Imagine a huge mirror ball over Montreal, reflecting small images of the city's many different drinking cultures. From the shocking to the unexpected to the downright strange, hop on a ride through some of the city's most unusual places in which to imbibe...

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Bar Chez Françoise 3785 Ste-Catherine E. Saturday 1 a.m.

Gino is a kindly looking man with a bushy moustache and as he calls out bingo numbers, 100 heads at the Bar Chez Françoise bow in intense concentration. Gino's nights are always busy: he's the popular east-end showbar's MC, he plays all the music for the headlining act, he sings his own tunes. On this night, Gino's keyboards accompany Chantal, a chunky diva who blasts through a set of cheery French language cover songs, which include plenty of requests from the full house. Taped to the softwood panelling, which gives the bar a distinct cabane à sucre look, are posters of performers from the past: Michel Stax, Cesar C. Dino, Tony Francis, Stef "la danse Achy Breaky" Carse, Martin "Love is in the Air" Stevens. In between sets, there's a mini-putt contest (a ceramic cookie jar being the main prize), tic-tac-toe and other activities.

As the music blares, five middle-aged women fly into an impeccably improvised line dance. Sitting near me is an east-ender named Francine, here for the first time to celebrate her 34th birthday. "I'm not like these uneducated, kétaine people," she confides, "you know, I'm not like them."

But when Gino plays "Gens du pays" for her and the crowd sings along, the good-times atmosphere soon erodes her resistance. As the evening closes, she's got a wide smile and is one of the last to leave Gino's dance floor.

Bar Grand Prix 401 Richelieu (Richelieu) Thursday 8:30 p.m.

For the past 10 years, women have peeled off bikinis under the warm pink stage lights of this typical-looking strip club just half a block from the police station of this South Shore bungalow community. But the first sign that all is not as it appears is when a woman, speaking in thick joual accent, mentions something to me about $40 or $60, then illustrates the phrase with an internationally recognized hip-thrusting gesture.

At this thinly veiled bordello, unpaid women pay $75 per shift to management in hopes of scoring around $500 for an evening's work. This bar is so raunchy that dancers refuse to do lap dances--not because they are too dirty, but because they're not profitable enough. And the 25 women on duty actively compete for business. A 24-year-old from Ottawa who stays in a nearby motel during the weekend estimates the average age of the women to be 19. "It makes me feel kind of old," she says.

Women greet the bar's clientele by grabbing their private parts; others hand out lurid business cards with numbers where they can be reached while off duty. On this night, a dark-haired 18-year-old CEGEP student spends the evening entering and exiting small locked booths with clients. "I work here because it's expensive being a student," she says. She adds that her part-time job won't have any effect on her ambitions to become a psychology teacher. "I've walked on the street downtown right by men that I've been with here and they don't even recognize me."

CLSM 7888 St-Denis Friday 11 p.m.

The Deaf Leisure Centre of Montreal is entirely silent but for the sound of thumping disco. The spoken word is powerless here--in its place are dozens of pairs of hands flying about in a seemingly random manner. "It's just like Russian, Italian or any other culture," signs Hilaire, 24, a student of auto mechanics. "But hearing people just don't give us a chance, employers just walk away when they learn we're deaf. It's frustrating."

A psychologically taxing role reversal awaits visitors--the only disabled here are those unable to sign in American Sign Language or Langue de signes du Québec. But friendly faces, including those of the deaf DJs and waiters, soon put visitors at ease. A woman named Linda studies me, and then flashes my interpreter more signs than a third base coach. "You look like you're drunk," she laughs. Meanwhile, nearby, Christine Force sneaks into the bathroom with a friend. She's got something private to say, and doesn't want anyone to see.

The Royal Canadian Legion­Imperial Branch No. 6 1014 de la Montagne Friday 2 p.m.

Jerry, a 30-ish ex-soldier who served in the Canadian Infantry during the Gulf War says, "Veterans never discuss their combat experience." He's the fourth ex-soldier to make the point in the past 10 minutes. Then he starts. "The Iraqi soldiers in the Gulf War just gave up en masse, they had been so badly fed and had so little sleep that they were glad to see us," he says. Lesser-known actors of the great wars seem to be looking down from their black-and-white photos which cover the walls. Branch 6 has occupied this second-floor space for 70 years, but now has just 85 members and could soon fold. Although anybody with relatives who served in the Canadian military can join, the question of whether the legion should throw the doors open and embark on a membership drive is an oft-discussed debate. "I prefer it to be vets only, because I like to come so the vets can tell me what to expect if I have to fight in a real war," says Jerry, "I've talked to guys who were in tears with their stories, stuff like carrying their buddy who's been blown to pieces. These people who fought in the wars--we owe them a lot."

French Kiss Gentlemen's Club 1458 de la Montagne Tuesday 10 p.m.

Sitting on a cozy overstuffed couch amid velvet curtains is Bobbi Jo, a blonde mother of two from Laval. She became an employee of French Kiss--known as a "hostess bar"--after the Royal Bank moved her department to Toronto. For the customer, the cost of hearing her story--or the story of any of the other professional conversationalists at this businessmen's lounge upstairs from Wanda's strip club--is buying her a drink. In Bobbi Jo's case, it's an unidentified orange concoction that rings in at $9.

While hostess bars are big in Japan, they are far from common here. The idea is that the hostesses, who are fully clothed, provide friendly company and witty repartee (and that's all). Says Bobbi Jo about the staff: "We're all friends here." About the bar: "It's a place to just be yourself." About politics: "It's all you-scratch-my-back, I'll-scratch-yours." While some might consider this banter proof that there is no reference section in the tanning salon, Bobbi Jo says company is the important thing. "I never run out things to say," she boasts. She does, however, clam up after the last sip of her orange drink.

Do Ré Mi Dance Hall 505 Bélanger Sunday 3 p.m.

Dragos Neumann, 65, a retired accountant, is watching the dancers inside this immaculate football-field-sized dance hall where seniors go to party. "I'm looking for a feminine woman," he says. Typical of the ballroom's loyal clientele, Neumann comes three time a week and stays from beginning to end. "I've been to other ballrooms," he says "but this is the best." Michele, 68, a widower from Ville d'Anjou, says she has stayed from start to finish every night since her husband died 10 years ago. She quickly stops chatting and joins the ballroom blitz when a neon light indicates it's time for line dancing.

The dance hall offers monthly trips to Florida, a free buffet and prizes for those wearing the predesignated colour. But people like Dragos, who says he dances with 20 women a night, are there for one reason--to cruise. Not that he always succeeds. Pointing to a younger woman, he says, "I asked her for her phone number, but she said she just comes here to dance."

Bar La Mystique 1324 Stanley Friday 1 a.m.

Describing a gay bar on Stanley Street as somehow out of place would come as a shock to somebody who had not seen the town in 20 years. As the last holdout on a street once synonymous with local gay culture, La Mystique is a clean, well-lit basement place with an old-style wood bar that almost calls out to the elbows of serious drinkers. But it's no surprise that the sparse crowd in 1997 appears to be a piece of history itself; entering the bar, outsiders might think they've stepped into at time machine--regulars seem to have walked off the set of The Boys in the Band, the landmark 1970 film about pre-Stonewall gay culture.

George the barman offers a history lesson, noting that the bar was actually a trailblazer for gay pride. In 1975 police raided the adjacent Truxx bar, in what was widely considered Mayor Drapeau's attempt to force gay establishments out of the downtown area before the Olympics. The outrage which followed led to a watershed demonstration in which thousands of protesters screamed "gais dans la rue." Yet in spite of the apparent victory, the bars still moved east. "The bars are going to come back to this area," says George wistfully. "Stanley Street is soon going to come back to the way it once was. Mark my words."

Bar U-Sing 3610 Goyer Friday 1 a.m.

As a girl with a dragon tattooed on her shoulder struggles with her half of a duet of "I'm All Out of Love," manager Tony Young sits at a bar so decorously oriental that one half expects William Holden to walk in looking for Suzie Wong. "They practice at home on the home karaoke units before they come here, you know." But why do they come? "They come because they really like to sing," he says.

By now two good-looking young Vietnamese men in new clothes and slicked-back hair sit motionless as they sing into mikes juiced to the max with phaser, echo and reverb. The oversized tiki chairs are all full of happy-looking Asian youths. So why are full-time local karaoke venues disappearing faster than biker bars--after all, there is no wolverine-type anti-karaoke squad trying to shut them down. Some, like the manager of a new-style karaoke bar on de la Montagne which rents out several small singing rooms, says traditional karaoke has failed because people are "too shy." An older woman, who had earlier sung a pretty Vietnamese song about the town of Dalat--complete with images of the picturesque mountain city on the large-screen TV--leaves at 2 a.m. when the singing is replaced by techno music. What compels her to sing here? No easy answers in the world of karaoke, she just smiles and nods. She only speaks Vietnamese.

After Hours Bar Somewhere on St-Denis Saturday 4 a.m.

The muscleman at the door here truly earns the title doorman, as he never allows the door to stay open even a split second more than necessary. Inside, an man with bloodshot eyes talks about why this is his favourite city. Young honeymooners from France shoot the breeze about our local laws: "Where we come from, bars are open until 6 a.m. and there's no problem." A girl with a pager clipped to her tight jeans hustles pool with her boyfriend.

It's hard to figure out which is more bizarre, the idea of drinking beer here until 8:30 a.m. or the fact that it's strictly illegal. Alan Ross, whose MUC morality squad is in charge of shutting these places down, says that the operators try to get around the closing hour laws by being licensed as restaurants and then serving beer on the sly. "We shut down an operation on Mont-Royal West--it claimed to be a restaurant by keeping three-week-old sandwiches lying around. It's got to be a real meal." Ross says that "speed-type drugs like cocaine" are almost always present at after-hours bars. But historically it wasn't always the case. "I was never aware of any drug dealing in the old days," says William Weintraub, author of the recently published City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 40s and 50s. Today's gung-ho enforcement of the ban is a legacy, he says, of religious groups who lobbied in the mid-'50s against the spirit of the open city. Before that, he says, the local drinkers' credo was, "Everybody's having a good time, so why quit before you pass out?"