break for no reason and you sit underground for 45 minutes. Thus leading to the aforementioned subway fights.
2. The fact that when you got on a subway,there was a 60% chance that it would take a completely different route than advertised, especially if you live in Brooklyn.
3. The insanely loud Tejano music my neighbors played all the time. It was as if I was actually in their living room.
4. NEW JERSEY (this may be b/c currently the Jersey Shore's second season is airing and I can't stream it here. Unfamiliar with it? Please, investigate!
5. The complete acceptance of insanely rude behavior. I have seen a man in a BMW nearly run down a child, then YELL AT THE CHILD (to be fair, everyone around started to yell at him. There is a collective conscience, even if it's expressed while screaming. Like a hooker with a heart of gold....)
Noelle sent me these photos to remind me what I am missing. You can take it as either "come back, look what you're missing" or "be glad you left, who are these freaks?":
It really is an incredible process to move out of New York. While there, EVERYTHING is about New York. There is a collective being, I think, that forms from the energy of having literally 20 million people in a metropolitan area. And all your energy is focused on being there. In 3 years I left the city only a handful of times, which has the odd effect of both driving you insane but at the same time making you vaguely mistrustful of the world outside of New York.
A friend once described it as ripping out nerves when one tries to leave New York. I think that's fairly apt. Of course, whatever hole I left there has already been filled. Because that's how New York rolls. Very, very quickly.
Tonight I came the closest I have ever been to passing out. Literally wobbly. All thanks for Divan Orange on St. Laurent and their lack of AC. No matter, the show there was fu*king amazing. It was the CD release party for the band Bad Uncle. They're a bit like Gogol Bordello....there's a gypsy theme this summer! I might be a psychic (a start-up psychic, none-the-less) AND I might play with some musicians from a circus...or something...
There is an influx of circus performers/musicians recently. In fact, part of the band Bad Uncle was working for a circus, only to have it shut down without paying their performers...it seems, though, that another circus has come to town, offering plenty of opportunities to see sword swallowers and burlesque dancing incorporated into shows. Amazing amazing! Too bad I only made it to intermission b/c I almost died. Which is longer than some of my other cohorts made it...
P.S. Mind that Bird is playing a Divan Orange...not until September, but be prepared!
So hot it was like I was in the Wicker Man...oh fine, I just wanted an excuse to bring back reference to Nicolas Cage...
Biking here is not a joke. It's deceiving, you know? One second you're cruising down the street, the next you're trying to crawl your way up the side of a mountain. It's not much easier on these Bixi bikes. The system is absolutely amazing (rent a bike!!), but the bikes are not exactly terrain friendly. Also their handlebars are twice as large as a normal bike, so sharing bikes lanes involves a delicate balance of not hitting other riders and not hitting traffic. Especially when the bike lanes go AGAINST traffic. I can say this without reserve: biking here is JUST as scary as biking in Brooklyn. Extremely fun, but not without death risk.
No, you ride up it. I am walking.
Things I have learned when interviewing for a job: explaining that you are on a visitors visa says "pay me cash, please". Questions will be in French, so hope you are applying at a restaurant where French is not the first language and thus is spoken sightly slower. Know the right and wrong ways to speak with people from the Caribbean, because this ability will also be a question. Wait, what?
I am completely obsessed with Portuguese chicken and am thus the worst sometimes vegetarian ever. But it wouldn't be that easy to maintain even if I was trying. There's a lot of good quality meat here (that's what she said). There is also a lot of gravy. Which I am still adjusting to...meaning Poutine, of course. I'm in search of the best (everyone has a "favorite places"). Maybe I should couple this search with some running shoes...
Heart. Attack.
At least I can pair it with visits to markets. Maybe I'll even learn how to cook without setting things on fire. Not that I've ever done that...
Atwater Market
There is house music everywhere (or is it trance? post-trance? industrial house trance?), especially in Deps, which is short for Depanneur, the Montreal version of Bodegas in New York or Party Stores in Michigan (though maybe now they are just called tire fires...)
Today marks the 50th time I have left my house and heard Rick Astley playing. Did I miss a memo here? Is it because my neighborhood is a little ironic? What the what?
What the what? Why doesn't anything stream here? Hulu, come on, this is Canada, not the Yuko...errr, Siberia. Get it together! Netflix, why? I FINALLY have a computer that will stream netflix! Stop neglecting Canada! And most upsetting of all, I won't be able to stream episodes of the Jersey Shore from MTV...
Without shows like the Jersey Shore, these guys will be forced to work for their Gym, Tan, Laundry lifestyle...pledge now
....ok, on second thought, maybe it's a good thing I can't watch it.
This marks the third week of "visiting". This also marks when I realize I need a job. In an effort to become more employable (whether is be legit or le travaille noir, as they say...), I am going to become conversationally fluent in French! No, don't laugh, I will. Ok, maybe fluent for a 10-year-old, but children can get jobs! My tiny hands would be perfect for picking up stray bits of twine from factory floors (it really was a job).
Really, though, learning French is extremely frustrating. I've perfected the smile-nod answer to questions I don't understand, as well as the "ahh, yes, is good!" response when I reazlie I can't say anything, especially normal phrases people say. For example, if I asked you "who ate your pesto", you probably wouldn't respond with "i think it was the people who also live in the house where I live". But I might. Coupled with my wild hand gestures in order to explain "no, I wanted a sandwich, not coffee" and the inability to say anything involving too many vowels (feuille?!), I'm just...amazing. Translating, here I come! It has made pick up conversations that much better though.
Guy: Hello, what have you been doing tonight? Me: No, I don't want any poutine, thank you.
Yesterday I played my second show with Mind That Bird. First show was at a dive bar somewhat equal to...an Irish Pub in midtown. Just the regulars, everyone's already kind of drunk, and no one's really listening. THIS show, however, had an actual audience. I was utterly terrified. There were at least two moments when I looked out into the crowd, realized people were actually looking at me, I kind of blacked out. I went blacker than (insert racial pun here). Plus the violin, fuck man...when there aren't drums, that instrument is LOUD. But it went off pretty well.
You know what else Montreal has besides poutine, mountains, Bixi Bikes, extremely clean (if rather inextensive) subways, and apparently meters and meters (see this conversion?) of snow? Contact stripping, sex stores, and brothe..., err, massage parlors.
And lots of them. Apparently one of highest per capita of strip clubs in the world. This is an unconfirmed statistic I read somewhere else on the web in an attempt to make this blog have actual facts, so since it's now written in TWO places, I guess that makes it true. You'd be surprised that Googling "montreal strip club statistics" does not yield much non-naked material.
The last stop for out-of-work superheros...
Contact stripping, for those of you not in the know, is designed where you can actually touch the strippers (I somehow thought touching a stripper would be similar to falling in the East River, but that's just me...). While I have yet to visit any type of strip club, I've always thought this whole concept of contact stripping was kind of hilarious. Plus the marketing is pretty amazing, usually consisting of a couple super shady guys at the bottom of a long stair well, chain smoking and yelling totally ridiculous invitations to passers-by (in both French AND English! Equal opportunity.)
And, of course, massage parlors. There's a 24 hour massage parlor next to a pizza place (or, somewhere near a pizza place we found) on St. Denis and Ontatio. Ok, look, that's not even really clever, right? 24 hour massage parlor? Because the last thing the 24 massage parlor would be busted for is prostitution? Though I shouldn't joke, they advertise on Craigslist a lot and I bet the girls all started out as bright eyed foreign "visitors" as well til they couldn't learn French fast enough...
Yea, seems about right
I think people who have lived here for awhile don't notice all this...
Ok, as 4 AM posts go, they do tend to sway to one side or the other of some spectrum. Either you've had a good night and it's wonderful, or you've had a bad night and..it's not. Luckily, as has been the trend since arriving here, it's good night.
I played my first show today with Mind That Bird! We played at Grumpys, a bar near Concordia (woo Concordia! This is mostly applicable to Ben, I suppose). It went quite well, considering I don't know the songs so well....the next band was from Windsor, and they were quite good. Most of their songs were wistful, relating to living in a 'dying town'. This is what happens with you live in Detroit/Windsor.
and, as with most Montreal nights it seems, it didn't end there. I went out for a cigarette on the porch (shut up, I've already quit. Just not now. B/c it's like North American Europe here, so it doesn't count. Shut up!) and made friends with the neighbors, who played me the music of their friends (they also spent some time speaking French but I'm in language overload and my brain can only handle it if my head is in it. So I vetoed that, b/c I can speak like a 5 years old. Maybe 8 year old since moving here! But it's not conducive to conversation and I'm already forgetting whatever English I knew) b/c I mentioned I worked (and WILL WORK, j'espere...) in PR.
I must say, I am just utterly infatuated with this entire city. Every time I leave my house something happens that makes me happy.
Also, official shout out to Mir and Syed for loaning me this very lovely MacBook. You guys may not like Macs, but Steve Jobs basically owns me, so I'm loving this computer...
Did you know people outside of the US don't really like the US? Yea, surprise, right? Today at JazzFest, the band I was watching (Emir Kusturica & The No Smocking Orchestra, check them out, they're gypsy-jazz fun) starting a crowd chant that basically involved the responding to the band with "fuck you MTV". The lead singer yelled "come on, louder, we want the MTV people in the US to hear us!", which elicited quite a response. I refuse to take all the blame for MTV, Canada! Let's point that blame where it belongs: New Jersey.
Having never spent significant time outside the US, it is weird to feel like the foreigner. Especially when this conversation has happened:
"oh you just moved here? great, where from?"
"The States"
"oh, I'm sorry"
"ummm, me too, sometimes?"
So don't worry, America. I'm here, repairing your reputation, one PBR can at a time (what, you thought I would leave drinking PBR in over heated practice rooms to Brooklyn? Pfffft). I even celebrating the 4th of July! Though with a distinctly Montreal flavour (see what I did there?) We went to Tam Tams, the weekly summer drum circle that happens in Mont Royal Park (or is it Jeanne Manc park? hmmm). It looks like Hash Bash in Ann Arbor, only with less cops (meaning no cops) hassling you about...errr, wait, I'm keeping this blog family friendly. There is also jousting.
Thank God for Google stock photo...actually, this just looks like the diag in Ann Arbor most of the time...
As far as being a foreigner, I think Quebec has an interesting feel for anyone not from here, especially if you don't speak French fluently (and oh my god, I do not. Though I am improving). I've heard quite a few stories from people about being hassled for not speaking French. Besides the secession movement, there is a lot of emphasis from people wanting to preserve Quebecois culture through the language, especially depending on where you are on the island. In many ways, it's not much different from the battle between Spanish and English in the states...
Anyways, no one reads this, but if you do, comment and tell us your OWN experiences when you've felt distinctly like a foreigner...
Coming up: All you've ever needed to know about Canadian Dollar Stores (it's not even hyperbole when I say they are kind of the GREATEST THING EVER)
You know what I actually miss about New York? What made my life a living hell and now I can't forget it? The subway system. And I don't mean just because it ran 24hrs a day (that's only absolutely necessary when you live an hour away from everything by all methods of transportation). Yesterday I was on the metro here in Montreal and the automated voice came on to say "next station, Place-des-Arts" (only, you know, in French). I began to reminisce about when the angry MTA conductor would yell at you while trying to squeeze onto a car so crowded people were literally beginning to meld into one being. And when I say yell at "you", I don't mean you in the "one" sense, I mean they would literally pick you out and start screaming at you. Of course, that happened much more frequently on the G Train, since it was just an underground slow moving bus. I thought about how I miss fighting with the rats at 2 AM because they've lost all fear of humans and will soon just be sitting on those bed-bug infested, wooden benches, staring at you like "what? WHAT? that's right, walk away", because they know they can win. Or getting on a train and wondering where exactly it was going to end up, since it's a weekend and God knows trains don't actually run on a schedule then, only to realize it's just going backwards to take you to a shuttle bus.
Who knew I would have nostalgia for that? Alright, I did. The subways here are impeccable. Of course, being jobless, I haven't had to deal with rush hour, but somehow I doubt that, when I inevitably (hopefully?) find legal employment, the commute will be anywhere as bad...
