Places!

If you build it, they will come... and then go out of business.

The Hotel



First of all, enjoy the photo. Until someone sends me an exterior building-shot, you get two grown men regretting that tenth pitcher. Secondly, whenever the above is not happening at all, I would be so bold as to say that the hotel is one of my favorite places in the world to have a sit-down, next to the crapper and Elizabeth Hurley's lap.

The Manitouwadge Motor Hotel – a longtime watering hole for drunks, boozehounds, winos, roustabouts, seventeen-year-old girls, "alkies", lonely moms, and at least one Proulx. For these and others, the hotel is the one refuge from that long day of being unemployed, and what better way to spend money you don't have than to spend it on delicious draught for yourself, and the underage girl sitting beside you.

Which reminds me, for those of you who are just turning the big one-nine (or one-seven, you resourceful bastard), here are a couple things you should know:

1. Try to keep bathroom conversation to a maximum, and do shake hands afterwards.
2. Due to the bylaw, the smoke-eater now only eats children.
3. If you can fill one of their ashtrays with vomit without spilling over, you win a Jägermeister t-shirt.
4. Buy nine pitchers of Keith's, and the tenth is a chicken wing.
5. That's not a deer's head on the wall, that's the last treeplanter that looked at Joey North sideways.

In closing, remember that the hotel is the only place with draught, and I hope you buy me some at christmas time. I'll be the guy in the back trying to pick up your mom.

Friends Coffee & Donuts / Kingdom Hall



Have you ever wanted to sip a cup of joe... with the LORD? Now you can! Coffee and donut emporium, or hall of prayer? You decide. Once the Jehovah's Witness "Kingdom Hall", now Friends Coffee & Donuts. I could not make this up, people. This little building has served both those that crave the life everlasting, and those that crave deep-fried cake batter.

I wonder why the folks at the Kingdom Hall skipped town? Was it perhaps that they ran out of things to witness? What if God shows up and finds the sanctity of his kingdom's hall (of medicine?) is no longer doing the lord's work, but is instead filled with middle-aged women and excessively large oatmeal cookies?

I think that might go down like this...

GOD: "Big up, my negros!"
EMPLOYEE: "The lamb of hosts! What brings thee to mine shop of butter tarts?"
GOD: "You have defiled my house with the stench of deliciousness!"
EMPLOYEE: "Oh my g... er.. Don't kill me!"
GOD: "TOO LATE BLASPHEMER! TASTE MY GREASY... wait... is that soy milk?"
EMPLOYEE: "Y..y...yes... my lord."
GOD: "Ooh! I'll have a mocha soy latté!"

The Village



Ah the Village. Look how happy that lady looks. She loves to serve tiny pizzas with her tiny little claw-hands. No wonder it takes them so long to make a pie.

Creative observation aside, this has got to be the best places in the world to get some post-bar grease. It's a quaint little joint with a few tables, a few chairs, and a shitload of mops, because the crowd here is generally two minutes away from the "don't touch me" phase where the world shrinks and yesterday's meals try to escape their tummies.

Like the sign says, they serve pretty much every damn tasty thing that is horrible for you. Most notably, they serve a meat-lover's "hercules" pizza. It's as voluminous as it is delicious. Besides tasting like a large slice of heaven (while being as hot as hell), this thirty-two slice brick of food groups not-so-quietly guarantees you a full stomach, as well as a severe case of Coronary Thrombosis. Take it away, Alton...

The Not-So-Welcoming "Welcome" Sign



Exhibit A: The Township of Manitouwadge sign looks like a grave's headstone.
Exhibit B: Little children play on this hill with their crazy carpets and toboggans.

Coincidence? I think not!

Possibly the worst idea to come out of Manitouwadge since they decided on the name (the best idea being forcing high school kids to pick up the town's trash on a weekday). What the hell were they thinking? It pains me to think that there were numerous people sitting around a table at the municipal office, and not some, but ALL of them agreed "Yes, a headstone, it's genius!". Genius is edible underwear, it is not eluding to your hometown as being a cradle for the dead.

The (new) Beach



Uh, can we get a summer photo please? Oh this is a summer photo? Perfect.

And the sign reads:

WATERFRONT AREA
This bench is not supersized
Dogs can act perplexed in this area
Floss our garbage containers
– Frank Yu

Who says we're not cultured in the Wadge? We're apparently into abstract Chinese poetry.

Moving along, this is the beach that isn't the old beach. It's one of the only places in the known world where you can gain a hefty sunburn, and dive into the downward spiral of hypothermia in the same afternoon. There's really not much to do here besides sit down, smell the loon poop, and play on that wicked helicopter-without-the-helicoptor-blades jungle gym.

In other news, I wonder why there's a "solve a crime" sign at the beach? I wouldn't normally notice, but why at the beach? Do super-sleuths have an exclusive tendency to swim? Do hardcore criminals, while running from the law, lust for sand between their toes? I try to tell people how wonderfully fucked Manitouwadge is, and they never listen. Here's your proof, crimestopper.

I don't really know what else to say except that I've been thrown in the lake here by a group of wadge-caliber thugs once. I totally didn't deserve it.

The Back Lot Buildings



Well, I had to call this place something, it's certainly not "The Chicken Roost" anymore. Only in the Municipality of Manitouwadge can lakefront property go to shit like this.

Once a theatre, always dramatic, I present to you the back lot buildings. Many a small shop have nestled here, looking to the promise of many days and nights rolling naked in the Benjamins, but alas, the only thing named "Ben" around here, probably defecated on or around the "Skaters Suck!!" sign. Nice touch by the way, because I've never met a skater with low self esteem before.

What was here:

• The Chicken Roost - Finally, a place to rent movies and get that fried chicken fix. The only rival to my brainchild company entitled "Chicken n' Chocolate Sauce". Both companies failed miserably.

• Les's Affordable Foods - No offence to Les, I'm sure he's a great guy, but when you're thirteen years old and you read a sign like that, you're going to laugh your uneducated ass off. Apparently their prices were a little too affordable, because this also... well... look at it.

• Debbie's Cut-Rite - You've cut your last head of hair Debbie!

• A movie theatre of some sort - I can't imagine what would be playing here, maybe stories about the mineral industry? Coming soon, rated PG from Dreamworks pictures – "The Rock" in: "A Mine is a Terrible Thing to Waste". Groan, I know, they can't all be winners.

• Skaters Suck!! -This is a pretty recent photo, so this must be a new store. People get pretty lonely up there, they must be making a killing.

We've all seen it, we've all been inside it "just to see", and yes, we've all marveled at the masterful spray paint rendition of 7-up's own "Fido Dido" decorating the interior. Most importantly, we've asked ourselves "What the fuck is this here for?". Well, I've got a few theories:

The Rec Centre



No parking on the stairs!

I can't imagine having more depressive fun as a teenager than playing euchre in a reception hall in the dead of winter. Most often referred to as "the rec" or "anywhere but here", the Manitouwadge Rec Centre, brimming with the smell of pee and old skates, has (not-so-happily) housed dozens of cold teens in their time of need.

The rec offers countless hours (okay, three) of time-killing enjoyment such as "stealing toilet paper" or "if you press and hold down the '2' on the payphone, the call is free!". Excellent, but oh, who to call?

As a morose denouement to our story, oftentimes the constant "teens get off our lawn!" mentality, courtesy of the wicked janitorial staff, makes even the most seasoned of euchre / badminton players cry for something more, loudly shouting Fuck this! I'm gonna go stand in front of...

...Nelson's!



Nelson's, formerly "Kelly's". Mix in two parts super-fun arcade videodrome, one cup of bowling alley, a teaspoon of dive-bar, just the smallest pinch of laundromat, and you have one of the baddest (take it however you want it) establishments in the uptown area. Sounds pretty amazing, doesn't it? It's bounties are endless, it's power exceeded only by its mystery. There's only one thing better than being inside of Nelson's, and, you guessed it, it's standing just outside of it.

Why would someone do that?

Let me explain the phenomenon of standing outside of Nelson's by first explaining the dichotomy of Manitouwadge teens with the help of a simple diagram:

From what we can tell, our not-so-happy teen from Fig. 1A (let's call him "Jonny") loves to stand. Jonny's not a rare breed, but a proud one, as he is charged with the full-time duty of keeping Nelson's outside walls sturdy and upright. His dislikes are homos, polysyllabic words, and the elderly. He loves cigarettes, loose women under fifteen, and the occasional coffee from the Casa D'or. Now, whether or not he actually loves cars, is irrelevant, because he'll never have one. This fact alone is pretty much the determining factor in poor Jonny's social destiny as a teenager, forever condemned to walk (or stand on) the streets of the Wadge, instead of blaze across it's poorly paved roads in a Ford Taurus. A traveling nomad such as this requires a pit-stop, such as the sidewalk just in front of Nelson's. It's the perfect place for Jonny to refuel his energies with a sip of anti-freeze, a bummed smoke or a bag of "Spitz" sunflower seeds. This allows him to resume the long trek to find somebody to boot a sixer of tall-boys for him and his bros, or the even longer trek back to his mom's basement.

Caddy's



Next up I give you Caddy's. Well, I can not "give" you Caddy's, seldom humans have the power, nay, the right to give away a fine establishment such as this. It doesn't look like much now, but it was once the primo-number-one location to view fireworks during Rendezvous Days. I can't say much for the bar inside; all I know is that I was too young to get hosed and there was country music. I'm not sure if even at the tender age of 11, I'd be able to tolerate 'Achy Breaky Heart' while shitfaced.

It was also a chinese restaurant for a short stint, and the won-tons were amazing. Come to think of it, everything was amazing. Damnit, can't somebody just buy this thing? Here... I'll even give away one of my closely-held moneymaking business secrets:

Give that shit to Eddy.


* I would also like to take this opportunity to say that my spell checker apparently knows what "shitfaced" is.