Twist & Puke

I went to Spectrum on Tuesday night for the first time in many years. I have seen numerous bands perform there in the past, including Beck, Einsturzende Neubauten, Front 242, Project Pitchfork, WD-40, Dzihan & Kamien, Filter (who remembers them nowadays ?!) and Skinny Puppy. The list does not stop there and you can partly blame my memory, but you might as well point your accusating fingers to my SCREAMING female co-workers who don't know what to do with their time - except when it's time to waste it.



Anyway, circumstances had not taken me there since the Skinny Puppy reunion tour a while ago, but I found myself the lucky winner of some tickets to see the She Wants Revenge show, via my girlfriend Miss Bijoux and the Ici newspaper.



So there I was, watching the show, all quiet and tired, when I noticed somebody was watching me from the side and whispering in some girl's ear. Something similar had happened to me two years ago at Ministry's gig at Metropolis (for which I also had won tickets, thank you) and after wondering for a while if the starer was fancying me, it turns out he was an old friend from Shawinigan, who had suddenly decided to come to Montreal to enjoy himself.

It wasn't any different this time around : the starer was Chalifoux, an old school buddy - we went to Cégep Montmorency together, made movies, and lived a happy life - and his girlfriend is the one that spotted me. Well, hello ! Chalifoux is no small part in the constantly evolving synopsis of my life : he DoP'ed my first award-winning short, LE CANCER DU CERVEAU, and played the lead in the Bruce Benson co-directed follow-up, "85". He will somehow have to play a part in the closing volet of my trilogy, LE CERVEAU A OFF, when the shooting starts next spring.

He was the one who came to our place, back when I was roommatin' with Mathieu Prudent in Laval, on the morning of Sept. 11th of '01. He entered our appartment and told us to turn on the TV.

We just stood there, mouth open, and watched as the news reports were exclusively showing the towers under attack. We went to get some beer and just sat in the yard, looking at the sky, half expecting to see jihaded planes fly over our heads.

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Have you ever driven to Québec city back & forth in just one day ? I did. Yesterday. In the pouring rain.

Miss Bijoux is "attending" the Plein Arts festival, in Parc de la Francophonie on Grande-Allée in Québec, from August 3-13th. She needed a ride over there, with all her stuff, and we had a hard time finding one. I finally managed to get the guts to ask my friend Stelvio Leonardi, who is only vaguely related to Stelvio Cipriani, and he said yes.

So off we went, around 9 yesterday morning, on the 20. It didn't take too long to get there, but we had to stop at Madrid so Stelvio could take a few stock shots of the place, dinosaurs and all, for a documentary about Normand L'Amour he will soon begin to edit. Coincidence or not, Normand was there, with his van, and warmly greeted us. He explained that his CD's were being sent to Polydor, in Paris, and that he was expecting some news about an eventual distribution deal.



We had breakfast in the restaurant, just next to Mike Ward - what the fuck was he doing there ? Then we took off. We arrived in Québec around 2, unloaded my sweet girl's stuff, and re-hit the road immediately. It started raining just after we crossed the Pierre-Laporte bridge, and we got into some amazingly impossible traffic jams, thanks to the multiple holes dug in the road all the way to Montreal. We finally arrived in Montreal around 6, and I had already abandoned the idea of coming to work by then.

The day was so hot that we rode with our windows wide open all the way, and had to play our music really loud in order to hear it. I got my first sunburn of the year on the right arm, the one I let hanging from the car window all the way. It feels like a burnt piece of meat.

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David Sedaris is a New Yorker collaborator that I always enjoy reading. He writes small and conforting essays comprised of observations about everyday life, and his humor is somewhat unique, a blend of upper-class finesse mixed with outbursts of vulgarity. He has published five books, and they all feature a collection of his short texts.



I won some Chapters gift cards last week at the office, and I went to get a Sedaris book almost right away. The lucky winner is BARREL FEVER, and I have to say that I won't read it for a very long time, because I can't keep my eyes off it.

I am in the middle of an ongoing state of mental confusion, beginning many books that I can't get myself to finish. I guess I've always been like that. It kind of mirrors my whole life : I start 100 projects and I barely finish one. I've been meant to change all that. How can I do that ? Does anybody have any clear and easy-to-follow answers ?