Toronto's Teeny-Tiny Mayor Rob Ford

Imagine, your dream has arrived. You are Mayor of an important city in North America. You've achieved everything you could have imagined possible.

And today, now into the second year of your first term as Mayor, happens to be the day where you've realized that you have come of age in your role as 'King of Kensington'. You're in your element, you're feeling confidant, you can roll with anybody; any place, any time.

Hell, you can slosh through half a forty pound-er of Vodka in 5 minutes - no problem! You can do this sh*t in your sleep. You can do this, do that, and do the other thing - and still pull off this show that is being Mayor of Toronto.

Easy as Pie. Bring it on!


The sun is shining on The Esplanade, and it's a sleek world down here on the waterfront; with the Grand Boulevard, the glass and steel towers, the Expressway's Art Deco-ish lines. Real World Class down here; feels like Atlantic City, the Trump Plaza Casino or something; some swank, elite European holiday club where only the fashionable, well heeled, super-rich are allowed.

'It's sexy baby! Yeah!! This is like that movie man! And it's St Patrick's Day 2012! Par-tee dude!'

(You're no longer that second brother; the one that's always underestimated; the one who's always left out of the important decisions; the who should never be trusted with the business...)

At the urinal in the washroom at the back of the Brier's Market Bar ... 'Who's the teeny-tiny man now?!' - 'I'm going to show those amateurs how it's done!" ..as he expertly draws out a line on the porcelain lid at the back of the toilet. 


Mayor Ford got really, really drunk that afternoon and evening - and the morning of the next day.

During that time he did beer, vodka, brandy, weed, Oxycontin, cocaine, booze, cocaine, and finally - a rock to finish off the night (morning).

During those hours he made racist Pakistani derisive comments towards an Asian-looking taxi driver (actually calling hm a "Paki"); he called a Staffer a "liberal bitch"; he told three different women at various events, parties, cab rides and stumbling drunken pub crawls - that he was going to preform oral sex on them - and in one case, that he was going to "bang" her vagina.

In one case he used the fact that he had (apparently) slept with one particular Mayors' Office Staffer (and that meant he could therefore dismiss her, because of the fact they had sex means he now owned her? She was his bitch?) ... in order to embarrass her ... in order to negate her attempts to try to talk him into going home (so he wouldn't destroy his term as Mayor).

And in the taxi on the way home in the wee hours of that night's morning, he tells a staffer to get out of the taxi for a minute so he can set up a meeting on his phone that the staffer cannot hear ... And as soon as the taxi pulls up at Mayor Ford's home, he jumps out of the cab (drunk as the high-heavens mind you), gets in his car and drives off - almost hitting the cab as he backs out of his drive.


In the end it's just a passed out, disheveled dumpy man who's mother-in-law finds him passed out in front of the rec-room couch the next morning. No 'pussy banging', no oral sex. Just one last high before it all goes dark; before it all has to get real again.


It's a year later (March 2013) - but it's the same thing. Only this time there are leaks about this behaviour - rather than the wall of silence constructed by loyal Mayors Office Staff doing their job protecting the image of the Office of the Mayor of the City of Toronto.

At this morning's news conference it's about the Sarah Thompson allegation that he was "on something" at the Garrison Ball Fundraiser event the previous day. Allegations that he had done something very inappropriate (grabbed her on the bottom at the public event).

And so the King of Kensington once again strains his blurry eyes through a thumping headache in order to see the questioner through the glare of TV reporters' lights --- to dismiss the charges out of hand.

'That's absolutely not what happened', is what his handlers have told him to say. Deny, deny, deny.


At the urinal in the bathroom off the spacious offices of the Mayor of the City of Toronto he whispers to himself, "Toronto's Teeny-Tiny Mayor is back motherf***ers; I told you didn't I?"

"In my sleep a**holes - In my f***ing sleep!"

------------

Events in this time line were derived from the Toronto Star's Kevin Donovan, Jesse McLean, David Bruser, and Robyn Doolittle's distillation of the evidence that describes Mayor Rob Ford's St Patrick's Day (Saturday, March 17, 2012) - culled from the Stars' investigative reporting - and earlier reports; and a narrative produced by Toronto Police from surveillance and interview notes; written-up by detectives as part of their quest to get a search warrant as part of their "Project Traveller" investigation; and released to the Public by Ontario Superior Court Judge, Justice Ian Nordheimer, on November 13, 2013.

All "thought bubbles" (in italics) - that purport to describe what the subject may have been saying to himself, or thinking to himself - are constructions of the author - an attempt to understand the motivations of the individual in question.

Image via Biking Toronto, Cyclops Blog - http://bikingtoronto.com/cyclops/2010/10/say-what-you-will-about-rob-ford/

Toronto Star - Wed Nov 13 2013 - "Rob Ford staff told police about Ford’s Bier Markt, Garrison Ball outings" - http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/13/rob_ford_staff_told_police_about_fords_bier_markt_garrison_ball_outings.html

Toronto Star - Wed Nov 13 2013 - "Rob Ford did drugs, partied with escort on St. Patrick’s Day, police document alleges" - http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/11/13/rob_ford_did_drugs_partied_with_escort_police_document_alleges.html



mh


(This blog post has coding that works to display the content well on web-phones, tablets or desktop better that I have yet seen out there. (Accomplished by coding for the smallest screen first - using two width percentage columns aligned right, and left.) Feedback on this is appreciated: how does this display for you on your device of choice? If you re-use the coding in something you publish, please credit the display coding to "Michael Holloway' s FilterBlogs".)

Jones Avenue is Falling Down

Chapter 1

The bus rumbles past the Jones Avenue Branch of the Toronto Public Library like Mayor Rob Ford on a bad hangover morning.

There's a sink hole that been developing in the road for the past two years that when the Jones Avenue Bus hits it the whole intersection shakes - a long rumble that pools out from the epicentre. As a matter of fact, just like, the earthquake we felt here just before the Clamp Down for the G20 - only not as long.

The fact is this whole neighbourhood is built on sand. If we had a real earthquake - like the 1989 California Loma Prieta earthquake - this place would be like the Marina District in San Francisco, the ground would basically liquify. This 2nd floor room I scribble in would end up on Jones Avenue as sure as I'm scribbling now.

You see it here and there. A cone, a set of cones marking a spot where the millions of trickles that make up a river delta have found a route of least resistance, a trickle became a torrent at last weekends storm - and the street begins to sag in on itself. All the basements along Jones are wet. All the storm sewer catch basins are full of sand.

Nova Scotia fishermen's House (via flickr)

The house on the northwest corner of Jones and Dundas is listing for $750,000. It's a two story wood frame thing with a small dormer room in the attic. It has that old wooden siding like you see on all the Nova Scotia fishermen's houses. Just a box with a peak roof, too long for aesthetic proposes - the result of one too many additions.

It's corner property looks a lot wider that it is - the property line actually runs five feet from the side of the house - the other twenty feet is city property. Property that the Debt-Crisis-Theatre Mayor, Rob Ford might sell one day soon.

This house rumbles with the bus too. And there's a new sink hole eating a parking spot just down the ally around the back. But that won't stop the owner from getting three quarters of million dollars for it - after all, Leslieville's got a brand new shopping complex down at Leslie and Lake Shore Boulevard.


...

Epiphany

Today I woke up wanting to write about the process - the process of thinking, the experience of life in real time.

I don't want to bore you with some rambling inner journey - that's boring. But while this is in the style of James Joyce's stream of consciousness - it is, importantly I think, the journey towards truth revealed, consciousness that is gleened though interaction with people - interaction with the culture of a neighbourhood.


Still reading?

Some days you wake up and you see the world anew. Things that weren't there yesterday are as plain as the nose on you face the today. Today is one of those days for me.

I went for my usual walk this morning, my regular route, about a 45 minute walk around the neighbourhood. I've seen the gambling in the parkette before, it's obvious. I've seen the houses rented, with front businesses that are in fact, gambling houses. I've seen the look-outs hanging on the corners; smoking cigarette after cigarette, keeping an eye on me for a moment - sussing - then on to the next one...

I've seen the 'bums' too; the under-cover cops. You can tell because they're not regulars like real bums - they appear, and then you never see them again. Real bums find a safe, sheltered place to sleep with a good spot nearby to ask for money - a village where they're comfortable - and remain as long as allowed. Until a young Friday-night-drunk threatens them, or a Parks Worker gives them the boot by 'stealing' (garbaging) all their stuff -- they stay.

But these ones... they're too dirty, too unkempt; too young and virile under all those layers of over sized clothes. They are not 'down on their luck' - they're dressed up - you feel like they're about to make a play on you. The eyes, if your able to connect, are shifty, strong and searching. This one, you think, had a good meal last night, maybe a thief - or a cop.

But today I saw much more. Today I saw the pretty Mule coming out of the Bank. You can tell because they wear expensive, sexy shoes - but their eyes, their demeanor, their costume says used, abused - they're working for someone who likes them to look pretty - hanging around all day, doing nothing - pretending busy. Nothing really to do but the odd trip to the bank. It's a great job - why not wear uncomfortable shoes if that's all they ask - for now.

On my daily walk I've seen it all before - but what made me think that today I was blessed with incisive vision was that as I looked away from the pretty mule, my eyes landed on The Big Guy, following her out of the bank. Poof! Awareness! At that moment, the Mule, the Bank and the Money-Laundry across the street - came the undercover cop, The Big Guy.

He wouldn't have been a cop at any other moment, but because he appeared at that instant, at that place I saw him for who he was. The sudden epiphany must have shown on my face, our eyes locked - he and I knew immediately - we were in the same place. You could feel it in the air - our universes had just clicked, the field lines had just intersected, a spark happened, a connection. I knew and he knew too - but just for a second. Then the neurosis, the denials that protect us from the truths we hide came slamming back into place - for him - but not for me. I had grasped the panorama. I had touched the sky.

As I followed him down the street, as he was going in the same direction, he turned a couple of times, just a cock of his head, watching me peripherally - to check. I watched as he got into his late model white van with no markings - the ones the undercover cops always use - and drive away.


* * *

It's been a year, the gamblers have completely taken over the park now. I wonder how long this game the police and the mob play goes on generally. I've decided to pick up the cigarette butts next to the kids play area in the parkette; they're so thick you almost can't see the inter-locking bricks... . Where are those 'Park Workers' I wonder.



mh

'e' Literature - The Future of Reading?

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(Early this morning Ian Harper the CEO of BradField Productions, left a kind comment at the bottom of this piece correcting several omissions. BradField Productions is the Producer of author Kate Pullingers' 'Inanimate Alice' an "Interactive Narrative" multi-media novel. The Interactive Narrative is a new form of story telling that creates a revolutionary new experience for the reader.
I think this is an important new form, the tip of the iceberg of what story telling will become in many kinds of media in the near future.
In my take below - by missing the producers behind the stories - I missed the story, the importance of new forms that are disrupting old ways humans communicate and grow culture.
I also missed pointing you to Kate Pullingers' web site, where the novel is in progress. Parts 1 through 4 are done and available here; parts 5 through 10 are in production. Kate Pullinger also has a facebook page.
So - as I badly missed my own point here - I intend to write another piece, specifically on this new story form being spearheaded by Ian Harper and BradField Productions, "The Interactive Narrative", coming soon.

Michael Holloway
December 17, 2009)

---------------------------------------


Tonight I watched "Empire of the Word - The Future of Reading", broadcast on TVOntario, the Provincial Public Broadcaster known 'round here as TVO. You can watch the entire series hosted by the great linguist Alberto Manguel, online at TVO.org. This is a link to Episode One.

Episode Four is the forth and final chapter of the series. Tonights was a journey into the very near future, e-books, the Google Books Project, iPod, the Kindle; a view just over the horizon, the future of reading.


One of the most interesting elements in tonights show was a project I hadn't heard of before but that has been in production since 2005 called the Electronic Literature Collection.

This years winner of The Governor General’s Award for Fiction, Kate Pullinger (for The Mistress of Nothing) is the author of one of the electronic interactive narratives. A 'flash story book' for children or young adults called "Inanimate Alice". It was featured in tonights "Empire of the Word", and it sent me diving for my keyboard.

The 'over leaf' says,

"This narrative, produced in Flash, follows a young girl whose life is mediated by technology during a day of family unrest when her father is lost..."

The story is interactive and has a sound track only a young person could love. In several places the story doesn't have the >> icon that means 'turn the page', instead your asked to solve a puzzle - when done - it's on to the next page. Music and pop-up windows establishes place, time of day and the feel of driving in the desolate bush country of oil rich northern China.

At the link below, "eliterature.org" is creating a collection of 'Electronic Literature'. In the upper left and right-hand corners on the page are black icons, story titles to go backwards or forwards, to more e-literature.

Here's some screen shots that will peak your interest. Episode one for the Electronic Literature Collection is at, Inanimate Alice, Episode 1: China by Kate Pullinger and electronic artist, Chris Joseph. Bradfield Productions has the series so far at 'Inanimate Alice'.
(Right click ---> open in new tab, for a full screen view.)
















mh

Peak Oil as Metaphor in Star Trek - Voyager Series

Just watched Star Trek Voyager episodes "Demon" (May 6, 1998) and "Course: Oblivion" (March 3, 1999). The two episodes were written separately and Course Oblivion was broadcast a year later. It's not until more than half way through that you realize your watching "Demon" Part ll. Another brilliant bit of writing from Jeri Taylor (- and those other guys who wrote DS9).

For those unfamiliar with the story line of the series the Star Ship Voyager has been hurtled into the "Delta Quadrant" by a vastly superior life form known only as "The Caretaker". The journey home is the series nine-year story arch.

Four years into their journey, some seventy years from home, Captain Janeway is forced to set Voyager down on a 'demon class' planet for fuel. A silvery liquid lays in pools everywhere on the surface of the 500⁰ Kelvin planet - it contains elements that can fuel Voyager's engines. The 'silver liquid' also has a strange quality, the ability to mimic anything it comes in contact with - including the crew.

Two members of the crew doing a preliminary exploration of the planet are copied by the fluid and are mistaken for 'real' by the crew of Voyager. Soon though the originals are found, with slow leaks in their spacesuits, and near death. The ship is now sinking into the 'mimetic fluid' under the ship forcing Captain Janeway to use any means necessary to escape. Her efforts hurt to doppelgangers now in sickbay, thus Janeway discovers she can negotiate with the mimetic fluid outside - through the dopplegagers inside. A new life form has been born and it wishes to continue, just as humans do. Negotiations ensue and a deal with the 'planet' is struck: fuel in exchange for DNA samples of the entire crew.

Que the music and role the credits, the magnificent Voyager lifts off, the doppelganger crew left on the surface waving goodbye.


Continuing the story, the second of the two episodes titled "Coarse: Oblivion" takes place ten months and eleven days later story time, broadcast ten months later.

Everything is going swimmingly and thanks to the new 'enhanced warp drive' Voyager is now a little over two years from earth - then things begin to go terribly wrong. Soon the officers discover that they, the crew and the ship are all made of the bio-mimetic fluid - from the Demon planet they encountered almost a year earlier - and it is beginning to lose cohesion; the ship and the crew are beginning to disintegrate.

And this is the point of this essay.



Captain Janeway decides - in a conscious denial of the available facts - that in order to maintain the purpose of Voyager - the zietgiest - the reason for continuing, that the mission cannot change. In a consultation with her 'Number One' Commander Chakotay, Janeway says,

"The way I choose to look at it is this: if everything about us was duplicated, that includes our memory engrams, the emotional centres of our brains; so if you feel something, if you remember something, if you believe something...."

And Later to the crew:

"Duplicate or not I'm still the person I was yesterday; and so are all of you, and that means we're going to do everything we can to complete our mission, which is to reach earth."

I don't know that the writers (Bryan Fuller and Nick Sagan), had this in mind when they wrote 'Coarse Oblivion, but I think the choice Janeway is faced with reflects the conumdrum America finds itself in today regarding the oil economy.

The present coarse is no coarse at all, but it seems at one point, it's the only one we've got. When Janeway finally does turn around, recognizing her folly, a nearby oasis turns into great disappointment - they are turned away by a belligerent alien space force. The scene spot-lights Voyagers weakness at a crucial time in a cruel universe.

Trapped in a neurotic psychosis for too long Voyager now has no way out. In a gallant run back to the Demon planet using their enhanced warp drive, Voyager disintegrates at high warp, disassembling in a liquid implosion.

(Boy now that I write it out, maybe Bryan Fuller and Nick Sagan did have that in mind when they were writing the episode.)

Image courtesy: ex-astris-scientia.org



mh

A pothole on the corner

"If the big guy had swung in the state he was in, the fist woulda gone right through."

It's Halloween, you can feel it in the air. As it should be but seldom is, dressing up and expressing yourself is all the rage but somehow, it has an extreme quality this year. It's not just November with winter coming - it's more like a common psychosis.

I'm standing point at my front window hoping I don't hear what I fear is coming, the SMACK, flesh on flesh. If the big guy had swung in the state he was in, his fist would've gone right through. I was standing by the front door, thinking if I could stop the fist - arrive just in time like superman and freeze frame the fist with super speed - and nullify the rage.

I heard him say later. "Man, the big guy can ACT, I guess he must have gotten ripped off."

The next day I heard the big guy had been so mad he punched the road instead of the head.

At the corner I saw there was a big pothole in the road.

It wasn't there yesterday.



mh