chinese broccoli

montreal, continued.

i sleep the sleep of french angels in the pensione accommodations at casa del popolo and arise early to walk up st-laurent to meet dear anthony at the sparrow. this place has been on my mind since an unbelievable cheese sandwich in january, and i am excited to try their much lauded breakfast, which includes a pretty mindblowing crumpet, nevermind the homemade cream-filled donuts. i grab a “sausage roll” which turns out to be basically a sausage patty hamburger. then anthony and i are off to his cafe, myriade, so he can fix the espresso machine and i can get some work done, since, to a mix of relief and nuisance, the internets haven’t worked for me once yet anywhere in montreal. while i am in myriade they break there too. possibly the cosmos are trying to tell me i’m getting a permanent iphone-shaped-hand-claw.

magik markers and aaron and leah join for coffee and we realize that once again the clocks have broken and we’re running late to the next engagement, the last engagement, in western massachusetts. better to head to the border than dawdle for brunch, so we begin the long drive down rural quebec towards vermont armed with some fairmount bagels and root beer for sustainance. we do however eventually succumb to the combined biological needs of a bathroom break and a poutine break all at once.

we see a scary road sign indicating to us that a very ferocious wind monster will surely blow us off the road to a breezy death. i drew my interpretation of it since i didn’t get a photo, but there is also one on the internets here.

most of today’s drive is through vermont, which means frozen waterfalls, land whales, and other goodness. elisa is clipping coupons in the back of the minivan, and we are listening to neil young as we drive through the mountains. pete is keeping a tour diary on the surfaces of a manilla folder by the way. it is a way way better tour diary than this one.

palmer

we arrive in palmer, mass., and commence to looking for the diamond junction bowling lanes. it is right in the wee downtown, and we load into the video arcade area and eat some pizza. the bowling alley has an addams family pinball in great shape, and i play this til the experimental cymbal player starts up and i need to show some respect. a belated birthday carrot cake is produced for john shaw, who was already living the rock and roll life on the auspicious day itself, and friends fill up the bowling place, everything is really pretty great and hey, has anyone seen elisa’s guitar? looks like it didn’t make it here with us from montreal. fuuuuuuckkkkk.

bill nace steps up to loan her one and the last markers show i’ll see for awhile is three inches from my face in a video arcade, loud and crooked and immediate and grand despite all the jinxes put upon it. northampton wools close the night with a sound i’d like to try to type but can’t, and just like that’s it’s over, elisa’s in a car to hartford, john shaw wants to get home to his wife and beagledog, and pete and i are only a few hours from our homes in brooklyn but they are such rainy ones, so instead of driving all night we sleep.

though in the morning, it’s like brooklyn gets further away the harder we drive to it. dodging water over road, blowy bridges and high-speed garbage trucks, we finally make it to the five boroughs only to be greeted by the ancient infrastructure that sustains the largest city and the economic center of one of the most powerful countries in the world: a drawbridge is up on the hutchinson parkway. we wait and wait, and sit in traffic for another hour or more before there’s finally brooklyn. and so closes a rust belt dream trip with three of the raddest people i know. thank you for this time, magik markers! you are so good onstage and off, you always want to eat hot dogs, and you are good friends. see you at ben’s chili bowl next spring or sooner?