At 63, the “unwise old man” Yves P Pelletier continues to tell his story with Are you following me?an autobiographical story from his 1990s and 2000s, in which the bibitte gradually gives way to the very sensitive person that he has, in any case, always been.
On September 26, 2004, Yves P Pelletier was received on the set of Everybody talks about it, on the air for only three weeks, in order to promote his first film, The magnets. Among the other guests: NDP leader Jack Layton and Kalsang Dolma, protagonist of What’s left of usa documentary denouncing the oppression that Tibetans endure.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY RADIO-CANADA
Yves P Pelletier and Jack Layton at Everybody talks about itin 2004
“When Kalsang takes his place next to me, I feel a great fragility within me,” writes Yves P Pelletier in Are you following me?the sequel to his comico-autobiographical story from 2022, Disoriented. “Throughout her interview, as she describes the cultural genocide that her compatriots are suffering, other faces come to mind: mine. Those Tibetans who had made terrible confidences to me away from prying eyes and ears. Those friends of whom I only have summary and intermittent news. »
Already weakened by a too intimate question from his friend Guy A. about the death of his brother, hit by a driver in 1984, Yves P Pelletier will not be able to stem his tears.
“I lost control and I said to myself: Yves, it’s over. Your career is over,” confided in an interview, 20 years later, the man who had visited Tibet a few times. ” Already that The magnets presented a much more revealing picture of myself than I had supposed…”
PHOTO ARMAND TROTTIER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
With the star of the film The magnetsIsabelle Blais, in 2004
But rather than bringing about the end of his career, this beautiful moment of vulnerability will become in the eye of the general public the birth certificate of a new Yves P Pelletier, less bibitte and more sensitive, who no longer systematically took refuge in histrionics.
“The histrionic one is me too!” “, he specifies. “But it was a long process of learning that I was allowed to be serious and that I could open up. »
The unwise old man
At 63, Yves P Pelletier has undeniably learned to open up very well, as evidenced by Are you following me?, the book of a “not wise old man”, who chose to tell his story for pleasure, but also because he regrets that his predecessors did not do it more, he explains, remembering his comrade Serge Attic. On the set of Hot pepper, the Cynic used to regale him with anecdotes, which he unfortunately took with him.
At the age I am, there is a part of me that wants to say: listen to this, I told you a good story!
Yves P Pelletier
Psychotherapy, heart problems, travels all over the planet: this story, whose main tone remains self-deprecation, is once again full of tasty appearances, including those of Gérald Godin and Pauline Julien (who were his neighbors), of Paul Piché (the most unlikely of marriage counselors) and Michel “Willie” Lamothe (his driver during the filming of Wild camping).
The members of Rock et Belles Oreilles are also present there again, but unlike Disorientedwhich depicted the exaltation of their first triumphs, Are you following me? opens as the troops struggle to agree on what to do with their follies, which will lead to their first break, in 1995.
This is because their purely collegial decision-making process was beginning to weigh on the troops. “The people at Spectra called us the supreme soviet! », laughs Yves.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Yves P Pelletier
The choice of a cover, a credits, everything could become the subject of a conflict. And there was Guy who was always teasing us with his ideas for couple sketches that interested no one.
Yves P Pelletier
Unlike his lifelong friend, whose retirement has been assured since the international flight ofA boy a girl (an idea which ultimately seems to have interested a few people), Yves P Pelletier has never been able to rest on his success. Not that he’s never been offered lucrative contracts…
In 2001, a commercial radio station offered him what he called a “golden bridge” to join the team of its morning show. But the comedian feels that accepting would be equivalent to voluntarily putting on a straitjacket.
“I had analyzed everything, and knowing my metabolism, I knew that I would not be able to get up that early and continue to carry out other, more creative projects at the same time,” he recalls. “I knew it would take all my energy and I wanted to concentrate on creating. »
“I can tell you that my agent asked me two, three times if I had thought about it carefully,” adds Yves before bursting out laughing. “Now it seems like I had noble motives, but at the time it was just that I didn’t want to get up early. »
Listen first, read and then think
The number of blondes who take turns between the pages of Are you following me? should bury for good the persistent rumors that Yves P Pelletier is homosexual. Gossip in which the main person involved has always decided to have fun, despite what it reveals about the conception that many still have of what a man, a real man, should look like.
There were girls I ended up dating who were convinced I was gay, just because I was skinny, had a high-pitched voice, wasn’t very athletic, and maybe also because RBO was playing with codes.
Yves P Pelletier
Even if he talks a lot about himself, Yves P Pelletier paradoxically signs the book of a globetrotter who is never as happy as when he learns about others. Before leaving us, he will tell us, with the enthusiasm of a teenager, about having recently become friends with the members of the group Godspeed You! Black Emperor, on a plane heading to Mexico, where Montrealers were going to give a show, which he was able to attend.
But in July 1996, Yves was instead in Lebanon, where he had been sent by the show Hell is the rest of us in order to film a report on the astonishing popularity of Mario Pelchat.
“And when you spend a week with people, they end up telling you more personal things,” Yves emphasizes. I was overwhelmed by the resilience of the Lebanese in the face of the atrocity of the crises they experienced. »
What should we do when we receive such confidences? “There is nothing to do but listen. Then read and think. But first, you must always listen. »
Are you following me?
VLB editor
272 pages