Montreal Trip Report
post sponsored by Visit Canada
When I told people I was going on a solo trip to Montreal, their reactions ranged from cool! to why? Not that I owe anyone an explanation,1 but I went to finish a project for submission and to begin work on a second. Also my life has been an interesting kind of a nightmare this past year,2 one that New York, with its constant claustrophobic buzzing, has not aided in the dissipation of. And though I love New York, and have lived here for basically my entire adult life, I believe the city to be a sea of schizophrenic energy that every now and again one must emerge from so as not to go absolutely fucking looney tunes.
And so then I make my way to The Great White North. This trip report will cover the six days I was there, the progress I made on both projects, what I did, where I went, and how many cigarettes I smoked.
Day 1: big boy train trip
I arrive at Penn station at 630 am. I sit in an Amtrak waiting area and stare at a big neon sign that reads: EGG BREAKFAST. Intellectually, I understand what an “egg breakfast” could mean. But I’m curious as to what form it takes when produced by a cafe in what is famously the most disgusting travel hub in the entire world.
A crackling announcement comes over the loudspeaker informing passengers traveling to Canada that they must check in. With who and where? Well, that’s a mystery. I find an Amtrak employee who informs me I have to go across Eighth Avenue to Moynihan Train Hall where my train will be departing. Had I not heard this announcement or spoken to this employee, I absolutely would have missed my train. And after a few more conversations with disinterested Amtrak employees, I finally board for my 12 hour ride.
Train travel attracts a particularly odd kind of person. And this strange species was all around me, muttering to themselves, emitting bizarre odors, wandering the aisle on errands devoid of human reason. I find myself among these whackos and begin to wonder if I am in fact one of them.
Luckily I spend the first half of the ride sitting next to a relatively normal older woman. When considering some of my other options, this is like winning the lottery. My seatmate has with her a clear plastic bag filled with what must be 1,000 grapes. During our brief time together, she will eat all the grapes.
We stop in Albany for an hour. Here I speak to two of my fellow passengers. One, a visibly Australian man who, like my seatmate, is also the proud owner of a big bag of grapes, asks me if the train is stopping for an hour.
I think so, I say.
The second passenger I speak to, an older guy, grape ownership unknown,3 also asks me if the train is stopping for an hour.
I think so, I say.
Because Grape Lady got off in Albany, I have the seat to myself. The rest of the ride is uneventful. I spend it oscillating between looking out the window, writing, and reading. I will finish reading one book during the trip, Throat Sprockets,4 and make a good amount of progress on another, Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald, which is very beautiful:
To set one’s name to a work gives no one a title to be remembered, for who knows how many of the best men have gone without a trace?
A not insignificant part of my aforementioned nightmare is me struggling to come to terms with everything I have and haven’t done in my whole entire life. So it’s nice to be reminded that everything dies and nothing you do is remembered.
We arrive in Montreal at 7pm. I check into my hotel. I’ve been to the city before and stayed in Old Town. This time I’ve elected to stay in the heart of downtown. The hotel is fine. I go out and buy a pack of cigarettes. My relationship with nicotine has never been a fraught one. It is a gentle and beautiful drug. What is 15 dollars for 20 close friends who are all willing to lay down their lives in service of my good time?
I flip through Canadian television. Not to bring up the Sopranos again (see footnote 2) but there’s a Tony quote that has stuck with me: I came in at the end. The best is over. My entire creative life has been flavored by that sentiment. Whether it’s my performance, my writing, my literal job as a “creative,” it all feels like it’s been done amidst a shitty, tumultuous end. On the television, Mr. Wonderful’s head shines like a flesh nickel. A few months ago, I came up with a parody song called “Hotel TV” set to the tune of Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need.” I will sing this parody song for you if you ask.
Day 2: wow it’s raining
All art aspires to the condition of music - Walter Pater
One of my biggest regrets in life is not sticking with a musical instrument, because I agree with Walter up there that music is the ultimate form of human expression. It conveys emotion in a way other forms simply can’t. My child who is to be born in July will be forced to learn a musical instrument so as not to be weighed down by the same regret as their father.
The reason I even bring this up is because, as a writer, I have found myself frustrated by the limitations of different mediums. Stand up is too shallow,5 screenwriting too limited, and even prose, in my opinion the purest of written forms, has its constraints. But alas, this trip sees me push the boulder up the hill again. Perhaps to find myself smushed by its tumbling down once more? Guess we’ll see.
It rains basically the whole day. I go to the hotel gym and then spend the next six hours editing my novel (go ahead, roll your eyes). All existential feelings about the art form aside, I feel pretty good about it.
The rain breaks as evening falls. I go to a bar called The Cloakroom. They don’t have a menu there, and so you tell them what you like and they make something for you. I tell them I like gin martinis, fernet, and whatever it is has to be on the rocks. The drink is good and the bartenders, two people around my age, are great company. Afterwards, I go to a restaurant called Joe Beef. I eat oysters and steak tartare and drink another two martinis and then, as is the quebecois custom, pay the check and leave. I have nothing to do, no one to see, and I’m very drunk. I smoke a cigarette and go back to the hotel.6
I mess around with the new project for a bit before bed. I don’t want to go into detail about either novel, not because I’m embarrassed7 about them or anything, but because I don’t find it necessary.8 What I will say is that this new one is more personal, which is odd for me. I wanted to be a writer since I was in middle school, and luckily, as a big boy, I’ve been able to make what has been, at times, a meager living writing stuff (much less meager now). Growing up, I always heard the refrain that you have to live in order to have anything good to write about. Younger me rolled my eyes at that, thinking whoever said it must just not be very good. But after some recent life shit, I now get it.
If I could, I’d beat the shit out of younger me. He needs it, I think. Or maybe he needs a hug. Honestly he probably needs both.
Day 3: the city the river the city the mountain
This truly is a beautiful city. It’s extremely walkable, everything looks like an album cover, and all the women seem like they’d be really mean to me.9 French, I’ve decided, is a ridiculous sounding language. I wake up, drink coffee and work for a few hours.
Tapped out on writing, I decide to go out for a really long walk. I walk to the river then back through the city and up a big hill. I take a few bad pictures, including one of what I believe to be a rabid raccoon, and then walk back down the big hill. As I am walking down I see a father and his adult child walking up the big hill. I wonder if one day I will take my adult child here. I wonder if we’ll smoke cigarettes together. I wonder if they will resent me for making them learn an instrument. Resentment is odd, because at least for me it hummed ambient in the background of my life, a terrible pressure and one I ignored until something uncorked it. I think I will teach my child to never cork it in the first place. Surely they can’t resent me for that.
The bartenders from the night prior (shout out Ashley and Marcello) gave me recs. I go to Le Darling, which is a hip spot. I sit at the bar and quietly drink fernet and sodas until I’m drunk.
I only eat one meal a day. Tonight it’s at this place called Au Pied de Cochon. I order another Fernet and soda. Two older women are sitting next to me. I overhear them talking about Fernet and doing what older ladies do, which is google something and read the results out loud. I end up talking to them and learn they’re here on a Mother’s Day trip. I need to preface the following with I do not think this is in any way cool, but I do know a lot about liquor. Maybe not a lot, but enough to be able to speak confidently about the kind of weirdo amaros that bartenders are into. These conversations have, on more than one occasion, led to bartenders offering me free nips of this or that. At this restaurant, the guy gives the three of us little shots of a Fernet drink he invented. It was good, but too sweet for me. The ladies order bigger versions of it. After dinner we say our goodbyes. I wish them a happy Mother’s Day.
Day 4: it’s mr. friday night
As we move through the days, these sections are probably going to get shorter. Surely no one wants to read over and again about how I woke up, went to the hotel gym, and worked for a few hours.10 Today, though, I actually do therapy from the hotel room. I’ve been doing it for the past year. My therapist is great. She’s both helped me and destroyed me.11
After working for a bit at the hotel out I head to a coffeeshop that I’ve actually been to before. The coffeeshop is called Cafe Imago, and it’s clearly a spot where locals come to work and hang out. The cold brew makes me feel insane. I make a lot of progress on my book. I leave and jitter into the late afternoon. I lay around the hotel for a while. Then it’s back out for more bars. I go to a place called Cold Room. I don’t like it. The staff isn’t friendly and also the bar is in Old Town, which is a more touristy area so being there is annoying.
I go back to that place, Le Darling. A woman is sitting alone next to me at the bar (not going where you think it is). She is eating a weird little salad and drinking a big normal beer. A waiter comes over and tells her that a man, who is wearing a white bandana on his head, wants to come sit in the empty seat that’s between her and I. The woman, politely as she can, refuses and leaves. I look over at the man. He looks like a maniac. I pray people don’t see me the same way.
After Le Darling, I go to a place called Bar Le Mal Nécessaire. The vibes are absolutely fucked. I let the host seat me. When she’s gone I leave without ordering anything. I go back to the hotel, work, and go to bed. See, told you these were going to get shorter.
Day 5: it’s almost over
And thank god for that. Things are getting a little dull and depressing. I come upon the final few scenes of the book and realize that I have a bit more work to do on this portion than I initially thought, which is fine. I will end the trip being 99% finished. Which, though a bit disappointing, is whatever.
I walk the streets again, this time running into a pro-Shah demonstration that’s winding it’s way through the city.12 Some people are wearing that mask/goggle fit that anarchists wear during riots. It would be funny if what is essentially a pro-Iran war demonstration devolved into a riot, mostly because a majority of the demonstrators are old ass Persian guys.
I find a souvenir shop. I buy a shot glass, a magnet, a little tote, and a card. I head back to the hotel. Honestly, at this point, I’m really tired so I just lay on the hotel bed and scroll, the television blaring in the background. I do a little packing up. I eat an A&W cheeseburger at like 4pm. Similar to fast food in Europe, the stuff in Canada is like 100x better than in America.
I also keep a little running tab of the songs that are hitting for me during these long walks around the city.13 Perhaps it will give you a peek into where I’ve been mentally:
Day 6: big boy airplane ride
Flying gives me severe anxiety and all the nicotine and caffeine coursing through my body does not help. So I wake up early as hell and finish packing. I work on this post until it’s time to go to the airport.
I go through security pretty easily, immigration too. In the air, I try to distract myself from all the news of recent plane disasters. We’re flying into Newark, which is like the hub of all that shit. I use my notes app to clank out the rest of this post. I mentioned up top that I would report on how many cigarettes I smoked. So I go back through the past five days and do a count. My rough estimate is 22.14 In terms of the projects, one is nearly complete. I made some good progress on the other.
As we descend over a fog frosted New York skyline, I remember a conversation I overheard on the train ride up between the husband and wife sitting behind me.
“Brian just texted me. Dom passed away.”
“Wow.”
And they didn’t say anything else.
I actually did owe the Canadian border guards an explanation and they were cool about it
as Tony soprano once said, “But on this I will also not go into detail”
surely he has at least A COUPLE grapes!
this book kind of sucks, but some parts are decent. idk it was like budget JG Ballard, in that it’s partly about sexual compulsion but the author isn’t a big or authentic enough pervert to pull it off. the whole time I thought it was written in like 1995 but then at the end it’s COVID times? very disorienting. also he definitely wanted it to be a movie and then decided a movie is too hard to make so he’ll just write a novel—been there brother
i’ve actually had discussions (aka arguments) with friends over this because of course no one wants to hear that the creative outlet they’ve chosen to pursue is impure. but the product is literally shaped by immediate audience reaction. imagine a painter painted a painting then brought it in front of an audience of drunks and sweatily asked if it looked good and then if the audience says no the painter goes back and repaints the painting until most of the audience (who are all drunk remember and also stupid as well) agrees that the painting looks good. that’s basically stand up in my opinion. it’s only gotten worse with tik tok and instagram. of course there are stand ups who transcend this, do whatever they want and audiences like them anyway, but those people are few and far between and you are most likely not one of them. there are also a bunch of other reasons i find stand up to be just eh, but this footnote is already too long lol so if you want to talk about it DM or text me or punch me in the face. oh and btw I thought this while I was pursuing stand up comedy and i honestly dngaf about having not “succeeded” in it so it’s not bitterness.
in canada (or at least in quebec), the cigarettes come in oddly shaped packs, wide and rectangular. my theory is that it’s to make them less convenient to carry around. also each cigarette has a little message on the butt of it reminding you that smoking harms children (yes we all know). but then you also have your choice (at least I did) between packs of 20 and 25, which i find to be counterintuitive to all those aforementioned anti-smoking efforts.
I’m a little embarrassed
if you’re curious about either and ask me I will tell you about them
excuse me?
ya just did
not sure what it says about me, if anything, that I need to dump all my problems onto a woman lmk in the comments
also the hockey team is in the playoffs so that also was happening
yes i use spotify
def a bit more than this but we’re being nice to ourselves