Bonjour, Montréal ! Comment ça va ? Excellent, thanks for asking. Why? Because it's the last show of a pretty cool North American tour! Featuring fresh-baked bagels, parking tickets, robots and robot songs, two-way traffic, gravity hills and more.

I head out early, but still run into traffic - full-on, standstill, rush hour traffic. I was staying on the far side of Ottawa, so have to travel downtown and then out again towards Montreal. Although it's still Ontario, the countryside is clearly Québecois - something about the crisp winter fields and the old farmhouses feels... french. Or maybe I'm really tired. I'm heading to Montreal for a 10:30 meeting... which I realize an hour into the drive, is actually at 8:30. Oh god.

I phone everyone at the meeting and Ida, a friend at the office, phones me back. Good news - the meeting's at 9:30. "So don't rush and kill yourself," she says. Right. Now I just have to shave an hour off of a three hour drive. Oh god.

Luckily, the speeding gods who have smiled upon me the whole tour are still in my pocket. I get to Montreal quickly and may actually make it... until I hit rush hour. Again.

!@#$!@#$!$%

Hitting rush hour on the tour is bad planning on my part. Hitting it twice is just bad luck and stupidity rolled together. I phone again. Luckily, everything's fine and 10 is a great time for a meeting... sigh....

I park quickly and rush in. After the meeting I stop to check my hastily-parked car and have misunderstood the french - earning me a $35 parking ticket.

Ida and I do lunch and then I take the rent-a-wreck for a drive around town. Montreal is stunning at Christmas. Everything is lit up, from trees to street signs to sculptures. The city glows. I have the day to myself before I meet up with Audrey, an old friend from York. I find where I'm meeting her... and then get very tired. I get lost driving around and settle for a nap in a donut store parking lot. Classy. Finally, I meander back downtown, park the car, and check out local stores. I love Montreal bookstores - free internet, as well as a variety of very cool CDs, graphic novels, as well as dishes, puzzles, and anything else you can think of. Upstairs I find a very cool movie store with an amazing selection of french movies. Live-action TinTin!... I wish I spoke better french...

I take a lot of pictures of Christmas lights and then get a bit lost heading back to the car. Finally I find it and rush off to meet Audrey. I wait for her at what I think is the front of the building, and she waits at the side. It takes a couple phone calls to Audrey's sister to figure things out.

I follow her home through the winding streets of Montreal, trying to memorize the route, but eventually giving up and enjoying the cityscape view of the factories and cathedrals.

Audrey puts me up in her basement. We hang out for a bit, learning about Latke-making from Audrey's sister, Steph - but I am made of exhaustion and fall asleep fast.


The next day, Audrey has a surprise for me. She's found an old tape that we made, with Irene, singing songs back in University. It's very cool - and features us singing a very old song of mine called, appropriately "Montreal", about an old friend who I lost track of. Very kizmet.

We got lost in downtown Montreal
And somehow at the time I didn't care
Told you that I'd write and if I didn't write I'd call
I guess I didn't call. I guess I didn't care all...

Audrey's working from home, so I lounge around her, reading the paper and blogging. In the special "spelling bee" section (who knew?!) they list words that come specifically from Canada (among others) including: hackmatack, ogopogo, mucky-muck, and skookum. Points to those of you who can define them.

Eventually we go out. Audrey gives me the skyway tour of Montreal - stopping by steep cliffs to see the city spreak out and frozen. I love the view, but am more interested in the little things: twigs and branches perfectly encase in glass.

We go for traditional fresh Montreal bagels. SO GOOD. I buy a dozen and eat two immediately. Then Audrey heads to work and I head off to sound check.

I'm playing at a place called Zeke's Gallery with a woman named Signe (pronouced See-na), who I have only met on myspace. Audrey tells me that Zeke's is a cool place and that it's in a happening part of town, but when I get there, Zeke's doesn't have a sign, so I miss it several times. When I finally find it, it turns out to be a tiny door leading to an upstairs, very low-key art gallery. The "cool" part that I was excited about, about playing here, was that Zeke, the owner, records every show and uploads them - promoting new music on his website and via podcast. Unfortunately, his sound system is in the shop, so we're stuck just playing at the end of the art gallery (where he's also stored the next exhibit - making us look a bit like discarded pieces of art). Luckily, Signe shows up with a couple amps and my mic stand rounds it out into a good enough setup.

Zeke sound checks us and tries to convince me that I shouldn't use the microphone (which he thinks doesn't sound good enough) - just sing out to the gallery - which, after doing this in other clubs, I think won't look great, especially with Signe using the mic before me...

In order to play at Zeke's, musicians must come by to meet him, do a sound check 4 hours earlier, send bios and music, bring in an audience (he doesn't publicize, except on his own site), and agree to a lengthy contract. Signe, to her credit, dealt with him and set up everything but I'm a bit frustrated by his attitude and that his promise of a recording and online music is gone. To be fair, Zeke does some very cool stuff and clearly believes in promoting artists from a variety of genres - not only does his gallery offer art and music, but he has poetry and zines in racks at the back. It's worth checking out.

Signe on the other hand, is lovely and very sweet. This is one of her first gigs back on the music scene, since she had a terrible contract experience early on. Appparently she got signed to a lousy contract, was forced into debt, and lost the rights to her songs - she still can't sing them at this show!

We figure out the sound, put a poster on the door (so that people may actually know where to come!), and head our seperate ways. I drive around trying to find a good smoked meat sandwich. I finally hit a place call "Main" or "The Main" - a tiny, very classic diner - but apparently one of "the places" to get good Montreal smoked meat. I order a small sandwich which comes with enough smoked meat for me to give it out as gifts at the show. I consider poutine to complete the full Montreal experience, but then reconsider and order a salad. A heart attack mid-performance just isn't worth it.

Over dinner, I finally finish A Short History of Nearly Everything, which I bought in Victoria. A great book. One of his final thoughts is that our story on earth has actually been pretty short - barely even a footnote in our planet's history. Again, this whole tour is put in a perspective - what's 6 weeks or touring? To me, a LOT. But compared to dinosaurs... I resolve to put more things in perspective by comparing them to dinosaurs...

Back at Zeke's we warm up and eventually some folks arrive; for me: Audrey and Steph, Audrey's boyfriend Mark, and other friend - and from Aviva, a good translator friend, Nina, and her boyfriend. Nina is dressed to the nines and I feel very underdressed (and cold!) in my tshirt. Anyway, it's a pleasure to have a good friendly audience.

Signe does a great opening set, playing some beautiful originals and covers. I sit at the back and enjoy it, although I'm getting sleepy... after the tour is over, I am going to sleep for days. After a bit, she invites me onstage to duet on a cover of Till I Am Myself Again - a Blue Rodeo tune - and usually very high for me, but tonight it feels great. I feel comfortable and happy to have played for 6 weeks straight and am now just having fun.

My set goes well, although I'm a bit sloppy - more being tired than any nerves. I think I told the audience that I wanted to practice my french, and then tried to translate Seventeen's chorus into french ("Elle est vinght-huit... je suis dix-sept")... it doesn't go so well... I make up a song for them about "the sculpture on stage" (which looks like a robot), "black ice" and "basket weaving"... it's about the Robot sculpture on stage hating me and wishing people would look at it more. I think at one point in the song the Robot threatened to "take me out back"... Anyway, it's a fun show, but I am clearly tired and ready to head back to Toronto.

Everyone says nice things, a couple buy CDs and I think everyone enjoys themselves a fair bit. Signe may be coming to play Toronto soon, so I'm looking forward to seeing her play again.

Before the night ends, Audrey and her boyfriend Mark lead me through the dark Montreal streets in an awesome little tour. They show me castles of the rich and famous - a whole area of town made of beautiful grey stone. At the end is the cathedral where Celine Dion (Montreal's royalty) was married - and a stunning view. We make a wrong turn and I learn what a kill-de-sac is (cul-de-sac is french for "dead end" and apparently "kill-de-sac" is a dead end up a ridiculously sloped street, where turning around almost kills you. Or at least that's my interpretation. Finally, we're driving along and Mark suddenly jumps out of Audrey's car and runs back to mine. They take me to an off-ramp, sloped downward, that if you stop on it and then let the car roll, it rolls backwards... uphill! Mark calls it "gravity hill" and really it's just an optical illusion, but is pretty freakin cool.

We get home, hang out with Steph and Audrey's dad a bit, but eventually hit the hay. In the morning, we say goodbyes and I am on my way hom. On the way out of Montreal, I hit traffic again. Sigh...