So i went up to montreal for the ‘Can you Rock?’ event. And honestly i have to question any event where the name of the event questions the very outcome of said event. Can you rock? what if it turns out we cant rock? How embarrassing is that. What if you went in for a surgery entitled, ‘can I operate?’. Fuck that. Ill take my chances with nature finding a cure or quick end game plan. So with some trepidation I attempted to rock, at my age, a more appropriate goal would be to attempt to slightly ‘jostle’, rocking is a young mans game; so cane in hand I jostled the shit out of the wall and came away with this, see below.

Rath UPS 3a COD- Can you Rock Montreal 2010

I am no extraordinary patriot, But i love my home, and i love returning home after being away for any period of time. yes even taking the trash out to the curb brings me joy on my re-entering home base. In fact if it weren’t for Style writing and work, I would have little reason to leave home, my wife is here, my baby is here. Shit I’m paying for the space, use it as much as you can to get your moneys worth. So its a long weekend and the plan is to kick out of montreal before we’re mired in return traffic at the border and along the highway home.
The Weekend consisted of late nights and no sleep. A decent drop in temperature at night ensured any quite time in between chainsaw snoring from the other room, the cold was there to step in and keep you awake contemplating fires, sweaters, long waits sitting on the tarmac with no plane AC on and leg warmers. Sunday rolled around and i was beat. I spent 3 hours or so finishing my piece and then tried to take a nap in the whip before heading home. Surprisingly I slept better in the car then I did all weekend in a really nice apartment. So even though GMC can’t figure out where to put window levers and door controls in their trucks you can at least get some good shut eye in them, so kudos to you GMC; maybe consider going to the hotel business and leaving the transportation to other companies.
On the way to the border Dave and I kept speculating about the number of cars on the road and the time it would take to get across the border. It takes about an hour from montreal city center to the border and its not unheard of for the wait at the birder to exceed the time it takes to get there. soI was prepared for serious delays. Approaching the border was like driving through a dry county on a sunday morning, shit was dead. I almost thought they closed the border for the holiday. We pull up to the border with a whole two cars ahead of us. Good times. Like a good A-team mission were finna be in an out before you know it. Literally 5 minutes after arriving in line were at the customs station. And I was ready for some tough discussion. IN my experience getting back in to NY is always more of a hassle then getting into canada (minus the fact that I have a shadow double salting my game be being some kinda of worse degenerate then I already am). Getting into Canada for the most part is like entering a party being guarded by a well lubed bouncer, the more the mary, all are welcome, Bien venudo and all that. New york on the other hand is like a suspicious neighbor, that no matter how many times you meet still treats you like theyve never ever seen you before and that you might be a criminal. They don’t care that you’re from New York, or that your american they thrive on making you feel like some illegal alien here to drain the system by sending 20 dollars back to a third world country every month earned by doing a job most self righteous americans would scoff at in  the first place. Did I mention i really do love America, kinda like a drunk uncle? you gotta love him but Bruce come-on with the drinking already. Car in park and passport papers in the customs officials hand, game on. Lets DO IT!
NYCO- so what was your purpose for visiting Canada?
How do you know each other?
whos Vehicle is it?
All standard questions. It was a rental car.
NYCO- why did you rent the car thursday if you entered canada Firday?
ohhhh, good question, obviously it was so we would have time to fill all the panels with drugs that had already spend  considerable  time and effort to be smuggled out of Canada in the first place, so we wanted to bring them back as undetected as they first left, was the answer I wish I could have given. Unfortunately I just got it the evening before so I could leave first thing in the morning with out the hassle of renting the car in the morning. Go figure americans taking the easier more costly way out…This answer was clearly more sensible then the NYCO was ready for and it confused him. So in a last ditch effort to trip us up he handed us back out papers and waved us through. WTF just happened? Ive never gotten back in with less then 50 questions and sometimes some trunk rummaging. But that was it were on home turf. SO, unfucking satisfying. No twenty question to triumph over. No pay off other then the bare minimum expected, America the great. He didnt even welcome us home or to america. WTF. “Dave”, i said,” that sucked were going back into canada and trying that again. I want my fuckin, ‘welcome back to the US’, god dam it! We left and now were back, i know yall missed us, now say welcome back you son of a bitch! Satisfaction was to be found elsewhere; the temperature shot up 10 degrees and all of a sudden it was a beautiful day with no real traffic to speak of. Now if we can get to a All-my-bucks for some coffee life will be sweet.
Just north of albany we approached traffic, I knew it. I knew it couldn’t be all this easy. I was sure we were done, 200 miles away form home, 50 miles from All-my-bucks life re-affirming coffee, and we’d be forced to do it a 50 mph. As we got closer to the traffic it appeared as though what looked like traffic was just one car refusing to speed up in the left lane causing  a go slow. Doing the old NY lane stitching we managed to get closer to the cluster fuck. As it turned out the traffic was being cause by two pick-up trucks driving abreast of each other at  varying speeds between 45 and 60 miles an hour. Clearly these jackasses were having a great time fucking with all the people behind them. We were on a NO exit two lane stretch which made passing impossible, or so the lead cars (right behind the trucks) would make it seem. I refused to let this be a major issue, fuck starbucks was in smelling distance, so it took about twenty minutes but we finally got into position 5 cars back. LEts asses the shituation, at this point there is a really narrow shoulder with guard rail tight up on it, but up a head I could see the guard rail ended. We New Yorkers Make moves, you can’t survive in the city without being able to take initiative and make some executive decisions, even if you jsut work in shipping and receiving. Not to mention i grew up watching the Dukes of hazard, Chips, and the A-team; i fucking know about Driving! So with the lead foot god blessed the I with, like OC said, ‘times up’! Gas petal meet the floor , floor meet gas petal, eyes and hands stay on point lets DO THIS! We jetted into the break-down lane/ shoulder of the road. Shit was a bit hectic, the rumple strip on the highway side made the truck to some swerving- WTF, the A-Team never hit a rumple strip. Passed, one car, two cars three cars, shit we on our way to road freedom. Ahead of the jackasses was an empty road, empty. AS we reach neck and neck with the first car, the trucks tried to okie doke us by attempting to swerve in to the breakdown lane and hem us in. Nah duke Im LOCKED in and im not slowing down, plus this isnt even my car so when we get into and collision and your driving is uncovered, you’re done, and i have a un-crashed car to go home to. Plus-Plus if i survive the collision Im getting out and beating the breaks off you and your friends. Shit i may not be a good fighter but Dave is from the Bronx hell kill you(i hope); worse case scenario I have to hog tie your ass with the locks and pluck your eye browse out till you scream uncle – Knatty dreadlocks are not to trifled with. The trucks realized by hemming me in they are leaving the left lane unguarded so they backed off and let the I pass. As we drive by I really wished, out loud to dave, that i had elephantitous of the hands so my middle finger would visible for longer as we sped off into the distance. How many times do you get to wish for a disfigurement? well that was the first, and god if you’re paying attention i dont really want it, I was just mad when I hoped for it please recognize the difference, and if youre gonna follow through on any of my wishes maybe attend to the, world peace, or ending hunger issues first; love lickle ras hev. Success, we passed the bloodclot pon di road. shortly there after i started seeing police traveling in the opposite direction. We cruised by a state trooper on radar patrol, who i was sure was going to yank us, but as we flew by he turned his lights on jetted off in the direction of the idiocy instead of pulling us over. I couldn’t believe I was the only one who was gonna right lane zoom these assholes, but I never saw anyone else follow us, usually in NY once one person does it there is a flood of followers, just waiting for someone to blaze a new trail. Dave and I decided that someone scared to pass must have called it in, which would explain the extensive police activity on the north bound side headed towards the forced go slow. Or there could have just been some horrid accident ( if so i hope they’re all okay)I missed while concentrating on passing the evil Duke boys in their pick-ups. Three bull in a pen leaves two bulls dead in the end, You can’t Hold the I son! See we, ‘on to the next’.

Here we are blessed to be back home, cursed by the welcome of assholes who also live in america, its a small wonder why other countries hate the general idea of americans. Were assholes to each other and we do a good job of alienating ourselves when abroad. DId i mention I love America, the idea of it is brilliant and as with most good ideas, once they hit committee they are whittled down to unrecognizable forms of they original intent.