Very Loud, Thank You

Moving like a very fast train, my life flashes by like a lightning bolt. Straight through my heart. Without passing GO and cashing in a paycheck. Summer's over but it's still sticky as hell outside. Every morning I do my cardio, biking to work as fast as I can and getting here all sweaty. Montreal's notorious bad drivers do nothing to keep my stress level down. I'm extremely vulnerable on the road. A sculpture of flesh, bones and nerves that could be shattered any minute by steel and fiber. Asphalt, cement and imprevisibility are my worst ennemies. My body is a prison, and a weak one at that.



During the past few weeks I have done many things. I have watched horror movies. I have seen Nacho Cerda's THE ABANDONNED, a movie that has been written by montrealer Karim Hussain and that takes place in the middle of a never-ending Russian forest. I've also seen DISTURBIA, a teen take on Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW, and I am supposed to write a review for CONTAMINATION. I don't know what's happening to me, though; I feel as if writing about movies is now something useless. The most important gesture in cinema is to WATCH / SEE a movie, not endlessly discourse about it for the improbable benefit of people who have yet to see it. The experience is personal, and the interpretation shouldn't be shared, or should only be with people you care about. Being a critic is somewhat of a puzzle - you make a living by emitting an opinion on someone else's work, on someone else's vision and sweat.



I have also seen VACANCY, a neat little flick about a snuff producin' hotel manager and the people he traps. While it didn't have the depth of a movie like Alejandro Amenabar's THESIS, it didn't sink as low as Joel Schumacher's 8 MM. The faceless men invading hotel rooms and killing its occupants in front of multiple hidden cameras is a cultural psychosis, somewhat of a modern legend, but it was pulled off expertly, and kept me at the edge of my seat.



The same can be said about Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, a flick I saw on Monday night in a nearly deserted Scotia Bank Theater. Miss Bijoux & me sat in the dark with four other persons, in a gigantic room, and enjoyed Zombie's touch applied to an old classic. Interestingly enough, the movie featured Sid Haigh and Udo Kier, and I never saw them pass by. Macolm McDowell's Dr. Loomis is a credible one, almost making us forget Donald Pleasance's original performance. Michael Mayers is one big motherfucker, too. With the childhood sequences, one can better understand where he's coming from and why he's so troubled. Having a mom as delicious as Sherry Moon Zombie would have made me more of a sex maniac than a homicidal loonie, but what the hell. I left the theater puzzled by the few critics who had given the movie a bad review.

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I have a confession to make : I've started watching the SOPRANOS a few months ago and I'm completely obsessed. I'm currently watching the end of the first part of the sixth season, and I'm traumatized by the thought of having to wait until the end of October before the final season gets released on home DVD. I'm afraid I won't make it. I caught a mean-ass virus a few weeks ago, that kept me in the bed from Wednesday night to Sunday morning, and in the middle of piercing headaches and a delirious, never-ending fever, I dreamt about Tony Soprano. Constantly. But that might be due to the seven episodes marathon I watched before going to bed.

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Last Saturday, while I was in Ottawa to help Miss Bijoux sell her craft at the Ladyfest, my good pal Jason Pelletier invited me to play at his new night at OZ Kafe. It's a lovely establishment located on Elgin St, not too far from Freehouse Lounge where I played last time I was in town. Oz is the owner, a friendly lady who concocts terrific cocktails. While mixing, I had a pear-flavoured cocktail, an Amaretto Sour, a Lychee Martini, a Jagermeister shot, a Mai Tai and a Manhattan. It all went down real well and contributed to the harmonious flow of my beats.



The following day, before heading back to Montreal, we had breakfast at Empire, on the Market. We walked the streets, in no particular hurry, enjoying the gorgeous weather. We headed back in town and arrived around 5, took back the rental car to its Stanley St. hideout, and ate delicious pastas at McGill College's Boccacino's. We wanted to catch the end of what would be our last Piknic of the year, with the Archipel DJs making a killing, but got out of the restaurant so late that we decided to head home.

I have so many things to do all week that I don't really give a fuck anymore. There's no void in my life I need to fill by going out all the time. I'll party when I feel like it, if there's something really special going on, if there's a guest I like and never heard live before... but not because I don't know what to do with my evenings. There are so many things I have yet to learn, so many books to read and movies to see... so many precious people in my life I barely see and spend time with because I'm so busy all the time.

Take a step back. Evaluate what counts the most. WHO counts the most. Then, do only that, with only those people. Life's too short to deal with all that phony crap and these idiotic morons anyway.



Don't look for me over this orgiastic week-end filled with promises : I'll be in Toronto, chillin' at the Clothing Show with self-obsessed fashionistas and short-memoired hipsters. I'll do my best to come back with the most troubling t-shirts and belt buckles I'll find. We'll listen to rebel country and soothing folk music in the car, and the road will be filled with stretches of forest, offering us their lively fall colours, and one last breath of fantasy before winter sets in and turns everything as white as despair.