by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Gaëtan Bibeau

Age: 44

Occupation: Proprietor of Affichage G.V.E.

Bio: Only a few short years ago this handsome Boucherville buck was working as a welder, building the structures that hold all that cute billboard advertising you see beautifying our city and its surrounding highways. Now the owner of his own company, Affichage G.V.E., Gaëtan is the brave, self-sacrificing soul who climbs up the sides of buildings pasting up the important messages that courteous advertisers know we all need - and want - delivered. And though he has several employees to do the actual postering part of the gig for him, Gaëtan still heads out at night to do many of the jobs himself, saying he needs the money saved to buy another truck for his biz.

One safe assumption: That it's somewhat nerve-wracking to be 1,000 feet in the air pasting up ads. "And it's worse when I'm really tired, and I'm really tired a lot because I'm always working. These structures shake in the wind, they are constantly moving, and sometimes you'll get a big wind and think the whole structure is going to come crashing down. All you can do is try to hang on and go ‘Whoa,' waiting for the wind to stop."

Has he ever fallen? No, but one of his co-workers did once. "He didn't die but it took him a long time to recover from the accident. He had to re-learn how to speak because of his head injuries, and well, sadly, he never really got back to the way he was before the fall."

How much a novice billboard poster-putter-upper earns a year at Affichage G.V.E.: Between 40K and 45K a year.

One location he dreads working: The billboards lining Highway 20 around the Turcot Yards. "They are very, very high there."

Does he regularly curse God on freezing cold January days when he's blowing around in the sky, risking life and limb just to make sure that yet another criminally annoying CKMF Radio-Énergie billboard ad, featuring yet another criminally ugly radio personality, gets put up in time? Not so much. "Once the temperature dips below -15 Celsius the glue won't stick anymore so we have to wait until things warm up a bit. But anyway, I like this work - especially in the summertime. This is my trade."

Does he ever drive by billboards he's erected and feel his heart swelling with professional pride? Yes.

Has he often felt the urge to urinate while up top of a billboard structure, and, rather than climb all the way down and back up again to finish the job, decide to just discreetly empty his bladder onto the people below? No.

How often his soul has been crushed by cynical Naomi Klein culture jamming-types, callously altering the meaningful billboard advertising he's worked so hard to put up: Never - so far.

Literary preferences: Le Journal de Montréal.

Musical preferences: Danny Bédard, Eric Lapointe.

Fave TV show: Star Académie.

Childhood ambition: To become a police officer.

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca