12 March 2006

Bye Bye Labatt's

I've never been a big fan of Labatt's beer but it brought a tear to my eye to see their landmark brewery by the river half torn down when I drove by today. As happens when Dope City sawmills are torn down, condominiums full of old motherfuckers looking for a place to live close to a big hospital will soon rise from where the great vats once ruled like 5% kings.

Fact is the product of tens of thousands of indoor marijuana farms are edging beer out of the soft drug market place. The green shit is selling for $150 an ounce up here ever since more attention began being paid to our border with the poor hockey playing country to the south of us. We figure, "Fuck you," we'll smoke it then.

Sonja, the happy Hammer and I were on the return leg of our first visit to Dope City of the young year when we witnessed the brewery buggery. We started our day in Chinatown where we loaded up on stir fry essentials. People downtown like to see my big dog and sneak a pet of her if they can. Downtown people mostly have dogs my dog could lay flat out with a swish of her tail.

The junky crowd all stop by when I am waiting on a corner while Sonja is inside a store shopping. I think most of the drug problems of the world could be helped if people had dogs all their lives. The junkies look at me with their scarred up faces and wasted lives and say shit like, "Cool dog, man. Is it friendly?" You want to see a junky on their best behaviour? Get yourself a big, big fucking dog. The junkies try and pet her but unless they are uncommonly relaxed their nervous dispositions make the Hammer unsure of them. When a junky and the Hammer get along the dog has a junk-like effect on the junky - a warm fuzzy feeling that makes the whole world a better place for one brief cuddly opiate moment.

The Hammer sure likes the smell of Chinatown. She goes fucking crazy. From the gob on the sidewalk to the sauce on the containers dropped on the sidewalk the previous evening to the urine on the walls to the fish, still alive, being dragged in a container off the back of a truck to the dried fish in the sidewalk displays. The Hammer is as excited in Chinatown as Pamela Lee Anderson is when she frees a fucking chicken.

On our tour of Chinatown we walked through Ground Zero of the street heroin, crack and fuck knows what else trade. I was offered what might have added a % or two to my evening's beer but politely declined. You have been able to get whatever you might desire around Hastings and Main for many, many decades.

When we got home later and rinsed the cilantro I added to dinner both Sonja and I were astonished at how much fresher it was than the cilantro we buy from that rip-off artist Jimmy Pattison at his SaveOn Food Stores. The whole house was fragranced buy the small handful I chopped into our stir fry. What the fuck are you doing J.P.?

From Chinatown we headed to the Dope City Drive. We got lunch in a Middle Eastern place called The Deserts for the first time. We sat outdoors in the sun eating pita, samosas and the best motherfucking potato salad ever. Damn it was good! Sonja had a carrot juice while I had a blueberry/banana smoothie. We left the humble restaurant feeling like we had shared a tab of speed. Good food is one fuck of a drug.

As we made our way along the Drive taking turns making buys in the many shops Sonja took note of a man selling acid on the street. Say what you want about LSD-25, taking that shit will leave you in a lot better shape than most drugs being marketed on the street or off it. Since it has been a while since its last streak of popularity I fearlessly predict you will be hearing the words, "Hey man...you want some acid," much more often in the near future. The brazen chemists of the world will once again be in the money.

I picked up the last three Chris Walters' books I have not read. Go ahead and buy the big motherfucker's books. Chris will soon join a select few writers I have read every word of: Jacques Kerouac, Paul St. Pierre, Joseph Shithead, and Punch Imlach. That's three sharp as a skate blade Canadians and one descendant of the same.

Oh fucking Canada! We let down another brewery!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

MMMMMMM!!!!!....BEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!