Ah, Montréal... Ça me manque vraiment.

Montréal, 2001 — The first year.

I had moved there in the spring, right when Jazz Fest was kicking off, when the city is full of energy and magic.

Actually, it seems like that all the time.

Coming from vancouver, my first thought was how happy people seemed. When asked on the first day, walking down St. Catherine Street, "So, what do you think?” I said:

> “It feels like it’s okay to smile.”

I moved there with someone. We had sublet an apartment up on Côte-des-Neiges, a small studio with no air conditioning, and we cooked in that summer weather.

36–44 degree temperatures.

There was a bit of a panic at first.

"Should we leave? This is crazy!"

We didn’t.

I quickly landed a job in the warehouse of HMV on St. Catherine Street - pretty much the only kind of job I could get without being able to speak French.

Then things blew up at home and I moved out.

I rented, for $400 a month, a tiny studio apartment on the Plateau, on Rue Drolet near Square Saint-Louis.

Right around the corner from the colourful painted houses that appear in every Montreal tourist something-or-other.

Excellent location.

On the way to the apartment with my belongings, the cab driver asked what I was paying for rent there.

“$400 a month.”

“Whoa, that’s a lot.”

He was serious.

I had just come from fucking vancouver.

The apartment was very tiny.

The living room was about six feet wide and twenty feet long. A kitchen was off to the side, with the bathroom beside that.

It was fine, though.

One window.

No air circulation.

It was fucking HOT 🔥🔥🔥🔥

and I had no fan.

I went to buy one.

Everyone was sold out.

A friend from Vancouver emailed and asked how I was coping with the “heatwave.”

“Heatwave?! I thought it was just HOT!”

Yep.

36–44 degrees outside.

Much hotter inside.

I had no furniture. No nothing.

We had rented a fully furnished place to get started, so when I moved into the Plateau apartment I had basically nothing.

I tried sleeping on top of a sheet and a layer of bubble wrap from the things I had shipped out there.

But even that was too hot.

For the next month, I slept naked on the hardwood floor, trying to stay cool.

A couple of spots where the sun came in - the paint bubbled.

When I woke up the first morning and looked in the mirror, my face was swollen huge from that heat.

I splashed cold water on it to bring the swelling down, then headed for work.

Eventually, I was able to buy a fan.

Once I got used to that kind of heat and humidity I was fine and now I never feel it's truly warm without it.

I lived there another month, a lawyer friend wanted it for when he came to the city and a room had became available at a friend’s stunning apartment in Westmount, one of Montreal’s most beautiful areas.

My room there was bigger than my entire apartment on the Plateau.

Nice place. Pools on each side of the entrance to the building with large goldfish in them.

My roommate, Dita, was a well-known photographer which was great because I was just learning photography at the time.

Then, in the first week of September, I was super excited...

I was planning my first trip to New York City. Moving to Montreal in the first place was so I could be closer to NYC.

Then 9/11 hit.

---

I always woke up to talk radio in the U.S.

The first thing I heard that morning was a reporter talking about a tower in Manhattan being hit by a plane.

I jumped up and told Dita to turn on the TV.

As we were watching, the second plane hit.

Then the missile... I mean, “plane”... sure... hit the Pentagon.

Dita had to go out, but I was glued to the television (propaganda) all day.

Little did I know then what I was being fed.

"Manufacturing Consent", as Noam Chomsky wrote.

Things became incredibly tense in Montreal in the following weeks.

There was concern about terrorist attacks.

One morning, on the way to work, the subway stopped for twenty minutes in the middle of a tunnel and just sat there. Unusual for the Montreal subway.

No announcements.

There had been constant propaganda and fear-mongering about the possibility of the subways being gassed.

The tension that built up among the people during those twenty minutes was extraordinary.

People were crying.

One morning at work, all the power went out in the warehouse and it freaked people out.

A rep from Toronto happened to be there and she simply put her head down on a stack of boxes and started crying.

Friends would call from BC and ask:

“What is that noise I keep hearing in the background?”

The Westmount apartment was at a higher elevation in the city, and there were jet fighters constantly circling at low altitude.

They would come right over our building, and people on the other end of the phone could hear the roar.

---

I wish I had taken more photos.

I was just learning. Film was expensive and, at the time, I wasn't overly interested in taking pictures outside of an actual gig.

That hasn't changed a whole lot.

Though now, if something significant seems to be happening, I'm out there with a camera.

I desperately wanted to find another job other than the HMV warehouse, but it became very clear that nothing was going to shift for a while.

Meanwhile, I had friends at J Interiors in vancouver wanting me back, with a significant offer if I returned.

At the end of November, I accepted and headed back.

Reluctantly.

I liked Montreal.

I didn't want to give up.

---

There have been people who thought I left because of the language barrier or because of the winters.

Yes, the winters are horrendous. The language barrier is real.

But sometimes the winter days and especially nights can be magical.

Walk through the city in the evening when it's snowing and it's like walking inside a magical snow globe.

I just wanted to regroup.

Reassess.

I've done that twice now.

After 9/11.

And again in 2015, when we came back from New York for a family funeral and to get some things in order.

The full intention was to make New York more permanent.

Then COVID.

Then health battles.

And here we are.

I swear this place is like quicksand.

Or "Hotel California".

Once you're here...

It's hard to get out of.

---

9/11 was my awakening.

Things we were being told didn't sit right.

And with my insatiable curiosity - and the after-effects of what I'd already seen - I started digging.

I started paying attention.

Before that, I was simply a CNN and CBC watcher, taking everything at face value and thinking I was being told the truth.

For the past twenty-five years, I've paid close attention.

I've gone down rabbit holes.

I went to Ground Zero on my first day in New York in 2008 and then again when I moved there in 2009.

It was still just a big, cleared-out hole in the ground.

I watched the new tower go up in 2011 while spending many days and months at Zuccotti Park, right across the street, covering the Occupy movement.

I was one of the first fifty-ish people who started that phenomenon.

---

My “War Machine” Song

I've been asked a lot over the years what it's about.

The patient was given one percent skin
With a blue-ribbon hand and forearm
With sun-exposed options and air contrast

Scalp, hair, head, neck, chest, abdomen and back
And back again
Scalp, hair, head, neck, chest, abdomen and back
And back again
With sun-exposed options and air contrast

They're making a war
A war machine

Right lower skin exam
Sun of hand
Shave the abnormalities
Sun of hand
Dress the aluminum with a chemical peel

They're making a war
A war machine

In my head it's simply about people who accept the narrative.

People who believe the propaganda.

People who support wars.

“Support the troops!”... without understanding what the troops might actually doing over there.

Without understanding the war crimes.

Without questioning the machinery that gets us there in the first place.

Those people are the war machines.

Mindless consent.

That's what the song is about.

---

And after all of that...

I still love Montreal.

Ah, Montréal.

Ça me manque vraiment.