April March

Last Monday morning, I had just settled down for work at my desk when a colleague approached. Hey, you live downtown right? Does the 420 parade pass by your place? I suddenly realized that yes, it was indeed April 20, aka 4/20, aka that magical number that gets potheads in a tizzy. Rooted in a story about California teens who would meet after class (at 4:20) to smoke marijuana, the number has grown into code among weed aficionados to signal the general consumption of the stuff. The date itself has evolved into a sort of counterculture holiday. Indeed, last Monday, 2,500-3,000 people showed up in Colorados Civic Center park to toke for freedom in the hopes of reforming marijuana laws (and, Im assuming, to debate which dude could take the gnarliest bong rips).

Now, Montreal has been a city of vice since the ’20s, when Americans fled north to escape prohibition, so even though I find weed culture gayer than the bathtub scene in The Talented Mr. Ripley, I definitely acknowledge its role as a part of our city’s free-spirited cachet. But the question did enter my mind, what exactly does a 420 parade look like? I imagined an army of people on unicycles and striped Cat in the Hat headgear wandering the streets bleary-eyed, banging into people dressed as aliens with comically large joints holding placards exclaiming “Take me to your dealer!” Maybe it ended with a performance where c-list stoner acts like Bongzilla and Rusted Root jammed out for a few hours. Who knows, and frankly, who cares? Y’all know I think the corniness of pot culture has been the biggest thing holding legalisation back, so unless it’s over the top—like that tattoo I saw of a shark sitting on a La-Z-Boy, smoking a bong with a tribal tattoo on its fin—then I don’t want to hear about it.

But maybe I’m just jealous. Not because potheads are more in touch with the organic oneness of the universe or that they can appreciate Sublime on a level I will never understand, but because they get a fucking parade. I mean, okay, the Irish deserve a parade, because, well, history has been giving them the wrong end of a Mexican Chili Bowl for centuries, so we gotta give ’em something. But potheads? If these guys can take over the streets to celebrate their belief that neon fractal posters should be considered a legitimate interior design element, then fuck it, we should all get parades.

In fact, why not have an annual lottery where 12 lucky people are chosen to each have a monthly parade for the entire year? Forget the gay parade or that creepy twins parade, who wouldn’t like to see an Egyptian parade that ends in the world’s largest Beeramid? Or how about something more contemporary, like a YouTube parade where everyone comes out as their favourite YouTube clip (I got dibs on Sneezing Baby Panda)? The possibilities are endless.

But the question arises, how do you even start a parade? Well, this weekend, the owners of “Montreal’s only English Pub” the Burgundy Lion will be trying to do just that. Starting on St. George’s Day (the 23rd), the Burgundy Lion is kicking off what they hope will eventually be an annual St. George’s Day parade. For the entire weekend, the pub, located at 2496 Notre-Dame W., will be hosting activities starting at 9 a.m. with traditional English Breakfast followed by a table football tournament, live performances, a papier maché dragon slaying, and of course that most English of all traditions, getting wasted. While not really a parade yet, the owners have petitioned the city to close Notre-Dame W. between Atwater and Vinet for a mini-parade for 2010 and beyond.

“How easy is it to start a parade?” posits Toby Lyle, part owner of the pub. “Not easy at all. First you have to go from two angles, the city and the borough, and by the time we found the right person to talk to, it was too late for this year.”

Next year, Lyle plans to have what he calls the shortest parade of all time. “We just want to get some Powerwheels and Boy Scouts and circle the block a couple of times. Sure, it’s a day to celebrate England’s patron saint—who actually may have never even set foot in Britain—but really it’s just an excuse to get completely wasted in the afternoon and not feel guilty about it.” That sounds like a good idea for a parade if I ever heard one.

Find out more about the weekend’s St. Georges Day activities at burgundylion.com.

RIFF-RAFF@SYMPATICO.CA