“edited” by AL SOUTH
F Hey, I am calling because I just do not understand what is going on in Parc Extension, especially on Querbes street. I have never seen so much garbage. Yesterday there was a man who literally threw a bag full of DVDs on the sidewalk, on which he then dropped POTS OF LASAGNA and then pieces of a WIG. All of this now is in a beautiful little melting snow pile mess. There are also rotting chairs, sandwiches, more lasagna and videos. So if anybody wants to go and clean up that street—maybe like the city—that would be really great, because it looks like a SLUM. [BLEEP!]
M For all of you who are whining about the pitbull ban, I suggest that what we really need in this city is a ban on ALL DOGS. The amount of dog shit and small green plastic green bags of dog shit on the streets and sidewalks of this city is out of control, particularly since the French—from FRANCE—moved in. We’d all be better off if people just kept cats as pets. Or even CHICKENS. [BLEEP!]
M Yeah, hi, this is one of the regulars from Bagel Etc, the diner on St. Laurent. As many of you may know, when LEONARD COHEN was still alive he used to come by the diner often. Well, actually he hadn’t been there since probably 2014, but he did come by. And we had, at the cash, a little kind of tribute, a mini-kind of a shrine, to him. And last Saturday, some guy, or girl, probably a guy, stole the HAT that was part of the shrine. The grey, wool-knit, kind of tweed hat that Cohen wore circa 2005, before he got into the whole fedora in the last decade of his life. But we just want for you to know, the guy who stole it, that it was not Leonard’s real hat! It was a hat from the lost and found that we put there. You don’t have Leonard Cohen’s hat. You have some lost and found hat from some guy who left it there. That’s all. [BLEEP!]
M Ok, I just heard that Hampstead is going to BAN SMOKING in all of Hampstead. You won’t be able to smoke anywhere outside. Anywhere at all. So supposedly you can smoke in your own home, as if anyone still does that, but if you live in the one set of apartments in Hampstead, you can’t smoke there either, you will have to walk across the street to Cote St Luc. The FREE LAND of Cote St Luc! Listen, I am not sure I have ever been to Hampstead, but I feel like making a trip there just to flaunt this crazy law. Or maybe not, the fine is like $1500! I mean come on, is the smoking problem really that bad in Hampstead that they need to have the most restrictive law in the country? Sounds like they need a real problem to worry about. [BLEEP!]
M Hello Rant Line™. I just saw that they are going to stop the Ogilvy Christmas Window! Are you kidding me? This is a tradition that has been going on for 70 years! Every single Montrealer has a memory of it, every single kid who grew up here looked at. Who in their right mind decided this? They say they need more space—space for what? More dummies in overpriced Holt Renfrew clothes? And they say the toys are getting old—If they are getting old, fix them! They can’t be that complicated, they were built 70 years ago! It’s just a bad, bad corporate decision. It is also bad business, the Christmas Window drew people to the store! I call for a boycott, and if that doesn’t work, here’s a better idea. What breaks glass? Rocks. [BLEEP!]
M If I was living back in Toronto, I would vote for Doug Ford, no doubt. He was the BEST HASH DEALER in Etobicoke, bar none. He always had the best hash. Always. Good hash, fair prices, good quality. The city can’t go wrong with him in charge. Vote Ford. [BLEEP!]
M All right, all right, calm down everybody, you car drivers who are going crazy about not being able to cross the mountain in your frigging automobiles. Number one, it’s a park. Number two, it’s an OLMSTED PARK. Olmsted, the greatest designer of parks in the whole world. New York City has two, Prospect Park and Grand Central Park. Olmsted designed the Chicago World’s fair, for crying out loud. Now listen: he didn’t put a highway in the middle of his freaking park. We have two Olmsted Parks in Montreal. The other one is Westmount Park, and 40 years ago they stopped the highway, called de Maisonneuve, going through that park. There were 17,000 cars going every single day through Westmount Park and one day, thanks to an urban planner who became an activist—because who puts a frigging highway through a park—he pushed the city and the city stopped it. So let’s just stop the stupid highway through the other Olmsted park in Montreal. Please. It’s our frigging beautiful Mount Royal. [BLEEP!]
M Let me tell you a FUNNY STORY. I actually made a wish, upon a SHOOTING STAR, last year. Mainly I wanted to test if the theory was right. But I had been single for a couple of years, so when I saw the shooting star I was like, all right, fine, I wish for a girlfriend. I know it’s fucking cheesy, but I just wanted to try it to see if it would work. And it did! However, not in the way I was hoping. You see, there’s this girl who came back into my life, around Halloween. We hadn’t spoken in 15 or so years, ever since we split from high school. We just got to talk randomly and… it kind of worked. I mean, she came out of the blue, she was very nice to me and everything but… I don’t think in the end we’re going to work together. Because she’s fucking crazy, man! No fucking way! Can I have a refund on the shooting star? [BLEEP!]
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