Advocate, The: Rufus of Montreal: viewing Canada's multicultural mecca through the world-weary eyes

In "Oh What a World," one of the rapturous tracks on Rufus Wainwright's album Want One, the singer-songwriter asks, rhetorically, "Why am I always on a plane or a fast train?" He goes on to lament that he's "always traveling but not in love." Wainwright penned the ballad on a train from Paris to London at the end of his Poses tour. "It's about looking at the world and seeing what's actually there," he explains, phoning from a lake in New Hampshire, "not feeling either good or bad about it, just feeling apart." Dislocation is an underlying theme in nearly every artist's life, but Wainwright has truly journeyed to hell and back, fighting his way to sobriety after wallowing in the lonesome depths of crystal meth addiction and sexual roulette. Now, in addition to wrapping up a U.K. tour promoting the album Want Two, which follows Want One in exploring his postrehab yearnings, he has a cameo as a '20s 'Bing Crosby-type" character in Martin Scorsese's upcoming The Aviator, part of which was filmed in Montreal. "Hanging out with Leonardo DiCaprio in your hometown is always bizarre," he says nonchalantly

So then, where does the world-weary warrior want to take himself next? "The world sort of meshes into one goopy soup when you travel around so much," sighs Wainwright. "Let's stick to Montreal."

Born in upstate New York, the child of folk music luminaries Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright Ill, Rufus was raised by his mother in a Montreal's Westmount neighborhood. "It's sort of like the upper west side of Manhattan--very pretty but a little bit dull." At 13 he discovered St. Laurent Boulevard, a thriving district of delicatessens and antique shops that divides the city into its French and English parts. "To this day I can't seem to recapture that sense of elation of sitting on St. Laurent and realizing that one day I'll be able to drink, and one day I'll be able to fall in love, and one day I'll eat as many bagels as I want."

One day Wainwright infiltrated Montreal's club scene. "I was only 14," admits the mildly jaded 31 -year-old. "There were drinking laws, but they obviously didn't enforce them, because I was a young 14. I looked like an underdeveloped lizard."

It wasn't long before Wainwright crawled over to St. Catherine Street, where Montreal's bustling gay village welcomed him as one of its own. "A lot of the toning-down that occurred after the AIDS era in New York--like getting rid of prostitutes and bathhouses--never happened in Montreal," he offers almost wistfully. "Every block has a strip club. There's this one place I love called Adonis, which is completely full of fallen youths and their generous benefactors. I was hanging out there once and this old guy came up to me and said, 'So, when are you dancing?' I had never felt so complimented in my life."

Wainwright now lives in New York City and returns to his hometown just once or twice a year So what does he miss most? "I'd love to have Montreal bagels delivered to me. They're much better than New York bagels. That and a good poutine [a slightly declasse Quebecois dish of french fries, gravy, and curd cheese]. I can dig into a good poutine."

His advice to would be Montrealers? Don't miss Old Montreal ("It's like going to Prague for two seconds, and it's absolutely gorgeous in the winter"); try to speak French ("They kind of appreciate it, and then they'll speak English"); and go ahead and cut loose ("If you want to really party and have a crazy time, you've come to the right place").

Rufus's top picks for Montreal

(1) "Miami (3831 St. Laurent, 514-845-2300) is a typical dive bar with a crummy pool table and bad art. I basically had my comeuppance there. I learned how to drink there and keep my balance. There are a lot of disenfranchised youth who hang out--people who are so-called artists. There's a very small terrace in the back that nonetheless has a lot of charm."

(2) "There was a place I played a lot called Cafe Sarajevo (2080 Clark, 514-284-5629)--it's a bar that's run by this incredible survivor named Osman. He's had about four or five wives, and they all still sort of work there. I used to play there and sing every weekend--it's where I got my chops. It's interesting because a lot of the people who hung out there were refugees from the Bosnian war. So they were a pretty tough audience."

(3) "Notre-Dame Street, which is down in the English part of town, is full of the most incredible antique and thrift shops, including the Salvation Army. I wrote a song on my first record called 'Sally Ann,' which is actually the Canadian abbreviation for Salvation Army. You can get some beautiful deals down there--like huge Victorian fireplaces."

(4) "Mado's (1115 St. Catherine, 514-525-7566) is a bar run by a drag queen named Mado who was once very famous in Montreal. She'd recount her adventures, all the time knocking back shooters and getting extremely drunk but always maintaining a superior wit. It's very postmodern drag--that kind of drag that has been delivered from the Barbra Streisand imitations. There are always a lot of cute boys there."

(5) "There's another place called Unity II (1171 St. Catherine, 514-523-4429), which is a big gay club abounding with beautiful French-Canadian suburbanites. They're the type of people you don't see on the street every day--you're always like, where the hell did these people come from? It has a beautiful roof terrace that overlooks the whole gay village."

(6) "The mountain (Mount Royal Park), in the middle of the city, is amazing. You can get everything from Haitian voodoo stuff with chickens tied up in trees to weird hippie bong people. It also has this gorgeous Protestant cemetery that looks exactly like something from Edward Gorey. In 'In My Arms' I wrote About 'looking at hospitals Victorian." Right next to the park is that hospital. It looks like an ominous haunted Victorian building."