I'm at my best when I write angry, or in total fucking pain. I know that.
When I'm only mildly in pain - as has been the case in the past few months - my writing becomes more static, more common, it loses its edge, part of its meaning, and most of its personality.
That's why I've been keeping away from the keyboard a bit, because I don't feel like submitting (all 4 of) my readers to sub-par writing. And because I haven't drank in over a month.
My best friend Alex, from Mexico, has been trying to encourage me to write at least one post a day, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'll try, for realz, but I don't want this once-pride-worthy blog to dip below the Mason-Dixon line of what I can stand to have my name attached to.
But worry not: the (Federal) Tax Man has come asking me for $7500 I don't have, so I'm bound to get pissed off soon enough...
Showing posts with label Alexandre Beaudoin-Duquette. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexandre Beaudoin-Duquette. Show all posts
Friday, July 8, 2011
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
And The Survey Says...
The world of market research and I have a long history together... it may have gone - I won't say sour, maybe... stale... but it definitely started off on the right foot.
It was probably 1994, I was 15... a girl called my parents' place, where I was still living at the time, to conduct a survey. I took the bait and spent the next 15 minutes or so on the phone, then proceeded to ask her questions: her name, age, where she worked - and if I could go meet up with her afterwards. She wasn't allowed to answer those questions, but I can be persuasive, and she did. And we did meet up, seeing as she worked at Alexis-Nihon, at the corner of Atwater and Ste-Catherine, a 20-minute walk or 10-minute bus ride from my place.
We went for a drink, exchanged phone numbers and called each other for a week; come Friday, she and a half-dozen of her friends gathered at O'Toole's (now another sports-themed pub) at the corner of St-André and De Maisonneuve. For some reason, later that night, continuing the party at one of her friends' place, more privately, the subject of sex and size arose, and it was determined that she would not be able to handle a package like mine, especially since, and I quote, ''even a couple of fingers'' could bring her pain.
A few more phone calls followed, for maybe a week or two, during which she told me she had heart problems and would be going for surgery, after which time we could meet up again. We never did. She never called me back, and didn't pick up when I did.
Fast-forward to the end of 1999, back from New York, trying to juggle finishing my second CÉGEP degree and going to Concordia for my first film B.A., money was scarce. After trying to lure me for months, my terrific friend Alexandre B-D convinced me to join him into conducting surveys on the phone for a place called Createc +.
The first project I worked on - I shit you not - was for Linda Lingerie and, lo and behold, my very first call was a completed survey, with a woman who, when I asked her for her age (it was part of the questionnaire...) said: ''45 to 54, how about you?'' - I was 19 at that point. She asked where I was calling from - Montréal - and she told me she was a flight attendant (yes, a stewardess) and that she came to my City pretty often, and asked if we could hook up.
So my first two experiences with the 'survey life' were two 'successful' attempts at hooking up; it was a gold mine of pussy waiting to be excavated.
Ten more years of market research, however, has not yielded a single other such case, but at least the freaks who work there are fine, fun people.
It was probably 1994, I was 15... a girl called my parents' place, where I was still living at the time, to conduct a survey. I took the bait and spent the next 15 minutes or so on the phone, then proceeded to ask her questions: her name, age, where she worked - and if I could go meet up with her afterwards. She wasn't allowed to answer those questions, but I can be persuasive, and she did. And we did meet up, seeing as she worked at Alexis-Nihon, at the corner of Atwater and Ste-Catherine, a 20-minute walk or 10-minute bus ride from my place.
We went for a drink, exchanged phone numbers and called each other for a week; come Friday, she and a half-dozen of her friends gathered at O'Toole's (now another sports-themed pub) at the corner of St-André and De Maisonneuve. For some reason, later that night, continuing the party at one of her friends' place, more privately, the subject of sex and size arose, and it was determined that she would not be able to handle a package like mine, especially since, and I quote, ''even a couple of fingers'' could bring her pain.
A few more phone calls followed, for maybe a week or two, during which she told me she had heart problems and would be going for surgery, after which time we could meet up again. We never did. She never called me back, and didn't pick up when I did.
Fast-forward to the end of 1999, back from New York, trying to juggle finishing my second CÉGEP degree and going to Concordia for my first film B.A., money was scarce. After trying to lure me for months, my terrific friend Alexandre B-D convinced me to join him into conducting surveys on the phone for a place called Createc +.
The first project I worked on - I shit you not - was for Linda Lingerie and, lo and behold, my very first call was a completed survey, with a woman who, when I asked her for her age (it was part of the questionnaire...) said: ''45 to 54, how about you?'' - I was 19 at that point. She asked where I was calling from - Montréal - and she told me she was a flight attendant (yes, a stewardess) and that she came to my City pretty often, and asked if we could hook up.
So my first two experiences with the 'survey life' were two 'successful' attempts at hooking up; it was a gold mine of pussy waiting to be excavated.
Ten more years of market research, however, has not yielded a single other such case, but at least the freaks who work there are fine, fun people.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Instant Karma
It sure feels like Scandinavia at this time of year: you can smell the snow begging to drop from the sky, it's dark in mid-afternoon, all sports talk is about winter sports and all arts talk is about dark, depressing art, be it music (heavy stuff like black metal), scary paintings, or black and white pictures.
For a night owl, though, it's an early Christmas.
Kind of makes you wish life were like an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, where you could drink all day, relax all the time, work if you feel like it, and not feel an ounce of remorse in the process.
My life will be undergoing some massive changes in the near future, mostly filled with people disappearing from it - it won't be a first, but this time I may not have close friends to fall back on like I did all the other times. Not that I don't have friends I love and that I think love me back, just that for the past few years, our ways of life have gone in totally different directions and I wouldn't want to impose my presence more than the twice-a-year habit the last half-decade brought us to.
I used to have three big bunches of friends I'd jump from every season or so, so it never got boring and was always new and fresh - plus I could alternate between English- and French-speaking gangs and not lose one in the process. But now...
With the Lady Of The House moving out, and Alternate Lady Of the House having purchased a faraway house with her long-time boyfriend, my immediate circle of friends went from 3 to 0. Add a best friend in Mexico, one with a one-year old - and a serious day job taking care of invalids and night school to better his financial situation - plus one who is perennially busy and has hundreds of other friends to see, and a music scene of hipsters I disagree with more and more on a daily basis - I'm starting to see my future path open up before me: to see other humans, I'll have no choice but to become a regular barfly at the corner Bar Fullum, like the old guys that seem to have their chairs molded after their asses for having been there too often and for too long.
Or maybe I need a car. Or maybe I need to move. And if I need to move... NYC, or the ocean side? A city filled with strong nightlife, or a quiet beach-side place where I can relax and die? Every time I keep pulling out, they keep pulling me in...
For a night owl, though, it's an early Christmas.
Kind of makes you wish life were like an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, where you could drink all day, relax all the time, work if you feel like it, and not feel an ounce of remorse in the process.
My life will be undergoing some massive changes in the near future, mostly filled with people disappearing from it - it won't be a first, but this time I may not have close friends to fall back on like I did all the other times. Not that I don't have friends I love and that I think love me back, just that for the past few years, our ways of life have gone in totally different directions and I wouldn't want to impose my presence more than the twice-a-year habit the last half-decade brought us to.
I used to have three big bunches of friends I'd jump from every season or so, so it never got boring and was always new and fresh - plus I could alternate between English- and French-speaking gangs and not lose one in the process. But now...
With the Lady Of The House moving out, and Alternate Lady Of the House having purchased a faraway house with her long-time boyfriend, my immediate circle of friends went from 3 to 0. Add a best friend in Mexico, one with a one-year old - and a serious day job taking care of invalids and night school to better his financial situation - plus one who is perennially busy and has hundreds of other friends to see, and a music scene of hipsters I disagree with more and more on a daily basis - I'm starting to see my future path open up before me: to see other humans, I'll have no choice but to become a regular barfly at the corner Bar Fullum, like the old guys that seem to have their chairs molded after their asses for having been there too often and for too long.
Or maybe I need a car. Or maybe I need to move. And if I need to move... NYC, or the ocean side? A city filled with strong nightlife, or a quiet beach-side place where I can relax and die? Every time I keep pulling out, they keep pulling me in...
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
News Is Happening In French
I know it seems like I've been neglecting this blog this August - 11 days in and barely three posts.
That's because even if the whole world has given much food for thought and angered me enough to write, and I also have tons of stories to tell, my own local news has given me much to write about, and much of it with the French side of my brain.
So I've been writing about it on my French blog, mostly, as well as on a three-language 'political' blog I share with Alex Beaudoin-Duquette - although it's not really political, more an observation at how absurd the world has become.
As a friend pointed out, it's like as if the real news and The Onion were now undissociable.
I'll likely translate a couple down the line (say... this weekend), but in the meantime, if you understand French and Espanol, look those buggers up.
Oh, and I'm also gearing up and preparing UnPop Montréal, my annual gift back to my city where I provide, for free, tons of artists' shows all around town. Including an all-day outdoors event on St-Laurent street during the street fair. Oh yeah!
That's because even if the whole world has given much food for thought and angered me enough to write, and I also have tons of stories to tell, my own local news has given me much to write about, and much of it with the French side of my brain.
So I've been writing about it on my French blog, mostly, as well as on a three-language 'political' blog I share with Alex Beaudoin-Duquette - although it's not really political, more an observation at how absurd the world has become.
As a friend pointed out, it's like as if the real news and The Onion were now undissociable.
I'll likely translate a couple down the line (say... this weekend), but in the meantime, if you understand French and Espanol, look those buggers up.
Oh, and I'm also gearing up and preparing UnPop Montréal, my annual gift back to my city where I provide, for free, tons of artists' shows all around town. Including an all-day outdoors event on St-Laurent street during the street fair. Oh yeah!
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