If you had to pick a Saint, who would yours be?

This might be an interesting drinking topic at tomorrow's YULblog meeting.

Mine would be Maximón: not so much as a benevolent deity as a bit of a bully whom it's wise to keep on the right side of. His expensive tastes in alcohol and cigarettes indicate that he is a very human character, very different from the ascetic ideals of Christian sainthood. Devotees believe that prayers for revenge, or success at the expense of others, are not unlikely to be granted by Maximón.


Maximón and attendants, Santiago Atitlán

How about you?

Tommy Douglas crowned 'Greatest Canadian'

I'm sooo happy that Tommy Douglas won this honour, and that Wayne Gretzky placed tenth (otherwise known as last).

Parking isn't an activity anymore.

It's a dance club down on Amherst just below St. Catherine. Two floors- remnants of decor from K.O.X.- full man-on-man action on Friday and Saturday nights.

But on Thursday and Sunday evenings us house heads take over the place and get ready for and/or wind down the weekend there. And with $2.50 drinks it's a wonder more people don't check it out. Oh- wait- it's usually capacity on Thursdays, so don't come tonight unless you come early, like before 11.

I'm gonna take my disposable camera tonight- so look for photos next month.

Special K - a photoset on Flickr

Everything you wanted to know about K- narrated by Cookie Monster. Follow the title link above. Mouse over the photos to see the text :)



Night all!

So...

-just how much crap can I load into the sidebar before the blog takes 15 minutes to load? Hmmmm...
Please do use the chatterbox, though- it's a better way to get in touch with me than MSN.

Pat Boogie just called me

To remind me that he will be laying down the funkiest of beats at Salon Daome tomorrow night along with MightyKat! Come on by around 11 PM!

Crunkfest 2004

Winner of the Crunfest 2004 pre-Thanksgiving Day edition- me- for leaving my shoes at Blizzarts on Friday night.

Next weekend- random undergartments.

Thanks to Bopuc for noticing them and giving them a home for the weekend.

The True American Middle East Travel Guide

And I was under the mistaken impression there was no humour to be found in the current bloodshed of the Iraqi Occupation. Silly Me!

The Tour of the Neighbourhood

Marie-Anna:"What's that."

Me:"The convent- I take it as a personal challenge."

Live in Your World. Play in Mine.

Steph is a 23 year old displaced Bostonian who works for a magazine/newspaper (she's a bit vague here) who seems to spend a lot of time partying...


Steph (left) and her friend Becky

"You know you are at the best party you can be at when Paris Hilton casually strolls by. Being that her job (other than making home videos) is to party, if she's there, the party rocks.

She was at Sky Bar with Becky and I last night."
And that's why I added her to my blog listing :) Fun fun fun!

http://stephandlola.blogspot.com/

Wednesday- the weekend starts

Being successfully unemployed has it's upside- your weekend can begin as early as Tuesday night at Salon Daome.
This week, though, I'm taking it easy and the reason is all the wicked music happening tonight and tomorrow!
Way out West at the Mile End Bar


Bob Sinclair from France is spinning at Club 1234 (which I've never been to!)


Thursday see Brett Johnson(Dallas) at Unity II- no cover before 11 PM and $2.75 drinks!
Do NOT go to Circus to see Loco Fern- sleep- because Friday is TOO MUCH:
DJ Maus is at Silver, then off to Nexxt for XL and Big Al- and my buddy DJ Dav is playing somewhere, too (where?? hmmm- post later)

See why I don't post so much some weeks?

And people still wonder what's wrong with society?

Much like the subservient chicken we now have access to a subservient waitress/bartender.

I'm sure everyone who works in the food and beverage industry is just thrilled about this!

The WWW is a virgin.

I just ran an Alta Vista search for a phrase I used in an earlier post- the phrase "biker pills"
... won't get thrown out of them as usual for trying to slip "i love nick The wannabe biker" pills into the girls' drinks ...
www.mrcranky.com/movies/bandits/6/43.html
You'd think that there would be more hits...

Well, next week, there'll be 2 more :)

Stuff I don't know about blogging.

On my list of top referring sites (which ain't many--- freaking POST me God Dammit if u like it!!!) is this:
No Session, Redirecting... which means nothing to me--- I don't even know what that means!

God- I wish I had earned my nerds wings back in 1979 with that Commodore 64 my folks bought me...

Oh yeah- about Lawler

Those of you who don't get out from behind your keyboards enough might wanna see what it's all about:






Photos courtesy of the edmm.ca website (Electronic Dance Music Montreal)





--but- it's not all drinks and high, perky breast implants- my review:

I can't figure out how he could mismatch his beats so much since he was mainly using cd's

But it was a good night for dancing- tad expensive and a bit crowded (I figured it out- the hip-hop floor at Juice is like training camp for bars like this!)

Too bad a swank place like that doesn't have a no-hats rule. And what's with jeans being acceptable men's fashion in a place where you spend $100 plus on dinner?

Good sound system, though- and excellent staff. I'm of two minds about the place. I met some really nice peeps there and some of the regular afterhours scenesters.

All in all- here's the damage= entry= free (our names weren't on the list, but my quick thinking date got in as "Judy", I got in with my smokin' blazer and general dashing good looks)
drinks= $80 including tip (6 vodka Red Bulls at $10 each, 4 Heinekens at $8 u get the picture)
food= you've got to be kidding me

So- we got to see a world class DJ play in front of a crowd too concerned with checking each other out to listen to the music for a mere $40 each, in a very swish resto to boot. Not the worst use my funds have ever been used for.

And then we'd hire someone else to finish it...

like Toby or Sam from the West Wing- good, compassionate Democrats.

My friend Chris used to think I should run for public office. People with IQ's in the 140's shouldn't be spending their Friday nights listening to loud music with rake thin girls on coke with biker pills in their pockets, now should they?

Or would this just be the modern day equivalent of Trudeau's hash smoking youth? Hmmmm...

In Honour And Grateful Memory of our Glorious Dead

I'm back dating this to Nov.11 for obvious reasons. I never got out on Remembrance Day to observe this year, mainly because I don't know where the Cenotaph is in Montreal. I thought it was the statue in Jeane Mance park but that turns out to be dedicated to Sir George Etienne Cartier.
The one in Saint John is a totally moving piece of work...

It's more impressive at night- for scale purposes it is almost two stories tall. I hope it was misting and a bit foggy last Thursday.

Nightmare in America Pt.3 (Iraq)

The truth about Iraq is that we have helped perpetuate repressive regimes like Iraq for too long. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait; at one time or another American governments and our "agencies" have helped put in place or propagated these thinly veiled dictatorships in the Middle East and elsewhere. Our trade in oil for international support has empowered and emboldened these regimes to become more authoritarian, giving them the funds, arms, and political clout to do as they choose in their backyard whilst the rest of the world is mollified.

No more. Iraq was our chance to make amends to the people of Iraq for our role in Saddam's decades of dictatorial excess.

But we did lie to the American people---yes- I voted for the war in Iraq based on the intelligence reports coming out of the White House. Yes, I stand firmly behind our troops who are there. But those lies are now responsible for this mission becoming an occupation rather than a liberation.

When President Bush lied to the American people about why we were invading Iraq, when President Bush lied to the UN, to the Security Council- to the whole world- he was also lying to the very people we hoped to liberate; the Iraqi people.

And it is that lie that is killing American troops in Iraq. Because President Bush could not stand and admit the past failures of American foreign policy before the whole world. Instead he had his West Wing intelligence advisors cook reports taken from exiled Iraqi politicians and public relations firms representing the former royal family; gave it to Collin Powell for a veneer of respectability; and then went about hawking it is a legitimate reason for a preemptive invasion.

My fellow Americans- I would have figured out a way to tell you and the Iraqi people we're sorry for the past 4 decades. We're coming over there with a UN Security Council approved force and giving you a chance to run your lives the way you want. And then we'll be gone.

Oh--before I forget- Bush's assertion that I flip-flopped on the Iraq war because I wouldn't vote to approve an $86 Billion pay raise/ funding for body armor bill- thus I do not support the troops- is utter gibberish. That bill only gave a pay raise to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan- and included a pay decrease to the rest of our troops. So who really supports the troops, and which candidate is grandstanding on the backs of the boys in harm's way?

Cynical? Manipulative? Partisan to the point of propaganda? I'm proud myself and Mr. Edwards voted against that bill. I'm sorry it passed.

Nightmare in America Pt.2 (9/11)

"How did our country change?"- I hate to say it but I decided to run after 9/11. Not right after it- but once I started to see how it was affecting our government, our media- our whole culture. We were afraid; all of us were- nothing like this had ever happened to us. None of us had ever fathomed in our worst nightmares that someone hated us enough to hurl an airliner into our office tower. None of us could have- we would have been incapable of functioning in any normal way.

President Bush appealed to us- to all Americans- to get back to our normal lives as quickly as possible. We tried, and managed to get back to work, to shop, to sit in our living rooms and watch television. To drive our kids to the football game. By reclaiming our blissful lives we hoped to prevent the terrorists from winning; from changing the way we live our lives. We continued as best we could while 280 million Americans choked back their tears and tried to pay tribute to our fallen in their most personal ways.

We in your government thought that we could help protect America and prosecute a "Global War on Terrorism" without adversely affecting the face of our nation. As the weeks turned into months, I saw that the more we tried, the further away we were getting from our pre-9/11 ideals about what America was. It was no longer "Morning in America"- we were quickly approaching midnight and the night we had entered appeared to have no end.

A lot of this campaign has focused on this fight on terrorism; about who is best capable to safeguard America and find those responsible. And a lot of the criticism that is leveled against me is based on hypothetical questions about what I would have done differently. Here's a short list:

• I would not have allied with Pakistan before invading Afghanistan in search of Osama bin Laden. The Pakistani spy agency was one of the original backers and organizers of the Taliban- and doubtlessly their operatives confounded our attempts to arrest the Taliban and al-Qaida
• I would not have created a new Intelligence wing within the White House to compile and review CIA and NSA information to lead us into a war in Iraq on politicized intelligence.
• I would have allowed the UN Security Council carry out the weapons inspections.

Would I have invaded Iraq and captured Saddam Hussein? Yes. Even without the weapons of mass-destruction. Even without the missing link between Iraq and al-Qaida. Even though they had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11.

I wouldn't have lied to the American people about why we invaded Iraq. I think America can handle the truth.

Nightmare in America Pt.1 (Democracy)

I'm not surprised by the outcome at all. John Kerry never dealt with the Republican attacks against him well and never articulated how he would change the country.

I would have written him a speech something like this- right after the swift-boat disaster:

A lot of people get cynical around election time in this country. The voters; the press; the campaign workers; sometimes even the candidates really don't believe a thing they are saying. They sometimes don't really think that telling the truth means anything; that they can say what they think will get them elected. That's the most frightening and dangerous thing challenging our democracy these days- not terrorists, North Korea, or hanging chads; it's cynicism.

I have not been immune to this- my staff is infected with a sense of partisan righteousness that is bordering on a zealotry. I find myself approving their attack ads at 4 AM on a plane crossing the Dakotas. I catch myself spouting their sound bites in overheated news studios in Florida. I see myself on the evening news when I'm lying alone in my hotel room in Dayton- roll over to talk to my wife (and she is not there) and know in my heart that I have not told you, the American voters, why-

[*chokes*]

-really why I am running for President of our great country.

It's because our country isn't so great anymore. We are a fearful and powerful force in the world and we are letting ourselves turn it into something hateful and oppressive. I'm sorry to have to put it like that but we have been. I have to say it like that because no one on my staff will be seen on TV saying it; no one on Fox News or CNN will be allowed to say it in some ten second sound bite. This part of my speech will be edited for rebroadcast and distorted by my opponents and taken out of context- but those of you here in this room will know what I mean, and I might be able to live with myself after all of this is over.

YULblog meeting- then Steve Lawler

Ok- had to dash out of the Yulblog dinner to change for Steve Lawler's show at the Time Supper Club. Last minute passes (actually- guest list for Lady J, I'm her "+1")

Those of you who don't know- Time is one of these ultra chic concept restos/ lounges. They supposedly have scenesters from NY and Miami there all the time- God knows if NY scenesters are more or less annoying than MTL ones.

[aside]- if I ever become an annoying scenester, please, someone take away my sunglasses.

Who takes Ramadan off? رمضان

Well, it appears my dealer does!! Have not seen that guy in over a week now- and his cell goes straight to voicemail. Maybe he's been nabbed- maybe I'm cut off.

Or maybe he just doesn't want to come good on that bottle of vodka he promised me.... hmmmm.

Ohio- the 500 Pound Gorilla

11:48 PM on the East coast and Florida just went to Bush. Check out this graphic from ABC-

Florida has gone- and Ohio seems to be Kerry's last chance to pull this one out of the fire. CBC news is giving a very depressing analysis of some scenarios where Kerry can still win... I'm drinking some whiskey...

At least if it isn't close the whole country won't be thrown into a state of constitutional crisis :) unless some 200,000 people had their rights trampled on and they are willing to make a stink about it.

You know you've had a busy weekend when...

You haven't posted since Thursday afternoon. I was tempted to look through my archives to see if I've ever posted on a Friday or Saturday night- but now I think I should get some sleep...

Cheers!

(PS- big thanks to Zeke's Gallery for listing my blog, without me having to beg them to!!)