Mook-Life

Mook-Life called me up for a Peace Park life style experience, buy the end of the day the gave me a new title, Dave Boots – Peace Park President. haha

Peace Park 2010

It’s 2010 and skating at Peace Park so far this year has been good as always, with enough crew and new tricks popping off.Ain’t nothing changed, well almost. All around Peace there has been significant changes. On the east side of the park Temple seems to have closed its ‘retail’ doors for what seems like forever since they haven’t lifted their metal store front for business yet this year. Sucks for all us skaters who would go there in times of need. However, Andy still has the Temple shop on line.

The SAT (Society for Arts and Technology) situated on the north side of the park is undergoing renovations. They are adding a 3^rd story to their building that will have a huge dome, which will be used for some next level video presentations. The boom crane being used for the construction is interfering with the park a bit do to its size, but all the ledges are still skate able.

Also, Importation Main in front of the park closed down forever succumbing to the pressure of expropriation by the city, along with it’s neighbor the Montréal Pool Room, which fortunately moved across the street after being in the same place for nearly a hundred years. Cool thing is that the Pool Room is still hooking up the skater specials.

In other news… The documentary. Yes, it’s still in progress. Relatively recently we interviewed Joe Buffalo for the videoo via Skype, who at the time was in Vancouver. And with Stack Money from JKR, who is amongst the first graffiti writers in the city. He filled us in on the historical graffiti that took place at Peace Park during its construction days, which is priceless. After those interviews became all said and done, the capturing and logging of footage came to an end, and just yesterday we finished laying out the storyboard.

So, now were placing things in order to start writing the narration to be filmed ASAP, we’re excited and will try to keep you update time permitting. After all, there is barely enough time in a day to skate, party, and sleep, not to mention maintaining a website, and organizing events such as the Montréal City Hall Championships Poser Game, which is coming soon, and put together the best damned documentary the world has ever seen.

October Hidden Clip Answers

Today is the last chance to see  Phil Beauséjour preaching the Bible, some skating, and other random park actions in the October’s Hidden Clips. This picture shows the answers to the Hidden Clips from last month in the picture of Peace Park on the main page, which should be replaceb with new clips by tomorrow with a little something extra.

Wikipedia entry on Peace Park (Montreal)

Thanks to Wikipedia user mtl514, PEACE PARK is now apart of Wikipedia, the  free, web-based, collaborative encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The entry covers a brief history of the ‘public place’, the presence of skateboarding in the park, the documentary which is coming in 2010, some good news paper references to back up the information in the entry, a list of the urban events that took place in the park, and some external links. Hopefully, there will soon be a picture of Peace Park.

Flipping Bikes

Montréal’s full of Quick Criminals and you don’t need to be hanging out skating on the streets all day to notice it either. In just about every park in the city is some cracked out dude ready to sell you a stolen bike for a great deal. In fact, I heard Montréal has the highest number of bike thefts in North America, it’s become its own industry. Organized crime started exporting stolen bikes in crates to other countries by the tens of thousands.

Bike thieves will straight hustle bikes out in the open as if they were panhandling. So, if you ever need a bicycle, just walk around downtown and look for any weather worn sketch bag that doesn’t seem to match with his wheels. If he doesn’t approach you first, just ask him how much for the ride. The most I have ever paid for a bike was forty bucks for a brand new Federal cruiser, which I still peddle with today. I could have gotten it for thirty, but while I was in the middle of bargaining someone tried out bidding me. The most common cycles for sale on the streets are Canadian Tire Super Cycles, which I wouldn’t even buy brand new for ten dollars. The average going price for any bike off the streets is 20 bucks, the equivalent to a crack rock.

Anyway, the other day at Peace Park I saw some dude rolling by on a Fieling 2008 bike. Leading by example, I asked him how much for the collapsible bike. During price negotiations, I managed to question him on how he goes about stealing bikes. His response was that he doesn’t just rob bikes he steals everything. While showing me his backpack full of tools for cutting chains, freezing and shattering locks, sawing shit, and prying things open, he added, he’d go as far as to following a person who has a bike with disk breaks, just waiting for the chance to nab their ride so he can sell it on the south shore for two maybe three hundred dollars.

Some people argue that you shouldn’t buy stolen bikes because it promotes bike theft. Well let me tell you, in my opinion after getting several bikes stolen, it doesn’t make sense to purchase a new one just to have it stolen again. Besides, buying new bikes from stores in my opinion only saturates the black market. When people buy new bikes instead of stolen ones to replace their stolen bike, less stolen bikes are sold on the streets. This creates a surplus of stolen bikes, which are accumulated by organized crime and shipped to other countries.

A lot of bike shops refuse to repair or buy stolen bikes, but then there are some that profit from it. Meaning, even if you where to purchase a used non-stolen bike from a store, there’s no way to know for sure whether or not it’s a stolen ride. Hence, you might as well just buy it off the streets and save your self some money.

I ended up buying the brand new red-hot Fieling 2008 collapsible for only twenty bucks, still with its plastic wrapping. After I used it as a skate obstacle and not being able to return the bike to its proper owner, I gave it away to a friend who had their bike stolen. If you do have a bike stolen or not, my advice is to invest in a bike lock that’s guaranteed against bike theft.

Dave Bouthillier Bs Flip

Photo: Dan Stevenson

Ian St-Aubin Chased By A Transvestite

I meet Ian St-Aubin at Peace Park well over 10 years ago. He was with another guy Chris who was following Ian with a video camera. We ended up skating together for the short time he was visiting Montreal . I remember one day at Peace Park Chris and Ian got chased by a transvestite for having filmed it walking past the park. Anyway today  Ian posted this picture on the Peace Park Facebook profile, which was taken around the same time he meet.

Kid Climbed Shoe Pole

The weather in Montreal has been rainy the past couple days, but fortunately there were some dry spells which allowed for a brief session at Peace Park today. While skating up to the park I could see that the police where on the scene beside Temple dealing with someone one I had never seen before. Getting closer I found Andy, Jean Mat Vincent who has killer sequence at Peace in the new King Shit Magazine, and Andrew Mcgraw sitting in bleach fumes in front of the store. When Jean Mat questioned the smell, Andy said he poured a bunch in front of the place to kill the smell of urine.

Before skating I threw my last two pairs of used wheels up the lamp pole where I’ve been tossing my worn out shoes for the last 9 yrs. I guess it’s now become a used product pole, instead of a shoe pole. Andy suggested I ties my old boards together and throw them up there, which was pretty funny, I just might. One time I tried selling my worn out shoes on the pole to a kid for 10 bucks a pair. When he asked to see them I pointed to the pole. While looking up he asked me why I put them up I answered that that way I would get them stolen while I’m skating around. The kid gave me ten bucks and climbed the pole to the top. I couldn’t believe it, I was scared for his life.  While he was up there i told him he could have as many pairs as he could grab. He must have took  at least 7 pairs of weather worn shoes home.

Charles Rivard Talks Peace Park In SBC Interview

Charles Rivard got an interview in the last issue of SBC. I remember Charles skating at Peace Park back when we used to call him Petit Charles. Then over one winter it seemed like he went form 3f tall to 7f. I couldn’t believe had fast he sprouts. In his short but sweet interview, he talks about growing up skating at Peace. Pick up a copy of  SBC Magazine Fall 2009 to read the rest of his interview.

Chief of Police Alain Simoneau of Station 21

Today I meet with chief police Alain Simoneau of station 21, who agreed to do an interview for the Peace Park documentary. He’s only been the chief of police since 2007, but in my opinion definitely has a good knowledge of what’s going on it his district, and at Peace Park.

It didn’t really feel like I was interviewing him, it felt more like a conversation about Peace Park and the area. We talked about the history of the area, some of the changes in the park which wee made, such as the removing of the benches, the addition of the water sprinklers use to deter people from sleeping in the park, and the surveillance cameras that were installed the reduce the drug operations. Some of the most interesting information covered was about the history of the struggle of the bikers to maintain control of the drugs, and crack at Peace Park and on the Main.

When I asked him skateboarding he ended by saying that he would have no problem with skateboarding at Peace Park if the laws were changed, but that is up to the city. Many more topics were discussed such as graffiti and how the police deal with the vandals that will be in the documentary. Mr. Simoneau contributions to the documentary are much appreciated.

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.

 

 

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