The perfect Montreal day

Today may have been the perfect Montreal day for me (albeit one that I spent alone)

It started, as all of my good days do with me stepping on my ambitiously named 'thinner' brand scales and seeing that my weight was down again. I'm now a full 13lbs (6kgs) lighter than I was when I got here and getting dangerously close to being Singapore weight, with some added muscle.

Delighted I took the dog out into the brilliant sunshine, a perfect 27c and just enough breeze to keep it feeling fresh and we walked along the canal for an hour before turning back for home, stopping only for fresh bread at the market.

Called Jude, who was enjoying the mountain air and felt a surge of 'gotta get me some of that' - as I did I passed a store that was advertising a workout / yoga / hiking weekend in the countryside just outside of the city. Called them and will be hiking, swimming, doing yoga, taking a bootcamp class and BBQing in 3 weeks. Perfect.

After breakfast I headed out in search of a haircut and a massage. We live in a gentrified block so it was those places that I tried first, no luck. Each place sighed sadly and then took great delight in showing me their appointment books, full to burst into the next millennial and then pointed me in the direction of someone equally busy and chi-chi. En route I chanced upon Jerry's and looking through the window spied an extra seat. I walked in and hi-fives were exchanged all around. It seems that Jerry's attracts a lot of white faces at the window, but that when people look in and see three young black guys with clippers they run a mile. I was the first white customer in 3 months and they loved it. We buzzed off the hair, sculpted the beard and did something a little Cary Grant with the moustache. I look different, but actually pretty cool.

Home to search the Internet for massage and turned down by all until I get to Miami. I call, they have a spot. I walk down, it's three blocks from the house and am offered the menu - Thai, Shiatsu, Hot Stone ($15 more), Hand job, Blow Job....

"Just a sec" I say. "I just want a massage. Is that okay? Or am I in the wrong place?"

"Up to you" says the small Asian woman who moments ago looked like a grandma but now has all of the markings of a mamasan.

"You pay me $20 for hand-job now, or you negotiate with girl and it cost more"

Too embarrassed to leave (I get very English when faced with having to offend) I walk into the small room, note the bucket full of used tissues and await my fate. In walks a girl dressed for a cocktail party/

"I only want a massage" I say

"Really? she says

"Yes I say, I'm having back problems" - I point at my back with my ring finger

"Well I make all of my money on services" she says "how about you pay me $15 for no-hand job"

I agree and her face lights up. She's from Indonesia, is learning German and Arabic, has an Aunt in Berlin and loves Bali. Freed from the idea of having to blow me she's all smiles and genuine massage expertise. I like her.

Of course only I would have to pay to get no action in a brothel.

From the massage to Dr Sketchy's - held in a dark bar away from the sunlight, but with a bikini beach theme. Mad but fun.

Back out into the street and the people are universally gorgeous. The women have decided that bags are out and that tits are in and almost to a woman have used a push up bra to create enough cleavage to act as a holster for a cell phone. They're everywhere and one wonders whether they're on vibrate.

The men are equally gorgeous. The big gay festival (well one of them) is in full swing and so the skin is uniformly olive, the arms buff and the v-neck t-shirts tight and complementing equally tightly cropped hair.

I decide to walk. Down through parks and little pedestrianised enclaves where 100s mill, eating and drinking Rose. Then down onto St Laurent and all of the fashion and boutiques. Until I come to Cinema L'amour - the biggest sex cinema in North America. I take a few shots and then a few more of the lobby. The girl behind the desk suggests I come back between shows as the theater is gorgeous and could be photographed then, but that right now they have people in and they're having sex. And here I was thinking that the sex was all on screen. This time I made my excuses and bolted.

Back home by 6.30 and realize that I've not eaten today. All of the walking has pretty much taken me past restaurants but somehow I didn't feel the urge. So here I am, contemplating what to put on my home made pizza, with the sun shining and the temperature still steady at 27c. The dog as been out and in an hour I leave to photograph a giant outdoor drag queen party... before skipping over to Parc Jean Drapeau for the fireworks and an open-air Coldplay gig.

It's been a very different day, but I finally feel like a local. Hey I almost joined my taxi-driver as he cat-called and wolf-whistled every woman he saw on the street - ruefully lamenting "And today, of all days, I am working"

The perils of nude beaches

Came across this article while looking for an image to accompany a piece I'm writing called "It's easy to love a nude beach when you have a big cock"

The image needs to be clean enough to be published, and not copyrighted. Tougher than you'd imagine.

Still fun story

New Routine

We haven't quite managed to settle into a new routine here yet. With all of the running around that moving takes, the people that we've had visiting and my company finally starting to land some jobs and take me away for a day or two it's all felt as though we were making it up as we go along.

But today I find myself home alone and facing the task of setting a routine for myself going forward. Jude is away for the next couple of weeks - first in Whistler where she's vacationing with some friends and then in Chicago where she has a conference to go to. So as of this morning I'm home alone and wondering what life here really looks like.

Today's schedule is a nice one I think. The sun is already shining but yesterday's deathly still and stupefyingly humid 31c has been replaced by a light breeze and 26c. So I'm making the most of it. Here's the plan.

Up at 7.30, make some breakfast (or finish up the breakfast that my mom had delivered for Jude's birthday, yum) then take the dog for a walk before it gets too hot, come back shower and head for the gym for an hour or so. From the gym drive down to the beach in a bid to look less like The Programmer guy here and spend an hour or two reading the Michael Palin diaries. Head back around three and sort out some expenses and book-keeping before spending an hour on the book and a couple of hours on the business, and some time on the phone drumming up interest in the Burlesque Festival. Walk the dog along the canal (she'll be tired as the dog-walker will have run her earlier) to a favorite dinner spot, order a huge salad and sit by the water as I eat. Come home, a little TV, hit all of the internet bookmarks and bed.

That's what life looks like here. It's not scintillating but it is happy. :-) See. :-)

A really simple model

I've spent much of the week being irked by companies' failure to understand that a two way dialogue requires more than allowing people to post what they think of what you're doing on a hub somewhere.

Here's my issue. There are so many companies out there asking "What do you think?" that my head spins. Most people offer me a place to post my commments. But they don't actually take any action based on what I say.

An example. HSBC understand local differences. They say so. They solicit my opinion based on this idea. So far better than most. They have an idea; they're involving me in their idea. I like. But they then launch not a single product based on any of the feedback that they get. If 80% of people in the West say that they'd like to be part of a solution to african poverty where's the product that allows micro loans? Or the product that diverts part of your interest into a aid? Or that allows you to buy shares in community ventures?

The model should be simple

- Introduce your idea

- Invite participation in your idea

- Use that participation to inform new products and services, communications and thoughts

It's not hard and it becomes a virtuous circle. But as long as there's a wall between innovation, r&d, marketing and manufacture it's just not going to happen.

Gnnnnnnrrrrrrrr.

Long day

So I left for the airport at 6pm yesterday
Arrive at 7.15 to be told that due to weather issues my flight is cancelled

Call the car rental companies who want $1300 for a one way to Montreal
So check in to a hotel.... at $180 a night it's not cheap by Taxis would have been $110 alone

A couple of drinks and a bad salad later I'm in bed
The whole hotel smells of sewage

Breakfast is Toast that is actually stale bread left to 'warm' in front of a radiator and a coffee
They charge $18

But I make it to the airport without incident and hit the standby line for the 9.45
Plane is oversold and broken

It sits on the tarmac.

I get confirmed for a 1.50pm flight; but they won't give me a seat.
I talk nicely to someone and get a seat assigned

Should be on my way,
Barring weather
And breakdowns.

Will arrive home 15 hrs late

But hopefully will arrive

Blessed

While in New York I've been reminded of how blessed I am when it comes to the people in my life.

Tonight I met friends doing cool web stuff (www.urdb.org)
People that had just finished books on Creative Spaces
And talented artists in the theatre, acting and film making spaces

And I realize that this isn't the norm. That most people don't have the ability to plug into a network of people as fascinating as it is fascinated. And I thank whatever entity is appropriate for the opportunity to mix with people who are driven, interesting and committed, because it rubs off.

I spent a night with friends and came out energized, motivated and stimulated. Wow. Feeling very, very lucky

IN NYC

So here I am in NYC, working hard on an idea that's starting to feel quite nice... and getting ready to see some friends.

Have Mike and a night at a book launch and documentary screening tonight
Jen and a drink in the LeS tomorrow
Will and baby Jack at Ali's "Leaving New York" party tomorrow
And then back to Montreal on Friday... checking in with 'base camp' Toronto over the weekend

Busy but buzzy

Hurrah

To Paraphrase JFK

Or at least translate him from bad German into basic French

"Je suis un beignet"

Tired, but happy

I'm knackered right now... a mix of lots of walking, some sun, too much food and drink, late nights, airport runs, plane delays and time with people who I really like... 4am start tomorrow too; so gonna cut this short and see whether I can go back to bed.

Just a quickie really to say that I'm still alive and kicking...

Airport run

Montreal is now having its second worst summer since records began. Temperatures are 8c lower than usual. The sky is unusually grey and more and more storms keep thundering through; bringing masses of moisture as they do. Into this washout arrive our friends Gareth and Amy; and luckily they're people who really know how to entertain themselves... as we won't be around for bits of their trips and the city is doing all that it can to stop them venturing outside.

But I've set them a couple of 'go order a French breakfast, en Francais" tests and challenges and I'm sure that they'll rise to them. Must go and collect them, and then jet off myself

Photos to follow..

A weird feel in the city

New York is hot and it smells of sweat and garbage. But that's not the funk that seems to be in the air. The city that was defined by frivolous consumption now seems ill at ease with the very idea of ease itself... sitting awkwardly at pavement cafe tables suddenly very self aware. It's as though everyone here caught a glimpse of just how ridiculous their life had become and suddenly become self-aware... unable to relax back into the mode of 'all is good here in the greatest city in the nation'

It's not the hangover I'd been told to expect, it's a clumsy, awkwardness. As though the whole city is looking for a new definition of what constitutes an acceptable good time. If it's not Carrie and the Girls then it's what? who?

Californian cities get to keep their identities as laid back, creative and hippy
Seattle and Portland get to keep crustiness
The midwest gets to wallow in the decline of the rustbelt
While Miami maintains its sass and Latin spirit
And Boston still has its university

But what of New York - that small island off the coast of America that has lived as the amplified spirit of unconscious consumption? What does New York do now?

It's a question that seems to be being asked in the awkwardness I see all around me...
Answers on a postcard please

Highlights / Lowlights

Our friends Gareth and Amy are coming to stay later this week - which is of course the cue for me to start looking at the weather, checking out new and cool places, feeling responsible for their every second in town and generally fretting over all of the things that I can't affect... or effect... I think that it's the former... we shall see. Anyway I'm trying to relax and I have some work (my first since December) to distract me. So all is good there.

The good thing is that G&A (A&G sounds too financial) are pretty good at entertaining themselves...

Anyway they've been doing a lessons learned from their HIGHLIGHTS and LOWLIGHTS thing on their blog recently and it started me thinking. What have been my highlights/ lowlights over the last couple of years. And the weird thing is that there seem to be more of them since 2006 than I can remember in the previous decade.

I'm spinning this toward being a sign of real positive growth. Of being more aware and more in touch with my emotions than I have been previously, of the thick lacquer of British reserve cracking some under the strain of life... but it could just be that I'm bipolar and in need of a litany of medication available only in North America.

So without further ado here are my lessons learned of late


NO EXPERIENCE CHANGES YOU UNLESS YOU ALLOW IT TO

People believe that Cancer makes you wise. That walking up to the precipice of the valley of death, having a good old peer over and then deciding to bungee that than jump right now makes you somehow wiser. The truth is it first makes you wise, then smug and then you forget all about it and turn back into the asshole you always were. This process takes about 6 weeks. Unless you decide to not only look for enlightenment - but to implement some changes to. It took me 3 years to do that. But finally I feel as though I have.


PEOPLE MATTER MORE THAN ANYTHING

I've always been one for jettisoning people as we moved to the next place and the next adventure. It's not a deliberate thing but new cities throw up new challenges and bring new people into your life and before you know it you're thinking - "whatever happened to whatersface?" Which of course is a recipe for unhappiness. What matters are the people around you. Do everything you can to keep close to your friends (Facebook helps enormously) and you won't go far wrong


SOME PEOPLE ARE EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES

If you surround yourself with the kind of people who are without a spark for life it's easy to get sucked into the moshpit of misery. They'll suck you dry and then move onto the next person with their low energy, their lack of belief and their motivation-less wandering. If you have a friend who brings you down tell 'em so.. if that doesn't work... boot 'em to the sidewalk. The occasional complaint is fine, decades in the doldrums ain't


LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE

I lived in a town where the weekend highlight was a tour of the municipal dump. I did what I could to make the most of it, but ultimately it was an uphill struggle... and you want to have your breath taken by awe and beauty, not by struggle and the constant quest to find something to do. So do what you can to love where you live. And if it feels hard more often than it feels freeing - get on a Greyhound and head on out (be careful not to get beheaded though)


BOUNCE

It's good to bounce. To be childlike. To be free. To not care. So bounce. Do new things with enthusiasm. Sing too loudly. Jump in with both feet. Commit. Be silly. Wear something age inappropriate. Enjoy not caring. And do it with other people who don't eaither. Life's too short to be adult all of the time.


GET FIT and LEARN A LANGUAGE

It'll help you think. It will get you laid. It will stave off Alzheimers. It WILL get you laid.


More tomorrow.... gonna go throw Pizza Sauce at Jude now...

Ou est l'ete

Montreal is a city that throws itself into the arms of summer wholeheartedly and without reservation. Having been brutalized, battered and bewildered by the onslaught of another unexpectedly dreadful winter, the summer is greeted with festivals and outdoor cafes and live events, each topped with layers of glistening, newly revealed flesh, begging to be bronzed.

Right now we have the Jazz festival, the Zoofest, the Comedy Festival, Piknik Elektronik and a whole bunch of other things going on to ("Haiitian drumming fest? well since you're asking Parc Jean Drapeau, turn right at the water fest")

People here say things like "Life is short, summer is shorter" as they throw off their clothes and head for somewhere mortifyingly public.

So when summer is late and clouds spoil the sparkling blush of your second glass of Rose people get upset.

It's not as warm as it should be here. 23c rather than 28c. It's not as sunny either - humidity bringing in clouds in the afternoon. And people are pissed. They've been cheated. Out of the arms of brutal winter into the arms of a summer that turned out to be flaccid? Hell no! They won't stand for Summerectile Dysfunction... and they're out for blood.

Me? I'll admit that when the sun shines brightest the place is amazing. That its rays are transformative. But I'll settle for a watery sun here over the oft brilliantly blue skies and searing heat of Michigan. As I write - the sun is pouring through the window. I have a Cafe au lait in my hand, the cup that holds has the most beautiful graphic (it's from Toi, Moi et Cafe - si vous adorez le cafe) and I can hear birds in the trees outside.

Am I feeling cheated? Only out of the comedy festival... I had tickets for shows between July 20 and the end lined up and now need to be in New York all of that week. But that's money in the bank... and money in the bank means less time here in the winter.. so all is good....

Peace out

A change of plans

So the Seattle based thing may have become a New York / Atlanta thing - which is much easier for me and a lot less time in the air... hurrah

Still really interesting too.

Plus it gives me time to work on Burlesque Fest with the lady pictured above (I'm a HUGE fan of the strategically placed fan and volunteered to help in any way that I could, it's time to get involved with something good again after the A2 hibernation)

And I get to carry on with French... another good thing

Anyway this is short and hurried (like Napoleon on the retreat)... heading into the bank now

Something thoughtful soon... promise

Filling up fast

Next week is looking busy and not just with French classes....

- I have to fly to Seattle (an 8 hr meeting that means 16 hrs of travel)

- I have friends arriving from the US

- I have a meeting in Toronto

- I have meetings with the business people at the bank

And I have a few follow-ups to do with people who have expressed an interest in 'The Fish'


Might not sound like a lot - but looking at 16 hr days here...

Youch

The first day in the saddle

Today felt like the start of a new routine here. We got up, we went to French lessons "comment vous-appelez vous?" etc.
Four hours then Jude leaves level 4 and heads for home and I leave Level 1 and head for gym.

Home, homework, arrange dinner for tomorrow with an old friend who has a very cool company here.
Watch some TV - Lie to Me with Tim Roth

Call old friends who are in New York for a week (from Norway)
Head for bed

Good to have a new routine, however dull...

No need for panic

I didn't get my scans before I left the States. Not for the want of trying, but it seemed that once they got a sniff that my policy was up at the end of the month the good people at the insurance company stalled time and again in a bid not to have to pay for the last scan. But it's now been 6 months and 2 weeks since my last scan.

So when I woke up this morning with swollen glands I was convinced that death had found me (I'm a HUGE fan of the schlocky Final Destination movies) and that this was it. After all the sun was shining, we're in a city that we really like and may well come to love, we'd just come back from a BBQ with interesting people, the canal was abuzz with the young, the fun and the vibrant, there was a photo studio for hire at the end of the street, Jude had a job that met her exact requirements and an office with a view that surpassed them, I had the job that I'd been after forever and the start of something that seems even better and we'd just eaten amazing food from the market. It was too good to be true. It was in fact that way that our lives seem to others. It had to come to an end - surely we weren't allowed to be this happy?

We'll see. The glands are still up - but so are Jude's. Summer cold? Result of Jude having (already) spent too much time in the doctor's waiting room? Or cancer? Who knows... but the fact that I have to ask bugs me...gnnnrrr.

On a happier note - loads of kids at yesterday's July 4th BBQ... here's a pic

Oh Canada

So yesterday was Canada day and everyone was off hurrah. Jude and I headed down to the jazz festival site and drank wine while some middle eastern influenced Canadian jazz meandered along on a small side stage before heading home, jumping on our bikes and cycling along the canal for 10kms or so - stopping off for a bottle of water and a beer sampler at a local brewery. All very idyllic.

Today was Jude's first at work - cut short by the failure of a computer to arrive and the early arrival at home of the men who are employed to move her (boxes and boxes) of academic books to her office. It was also the day that the garbage disposal unit got lock in the 'On' position... noisily. We've asked that they remove it - as the only way to shut it off is to turn it off at the fuse and that takes out the dishwasher.

French lessons start Monday, we get driver's licenses tomorrow, friends heading over soon... all is well

Other than these nightmares... keep waking me up and carrying over to the next day. Hard not to carry over the awful things done to me at the hands of relatives and friends once I do wake up... which is hard for them to take... must try to sort THAT out....

STEVIE // LIVING FOR THE CITY

STEVIE // LIVING FOR THE CITY
Originally uploaded by DAN23-PHOTO

So as I write this a little over a mile and a half away Stevie Wonder is playing a free gig out in the open and in temperatures that are a perfect 20c... but we're at home because we're knackered from the unpacking, we've just gotten cable and because we know that living here means this is the kind of thing that you can skip and not regret forever. Should we be there, probably. Are we psyched to have the choice? absolutely

Almost unpacked

Well we're finally sitting on our own sofa, albeit surrounded by empty boxes, but happy just for the familiarity of the things around us. The furniture (finally) arrived today and things went pretty smoothly. At 8am a man in a Smart Car came and picked up Judith, whizzing her to customs, where they cleared in record time and raced back as fast as 600cc will let you.

The giganta van arrive minutes later and parked right outside the house... parking permits had been obtained, people had been moved, no parking signs had been be erected all over the curbs and things stated to move.

4 houses, 160 boxes and a lot of sweat later the boxes were in, the furniture was together and we started to unpack the bits and pieces that make life easier but moving harder (we don't use the lemon squeezer often - well for cocktails we do - but it takes the same time to unpack as the toaster.

Anyway things feeling good here.

Sunday saw me heading to the local camera store and boarding a bus with them, some Sony reps and a couple of events people for a photo tour of old Montreal. They brought drinks, sandwiches, camera bodies and a whole bunch of lenses for people to try out and much fun was had... I loved the fixed 300mm f2/8 that they handed me; but it was heavy and it was $7000; both of which made it seem less like something to splurge on. Enjoyed the 11-16 though it made me feel like a realtor and couldn't see much difference between the Zeiss and my old Minolta when it came to 28-70 (though the Zeiss was quieter)

Enough though - gonna watch a movie now. Have upstairs and the main bedroom to do tomorrow.

Should be fun