Le Rock

Le Rock is one of the oldest paraphernalia. Owner Jazz Mahoon, who did an interview for the Peace Park documentary yesterday, took over the family business in 2001 with partner Buddy. Even though the store is located at 17 St-Catherine Street, one block from the park, it is pertinent to the documentary because the store has been supplying the area since 1984, and is where the park lifers do their shopping.

Le Rock is more than just a T-shirt and paraphernalia store. It’s one of the first stores to sell spray paint for graffiti. All their pipes are supposed to be for tobacco use only, but their cylinder glass pipes are popular amongst crack addicts. According to Jazz he always gets a line up for them at the first of the month. He also carries a colorful selection of Apple Baggies. Check them out on the web Le Rock

Bloody Knuckles

Yesterday was a nasty day at Peace Park let me tell you. Brooke Walsh and I showed up feeling good off some refreshments we had at our friend’s garage sale fundraiser.  I wasn’t skating because my knee was ajacked from the other day. So, since skating was out of the question we decided to share some refreshments with Devon Menegeon.

While chilling, beside us was a man (Bloody Knuckles) drinking a forty voicing f@ck yous to the world. Next thing we see is him calling the lamppost out before he started punching it. After bloodying up his knuckles, looking for  some other kind of stress release, he asked some guy for a cigarette who gladly gave him one. So messed up, the Bloody Knucles snapped on the guy that just gave him a smoke, and clocked him one. The cigarette guy not stress or worried knowing that it just wasn’t worth it didn’t retaliate.

A couple minutes later our friends Georgiana and Kate from the garage sale gave ring. The girls said  they were coming  to see us, and mentioned that they wanted to experience the park in real life after checking out the website. When they arrived we just chilled as Paul (The Russian) Sollar slide some Kickflip Backside Tailslides.

Helping to maintain the Peace Park’s great reputation, hard timer Bloody Knuckles took another fit and started shit kicking the lamppost. Doing this must have gotten his bladder going because he his took a piss after right on the spot with the police in sight. The best is this scraggly girl who tried robbing my stuff last month started taking pictures with her cell phone.

Loving Peace Park Brooke, Georgiana, and Kate sent me into the store for some beer. When I got in there Bloody Knuckles was getting caught for trying to stuff 3 forties into his pants. He gave resistance as the employees tried to escorted him out. In the end Audrey had to get involved and set him straight, she don’t mess around.

Times just continued to get harder for Bloody Knuckles, bike cops happened to be cycling by during his stand off at the dep’s (corner store) door. The police dumped out some local’s beer then disappeared with the emotionally broken man.

Once the cops left, we were having good time. I even put down some manuals. Then a street sweeper vacuumed up to us. As the cleaner went past us I stuck a sticker on it. The city worked flipped out his phone and dialed 911. I couldn’t believe it, so I told him,” relax it’s just a sticker”. Anyway we didn’t ’stick’ around after that, we decided to take our beer down to the old port, and hang out in a more serene atmosphere.

The Red Light de Montréal in French

Another great book titled Le Red Light de Montréal arrived today. Written by Daniel Proulx the book covers the history of Montréal’s Red Light District dating back to the 1930’s, which is the neighborhood Peace Park resides in. What’s dope about this book is that it makes references to specific people, places, and major incidents that took place in the crime world; such as Eddie Sauvageau, who was responsible for introducing racketeering in Montréal, and Machine Gun Molly, the famous bank robber who went down shooting.

In other news, as promised today we began working on a French version of the website with help from Iza. She offered her translation abilities simply because she is down for the cause. Thank you Iza much respect,  it’s much appreciated. We’re not promising to have every blog post translated into French, but we are definitely trying to make the site as bilingual as possible. If anyone would like be the official Peace Park blog translator please let us know. Merci.

Gold Mario Cold Shot

Mario Cold Shot cruised up to Peace Park today catching me skating flat ground perfecting hard flips. He was on his bike instead of on his famous roller blades claiming he had to exercise different muscles. Mario used to pass by the park at least 3 times a week kicking down beers for the whole crew, good times. Now, he hasn’t had a drink in over a year. Some things change, but according to Mario the park hasn’t. He said that while he pointed out these two dudes making out on the ledge.

After Mario left I went to the Montréal Pool Room for some steamies to go. Before I could sit down to eat them, this guy named Jimmy approached me asking if I was interested in buying a ring or cufflinks. Showing them to me he mentioned they weren’t real gold. However just looking at the ring I knew it was real, and invited him to sit. During the time I was eating my steamies Jimmy showed me more jewelry.

Once we negotiated a fair price for the 2 pendants and the ring at 10$, he began telling me how he’s been hooked on crack for a month and half smoking 4 grams a day. Jimmy continued to explain that he went to rehab,  only out for four days before he fell back into it. His plan was to spend my $10 on one last rock before returning to rehab. Our conversation ended with me wishing him good luck after he asked he if I had another 5 buck because his ‘last’ rock wasn’t enough to satisfy him before going into rehab.

Stoked on my new ring I showed it to some skaters at Peace Park. One of them had a friend who was like,” You just got that right? I work at the pawnshop on the corner, and that guy tried selling us that ring 20 minutes ago. We tested it and it wasn’t real gold”. Convinced it was real, having a lot of experience dealing with gold, I decide to have it tested for fun. I went to Angelica Diamantaire Joaillier & Bijoux Raffinés on St-Catherines street to have it tested. The people there were super nice. They scratched the gold and applied an acid to it. The result was that the jewelry was all real gold. They suggested I try to find the owner, but if I couldn’t find him they would give me $90 just for the ring. Stoked I returned to Peace Park just in time to watch Mary chase after a midget walking past the park.

 

 

Reassured Cops Dumping Beer

Getting to Peace Park pretty late today there were no skaters present, only locals doing their regular drinking until two police officers rolled up. They didn’t get out at first, but it didn’t take long before they were pouring out peoples open beers. That’s when I started doing my regular picture taking, which attracted their attention.

After the cops finished dumping everyone’s beer they walked over to me asking me what my problem was. I responded that I had no problem, but they continued to ask me the same question in a hostile manner. This continued for a couple minutes until one of them finally asked me why I was taken pictures of them, so I explained that I’m making a documentary on the park. They didn’t seem to believe me at first but after explaining my project to them, they realized I was for real. They then eased up and expressed their concerns to me about how I always take their pictures; and asked if I could understand why they didn’t like it. I said yes, I can understand their point of view, and then proceeded to reassure them that it’s not my intention to single out them or the police in general. In fact, the video will not single out any social group, organization, administration, or person. The documentary is simply going to help elucidate the situation at Peace Park to all groups involved to better understand their “locals”, and to find ways to address the needs of everyone who interacts with the park.

Seems like a lot of people expect the Peace Park documentary to be full of shit and piss, while pointing fingers. Let me reassure that I feel a great responsibility in representing Peace Park through this documentary not just to the skate community but to the world. My intentions are to portray an image of respect, integrity, and professionalism in hopes of making this world a better place.

Birthday Fight

Yesterday was Didi’s birthday; he turned 41. Bunny gave him a diamond cross earring and told him he had better not give it away or pawn it off. While she pointed it out on Didi ear, I could see that he was all teary eyed. He wouldn’t tell me if he was crying because he was touched by the gift, or if it was for some other shit. I simply wished him a happy birthday.

We celebrated the occasion of Didi’s birthday by watched some live entertainment in the park, these two guys, one tall one and one short going at it.  Of course we had no idea why the big guy was kicking the shorter guy in the head since Didi and Bunny weren’t paying attention to the beginning, and I had only arrived 5 minute earlier.

Arriving late to the fight but just in time for the next performing act was Adam Green. Together we watched Maranda who’s always training in the park attempt to execute his favorite exercise of upside down push-ups leaning against a tree. He has no problem standing on his hands, but every time he tries to do a push up he topples over. After doing that a couple times he eventually just stands on his hands for as long as he can.

During the show Bob La Salle, Charles Rivard, and Phil Lavoie showed up, followed by, Darrel Smith, and Andrew Mcgraw, and a few others. We got a couple minutes of skating in the before the police showed up. They didn’t catch anyone so they made themselves useful by aggressively ripping old man Willy of his forty.

After that we all headed to Pointe-à-Callière leaving Bunny and Mary playing in the fountain.

Near Death – Fighting Over Food

On our way to the old port today with visiting family members, we stopped at Peace Park for only five minutes, which was just long enough for them to want to leave. Everything was cool at first when we arrived. Dustin Lopez and Jamie were popping nollie nose grinds and switch heels as my family appreciated the graffiti that surrounds the park.

While greeting with Dustin and Jamie I asked them if they knew why the park seemed so quiet. Dustin told me that most of the lifers left after some dude just about died in the park about 20 minutes earlier. They said that it happened right in front of Temple under their mailbox, adding that Andy from Temple took a picture of the incident. Trying to find out whom it was that nearly croaked and for what reason I asked Andy’s for input . He wasn’t sure who the guy was but he was pretty sure he had a heart attack. The picture he took was on film and was therefore unavailable for viewing. The important part is that the guy lived.

As I walked out of the shop, I saw Didi trying to eat Real’s food like a seagull. Real went berserk blowing his whistle giving Didi hell. That’s when the family was ready to continue on to the old port, and when Dustin came running to watch the action as I snapped off a couple flicks of the public disturbance.

Real took his food back only to throw it back in Didi’s face, who simply stood there until he realized Real wasn’t going to calm down. The ordeal ended with Didi walking away as he stated that he’d be back. Jamie and Dustin didn’t budge though; they stuck around with their video camera capturing the moment, hanging out with Real who was looking super down after using his food as a defense weapon. What a great classic five minutes at Peace Park.

 

Poles, Tits, Fights, and Fire

On my way to Peace today I bumped into Maximizer, who decided to hang out at the park for a bit to watch me throw my worn out shoes on the North East lamp pole, which I started to do in 2003. In the past I’ve been able to get about a 15 pairs of shoes up there before the city took them down, which they do at least once a year. Today Max and I counted 4 pairs of shoes before he started counting how many tries it would take me to get the shoes on the pole.

To make things easier I undid the shoelaces to make them longer, to make for a large shoe span tying them at ends. Doing this makes it easier to hook the shoes on the lamp and lets the shoes hang lower for better shoe on pole aesthetics. My first throw bounced off the lamp. The second brushed a pair of shoes hanging. On the next attempt the shoes landed on the street sign. After retrieving the shoes, I was successful on the fourth attempt.

A little later while hanging out with Yens and Andy in front of Temple we saw this dude pull out a metal bar and smack this other guy for who know what reason. The guy that got hit simply walked away without retaliating. Being used to this kind of behavior we simply resumed to our conversation of Yens preparing for a 21km marathon around the city in a couple days.

Over all the rest of the day was pretty normal. Alot of locals like Didi, Bunny, Ramona, and Randel were chilling in the park. Then some skaters showed up like Sam Chouinard, Hugo Balek, Adam Green and pretty much the new generation of younger Montreal rippers. who were just chilling as  Head Band Mary decided to show us her tits. It wasn’t long after than i decided to peace out, and if Mary’s tits weren’t enough to get the day heated there was a recycling  fire on the corner.

Interview with Shawna

After making numerous promises to an exclusive in-depth interview for the Peace Park documentary, we finally had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Shawna, who’s been a local in the area for approximately 20 years. During our conversation she revealed to us about her past and present situation, how she feels about the park, her love for the skaters in the park, and much more.

15 New Hidden Clips For Sept 09-Now On Line

The new 15 hidden clips for September 2009 are now online. Be the one to find them all first, send us an email telling us where they all are and well post a blog to the world about you being the winner of the month! If you can’t find them all don’t pull your hair out over it.

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