Microbrewery Of The Day: Jackalope Brewing Company

I hope I go to Nashville soon, and not just because most girl-singers I know and want to work with will have moved there by year's end. Their music scene is burgeoning, sure, and beyond country music, too, but there are a few start-up businesses that show full of promise, a lot of them in the pub/club game.

One of them is the women-owned Jackalope Brewing Company, operated and managed by seemingly really cool gals Bailey Spaulding and Robyn Virball, seen below:

One of them apparently can't get enough maple syrup, so maybe that'll give them an idea about a future beer... (idea: add a salty flavour to counter-balance it and get really original)!

Boiling Water Alert In Montréal Today

Don’t drink the water – check. Onto Pepsi Max and beer. Thank you, vile, decrepit, decaying , crumbling, corrupt city I love so much!

She Really Likes Her Beer

San Fran-hips-Co Beer Week

Because I had fallen behind on my Maxim, Summum, and Playboy reading, I had no idea February 10th-19th was San Francisco Beer Week!

How thoughtful of them to tack on 3 extra days to factor in hangovers.

Lucky for me, I've been on a steady diet of 10-ish beers per day since early December when my Life turned to shit. Although I've mostly been drinking Tremblays, so my shit has turned into pudding.

They Got It Backwards

A recent American study concludes that people who consume energy drinks have more of a tendency to develop alcoholism.

There I was downing these fucking things so I could continue drinking beer past my bedtime.

I Think I Need A Drink

I dunno, man - I haven't had money in something like three months, been restraining myself in that timespan.

I feel like going out, partying.

Then again, the playoffs start again tomorrow night - Habs versus Flyers - that can be reason to leave the house and celebrate.

It doesn't happen a lot, but I'd kinf of almost want to end up like this:

St. Patrick's Day Drinking... Or How To Spend Your Whole Paycheque On Things That Go Down The Drain

A few years back I had a fine St. Patrick's that I never want to have happen again.

I started it at Opening Time, which for this special, joyous occasion was 9 AM - I decided to forgo watching the parade and instead spend the whole fucking day drinking at a bar, in this case Madhatter's, at the bigger location on Crescent, the third of four incarnations of the bar I've drank in.

We started out being four, well, there were two of us, but lack of space made another two people sit at our table, but soon enough, the three people sharing my space, being the social blabbermouths they were born to be, got the other tables interested in us.

Madhatter's, with a great sense of profiteering, had no specials on beer on the one day that pretty much celebrates the fucking thing - so it was $15 pitchers and $6 Jack Daniels. Lucky for me, ever thinker-ahead-of-times, I'd brought in a 40-ounce of Mr. Daniels' fine drink to re-fill my glass at my own convenience and save dough...

By 11 AM, there were waitresses coming around selling $1 shots of vodka-fueled drinks - Sex On the Beach and Kamikaze... I acquiesced and took two of each, and for the first time of the day, also paid some to my tablemates - at a buck a pop, it would have been wrong not to.

At noon we had our first meal - I ordered a plate of nachos, fully loaded with olives, black peppers, salsa and topped with a bit of mozzarella cheese; food helps keep the booze down, and keeps the booze hound from getting his noose wound - and spitting some juice, brown.

By 2 PM, our new friends were wasted and left, quickly replaced by new drinking buddies. It was around that time that I got up, for the first time, to evacuate a bit of liquid and take some more money out; I'd had at least 5 pitchers at this point, plus perhaps 20 ounces of JD and a dozen shots of the vodka drinks... so up the stairs I went to the men's room, which was already a walk-in puddle of transparent stickiness, and one stall - one of two, the one on the left, first from the door - seemed to be reserved for vomit-emitters and those afflicted by diarrhea. I finished what needed to be done as fast as I could to not have to spend a second longer than I had to, and promptly made my way back downstairs for more beers.

Soon enough, an army of musicians swarmed the place and got the whole populace festive, standing and cheering and yelling; it was a mini-parade inside the bar, so those of us who had missed the actual one outside were treated to a show anyhow. It was all good.

By 5 or 6 PM, it was time for another meal - a hamburger with fries. I realize in retrospect that I should have had the meal that requires the most careful handling first, before things degenerated, but hey, I didn't; not that anything was wrong with the food, both the burger and fries tasted exactly like they usually do there, but it was about that time that I, personally, started to buy the shot-waitress a shot every time she came by, which was becoming increasingly often; I can only imagine that the same thing happened with the rest of the staff, from the bartenders to the cooks. For most humans, alcohol consumption means motor skills and attention to detail start becoming a priority... but as I said, it tasted fine.

I probably went to the washroom after my meal, say by 7 or 8 PM, and it was probably stickier, smellier and more disgusting than before. At this point, it was only my second time (in about 10 hours of drinking), but I'd be going every hour on the hour from then on, and the situation upstairs just got worse. I was tempted to use the ladies' room, but it wasn't much better there, plus there was a line-up. Between 11 PM and 2 AM, I'd just go outside and urinate in the alley to save time and keep my sanity, but later than that, I feared not being let back in - keep in mind, closing time is 3 AM...

In any event, they only kicked us out past 4 AM; they stopped serving us alcohol at 3:30 (well, the shooter girl handed us drinks, many of them free by then, until 4:15), the bar had been empty except for a half-dozen hangers-on for over an hour, and the staff was wanting to go home.

We each grabbed a cab - our table, and the shooter girl and bartenders - and headed our separate ways, sad to leave each other's company but exhausted (and, for some, dead-drunk). The sun was coming up, way in the distance, and with my going East, it looked like I was headed right for it, looking to meet the sunrise head-on.

When I got home, I called my bank to find out the damage done: $750. My whole paycheque I'd just gotten 3 days prior, and a bit more.

I went to bed at 5:30 AM and had to get up at 8 to go to work. I got there at 9:30, barely a half hour late, with a headache, and proceeded to tell my boss the tale of my previous night; he wasn't surprised, but he had trouble believing it.

It was an amazing day and night, but I wouldn't do it again - I couldn't even afford to, anyhow. It's the last time I ''celebrated'' St. Patrick's Day.

Nightwood, Sandman Viper Command And Green Go At Green Room

Sunday, March 7th, 2010.

Warm enough to wear a cap instead of a tuque, but chilly enough to catch a cold if you forget to protect your neck. The perfect weather to be invited to see a live show and drink 12 Mooseheads while there.

Three bands, two I've heard of, including one that I fucking love and have seen live four times already. All three are launching their records that night, so that's a special evening in and of itself.

First up, Sandman Viper Command, releasing Everybody See This. Energetic, sarcastic, these cats are almost too-cool-for-school, though, at times reminiscent of Fall Out Boy, but maybe less playful. Their best songs are when they drop the chords and go riff-a-riffic, like Oh yeah, It's Fusion and Midwest Moses, in my opinion, as it's where they stop sounding like other acts and have a more distinct personality. The Metal I've Spent might also make it onto my Eternal Playlist.

I'll skip the middle-man for now and head straight to what was expected to be the meat of the evening: Green Go (say it fast five times, you'll realize it actually stands for ''gringo''). It's hard to evaluate their performance, seeing as their do-it-all member Ferenc 'Fez' Stenton couldn't make this part of the tour due to illness and was hastily replaced by Rouge's Kelly McMichael (check out their song Sex Money Revolution for an accurate sample) who learned the songs on the drive to Montréal. However, from what I did witness, I prefer hearing their music from a CD rather than live and through the sound system of a rock venue like Green Room, which is ironic considering their brand of dance-electronica-rock is made to rally crowds into chant-friendly choruses and jumping like it's the end of time. But the songs themselves, especially on record, are quite catchy. Cash Money Gremlins, particularly, had me knowing the chorus by the second time it came around, and was so lively it lead me to 'freestyle' another song onto it by the break, a hit from a few years back:

Sweat, baby, sweat, baby - Sex is a Texas drought
Me and you do the kind of stuff that only Prince would sing about
So put your hands down my pants and I'll bet you'll feel nuts
Yes I'm Siskel, yes I'm Ebert and you're getting two thumbs up
(...)
You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals
So let's do it like they do on the Discovery channel

That's right, it took me back to the Bloodhound Gang, although they are nothing like them apart from groovy. All in all, their songs are good, like as if Think About Life had balls or if The Killers had a vision - but the show didn't live up to their record. And they had to follow a hard act...

Which brings me to the pièce de résistance... Nightwood.

I'm not sure where to even begin with Nightwood...

I guess you should start with the record. Buy the vinyl, it comes with an mp3 download, and it is what it is. The artwork by Rick Leong shows big-ass waves on the front and depicts the bottom of the ocean on the back. That's it. So you can't help but just listen to the songs and make your own mind up about how you feel about them, through your own personal tastes.

If you don't heed my advice and opt, instead, to go see them live as your first contact with the band, you'll notice two girls with guitars, both singing, and a drummer with the most basic drum kit you've seen in a long while - don't be fooled: he is merely (and merrily) not pretentious, but he can (and will) bash with the best of them. His playing style is all about emotion, like he feels every single beat he plays, at times subued, other times just plain wild. He is at once Keith Moon, Dave Grohl and the Dresden Dolls' Brian Viglione. He is, quite simply, Jeremy MacCuish, drummer extraordinaire and the sexiest man in the bar that night.

On guitars and vocals, upon first eyeing the dual attack of Amber Goodwin and Erin Ross, your brain will immediately conjure up thoughts of Veruca Salt and/or Heart (even Green Go mentioned it) - don't. Stop that shit right away. Do NOT try to compare them to a major-label act you know - they're not it.

What they are is a tsunami of rock. As a matter of fact, many of their song are like waves, starting off slow and soft, and building into a roaring climax of screaming proportions, like Pearl Jam's Given To Fly or my own Let's Last Dance (sorry, couldn't find a better version).

You could tell early on that this crowd wasn't there for Nightwood, but the sheer energy their songs build up to got every one who left (say, to smoke outside or in the washroom) to come back in a haste and catch the wave, and get swept up by it.

Individually, there were definitely stand-out tracks: Skeleton Crew rocked the house HARD, Johnny was magnificent, Sunken Mountains was a terrific power-ballad that deserved a louder volume. And the very last song they played, I'm not sure what it's called (just because I've seen them before doesn't mean I'm familiar with all the new songs!), but featured some guitar heroics by Amber Goodwin and she two-handed finger-tapped directly onto her guitar's neck, Van Halen-style, just, you know, not cheesily.

Seriously, with a manic octopus on drums and two powerful angelic voices (the type of angel who can also slit your throat) playing wholly original build-up rock music, this is an act to witness many times.

And if you're not going to go for the right reasons - i.e. the quality of the songs - then at least go for the totally wrong reasons: Jeremy MacCuish could make your dead great-grandmother moist, Amber Goodwin looks like she was the model for the perfect doll your sister had as a kid, and Erin Ross is - by far - the hottest human ever to rock a Flying V/Kiss-inspired guitar, and just may be the sexiest person in rock, period.

Thanks to Meet You At The Show for holding this and inviting me to it, you can read their own review here, with even more pictures. Thanks to Nightwood for signing my record, as you can see here.

My Local Dive Burnt Down... And My Whole Fucking Hood Is Going Bat-Shit Crazy

What. The. Fuck. Eh?

It started a few weeks ago with some dude getting beat up right on my fucking doorstep. Like, seriously, pounded on the sidewalk, at 3:30 AM, parts of him touching my front porch. It pissed me off, but I had to intervene.

It seems the whole neighbourhood is on the brink of tremendous violence, in a fit of rage I can't even begin to comprehend.

Hours ago, in the middle of the night, my local neighbourhood dive bar, Bar Fullum, a place I was happy to frequent one a week because it was at the corner of my street and was now equipped with huge HD screens for me to watch hockey games and incite me to leave home during the cold, dead winter months, albeit not by straying too far - well, it burned down. 5:30 AM. It's gone, along with the two apartments that were on top of it. The newspapers say it wasn't criminal, but those who worked there aren't convinced.

And just a few minutes ago, as I went to the grocery, I saw a couple fighting violently on the street - screaming at each other and she hitting him - and what looked like two gangs engaging in a beef, two groups of maybe a dozen late teens/young adults each, engaging in fights, then forming a circle as two combatants got into it - right in the middle of a McDonald's parking lot.

It feels like one of those zombie/disease/violent rage movies, when shit's about to break loose. I'm here with two baseball bats, protecting my two cats and possessions, waiting for it to actually start so I can get working on upgrading my weapons, one at a time, so I can survive those fuckers.

I'm not crazy, I know it's not likely to happen. But if it does, I'll be the one asshole who is prepared: good music, enough brains to not follow everybody's path, a habit of not sleeping much and a bad attitude.

I Had A Dream... A Fucked Up Dream...

I woke up with a weird feeling this morning, my dream was messed up.

I was living in a huge second-storey apartment in a four-storey building, lots of people were coming-and-going, regulars from my life, my mom, the Lady Of The House, a few friends...

For some reason, I don't think my particular apartment had an entry door.

Walking down the stairs to the sidewalk, I came across my upstairs neighbours (folks that don't exist in my actual life), barely dressed, wearing only skimpy black leather outfits, but too small to be S&M, maybe borderline fetishistic if anything - and they were going to my downstairs neighbours'. They asked if I was going too, and I replied something along the lines of ''not this time''. In fact, I wasn't aware that anything was going on there, and my curiosity was awoken. Now I wanted to know exactly what was going on there...

So I tried peeking in from their living room window, which had a view on the huge lawn. It also showed me an outside view of my building, a luxurious modern castle-like construction made from dark brown bricks. And every time I was close to seeing something, I was either caught by someone inside, or interrupted by a passer-by who thought I was a thief - not to mention by my 'people', who wanted me to come back home and 'fulfill my obligations', even though in my dream it was never clear just what those obligations were.

So it turns out to be an orgy downstairs, and I'm not the biggest fan of that type of congregation, so I decide against asking in and head on home, only to find that my ''baby girl'' needs me - that's right, I have a daughter. The longer the dream lasts, the less clear it is how it is that I became a father (I'm nowhere close to this in real life) - but I am, and I have to make do.

Unfortunately, I have an appointment with some sort of lawyer/notary/suit-and-tie dude downtown, and am already late for it (now that, I can relate to!), so I have to find a way to carry the baby and head there... I can't find anything better than an empty 12-pack of imported beer (the type that once open has plenty of holes of the sides), so that's her ride.

We get to the building, and it's this massive all-glass structure in the middle of a highway, on top of another highway, and the main lobby door also serves as the elevator going upwards, and it's barely one-person deep and three-people wide - again, all glass, all see-through. In my dream, I was scared shitless looking down, if this were to happen in real life, I'd probably refuse to go up at all - which, incidentally, is what the kid was thinking. She was crying and screaming loudly, trying to escape her box... when I was awoken by my cat meowing at me for breakfast.

I wonder what would have happened had I gone in the elevator, and what the meeting was about.

Freaky thing...

Chasing The Dragon

This one is a weird one; even today, bits of that evening come to me in bizarre flashbacks that barely make any sense until I tack them on to whatever hazy memory I have and somehow the events are reconstructed a little bit more.

There was a particular night this summer, I must have played a show and then we'd gone to party at the bar near my house afterwards, it's pretty much the only way I can account for my friend, The Big E, to have been there.

The details of what went on before things started fucking up are still hazy today; it could have been a night where the Lady Of The House and My Dad had been there where an old woman came on to me a bit hard, grinding against my leg while I was just sitting calmly and talking with the folks at my table, then proceeding to give me a full-on ''I Touch Myself''-style show on a chair she'd pulled next to me and acting like a stripper (but keeping her clothes on, at least). Eventually, though, she was tossed out of the place, and chances are she ended up fucking some panhandler in an alleyway somewhere.

Then again, it may have been a totally different night. Oddly enough, I mostly remember the details of what happened after we'd all had, perhaps, a little too much to drink. There was this drunk nerdy girl, the type you see in movies - kind of cute but that you're pretty sure that is she took her glasses off she'd perhaps be hot, or maybe she'd be the type to get gang-banged by a boatload of sailors, you never know - anyhow, she was playing pool, for all we knew, but at some point when that ended, she came to sit at our table. By then, The Big E and I were the only ones left.

Beers followed glasses of Jack Daniel's, then beer made a comeback. The girl was visibly way too fucking drunk - and so was E. E doesn't require much - usually a single shot of vodka will help derail his whole night - and, even though he stayed on beer all evening (he dislikes JD), he was way past his point of tolerance. Myself, I was in my comfort zone. Closing time - 3 AM - was rearing its ugly head, and I was just getting started.

Last call came and I ordered us a massive round - two beers each, and a quad-JD (four ounces) more for me. They let us finish our drinks before closing the place down, but apparently my partying mood was contagious. Many of the other customers decided it'd be wise to continue ingesting booze in the alley behind the bar; I went home (not even a block away) to grab a 40-ouncer of JD, that I planned to share with Big E.

When I got back, E and the girl were standing outside the bar's locked door, in full view of any and every passer-by, facing each other, forehead-against-forehead. I wouldn't have a problem with it, despite the girl saying she had a boyfriend for most of the time we were inside - he's no concern of mine - except E's Lady is possibly the closest friend I've had this past year, and I won't let him fuck their relationship up for a drunken tart in a shit-hole local bar - at least have it be something meaningful, for fuck's sake. So, when I'm near enough for them to hear me, I say ''am I interrupting anything?''

- No, E answers, you got here just in time.
- Good, I reply, now let's move out back.

They both get out from in front of the door and start walking ahead of me when I notice she's got the worst Plumber's Crack in the history of mankind - pretty much her whole ass is showing. All I could think was to use my best Denis Leary impression and say ''Pull up your fucking pants!'' while pulling them up; I didn't expect her to be so light, so I lifted her two feet in the air in the process. I can still make 'em fly, I guess.

When we got to the alley, sitting relatively comfortably, the girl doing her best to stick to E like glue, everybody there kept telling him to throw her away. We were all drinking, having a good time, when weed started making the rounds; that killed E and pretty much got him to fall asleep right then and there. I had to convince two girls to escort him home - one who had fake teeth, and her friend. I'll get back to the fake-toothed girl in a later post, she's so worth her own chapter, but we got E the hell out of there while his magnetized date-for-the-evening went to throw up. We got her in a cab before she realized what was happening.

Eventually, as more people left, the more obscure - or at least less public - habits and consumptions came to arrive. A girl we've come to nickname Duncan, coming off giving birth to her first child, and her boyfriend, Scary Bald Punk Dude, started doing lines of coke; that's not my scene at all, though, so I politely refused and kept drinking my Jack.

It wasn't long before more weed made the rounds, and for Duncan to offer me a ''special blend'' she'd just bought, in a pipe (I hate fucking pipes). I didn't take much, because it didn't seem right: no smell, no taste, no real buzz. It didn't feel like anything at all, yet I recognized the feeling - I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Suddenly I felt warm inside, like a fever taking over, but putting my hand to my forehead, I didn't feel a change in temperature; I just went back to my bottle, and to the conversation. By then the sun was coming up, and we all went our separate ways. I got home and was relaxed - but I couldn't sleep. And as my brain was trying to figure out why, my heart was pumping because I couldn't come up with an answer; I can usually control my main body functions to an extent that scares people, and when I lose that control, everything fucks up and a feeling of unease, of extreme nausea takes over. It took me a half-hour to get back to normal, and enough energy to do so that I was extenuated and went to sleep. Finally.

The next day was even more bizarre. I wasn't really hung over - that, in itself, wasn't entirely out of the ordinary, because I can take alcohol, but I had ingested copious amounts and was at least expecting a migraine - but I couldn't find the energy to move, either. Lying on my couch, watching TV, when a position had become uncomfortable, I had trouble mustering the strength to just shift over a little. And - another rare occurrence in my case - there were blanks in my recollections.

I remembered E wanting to keep our whereabouts secret, but I recalled having even better arguments in demonstrating that it'd just be easier to ready to disclose most of the night and, perhaps, just leave certain elements out of the retrospection - say, a certain lady whose forehead was glued to his and whose ass was taking in the Montréal air when I got there.

It took me hours to remember I'd smoked up, and a while longer to remember the ''special blend''. I was pissed off at myself for having forgotten, and at having agreed to it in the first place. Then I started wondering just what the hell it was; it couldn't have been pot, that's a given. Pot and coke - or pot and crack? It seemed unlikely, there was no ''uplifting'' effect to it, no heightened senses, no added strength, if anything, it was the opposite. And knowing how I have an ''addictive'' personality (weak self-control when it comes to consuming, whether it be simple stuff like goods or food, or others), I do my best to steer clear of hard drugs because I know I'm the type who wouldn't keep it recreational.

It took a few months during which I'd have occasional flashbacks of second-long moments from that night (yet another unusual occurrence) before I'd remember what that familiar feeling had been; it came to me in the most awkward way, too, reading Slash's autobiography... I'll have a complete post about it later, but when I was a teen, I was prescribed Oxycontin to re-balance my system after having been sick all Winter (something like 6 or 7 tonsillitis's in a row combined with a lack of sleep when Spring came)... and Oxycontin is nothing other than a semi-synthetic form of heroin.

Suddenly, it all made sense: the ''lack'' of effect, of smell, of taste... they weren't what I expected, so I didn't see it coming. The feeling from the next day was explained too: I couldn't get myself to do anything, but my brain was feeling fine, it's just my body that couldn't follow.

I still get flashbacks at times that help make the general picture of that evening clearer, pieces of the puzzle that help piece it back together. And, each time, I'm reminded to not take just anything from people I barely know, and, considering the way I am, to stay the fuck away from that substance because the next time could be the last time I enter a situation with my mind intact.

Daniel Johnston Live: A Nice Dose Of Humanity

I attended the Daniel Johnston concert at the Ukrainian Federation, basically a church, this weekend (Friday, October 16th, 2009, to be exact).

I did everything to see this show: I applied to be the opening act (and was declined because he didn't require a local opener, seeing as he's touring with his own openers who also work as his backing band for the second half of his set); then I purchased tickets - which I ended up giving away when, finally, I was hired to work security for the show.

They didn't know where to park me for this, though: they started by putting me out front to make sure the doors to the place were shut at all times, and to keep the conversation levels low for the people outside, so they don't disturb the neighbours of this residential area, who aren't used to having concerts be held at their local church.

But an acoustic/semi-rock show held in a church isn't the place where you require security in front of the stage to prevent moshing, body-surfing or injuries...

Eventually (and to my satisfaction), I was put in front of the backstage area, and my job was to make sure no one who shouldn't be allowed in to wander there. A really easy task that kept me in contact with everyone who was performing that night, from openers The Capitol Years to Mr. Johnston himself.

As a member of the staff, I was allowed free beer - and the show was co-organized my my 'arch-enemies' Pop Montreal, so - while I did remain in total control - I wasn't going to shy out on the free beverages. I likely ended up having a dozen Griffons - quality local microbrew.

Saving $80 on beer, though, I did spend cash on merchandise; I bought a vinyl from the opener, and a Daniel Johnston double-CD (one record a compilation of his songs, the second one the same songs, but by current idie musicians like the Flaming Lips, Beck and Eels), aDVD of The Devil And Daniel Johnston (a superb documentary), and was given a recyclable hand-made knit bag to stuff everything in it.

I really wanted Mr. Johnston's autograph, and two fellow fans wanted to have his picture taken with him after the show. But Johnston was just walking around everywhere, avoiding eye contact with anyone, turning around as soon as anyone would open their mouths in his direction. Like a shy child, you could say. Which, you know, fits with the character we've come to love from the documentary.

I ended up asking a member of his entourage, who said it'd be easier if we got a girl to pose with us, because he ''loves the ladies'' (can't blame him, really!), so I did manage to find one, a very friendly Pop Montreal volunteer from Brazil, but it took so long to get the star close enough for a picture that she'd left by then. But we got it made anyhow, it's the one right below, and you can see how thrilled he was... (hint: he's the one who is not looking at the camera...)



As soon as the flash came on, he was ready to just up and leave - he made a 180-degree turn and was just going to walk into the wall right behind us when I asked him if he could sign my CD. He was gracious enough to say yes, grabbing a marker from the table right next to us, signing the inside jacket of the double-digipak I mentioned earlier, then proceeded to hand me the marker back as if it was mine.

- Uh, no, sir that's yours.
- Oh, it's mine?
- Yes.
- Huh.

Then he put it back on the table and left the scene quickly.

You probably can't tell from looking at the picture of seeing him in person, but that man is quick on his feet - I'm talking Olympian Speed Walker-type speed.

What a night. It was good, it was weird, it was short and definitely sweet. Everything I expected it to be, and I got souvenirs- and saw it for free from a terrific angle.

The Doctor Next Door

There's a world-renowned (well, city-renowned, but if he keeps at it, I'm sure the world will follow) pill-pusher with a PHD (one of those that pass as a 'doctor', officially, but probably hasn't provided anyone with useful information in decades) that runs his operation a block away from my place, and I was in dire need of asthma medication for my upcoming weekend getaway up North, and I didn't feel like going to a hospital just for a prescription, so I went...

I'm used to hearing about ''people waiting for hours in line to get to see a doctor'', especially now that Barack Obama wants to provide his citizens with decent health care and opponents mention the ''Canadian plan as being such a failure'' in that field, so I decided to get there half an hour before it opens, just so I'm among the first thousand in line. Turns out I'm alone, and the door is locked. So far, it seems normal enough.

The clinic is situated on the second floor of an apartment building that stands above a pharmacy - a drug store. Its main door shares the floor with 4 others - at this point I'm guessing they're housing, not commerces. I guess right, because from one door comes the secretary to unlock the clinic and lead me in.

Looking at my MediCare card, she asks if I've ever been to the clinic before. ''Yes, a few times'', I answer.

- And the last time?
- I don't know, 3, maybe 4 years.
- More 3, or more, 4, because we don't store those files in the same place.
- I don't know, maybe 4.

She's looking nervous, as more people start entering the premises. ''Could it be 5 years?''

- Well, yeah, I guess it could be five years. All I know is the last time I came in was the last time I felt ill enough to warrant a visit to a doctor, but also healthy enough to be able to make the walk here. When my back broke down on me, for example, I couldn't even walk to the washroom, let alone come all the way here...

''Well'', she replies, ''when patients don't come for 5 years or more, we send their files out to storing and have to create new ones''. While I'm thinking this isn't the most efficient way to deal with things, I try to telepathically tell her that, really, writing my name, address and phone number on a piece of loose leaf paper isn't all that much more work than asking me if I still live at the same place - which she would have done anyway. The Twilight Zone had now officially been entered.

I'll spare you the extra small talk and skip right to the meeting with the doctor, 5 minutes later...

- So you're a new patient here? Your file is blank...
- No, actually, I was last here 5 years ago when you diagnosed me with asthma, which is sort of the reason why I'm here today, but your staff throw files away after that long because they don't like healthy people...
- Ah, yes, that policy to save paper room...
- Yes, instead of storing everything on hard drives and modern technology and saving both paper and storage room...
- So why are you here?
- Well, doctor, I'm going on a weekend retreat and didn't want to take any chances, I figured I should bring meds in case I have an attack.
- Wise, indeed. Why don't you sit here (leads me to a table). Breathe deeply.

There I am, sitting on the chair with the paper on it, thinking ''oh my God, I may have been wrong, this guy is about to do his job''... when he stops and says ''ok, so what meds do you want?''

Didn't even check my ears, didn't ask me to say ''ahhh'', didn't take my blood pressure, didn't hit my fucking knee with a tiny hammer, nothing.

I was so shocked that I sat back on his chair, wanting more. So I said the first thing that came to mind: ''uh, doc... there's something else... my, uh, erections... they're not as hard as they used to be...''

He looks at me like he knows I just want to have a blast all weekend long and asks ''do you drink a lot?, do you get nervous, or anxious''

- Well, I drink, yeah, as a musician, there's free beer whenever I play...
- How many per night?
- It's not every night per se, but maybe 12 to 15 beers a week?
- And do you get nervous?
- Only when I'm about to get it on and it isn't as long and hard as it used to be, doesn't reach my knee anymore or anything, although my balls do, now...
- Tell you what, you go have your relaxing weekend, try to have sex without drinking beforehand and come back next week and tell me all about it. If you still can't get as hard as before, we'll run tests and we'll see...''

At least he'll run tests. Probably cup my balls and ask me to breathe deeply or something, but it's a start, just not the start I'm looking forward to. I'll just forget about it.

I'm Calling It: Summer's Here

It's 5:30AM, the sun is shining bright.

The evening's been a good and festive one, what with a dance show and a night out in a club afterwards. The night ended at my friend's pad, who lives a block away from my place, and it turns out I had some leftover beer in his fridge. You know, when everything seems to be going your way...

It's just a block's walk, but a million things run through my head: love, life... but none more than ''life is good''. A half-drank six pack of Sleeman beers in one hand, a lukewarm slice of pizza in the other (La Mère's special, too, with green peppers, pepperoni, smoked meat and bacon underneath thick layers of cheese), more cars than humans out on a bright Sunday morning...

It felt right.

So what if it was below 10 degrees (52, for our metrically-impaired friends in the Imperial System), the situation itself made it summery. Walking in short sleeves, drunkenly, in the wee hours of the morning, after a great night out, carrying food and alcoholized beverages with no regard whatsoever for The Law, taking my time, not freezing to death... all that was missing was the ocean. And I'll agree even more in a few minutes when I stick my fat self right next to the Lady of The House in the holiest of beds - mine.

Ain't asking for much, but ain't need for much more.

Summer's here. It's finally good to be alive again.

Beer And Unloading In Varadero, Cuba (or How I Learned To Start Running And Drop A Liquid Bomb)

It was an awful hour of the morning in Varadero, say 6AM, with no sleep and sun sneaking through the lead-like blinds.

Nothing else to do but start a new day anyway. Two glasses of orange juice and bacon, then time for rum and coke and the ocean.

Your body does weird things when you don't sleep. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't lived - and you might want to try it before you keep reading. The metabolism goes much faster. I'm already on a 2-shit-a-day diet here, but sleepless it can go up to 5, I'm sure.

And the beach is far enough from the room, 5 minutes sober, maybe 15 otherwise - it's gonna be a bitch trying to keep this pudding from pouring down my leg.

I grab a book for when I get there, a strawberry-vodka for the road - and start walking. For subtlety's sake, I smile at passers-by. The 25 stairs between the ground level and the rooms are like a dream, over in a half second. The yardage to the door is me at the Super Bowl, going for a touchdown with no one in front of me. The easiest 6 points of my career. The key's in the lock socket before my hand is even out of my pocket. The door opens and I'm but one jump from my destination. I get naked 'cause I know what's coming next. As soon as my knees bend, the shit hits the fan. Best two minutes of my life.

Wipe off, get up. I need another goddamn drink.

Back From Vacation

1 week in Cuba. Best week of my year, despite catching a nasty cold on the very last day.

And how the heck do you catch a cold in 34 degrees Celcius (100 Fahrenheit)?

But that's a question that shall remain unanswered because, quite frankly... who cares?

It was nice to get a break from the Elections, both Canadian and American.

I wrote things out there though. They'll make it here soon enough.

What It Feels Like To Drink Stella Artois

Since my last trip to NYC a couple of years ago, where it was very hard to drink decent beer and I had tons of overexpensive Stella Artois instead, it's been my default beer of choice.

Even when I came back to Montréal, I'd start preferring it to Heineken and Kilkenny and Molson Ex at the dep (convenience store to the international crowd).

And today, completing an online survey, I was asked to describe the very first time I had it. Well: the fuck if I know. I can't remember. So here's my answer:

it must have been summer, on a terrace with many plants and smallish trees, surrounded by dozens of nubile young women who served me melted Toblerone chocolate; it was decadent and superb, worthy of remembrance and a day whose grace I strive to attain/maintain ever since

There's a 50-50 chance that it isn't exactly the way I claim to remember it, but now that I crave a bottle, I'm pretty sure that's how it would taste to me. Good thing I have Toblerone at home, and deps aren't closed yet.