NEWS
HOW WE’LL MISS YOU, DIANA
“They had to kick about a dozen people out of there at 10 a.m.”
—Ste-Catherine W. resident Sharon Davies, on the late and unlamented Bar Diana, which burned down on Feb. 13
AND BE EATEN
“The rich and powerful can drown, boil, freeze, or starve too.”
—Z Magazine founder Michael Albert, on middle America’s gradual awakening to the global warming problem
 LET GOD SORT THEM OUT
“The rhetoric is the same—‘These people are responsible for killing your families, avenge them’—the enemy is the only thing that’s different.”
—Former Sierra Leonean child soldier Ishmael Beah, on the interchangeability of government and rebel troops in the civil war
JUST LOOK AT THE ADQ
“People bring their values with them to their communities in Montreal. You find homophobic people here, more so even than back home.”
—Nada Raphael, creator of Ethnocultural Day, for LGBT of colour
Y’KNOW, YOU’RE RIGHT, IT DOES
“I know it may sound un-credible for a tobacco spokesman, but it’s not because of the smoking ban.”
—Imperial Tobacco spokesman Yves-Thomas Dorval, on the introduction of snus, a form of snuff sold in pouches that secretes nicotine via the user’s saliva
NICE TO FEEL VALIDATED
“One time I was at St-Laurent and Mont-Royal, and this guy started yelling, ‘You’re the best fucking weather girl in Montreal!’”
—CBC weather girl Geeta Nadkarni, dealing with fame
BY “RICH” YOU MEAN “LAME,” RIGHT?
“That’s pretty amazing, especially for a market with such a rich radio heritage.”
—94.7 Hits FM host Java Joel Murphy, based in upstate New York, on being voted Best Radio Personality
IT’S A PARTY MIX!
“It’s essentially NAFTA on crack, with a dose of homeland security paranoia added in.”
—No One Is Illegal member Jaggi Singh, on the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico
JIHAD ON FACEBOOK?
“The impostor then joined an online group that sought the enforcement of Islamic law and the restoration of the Caliphate, which attracted enough gloomy Muslims to possibly encourage CSIS to monitor the postings.”
—Mirror reporter Samer Elatrash, after learning that an impostor had set up a fake Facebook page in his name
 OKAY, YOU’RE A REDNECK
“I was born in the country, and I don’t have a problem with
people calling me [a redneck] because that’s what I am.”
—NASCAR driver Bobby Hamilton Jr.
WHERE ELSE CAN YOU HAVE ON-SITE SEX AND FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT?
“I don’t see these types of clubs as negative, it diversifies our offer as a city.”
—BBCM president Robert Vézina, on “gay sex emporium” Backroom
COPS AT WORK
“If only three infiltrators were caught, how many others were there? If there were others, did any of them throw rocks?”
—Filmmaker Chester Rhoder, on the three undercover SQ cops at the Montebello protests
EGGHEADS RUN AMOK
“If it becomes pretentious and intellectual, then you’ll get grants. If a photo needs three books to be explained, then it becomes art.”
—World Press Photo host Louise Larivière
AND WE ALL KNOW HOW WELL THAT WORKED OUT
“Harper seems to have come in with the philosophical perspective of the White House.”
—Jack Layton on Stephen Harper
ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!
“He’s beginning to look like 300 pounds of condemned veal, isn’t he?”
—Mary Walsh on Stephen Harper
NUDGE NUDGE, FIST FIST
“A lot of men are into fisting and so forth—if you’re not into it, it’s just a chair. If you’re into it, you know what the window is saying.”
—Stéphane Donaldson of Priape, on his store’s window display that involves mannequins, medical toys and a gynaecological chair
YES, BUT WOULD THERE BE TOPLESS BEACHES?
“A trip to Mars won’t ever be cheap, but comparable I think to a month-long vacation in Europe.”
—NASA scientist Christopher McKay, on space tourism
 SHE BECOMES PRESIDENT?
“She’s a good example of what can happen to a woman when nobody loves her.”
—Comedian Mort Sahl, on Hillary Clinton
9/11 TRUTHER OVERLOAD
“There are lots of kooky people online saying 9/11 was organized by the American government. The problem is that there’s too much information and there’s no real way that you can judge whether it’s accurate or not.”
—Novelist/historian Tariq Ali
WE REALIZED IT IN 2000
“The [2008] election won’t make a difference, although getting rid of Bush will produce a sigh of relief—most people realize now that he’s an embarrassment and a danger.”
—British journalist and filmmaker John Pilger
YOU DIDN’T MENTION CHEESEBURGERS AND BLOWJOBS, DID YOU?
“He called me ‘hostile, combative, and at times disrespectful.’ Afterwards, the White House called and said that I would be banned.”
—Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, on interviewing Bill Clinton
GAMES DON’T KILL PEOPLE
“Instead of asking why he had an assault rifle, or why his parents didn’t notice his behaviour, they looked at a little 16-bit game.”
—Super Columbine Massacre RPG! creator Danny Ledonne, on the hysteria surrounding his game and its popularity with Dawson shooter Kimveer Gill
WE ASK OURSELVES THAT ALL THE TIME
“Initially, it was like, ‘Can
we actually do this? Are we allowed to do that and still call
it journalism?’”
—Cumulus Press publisher David Widgington, on Extraction! Comix Reportage
NOW OFFICIALLY ON THE RECORD
“Not for a second, no. There may have been rumours, but that wasn’t the reality.”
—Margaret Trudeau, asked if former husband Pierre Elliott was bisexual
 REASON TO GET NAKED # 568
“Sometimes you have to show some skin to save some skin.”
—PETA’s Lucas Solowey on protesting naked
PLASTIC PERPLEXITY
“People who get caught in these traps often don’t have much education. But normal people can’t understand their credit card contracts. Even me, as a lawyer, find them difficult to read—they’re purposely made to be hard.”
—Debt counsellor Elise Theriault
NO DOUBT MEASURED THE PICKLES TOO
“The employer would complain the sandwiches were too big—she wanted them weighed in a machine. She would take the tomatoes upstairs to the office, and she would make us sign a paper saying how many tomatoes we took for the club sandwiches.”
—Robert Mayrand, Ben’s employee for 52 years
FORKED TONGUE TORIES
“We know the situation, we know how to deal with it better than anyone else. We just don’t believe the Conservatives. The last time there was a Conservative government, tanks were rolling through our community.”
—Steven Bonspille, Grand Chief of the Kanesatake Band Council
MUSIC
SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN
“I just turned 20 and, ever since I was a kid, I just kind of knew I would be dead by the time I hit 23. I guess I’ve got three years left, so hopefully we can get at least two more records out before then.”
—Heart Attacks drummer Brad, who has since quit the band to go back to school
NEXT TIME, TRY JOY DIVISION
“I played in Italy last week, and they absolutely hated me, which was fantastic. They were shouting for the support DJ to come back on, which I thought was extremely rude, so I put the Sex Pistols on and just stood there laughing.”
—New Order bassist/neophyte DJ Peter Hook
BORIS AND NATASHA? 
“We had four ex-KGB guards on stage, and the front was the most typical Bond-film Russian enemy girls, with the high boots and skirts, and they’re all with their big, scary boyfriends, and the girls are all making sexy faces, and you know if you look at them, you’re dead.”
—Patrick Watson on playing in Russia
DOES THE KEY TO THE LIQUOR CABINET COME WITH?
“Some music need a time to understand, but once you get it, you get the key to next door and it is a big goodness on our life, I believe.”
—Don Matsuo of Japan’s Zoobombs
HI-DEAF
“Actually, I find it quite beautiful—which I would, of course, being a minimalist. Imagine, I hear this beautiful, constantly evolving frequency of around 15 kilohertz all the time. It’s fantastic. I don’t even need an iPod to hear great music!”
—Avant-garde guitarist Rhys Chatham on his tinnitus
THE XANAX HELPED TOO
“It’s strange to have someone tell you that your music has had a special connection with them. Usually, when someone tells me how our music helped them, I ask, ‘Are you sure?’”
—Billy Talent drummer Aaron Solowoniuk
SUCK HARD, PROBABLY
“We understand what it takes to make a hit. We just think, ‘What would Meat Loaf do? What would Aerosmith do? What would Chris De Burgh do?’”
—Mike Paterson of Montreal’s Dan-D-Lyons
TOLERANCE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED
“I think that we probably enjoy being hated as much as being liked. The area to stay away from is having people just tolerate you.”
—Trigger Effect’s Panic Babeu
WHAT WOULD JESUS DRINK?
“I don’t want to say that we’re on a mission from God as much as we’re on a mission from the entity above that controls our daily lives. Neither of us are quite religious. Basically, we both get piss drunk and let God guide our hands. It’s more like the force.”
—Team Canada’s D.R. One
US…
“Toronto, you return to your vomit like a dog, because you vomit money. Choke on your bile, you trash-filled dog! The height of your free-standing tower is inversely proportional to your integrity. You wish you were us, Toronto. You wish you were me, but I exist only to defy you. P.S.—can I get on MuchMusic?”
—Montreal musician Tony Ezzy
 THE WORD “VAGINA” WILL DO THAT
“‘Pink Money’ is a lesbian rock anthem, and I used to be like [in earnest tones] ‘This song’s for all the women who,’ and I’d describe it in a couple of sentences. Now I just go, ‘That song was about vaginas’ and everyone’s like ‘YEAHHH!!!’ Sometimes you have to lower the bar a little, but if you do it with a lot of balls, you’ll get people’s attention.”
—Giselle Webber of the Hot Springs
…VS. THEM
“What kind of Gong Show is Montreal, anyway? Isn’t it all just rich kids from Toronto slumming it, and bozos from Regina feeling like they ‘finally belong’?”
—Matt Collins of Toronto’s Ninja High School
UNCOOL IS THE NEW COOL
“I don’t really see a lot of people coming to the show just because it’s cool, because it’s actually in some ways quite uncool and I think that’s what’s great about it. There’s really nothing cool about this band and we’ve never fit in.”
—Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance
CLEAR ETHICS 
“I really don’t want to be part of a company that ejects people from their venues for speaking out on the war in Iraq.”
—Justin Pearson of San Diego’s the Locust, on his boycott of Clear Channel venues
LOOKS ARE EVERYTHING
“It would be nice to think that we were picked because of our huge admiration for Bob Dylan and the Band, and because we already knew how to play all of the songs, but I think Todd Haynes just picked us because we looked more like them than Wolf Parade.”
—Tavis Triance of the Royal Mountain Band on their appearance in the film I’m Not There
MOREOVER, THEY MOP UP PUKE
“Busboys are the unsung heroes of the club scene. They go everywhere and no one pays any attention to them, but they’re the ones who know best what’s going down on any given night, so they’re in the best position to stop bad situations from happening.”
—DJ Max Graham
REQUIEM FOR RAP
“The music used to be what the streets dictated. Now the music is dictating what the street should be doing, because the streets aren’t giving the music anything anymore. Which means, in a way, the streets are dead.”
—Nas
NO RODEO, THOUGH
“Why the hell would I want to write a song about having a pick-up truck when I ride a bicycle? We write about stuff that grabs us by the ribs and is based in reality, be it factory closings, shitty politics or bad weather—and Montreal has all of that.”
—Gern F. of roots-music band United Steel Workers of Montreal
ON THE OTHER HAND… OOOOOKAY…
“I wouldn’t want to get fucked by a horse. Horse penises are like legs of a sturdy stool. They’d destroy a proper man’s anus and interior.”
—Plastic Little’s MC PackofRats
1,000 JEALOUS INDIE ROCKERS MIGHT AGREE
“Playing behind David Byrne and David Bowie was really amazing, but things were happening so fast at the time that it doesn’t even hit you until a month later. Then you’re like, ‘Oh my God, who am I to be doing this?!’”
—Jeremy Gara of the Arcade Fire
IT’S THE NINE-YEAR-OLDS YOU WANT TO REACH
“I don’t think we will change people’s opinions, and I really don’t care. You don’t start a band so 14-year-olds can talk about you on message boards.”
—CPC Gangbangs bassist Skitsos
 LIBERACE REPLACED AS HEARTTHROB
“A lot of grandmothers know me!”
—Ice-T on life after Law & Order
AS OPPOSED TO NORWAY, WHERE BLASPHEMY IS CONSIDERED ROCK
“I’ve always been optimistic. I mean, I started a rock band in a country where rock music is considered blasphemous.”
—Salman Ahmed of Pakistani Sufi-rock band Junoon
FILM
YEAH, WE’RE PRETTY HAPPY OURSELVES
“It’s a catastrophe. I don’t think most British people wanted it either. There were no weapons of mass destruction, it was an illegal war and it’s been a catastrophe for the Middle East and for the world at large, and we’re so much less safe now. We can only admire you Canadians for having stayed out of it.”
—British screenwriter Hanif Kureishi (Venus, My Beautiful Laundrette) on the war in Iraq
PLUS, THEY’RE MEDIOCRE WANKERS
“The idea that Toronto is so diverse keeps getting repeated, but it’s not really true. If you walk into a TV station in Toronto, once you go past reception, you’re in honkytown. It’s the same thing with city council. There are a couple of non-white people, but for the most part, it’s also honkytown. And Bay Street? Honkytown!”
—Let’s All Hate Toronto director Albert Nerenberg
IT’S PROBABLY ALL THe HORSE-FUCKING
“People talk about the beauty they see in the imagery, but there’s always an undercurrent of horror that’s there.”
—Robinson Devor, co-director of bestiality doc Zoo
WRY COMMENTS ABOUT THE SERVICE, WE’RE SURE
“I just had the sense that if you stayed here for a long period of time, there’d be stories. Because everyone I know has a Schwartz story.”
—Chez Schwartz director Garry Beitel
OH, OUR PURITAN EYES!
“In Canada, they burned a print of Multiple Maniacs. Ontario didn’t send the print back forever, and I kept writing to them about it, and finally they sent a note back that said simply ‘DESTROYED.’ They just burned it. I thought, ‘Well, that’s the best review I ever got.’”
—John Waters
NEW FRONTIERS IN TORTURE PORN
“Saw set a new standard for cruelty—but there was also suspense in that movie. I couldn’t stop watching it once I started.”
—Horror legend Wes Craven on the state of the art
BAD AND NUTS 
“The most fun was the torture scene. I spent an entire day listening to Daniel Craig scream. That was great. He wasn’t wearing a lot of clothes. I got to kick him in the balls, literally.”
—Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen
HARD TRUTH
“That movie was like watching that show Hard Copy, but I was in it.”
—Daniel Johnston on the documentary film The Devil and Daniel Johnston
ART
IT’S HIGH SCHOOL ALL OVER AGAIN
“We’re always looking for more girls to come out, especially bigger girls, but sometimes they take it the wrong way when I approach them.”
—Quarterback and owner of the Montreal Blitz women’s football team Saadia Ashraf, on finding new recruits
WHAT A CUT-UP!
“A worse role would be a child molester, but it’s very hard to create a dark comedy around that. But a lot of people can identify with the impulse of serial killing, enough to find some humour in it.”
—Author Chuck Palahniuk on choosing the pastime of the protagonist in his book Rant
 THE RUMOURS WERE TRUE!
“We were never great friends. We were friends. We never hung out and went to malls together and had girly lunches.”
—Joan Collins about her relationship with Linda Evans
THEY PROBABLY APOLOGIZED AS WELL
“When I was living in British Columbia, I would challenge Canadians during my sets to come up and slap me in the face, since I was American and
I wanted them to let their frustrations out, but everyone was too modest and they wouldn’t
do it.“
—Comedian Zach Galifianakis about life in Canada
BUT AT LEAST YOU DON’T WAKE UP WITH THE CLAP
“It’s like an unsuitable date. It’s like going home with somebody—if you weren’t under the influence of alcohol—you probably wouldn’t have.”
—Chef Anthony Bourdain’s feelings about poutine
 PUSSY POWER
“I feel that male genitalia doesn’t sell a Fringe as well. But I did think of Softcore Penis.”
—Playwright/performer Amy Blackmore on alternative titles to her play HardCore Pussy
LE ROI DU MERDE
“I guess I’m the king of shit. Shit is something I know about because it’s something I do every day, it’s a real part of life. It’s what I do.“
—French performance artist/musician Jean-Louis Costes
NICK THE PRICK’S MEAT
“I don’t even know if there will be beans. It could be just ground beef and tomatoes. But I do know that it’s all meat chili. That’s why the poster got torn down immediately at Esperanza.”
—Nick “The Prick” Robinson on his Chili con Carne cook-off
THE FAMED LESBIAN FASHION SENSE 
“Definitely, marketing the store as a lesbian store is risky. We’re a small community, we’re not known as big spenders and we’re not historically known for our fashion sense. But I decided it was time for someone to step into the market.”
—Amy Skinner of Boutique Mad-Âme
PITCHING A TENT AT THE ASHRAM
“My response is that it’s part of being male. The question itself suggests shame. There’s nothing wrong with an erection. They happen. And they do disappear pretty quickly too.”
—Naked yoga instructor David Flewelling on in-class boners
IT WAS SO GOOD I DON’T KNOW HOW IT ENDED
“Definitely, if you finish yourself off before you finish the story, the story suffers a bit.”
—Laura Roberts aka Smut Mistress, editor of Black Heart magazine, on masturbating while writing erotica
RACIAL PROFILING WOES
“Travelling with my name sucks tits.”
—Ali Hassan, local chef and stand-up comic on what a drag air travel is for Muslims in a post-9/11 world
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