Rose's Cantina

If you live in Ontario, by now, you will have seen a commercial warning parents to lock up their kids because the government is loosening the monopoly held by The Beer Store on the sale of ales and lagers. Should this go forward, the commercial warns, kids will surely turn into angry mobs, all liquored up. In a dramatization, the commercial shows a shifty-eyed fat fucktard behind the counter chortling as youngsters, obviously too young to purchase hooch, slam down a two-fer and a big bottle of liquor, in anticipation of a night of mayhem, hurling and date rape. The clerk sells to the kids anyway. No I.D. is checked. It's a scene straight out of Superbad. I live next to a convenience store and near a park. I should be afraid for my life and my windows as these hooligans, according to the commercial, will roam the neighborhood, like slobbering zombies, drunk out of their blasted mines. We don't see that now, right? Nope, mostly all we see, to be fair to The ...

That's what happens when you live 10 years alone in Bolivia: you get colorful. Percy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Colorful, that's me alright. Twenty years living la vida loca in full fucking living color. Last night at dinner with an old friend, I was reminded that he often accompanied me on my one year bar crawl through Ottawa back when I was a music reviewer for the Ottawa Citizen . My job involved going to three bars to listen to three bands twice a week, then staggering back to the newsroom to write my review. Tom reported, with some glee in his voice, that most of that time, I was bouncing off the walls drunk on beer and power, as I set out to destroy the egos of fledgling musicians. I was a nasty little bitch back then. For this nonsense, I was paid $35 a night which pretty much covered my bar bill. Needless to say, if I could rely on the kindness of male strangers, I could get them to pick up the tab. It was just the beginning of m...