Movin’ on up

by JACK OATMON

I’ve been thinkin’. All this analytical scenesterism and low-budget thrill-seeking is starting to wear thin. How many damn abstract urban landscape screen-print vernissages and all-night cult-film-themed dance parties does a guy really need to go to before he learns to appreciate the subtle joys of a snifter of cognac in the company of a docile significant other, followed by an evening of CNN and a moist, freshly-lit San Cristobal? How many drunken midnight sporting events do we have to blunder half-nakedly through in Parc Lafontaine before we hang up our Supersoakers and hip flasks for good in exchange for a lively Sunday afternoon football match?

You heard me. I’m getting rid of this hideous found-art collection and these juvenile skateboards and I’m moving to Quartier Dix30. I want a Springer Spaniel and a Paxil prescription to replace these ribald Lotharios I call my friends. I’m doin’ it. I’m gonna become a yuppie and no one’s gonna stop me. Screw loft parties. It’s all about the condominium warming. It’s all about the commute. It’s all about the fuckin’ inset barbecue. Yeah, you’ll be some torn up when you spot me installing my prefab fireplace, while you and your ilk huddle around your space heater with mugs of yerba mate. Home entertainment system, scumbag.

And you know what? I’m takin’ the city with me. Yeah. You like that? I bet you thought things were good down on the strip, with your sex shops and alternative bookstores, didn’t you? Well, there won’t be a scrap of derelict turf for you to protest against the inexorable forces of free trade on when we’re done with this town.

Me and my homies at Quartier des Spectacles are gonna turn the whole strip around Place des Arts into a goddamn home entertainment system. I’m talkin’ neighbourhood development that’ll make your heritage-preserving head spin like a dreidel in a power-shovel factory.

Me and my crew at Devimco, we’re gonna tear Griffintown apart like it was a rural industry village and pump it so full of American box stores that it’ll detonate in a glorious orgy of freedom and global chain purchasing options. We’ll outsource that like it was livelihoods. We’ll sign it away like it was Canadian sovereignty, ’cause you know what? We’re sick of all this contrived culture. We’re sick of the grubby diners and the family businesses. We’re sick of the niche spending and we’re hungry to start spraying our dollars into projects that help out companies that invest in useful things, like arms and security. Things that protect us from the people who want what we have.

You know what? I went to a 5 à 7 at Suite 701 in the luxurious Place d’Armes Hotel last week, and I damn well liked it. I wanna know where I can get me one of them pairs of Armani glasses. I want some cologne. I want a microwave oven. I want to wake up in the morning and smell asphalt and plastic as they pummel this brick-and-mortar colonial backwater into the river. I want CNN, goddamn it!

Because if there was ever a time when the economy was ripe for wanton development subsidies and consumer-directed gentrification projects, it’s now.

JUST SAYIN’…jack.oatmon@gmail.com