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23 october 2000
----- Oh look, lead guitarist Mojo flirts with "new" keyboardist AmaDebbie. Flim at eleven. Oops, it's already past eleven. Oh well... A few hours ago... ~~~ 39,000 feet. Do international flights cruise higher than other flights? It's cold up here. Jen is sleeping. I realize this is hardly an international flight. We've already been through customs ... We landed in Toronto with one-hour to kill before our flight to LA. I had visions of a delicious bloody mary at an airport bar. It wasn't to be. Upon disembarking, we were directed to a special baggage claim, where we waited for our luggage. Then immigration, where a rather bored looking curmudgeon fingered my birth certificate, making sure the seal was raised and yes, it was an original copy from 1968. Shit, I need to get a passport. We were waved (or waived) through customs without a question or a second glance. Welcome to the United States? Hardly. We hadn't even boarded the plane yet. We hopped on this here 767 with six or seven minutes to spare, sat on the taxiway for thirty minutes, and finally lifted off into the night sky. We're due to land in about ninety minutes, and I'm really longing to buy some smoked salmon jerky from the duty free catalog. ~~~ The trip itself was a whirlwind, much too short for a cross-country jaunt to an incredibly cool city. Yes, I loved Montreal. I hadn't been in over ten years, and then was cold and snow-covered. This weekend's weather was the beautiful epitome of autumn. Blue skies, big puffy clouds, and crisp cool air made comfortable by an incredibly warming sun that perfectly glossed the colors of the changing leaves. It's something I'd never feel in Los Angeles. We left the City of Angeles late, an hour after our scheduled departure. Landed in Montreal at around nine. Immigration and Customs were a breeze, considering I didn't have valid proof of US Citizenship ... my actual (original) birth certificate was being FedEx-ed by mom to the hotel in Montreal, since it was made clear to me by the airline that I wouldn't be able to re-enter the US without it. Ten found us checked into the Wyndham Montreal, with a message waiting from the groom to come to his room for drinks, so we did. Exhausted and hungry, we stayed for one beer and headed out for a late dinner. After dinner we went back to the groom's room and talked for a while longer. Jen went back to our room and I accompanied the lads for a late night stroll down Rue St Catherine, where we checked out a couple of bars for that "one final drink." OK, I kinda fell asleep typing up there -- blasted a few paragraphs to the notify list about something that was bugging me, and fell asleep to dreams of non-existent love and airplane crashes involving close cross country friends. Woke up this morning thinking "oh shit it's monday and i'm already exhausted," and headed into hell week. And now it's my lunch break, and I'll try and pick up where I left off... Saturday. We woke up around 9:30, hoping to play tourists for a while. Instead, we got a call from the groom asking for our help over at the restaurant where the reception was being held. When we got there I realized I was being asked to learn a "special song" and play it on the piano as a (I guess) challenging exercise in site reading. I nailed the tune, and then we helped with the place settings for a while. It wasn't until noon that we were on our own, doing that "tourist thing." We drove across Pont Victoria and looked at the changing leaves in a residential neighborhood. We drove back across another Pont and went down a steep exit ramp to an island in the middle of the river. There was a huge amusement park with a cool looking coaster, but it was closed, so we drove to the Biosphere, the world's largest geodesic dome, designed by Buckminster Fuller for the 1967 Expo. Inside was an interactive exhibit devoted to water, so I drank, soaked my feet, sampled some soap, and shot Jen with a water pistol. We drove across yet another Pont back to the city, and drove very slowly past Habitat '67, a rather appealing housing project built by Moshe Safdie for the Expo. It was supposed to be an example of how low-cost housing can be built from prefabricated concrete boxes stacked like childrens' building blocks, and currently stands in Cite du Havre, an experiment that failed, in my opinion, only because it was never tested on a large scale for its own target resident population. As for now, it's a gated condominium complex for rich people. Low cost housing, indeed. After some tasty Lebanese food in the Latin quarter (or was that Latin food in the Lebanese quarter?) we changed and headed to the wedding. It was a beautifully simple service, held in the Palais de Justice and presided over by a magistrate. All of the laws of marriage were read aloud for the bride and groom, and I found it incredibly romantic that these basic tenets were so prominent, as it reinforced the importance and sanctity of what we were witnessing. I think if all couples would include the verbal recitation of these laws (and contract signing) in their weddings, we'd see a lot less weddings, and a much lower percentage of divorces. It was really refreshing to see a couple taking their vows so seriously, affording the institution of marriage the respect it deserves. The reception was held at the Pierre du Calvet Hostellerie, an old house/restaurant dating back to the early eighteenth century. The food was delicious, the company was wonderful, and I (what a surprise) managed to intoxicate myself on champagne, Bordeaux wine, vodka, campari and soda, and two russian qualude cocktails. Somewhere in there I got roped into doing a toast, which was translated into French for the bride's family, who laughed at something relating to the groom and I having "first experiences" in the city of Montreal in 1989. Oh boy. Back at the hotel, a group came back to our room where we watched the Mets lose and drank some more. I finally fell asleep around 1:30. Yesterday morning was a hangover and brunch. We said our goodbyes, packed, and checked out at noon. We drove to Parc Olympique, where we took a guided tour of the complex built for the 1976 Olympics, now home to the Montreal Expos and lots of tourists. The highlight of the tour was a cable car ride up the side of a giant tower that was built for the sole purpose of holding up the roof to the stadium below it. It's a rather absurd set-up, confirmed by the architect in Jen, but it definitely works as a piece of sculpture, or public art. The cable car ride itself was dizzying, even moreso with my hangover, and I was kinda swaying through a mental fog for the next hour or so. The view from the tower was beautiful though, all the way to the Adirondacks in New York State. Alas, it was time to go, and we drove rather dejectedly to Dorval, wishing we had another day to actually see the city without having to "be somewhere at a certain time." Downed two bloody maries before boarding our short flight to Toronto. Our short stay in Toronto is faithfully rendered in the first paragraph at top. After landing in LA I drove Jen back to her apartment in Long Beach, picked up a pair of pants I had left there before the trip (recall last night's notify list posting and put 2+2 together, and hopefully you'll get something close to 3.9), and headed back north, past the airport, and home to Malibu, where I unpacked, started to write, and ... ~~~ This is turning out to be a very strangely-composed entry. Oh well. Anyways, as promised, another pic of me in a dress up there. Shouldn't be too long until the whole lot is posted here, eliminating any chance anyone might have of blackmailing me in the future. Ah yes, and I also mentioned this to the notify list last night, concerning my recent plans to catch up on email in Montreal -- it didn't happen, so if you've emailed me and are waiting for a reply, please gimme just a little more time, pwetty pwease, tanks. Ok, gottago (back2work) bye. 23 october 1999: : on hiatus til december 23 october 1998: : on hiatus til november
23 october 1997: there is a voice :
And there's ropes and chains slowing me as I walk [ swim back | email me | swim ahead ] |
