South Beach Observations

Here are some of my observations during my 24 hour stay in South Beach along with the 12 hours of travel required to get there and back.

- Everyone clapped as we touched down. I remember people doing this before, but it had been a while. It kinda caught me off guard thinking that it must have been a tough landing. Like we were close to dying and I totally missed it.

- South Beach was cool. Beautiful people and beautiful buildings. I have always liked the Art Deco style, but to see the South Beach version of it was even better. The colors (and warm temps) do a lot compared to the staid limestone versions back in Chicago. There were more good looking Latinos than I remember back home. It kept catching me off guard to see someone who looks primarily 'American' and than hearing them speak fluent Spanish. There are quite a few that did not have that stereotypical Latino look.

- I overheard a lot of Spanish being spoken. I should have expected it, but it surprised me. I also heard quite a few people speaking French. I could not distinguish if they were French or French-Canadian. They didn't have distinct accents in either direction.

- Business travel is bitter sweet in nice locales. It was the same when I was in LA two years ago. South Beach was beautiful, but it can get depressing eating by yourself all the time and constantly lugging around your office with you. The upside as with any solitary travel is that you can spend eons setting up nice photos and choosing where you go. But again, having someone there to share it with is better.

- As we boarded the plane in Miami, an endless line of police cars and emergency equipment raced over to a few gates down out of view. We backed out, passed by the gate with easily thirty vehicles surrounding the plane, then took off not far from it. I got a picture of the mayhem as we were taking off. My boss said this morning that some guy who said he had a bomb was shot and killed. Kinda weird how close I get to these situations. There is also a post on the Metroblog.



- Can someone explain the rush to get off planes? Is it claustraphobia? As the pilot or stewardess was explaining over the intercom that you must keep your seat belts fastened, I hear a chorus of clicks and two older guys jump up and open the over head bins. It happens on every flight. Then they have no choice but to stand there and wait five minutes for the rest of the plane to exit. The whole while, I sat back comfortably and exited only a few seconds after them. I really don't get the rush. It's not like the Amazing Race was on.

Miami Sejour

I'm headed off to Miami for a couple days. Hopefully my flight back won't be delayed and I'll make it to YULblog. In the meantime:

Which is most likely to happen while I'm down there?
A. meet, make friends with, and hang out with Chad and his pregnant wife.
B. be blindsided by some kid named Elian during his driving test.
C. be mistakenly arrested by bank security and retired police officer Tubbs.
D. I will be awakened in the middle of the night by a drag queen that resembles Lex Luthor and his excort named Sparticus.
E. while poking around a vacant store, find six hundred uncounted ballots for some guy named Al.

Anyhow, hope to see you at YULblog.

This is Bizarre.

A while back I noticed a referral page that I had not heard of before. I clicked on it and came across a page that listed me in their blogroll. I felt kinda honored because it was only the second page that I knew of that had done that. But, it was kinda weird because there has not been any contact (comments on each other's pages) at all. Usually a blogroll shout out is after at least a minimal amount of back and forth.

But just now I happened back on that page and found they had posted my most recent sunset. I didn't mind that so much, but there was absolutely no acknowledgement where it came from. It really comes across as if it was a personal photo. I will confront them, but I would like to mull the whole thing over a bit. It's late and I have work to finish before tomorrow morning. It's just so bizarre.

Chicago Style Pizza

It is my favorite pig-out food. Everytime I have returned to Chicago, it is one of the first things I try to get my hands on. We order twice as much as we can possibly eat and save the rest for breakfasts or snacks. Pure heaven. It must be an ingrown thing. Our parents rewarded our good grades with a Chicago Style deep dish pizza dinner at Lou Malnati's. Visitors to Chicago have found it to be no big thing. Probably the same way I have had trouble understanding the smoke meat and bagel thing here. Blasphemy, I know.

This all comes up because we recently tried one of those 'Chicago Style' pizzas by President's Choice (PC) at Provigo. I'm sorry, but IT SUCKED! The principle was there, but the correct ingredients were not. For those unfamiliar, Chicago style pizza is a pan pizza with the layers of tomato sauce and cheese inverted. The crust is normally a butter or beer crust. It has a consistency similar to cornbread or it is at least risen a bit like a cake, not pie crust like PC. Next is a layer of mozzarella cheese. The filler is usually slabs of sausage (not deer scat like PC or Dominoes) along with mushrooms and pepperoni sometimes. The top layer is tomato sauce with bits of stewed tomatoes. The only purveyors of real Chicago style pizza that I know of are Lou Malnatis, Gino's East (featured on the Amazing Race), and Rico Benes. Even the Chicago Pizza Pie Factory on the Champs Elysee had good Chicago style pizza. When I was working on the stadium construction, the roach coach always had some Rico Benes pizza and I pigged out almost every day. Must be how I got this gut.

So a note on the pizza here in Montreal. Now there were always very good thin crust pizza places around in Chicago. Yes it was greasy, but the sausage was real (not scat) and it had a nice thick layer of cheese. My worries started when people told me Dominos had the best pizza here. As far as ordering out for pizza I have been bitterly disappointed. There is just something about it that lacks flavor. I have found that Pizza Hut has the best delivery pizza. Even in France we were able to get some good funky gourmet pizzas. Really our best bet here has been gourmet frozen pizza. Ones with goat cheese, artichokes, and stuff like that. If anyone can recommend a good pizza place, maybe a delivery place on the south shore, I am all ears. I will gladly eat these words along with copious amounts of pizza if I can be proved wrong.

Tag! You're it!

Zura has tagged me with a 'meme' along with a couple others. A meme is a blog game where you are tagged by a fellow blogger, you write a post according to specified instructions, and you in turn tag another blogger(s). It's kinda like a blogger version of those chain emails written by teenage girls that my father keeps sending me. In this meme, you google '(your name) needs' and post the results. An overwhelming number of my results related to either: a prime minister, a certain disease, or a jazz musician. Only one was myself.

F needs system failures, transit related and otherwise.
F needs to be preserved.
F needs other ways to deal with financial aid.
F needs to protect rare species and forests.
F needs to tell you all the gory details.
F needs 6 month airline notice.
F needs to build on this success to create new opportunities.
F needs for us to cooperate to realize the holding of a conference.
F needs to pay special consideration to the socially disadvantaged.
F needs to reform his political and economic systems to meet new challenges.
F needs to restore confidence in the financial system and give the sagging economy a boost.
F needs to call project Dana for assistance.
F needs an English speaking minister.
F needs his neighbor once in every ten years.
F needs to clarify the function of Dsg4.
F needs to increase the thyroxine dose over time.
F needs to become weary of coming to meetings, parking himself, and listening.
F needs not to be heard obviously.
F needs to push men to admit depression.
F needs to ensure transparency in order to enhance the understanding.
F needs boardinghouses opened.
F needs help from Frank.
F needs to shake the status quo.

Looks like I've got a lot to do including some big ones. Makes me look like a world leader or something.

I, in turn, tag Rachel and John.

Montreal Sunset #4

It has been a while since I put up a sunset. Click on the picture for a bigger version. For those of you keeping track at home here are #1, #2, & #3. When we lived in this apartment, it was our first time in high rise living. There were some nice perks such as covered parking and a pool, but the best perk was the sunsets. In the time we lived there, I probably took over 100 photos of sunsets. We were also prefectly situated to have the sun set over the city. This photo has NOT been modified. It was probably the most surreal one while we were there.

In other news, my traffic doubled last month and I quickly passed the 2000 visit mark. Much of it has come through searches for info on Montreal, but thank you to those of you who keep coming back.

Music as Identity - Part 2 - Industrial

Since writing the last post I have thought of a couple other points. First, it is the connection with others with the more rare musical tastes that really interest me. I get more excited when someone says they were fans of Front 242 than of The Cure. Actually, I can't recall ever actually meeting someone else who was a Front 242 fan, but I would be pretty excited if I did. For this reason, the list of music types will generally go from rare to more mainstream.

As I grow older, I seem to forget actual moments when things started or finished, but I believe I started listening to Industrial music around when I was 15 or 16. When I started high school at age 14, I became friends (who I have kept to this day) with fellow cross-country runners who introduced me to New Wave which included The Cure, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Depeche Mode, New Order, and Nitzerebb. That music will be covered in the next post.

As we got older, there was a juice bar dance club called Medusa's where they played our music. We went a few times, and later I went often by myself. The crowd was fairly diverse. Whites, blacks, hispanics, asians, goths, preppies, new wavers, city kids, suburbanites, straight, gay. It was one of the few if not the only dance club for those under-age. The club was split into three levels. The lowest level was the large dance floor with two to six foot tall boxes scattered on the floors and near the walls. The music always had a beat for dancing. It was where people showed off their moves or just stood by and took it all in. We preferred dancing on the boxes just for the playful back and forth. Easier to see and be seen. The middle level was basically a series of rooms set up like lounges. A place to get away, but oddly enough, not a make-out haven. The top level was the video room. A fairly large space with a screen at each end and some boxes in the middle. This is where I could actually connect visuals to the songs. It was usually more melodic songs with less of a heavy beat. Or at least songs they had videos for.

On the large dance floor is where I grew to love Front 242 and Ministry. Front 242's Headhunter was THE song. Everyday is Halloween by Ministry was the other. Though not industial, there were also any number of dance songs by the New Wave artists listed above being played along with some early house and hip-hop. In the video room, I came to learn of the less popular musicians along with some of the more popular alternative musicians. It is where I heard How Soon is Now by the Smiths and Kooler than Jesus by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. There was also Birthday by the Sugarcubes and older videos by The Cure (Pre-Standing on the Beach).

This exposure to Industrial Music lead to Wax Trax! Records when it was still on Lincoln Ave near where John Dilinger got shot. Wax Trax! was the distributors of Front 242, Ministry, Thrill Kill Cult, the Revolting Cocks, Die Warsau, and KMFDM. This interest in Industrial also lead to seeing Pigface in concert at the Metro. Pigface was composed of members of the other bands on Wax Trax. Another band I enjoyed from this style included Meat Beat Manifesto. OK, now I'm just name-dropping, so I'll stop.

I guess one of the reasons these memories of industrial music rushed back is because most of that music was on records and tapes. The records have since gone their own way and the tapes are stashed away in some box. So when I thought of the music recently, it had been a long time since it crossed my mind. After a bit of web surfing, a few pages suggest that Chicago was the center of Industrial music. I wonder if this is true and how popular it was elsewhere. So please let me know if you had heard of these bands outside of Chitown. I'm gonna hafta get my hands on those CD's so I can blast the pants off these south shore suburbanites next summer.

Next stop: New Wave.

Music as Identity - Part 1 - The Intro

It is interesting what makes up peoples identities. Sometimes it is interests, sometimes it is what you do, sometimes it is where you are from, and sometimes it is who you associate with. For some it is a mixture of these. For some it is one singular aspect. Over the span of my life each of these has or does define who I am. And it has varied over time. Some have come and gone, some have slowly drifted back to lesser importance, and some will probably never leave me. For instance, where I am from has drifted between being a large part of my identity to a small part multiple times. What people generally regard as identity is shown in the Blogger profile. Listed (if you wish) are age, location, employment, general interests, and more specifically favorite movies, favorite music, and favorite books.

Interests and who you associate with are ones that you have the most choice in defining who you are. It is interests and more specifically music taste that I will focus on here. It is interesting how for some people there is one interest that defines them. Like a sports fan who is all about a particular team and known primarily as a fan of that team. Same applies to film or music.

Since my adolescence, I have felt that musical taste has been a strong part of what defined who I was. It was stronger then and has gradually been shared with other aspects of identity. My best explanation for the feeling is that musical taste helped define who I was in the adolescence years when I was trying to define my identity. It could have been that I was truly trying to find as many unique aspects to be sure I would be unique. Not just another face in the crowd in the big city at a school of over 2500 boys. Generally my tastes have not been mainstream, which may be another reason I feel it is a major part of my identity.

But there is another aspect. As suggested by Blogger with their friendster write-ins, it is a part of your identity which will help you determine compatability with others. To a degree, your taste in music, movies, or books will give you clues into whether you see eye to eye with others. Whether you share ideologies or at face value whether you just plain like the same things.

What has brought this on? As I get older I am getting more nostalgic. Possibly also because of reading others experiences via their blogs, such as the Nine Inch Nails and Bauhaus concerts recently in Montreal. Plus in looking back it has been cool to see the journey of how I got here and what has defined who I am. So... in order to express my nostalgia, I will share my different musical tastes over the years and my thoughts. Another reason is because I am curious if my musical journey and experience matches those of others raised elsewhere or even back home. These won't be in any particular order, but as the feeling (or nostalgia) hits me.

The first stop: Industrial.

Population of Montreal in 2005

I have mentioned this before, but I get a lot of people coming here when they do a search for 'population of Montreal in 2005'. Now I don't know why people are looking for 'population of Montreal in 2005' or more importantly why my blog keeps coming up in searches for 'population of Montreal in 2005'. I'm listed second currently on searches for 'population of Montreal in 2005'. Do you think I'll become #1 if I keep mentioning 'population of Montreal in 2005'. It seems my post on the language demographics on the island are the page that is referred to when looking for the 'population of Montreal in 2005'. But for those of you who are not interested in the language demographics and truthfully want to find out what is the 'population of Montreal in 2005'. Here is your answer. Drum roll please....

The Population of Montreal in 2005 (2001 actually) is.....

1 812 723 of the nicest people you could meet in the world.

So there you go. Now you know the 'population of Montreal in 2005'. I really hope you can all sleep well. Aw heck, since I love numbers here are some more. The population of the Montreal Metropolitan area in 2005 (actually 2001) is 3 650 000. The population of the city of Chicago in 2005 (2000) is 2 896 016 of the nicest people you also could meet in the world. And the population of the Chicago Metropolitan (Chicagoland) area in 2005 (2000) is 9 157 540.

Enjoy.

Pat Morita

Ouch that one hurts.

Pat Morita has passed away. As with others my age, I looked up to the fictional character of Mr. Miyagi as a mentor. A character who dealt with negative forces with a reasoned approach. OK, sometimes with force, but still with calm and reason.

Now I was not an avid fan of Mr. Morita, and did not follow his career, but the Mr. Miyagi character holds something special for me. Mr. Miyagi very much resembled my grandfather. His style, his accent, his manner of speak, and even his grunts. My grandfather passed away a couple years after Karate Kid came out, so I could not watch the movie without thinking of him. Mr. Morita was one of the few prominant Japanese American celebrities out there. The only other I can think of is David Suzuki.

It is odd how this stings. It happens everytime someone from my childhood passes away. Like when Jimmy Stewart passed. It doesn't help that I have been on a bit of a nostaglia streak lately. Reading other blogs has really stirred up a lot of memories. And before that child rearing harkens back to how things were when I was a child. Could this be middle age or am I still too young?

Artistic Graffiti

Here's a view of some graffiti I pass everyday on my commute. This type of artwork is common in this neighborhood. Well done graffiti like this can liven up the city. Tags are just plain vandalism. I had created a tag when I was growing up in the city, but I could never bring myself to actually put it somewhere. I just had too much respect for the owners of the property and the image of the city. So it never made it out of my high school notebooks.

American Thanksgiving

Today is American Thanksgiving. It is probably THE one holiday that is unique to the US. And it is arguably the one major holiday that has not become commercial. Don't get me started on the ridiculous shopping frenzy the day after.

It is the Thanksgivings of my childhood that always seemed so special. Especially those with my mother's side of the family. I enjoy my father's side, but let me explain. My mother was third oldest of eight siblings. So the youngest is only 8 years older than myself. It made for an energetic family reunion of young twenty-somethings that as a young kid I aspired to be. There wasn't the heightened emotions of getting presents. It was kicking back, having a great meal, watching some football, and enjoying everyone's company. Maybe even stepping outside and throwing the ball around.

Oddly enough, the office I work for here holds a cocktail party to entertain clients on the same day so I get to celebrate a bit. So far I have missed five Thanksgivings: two in France, one in Lexington, Kentucky (big mistake), two here and counting...