(Read Part 1 here)

On The Road Again

Day 2 on the road. Dylan and I officially consider ourselves hardened road veterans. With an early start thanks to the sketchy House of Nazareth, we catch our first ride before 8am: an old, bright orange VW van. I didn’t know hitchhiking could be so cliche. Dylan sat in the back seat, a slippery vinyl ledge with no seatbelt, and I sat up front. After our introductions, the twenty-something driver started talking about music. “Hey, do you guys know reggae punk? You gotta check this out.” The remainder of the two hour ride, he would alternate between telling us about a new genre of music he had discovered (psychedelic blues, Icelandic ska) and playing a few songs on his stereo for us. Dylan fell asleep in the back so I was left on conversation duty. Nearing the end of the ride, I ventured to asked him if he liked TOOL. “Naw, too loud. They’re just plain metal. But hey, you gotta check out this new underground African-jazz-metal trio I found from New York…”

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This is part one in a true series called Montreal Rock City.

The question you gotta ask yourself is how badly do you wanna see the greatest fucking rock and roll show in the fucking earth, right? We’re talking Gene and Paul live, yo. We’re talking about the most voluptuous women hanging out in the audience. I’m talking big breasteses in tight dressteses. We’re talkin’ ‘bout people passing around joints in the audience. I’m talking about fucking Detroit rock city. Shake your wee wee.

– Scalper in the movie Detroit Rock City

The Scene

I’m seventeen. It’s the summer after graduating high school. A rough summer of alcoholic hazes and sleepless nights. I sometimes get headaches when I don’t drink. The august heat makes my shitty job of cleaning car interiors even more hellish. I tell by boss that if I have to scrape one more dead bird from under the hood of a Pontiac Aztec, I’ll quit.

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People have been emailing me, telling me that I don’t post regularly enough, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do a short post a week with a couple of photos (in addition to when I actually have something to say, rather than just reminiscing). Just to get me in the habit of posting something (however brief) every week. I’m just going to include random photos that I like or that have a story behind them.

Apparently, this weeks theme is grassy photos.

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I was staying at a youth hostel in Regina, Saskatchewan when I met her for the first time. It was October and apparently the off-season for tourists in Saskatchewan as she and I were the only guests that day. She said her name was “Hanna” but it was spelled Chana.

She arrived late evening, as I was making my dinner in the basement kitchen. She was was dressed kind of ‘hippie’ and was pretty, which was accentuated by a positive energy about her. I guessed her age at about 28.

She also had a guitar with her. This fact might not seem like a big deal, but I’m always mysteriously more attracted to women who have some musical talent.

I was, at the time, trying to hitchhike my way back to Halifax after having my money stolen from me in Vancouver and working a week as a laborer in Calgary. I had experienced a lot in the month I was gone, but I was ready to head home.

I told her my story and without giving it a thought she offered me a ride to Toronto, a whole three days away. She had all of her things from her home in Boulder, Colorado in the back of her station wagon for her big move to Toronto. “Are you sure? I mean, that’s a long time to be in a car with someone you don’t know…” I said, being hesitant to put her in a situation where she felt obligated to drive me.

We eventually agreed that she would drive me to Winnipeg, drop me off somewhere for the night, and whether she wanted to pick me up again the next morning was up to her, no hard feelings.

That night we went out and explored the bustling city of Regina and found… nothing. No live music, no night life, just good conversation and a quiet beer together back in the kitchen at the hostel. Chana played a song she wrote on her guitar – the chords were simple, but the lyrics suggested she had experienced more than her youthful face showed.

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Since I’m moving to Japan in precisely two weeks, I thought it would be appropriate to look at what I wrote about the wonderful and mysterious land of the rising prices, on my first trip way back in 2002 (reading my old writing, I get annoyed with my too-liberal use of brackets… aw crap.)

-To Japan-

Early morning on April 25th I drove to the airport with my Mom, Dad, and friend Skye, a student from China (originally on exchange to St. Mary’s) who would be participating in the same exchange program as me. After a bad taste of 80`s rock, typical of an unnamed Halifax radio station, the news came on: seems that scientists have discovered evidence to back up the phenomenon of “Spring Fever” — the theory that says males are more aggressive in pursuing females in the Spring season — typically thought of as an old wives tale. They said something to the effect that male hormones actually increase involuntarily in the spring season. “Good,” I thought to myself, as we pulled into the airport parking lot, “not even on the plane yet, and already I’ve got an excuse ready.”

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Last we left him, our hero had accepted a ride in northern New Brunswick, with a 50-something truck driver named Ed , on his way north of Toronto.

Ed looked like your typical older truck driver. Three days worth of stubble, 50 pounds overweight, and a plaid shirt and trucker hat. Ed and I talked about all the usual topics for a few hours, and exchanged travel stories. I find that people usually like to reminisce about the old days when they used to hitchhike themselves. Ed told me about his first hitchhiking trip when he was seventeen in Newfoundland:

“My mom sent me down to the store to get some smokes, eh. An my buddy jus’ so happen to be standing ‘ere in front of the store with a big ol’ bottle o’ screech. An’ so we get to drinkin’ an’ — it seems like a good idea at the time, yaknow — and we decide to go for a hitchhikin’.”

“Well, I guess we got a little too into the booze, ’cause I can’t remember actually leavin’ the island, or even the people that woulda picked up a couple o’ drunk kids like us, but when I woke up… When I woke up it was a week and a half later and I was in Edmonton. I guess we had quite the bender! And the hotel room was all smashed up, and a girl was passed out on the floor with my buddy… And I tried, really tried to remember what had happened and how we had got to Edmonton, but I could only get bits and pieces, eh.”

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No money, no ATM card — definitely no credit card. That was what I had decided for the trip. I felt like I needed the challenge. Hitchhiking to Montreal every couple of weeks was starting to feel routine. The adventure was wearing off a little. I decided I would bring only my guitar and clothes. If I was going to eat, I had to play my guitar – busk – for it.

My destination was Montreal, but on the first day I left so late I only made it to Moncton, a two hour drive away.

It was about seven p.m. when I got dropped off in Moncton. I walked down Main Street to an underpass, where the down town seemed to fade into residential, then back to where I started — the restaurant with the big lobster in front. There wasn’t much going on in this town. It looked like it might be a difficult night to busk, and I thought about the possibility of a hungry night without dinner. Was it a bad idea not to bring money? I was starting to doubt my adventurous side.

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