As I opened the door, Noah Gitelman waited behind the small counter in the kitchen of his cramped three and a half room apartment. His hair was short, as if his head had been shaved a week ago and it had enough time to grow in but not enough to form bangs or sideburns. He wore a blue T-shirt with the word BLEEM written on the front and was in jogging pants.

Gitelman’s apartment is located on Sherbrook across from Dawson College. While officially listed as a three-and-a-half, he claims that it is in fact a two-and-a-half. “They lied to me,” Gitelman said indignantly. No matter what the specifics of the apartment were, it was clear that it was too small to be lived in by three people and Gitelman currently shares his apartment with his two roommates Jennifer and Mark. “I just need to take a shower before we do the interview,” he said matter-of-factly. “I waited for you to arrive before going into the shower.” After a moment, it dawned on him that he had hours of free time earlier in the day to take a shower and followed by saying “I forgot when you said you were coming and I wanted someone to be here to let you in.”. “I could have let him in,” said Jennifer Allaire, the teenage girl sitting at the computer in the room attached to the kitchen. Allaire, who is a 16-year-old high school dropout, has lived with Gitelman for the past four days. Gitelman seemed to ignore her comment and proceeded to go into the bathroom to take a shower. I sat down on the couch and examined the apartment while I waited.

The apartment was filled with clutter. Piles of clothes, a broken clock radio, old hair brushes, countless broken toys, dozens of small plastic bracelets, a large plastic M&M character, even the vacuum cleaner which rested on the floor seemed to add more to the sense of dirtiness than it did cleanliness. A cat sauntered in from the other room, scratched the side of the couch with its claws and then left. In the kitchen, the cupboard contained two open jars of peanut butter, one package of onion soup mix and eight cans of corn, all of which were past the expiry date. The fridge contained only a carton of milk, some marijuana brownies and some cat food. Despite the apparent lack of food however, an open George-Forman grill sat on the counter of his kitchen beside a blank postcard of Montreal.

David Noah Gitelman was born in Montreal on February 20th, 1980 in the Royal Victoria Hospital. When he was 2½, Gitelman and his family moved to a community called Twin Valley School for troubled youth. It was run by a group called the Emissaries of Divine Light. During this time, Gitelman underwent a first-name change. “In this community that we were living in, there were seven individuals named David. So whenever anyone would say ‘David’, all the David’s would turn around and say “Yeah”. So my parents decided to change my name. My first name is really David, but my second name is Noah.” His dad was not happy there, believing that the community was a cult, and so Gitelman and his family moved back to Quebec one year later.

Soon after that, Gitelman and his parents moved to St. Donat and then Morin Heights, where they lived for about four years. When he was six, his parents divorced and he moved to NDG with his mother where he attended Willington Elementary School.

“Noah is definitely a weird person and he can be annoying at times, but he’s nice,” Allaire said without taking her eyes off the computer screen. Allaire, who decided to stop living at home after she became annoyed at her mother for continually asking her to clean her room, had met Gitelman about a week and a half earlier.

“Let me grab a clean shirt and we’ll go to a restaurant to do the interview,” Gitelman said emerging from the bathroom after his shower. He called to Mark, his roommate sleeping in the next room, to see if he had any clean clothes he could borrow.After walking into the other room, he came back moments later wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants.

As we were about to leave, Allaire reported to Gitelman that they had no food left. Gitelman checked his wallet and, finding only fifteen dollars, told Allaire that he needed the money to rent movies, so they would have to wait a bit before he could buy some food (neither of Gitelman’s roommates currently had jobs). We then proceeded to a tiny diner a few blocks away called Moes across from the Old Forum. “If you want to pick up a chick, and you’re too nice, then she’s not gonna want you, but if you’re an asshole, then she’ll want you.” Gitelman said out of the blue as we were walking to Moes, as if he needed to break the silence between us. “[My roommate] Jennifer hated me but now she kind of likes me because I cancelled long distance on her, I keep touching her all over the place even though she hates it. Just being, you know, an asshole. It makes these girls minds think about you more. They’ll keep thinking ‘he’s such an asshole, he’s such an asshole’ and then finally they’ll decide ‘Oh my God, he’s great! I want him.’”

Arriving at Moes, Gitelman immediately went up to the counter to say hello to the waitress. Then, making sure there was no one else in the restaurant he recognized and could talk to, he came over and we sat down at a small booth. Gitelman immediately picked up the fork and knife on the table and began playing with them.

After elementary school, Gitelman attended Royal Vale High School. When he was in Grade 10, he decided he wanted to try something he had never tried before, so he accompanied a friend to a rave. “I ended up in a warehouse somewhere in the Peel Industrial area and I passed out somehow,” Gitelman said with a laugh. “I don’t remember how it happened. According to my friend, I sniffed something off the trunk of a car but I don’t remember that at all so I don’t believe it. Anyway, I woke up and all the equipment was gone and all the speakers were gone and there was absolutely no one there. My friend who went with me was gone too. It was just me lying on this really old couch in this warehouse. Then I just wobbled home. I don’t remember much, but it was a good time. I remember that.” Gitelman has been a big fan of raves ever since. “People who go to raves are a little less mature than people that don’t go to raves, but they’re normally friendlier people. People who go to raves can go up to anyone and talk to them. They’ll be touchy-feely, they won’t be scared to do any kind of stuff while regular people are more closed minded. They think there is a certain way things work and that is the only way things work and don’t mess with it.” Gitelman said.

Gitelman, who is no longer a stranger to raves, is also no stranger to drugs, which he only enjoys taking when he’s at a rave. Off the top of his head, Gitelman remembers smoking Pot, smoking Hash, eating Pot, eating Hash, doing Mushrooms, Speed, Ecstasy, Ecstasy with Heroine in it, Ecstasy with Special K (a kind of Cat tranquilizer) in it, Special K alone, Cocaine, Acid, PCP, and pretty much anything that doesn’t involve being taken with a needle. “There was once where I did way too much stuff at once. I actually bought pills for three friends. The three friend were late and I had already taken my pills before they came. I was eating candy from my pocket while waiting and I accidentally mixed the pills up with the candy.” Gitelman’s story was interrupted suddenly when he accidentally dropped his fork and knife onto the floor. Picking them back up, he continued with his story. “I ended up doing eight Ecstasies and five Speeds in one night. I was puking uncontrollably. I was dancing and puking at the same time. I had no idea what the hell was happening . I was just puking everywhere and dancing and enjoying myself. I was so sick afterwards. I ate two pacifiers and digested them both. I ate all the plastic right up to the handle.” Gitelman went on to explain that taking speed causes one to grind his teeth, so he uses a pacifier as a way of protecting his teeth.

After High School, Gitelman went to Dawson College where he started out in Pure and Applied Science. After failing all of his courses in his first semester, he switched to Creative Art for a semester before finally switching to Computer Science. Gitelman, who is a self taught computer programmer, had a much easier time in this field than he had in the others. This is not to say that he didn’t have problems in Computer Science as well. “I failed a class [in computer science] not because I don’t know it, but because I threatened someone I would run them over with a car even though I don’t drive. I told the school how they could print for free, and I stole everyone’s password, the whole schools’. The school considered those bad things, though I never did anything bad with them.” Despite this setback, Gitelman continued to take courses in Computer Science and managed to do quite well in them until this past semester, in which he decided to drop out of Dawson all together. “I just wasn’t learning anything I didn’t already know,” Gitelman said flatly, not giving it much thought. With school out of the way, Gitelman felt he had much more time to relax.

His job, doing programming and database management for a company called Bernard A. De Zwirek & Associates, takes up only two days of his week. The other five he spends “relaxing, chilling with friends, or going for walks.” Soon he should have even more time on his hands as he is considering quitting his current job. He has already created his own rave company called Renegade Legion and a website development company which he has not yet named. He is hoping that these will bring in enough money for him to quit his current job, which he finds dull and boring.

When asked what his future plans were, Gitelman laughed and replied jokingly “Screw the world. Anarchy for fun and profit!” Gitelman went on to reveal that his plans for the future were very simple. He planned to keep his current job until he found something better. Other than that, he just wants to live one day at a time and see what happens. “I believe in having a good time. I believe in living life while you CAN live it because maybe later on, you won’t be able to. You never know what tomorrow will bring, so you better enjoy today. That’s how everyone works in this world.” he said.

At this point, Gitelman noticed someone at the counter he knew and, stopping mid-sentence, quickly stood up and walked over to counter, as if he had casually noticed someone walking on the other side of the street while waiting for a bus. After a brief conversation, he returned to the booth and began talking as if there had been no interruption. “I don’t have any complaints about my life.” he said with a smile as we got ready to leave the diner. “I’m happy. I’ve always been happy. I’ve never been upset in life really.”