The Beach

I rode the streetcar out to the Beach yesterday with James Joyce and Led Zeppelin.

I hadn't been there in a long time but I didn't remember the shore being so rocky and the water being so algae-y.

I also forgot, and this is true even when I go to a decent beach, how unpleasant it is to have sand in your ass-crack on the ride home.

I was hoping to get a bit of a tan, but fearing cancer I put on so much sunblock that its opacity would have protected me fully without the need for the SPF 50. When it started to melt into my eyes I knew it was time to go home because there was no way I was rinsing it out with, or even getting into, the green tinged lake.

À MONTRÉAL

After living there for five weeks last summer, I can say with all honesty that I'm not the biggest fan of Montreal. I must admit though, it does have a certain charm, like a mostly harmless homeless man who smells distinctly of excrement but whose intoxicated ramblings are highly entertaining.

It is summer, I and my new-found disposable income are restless. À Montréal, mes amis!

A road trip and some poutine are exactly what we need. Things might be tough, but how can you be sad when you just saw a tourist step in horse shit or trip over cobblestones.

Let's hoist our 750ml cans of depanneur Export and toast not Montreal, nor life, nor anything but ourselves and nothing, nobody else, because sometimes a little selfish frivolity isn't absolutely deserved but is exactly what we need. So meet me on Ste. Catherine and let's celebrate our own vulgar existence. As far as I'm concerned, Montreal - the city where optimism went to die, is the perfect place to do it.