In loving memory of my dad.

Shortly after 3:30 p.m. on April 22, 2019, in the middle of a maddeningly, ironically blue, sunny, and warm Easter Monday, my good friend Oliver died.

You might remember him from some of these posts:

I’m sure there are more, but as you can see these posts go all the way to the beginning of Toronto City Life, because he was there. He was there a few years prior to the start of this blog, in fact.

And he was already a year or two old at the point where he wandered up to my back door one dark and blustery afternoon, begging to be let in to a perfect stranger’s home. He’d obviously been very recently abandoned by some asshole(s) who didn’t like his size and / or vociferousness and / or whatever. Either way, assholes.

Not long after, I got divorced, went to live in downtown Toronto. Ollie came with. There he helped me mark an era, spending his next 12-ish years calmly meditating, making friends, and contemplating life. He made friends with Sarah in microseconds while calmly enduring other animals I was house-sitting or playing guest to. And then there was the litany of people who traipsed through our house due to the MS.

He kept his composure even when living conditions were less than ideal and he had to eat food bank cat foot. He was called the “Buddha cat” by more than one keenly observant person.

Since the beginning I was profoundly aware, sometimes to the point of being melancholic, that I’d inherited a fragile creature that wouldn’t always be with me. Every second was borrowed time. Sure, some time down the road we would need to part ways, but not so early, not at that time.

But at least now I know I reminded him of my love as often as I could because I was aware of his mortality; dark, possibly, sad, always, but thinking about other’s deaths can be useful in that way. If they were to die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day with a loved one? It’s a question that needs to be asked regularly because tomorrow comes too fast.

* I’ll wait here while you go hug your pets and other loved ones *

I also knew that Ollie loved his food and genuinely enjoyed indoor athletics of the sort in which he didn’t have to participate. I made the decision early on that I wouldn’t ever deny him the pleasures of life in exchange for a few more years of it. He’d already been snipped (before I met him), and it seemed like infinite cruelty to inflict a life devoid of self-determinism, even if that manifested in hedonism. He may have lived a little longer, but would he have lived as well?

Although we were denying it most of the way, the end came gradually over a one-and-a-half week period.

We did the best with what we had, managed to scrounge together some money while discovering the kindness of strangers, but in the end his host of ailments won out. He went out mercifully quickly, peacefully, and pain free.

But so what?

His loss is utterly devastating. It’s shattering. It hurts in a real primal, painful place and you’re afraid that if you pull away you’ll be neglecting his memory and you can’t do that. Not yet. Not your good friend.

It’s just as devastating now as it was a week ago. I’m not sure at what point my heart will stop breaking. This is really fucking hard.

Today though, today, I can’t do nothing because it’s driving me up the wall, so I thought that maybe I could honour his memory with something he was publicly a part of: this blog.

You saw the links — Ollie’s an original, a founding partner.

But the blog has been ignored for a while and that seems very wrong. I think I should do better. For Ollie.

For starters, for me every Easter Monday will from now on be St. Ollie’s Day, a day in which we can observe our hirsute saint with libations and general enjoyment of life, as Ollie would undoubtedly want it. Keep in mind, Oliver really only preferred the three or five-year Parmesan, so keep it as classy, expensive, and peaceful as possible. Think “meditating gourmand”.

Beyond that, though, I’m thinking to blow the dust of this blog and see if I can get ‘er started again. I feel like I’ve said all I can about politics and the dangers of government, and don’t feel like banging my head against that wall anymore … Mr. Gorbatrump ain’t taking it down.

So I guess that leaves the original walking-around-and-snapping-pics-interspersed-with-some-writing thing I used to do with maybe a mix of some of the stuff I’m doing for CypherPoker.JS
(it's that link at the top of the right column)

I mean, that project is mostly responsible for causing me to forsake the blog in the first place but it is a product made 100% in Toronto so maybe it could provide some shareable out-takes.

Besides, the more people that read Toronto City Life the more Memories of Ollie will spread.

My little friend deserved no less.

I’ll miss you so much, dobos!

Love, your friend always,
Patrick and Sarah and Bitty

I didn’t care for the man.

What with Toronto being the center of the Canadian universe, it’d be hard to miss the latest spat of gun violence around town. Funny thing is, it only seems to make news when it happens in neighbourhoods where it usually doesn’t. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the Morningside area of Scarborough where the latest big shooting happened I’m well familiar with (I went to high school there), and it’s never been a terribly pleasant place to visit. Even the hookers along Kingston Road are lacking a certain je ne sais quoi — hard to believe hooking could get seedier, but it does.

But this particular neighbourhood where the shooting happened is a small residential street near The Guild, a ritzy part of Scabby Row, not the rundown hellhole ‘hood people are making it out to be on the news. And that’s precisely why it made the news.

You see, nary a night goes by when a *pop pop pop* isn’t heard down the street from my place; that’s either a lot of fireworks, backfiring cars, or guns going off. I’m pretty sure it’s the later. And it’s the same for nearby Regent Park. When guns go off, neither the media nor the mayor give a shit. In fact, the best people like Ford can do is put on an idiotic bravado by vowing to get those pestilent immigrants out of our fair city, or butting heads with the premiere and pretending to stand on the side of the common man by refusing to take any “BS” (i.e. demanding money from the province), even after voting to cut every single community violence prevention project around town (and being literally the only councillor to do so), and sporting a brand new luxury SUV to demonstrate exactly how much he himself is cutting corners in these tough times.

Let’s not mince words, Ford is a hypocritical piece of filth and he knows it. And he and his buddy, the Chief of Police (incidentally one of the few city agencies to get a plentiful raise while all others received cuts, not including the latest boost from the province), just plaster newspaper headlines with more crap about gun control (were any of the guns used legally purchased?)  And is it coincidental that these shootings coincide with the criticisms of Harper’s Omnibus Crime Bill, in the same way that Obama was forced to back off on his gun control legislation just as the Denver shootings took place? Sure, it’s a bit conspiracy theory, but you have to admit that the timing couldn’t be better. Almost too good.

Also interesting to note that the police don’t appear to keep statistics on how many deaths they’ve caused, but judging by the general number of complaints against them, I’d say that the first step in addressing crime is to overhaul the police services, not allow them to investigate themselves, and to show the public that crime by armed, trained, sworn police officers is dealt with as seriously as crime by civilians, not covered over, drawn out for years, and summarily dismissed. When neighbourhoods can trust the cops to actually enforce the law and not be more crooked than the criminals (I don’t recall any criminal taking an oath to serve and protect the public), then maybe the neighbours will have a reason to report crimes and criminals in their midst. And then maybe something will change.

And in case you’re wondering why most people don’t want to talk to police after shootings — that’s the reason! The vast majority of them believe cops can’t be trusted, and a lot of the time they’re right on the money. Why invite armed thugs, a.k.a. Toronto Police, into the neighbourhood when they’ve seen them selling drugs and pushing people around while being given a free pass by the law to do as they wish (in fact, being licensed to do it)? Not such a big mystery, is it?

Any news reporter mention that? Did Ford blurt that, even in passing, out of his bloated giblet?

But this, the path of transparency, honesty, and propriety, is clearly not one Harper and all of his underlings, including Ford, are willing to take, despite being told for years what the issues are. They know the problems, they know the solutions, and they’re heading in exactly the opposite direction. The only conclusion must be that they’re not interested in curbing violence, they’re interested in keeping the population scared and huddled until they can swoop in on their pale horses and take away all of our rights in the name of “safety”.

If only their efforts weren’t so transparent, one might be tempted to call them absolute imbeciles. Sadly, the truth of the matter is much more insidious.

Here’s what the mayor’s office has to say about a national day of mourning for the recently departed Jack Layton:

Thank you for your email.

As I promised during the mayoralty election, I am dedicated to delivering customer service excellence, creating a transparent and accountable government, reducing the size and cost of government and building a transportation city.

I will continue to work on behalf of the taxpayers to make sure you get the respect you deserve.

This note is to confirm that we have received your email and that we are looking into your matter.

Please feel free to follow up to check the status of your email.

Thanks again and have a great day.

Yours truly,
Mayor Rob Ford
City of Toronto

Brimming with commitment! Contextually insightful! Not an automated response at all!

But if you doubt these statements, perhaps enough people signing on to the petition might do the trick:

https://www.change.org/petitions/mr-harper-ndp-leader-jack-layton-deserves-a-national-day-of-mourning

It’s fair to say that most people in Toronto have at this point at least heard of the Michael Bryant thing. If you haven’t, allow me to catch you up.

Basically, Bryant was driving his car down Bloor Street on Monday when something – no one’s quite sure exactly what —  happened between him and a bike courier. Probably a collision of some sort, but obviously not serious because the courier got up. Then he leapt onto Bryant’s Saab convertible. The female passenger (his wife?) called police while Bryant hit the gas.

He swerved into oncoming traffic and drove up on the opposite sidewalk, purposefully running his car up against trees and mailboxes to try to get the courier off, screaming the whole way. Eventually, he succeeded. But the courier got bashed to death in the process. Possibly driven over. Guess all those wonderfully gory details will come out in the trial.

But it gets better!

Michael Bryant was the attorney general for Ontario. I believe that title means pretty much the same in most places; he was the legal bigwig of Ontario.

Also, the courier had been drinking. A lot. In fact, he had had a long history of unhappy addiction, and had about an hour earlier been stopped by police for trying to enter into a former girlfriend’s place wasted. Perhaps to visit with one of his kids?

The biker had been sober for about eight days, but the day of the incident, well, let’s just say he had indulged. The police are taking flak for telling him to go home from his girlfriend’s instead of letting him to stay. He shouldn’t have been sent home by the cops to ride drunk, they’re saying. Yeah, I say; he should’ve been walking his bike home. And in retrospect, the cops had the situation pegged; not a good time for a family visit.

Anyway, the whole thing quickly turned into a two-ring circus with all sorts of people sticking their causes to the event:

This morning, bikers got together in the spot where the courier died and staged a demonstration. Or protest. Or something. Some of them shouted out “murderer”, referring to Bryant, but made some strange remarks in a quieter voice (I was within earshot), “Yeah, if murderer means crusher of dreams, you back-peddling son of a bitch.” And so forth.

How come that kind of thing never makes the evening news? Ah, but that’s okay. I don’t think we should give the gathering too much credence. Most of the messages of condolence stuck to the spot mentioned, in one form or another, how this death was a just another demonstration of Toronto’s anti-bike streets. There was also plenty of promotion for United Messengers‘ Bloor bike lanes campaign. Guess they figured, if that bandwagon’s coming, might as well hang off the back:

So if the purpose of the gathering was to remind us about bike safety, I’d say absolutely! We could probably start by educating some of the bikers, huh?

I did an impromptu tally of helmets on cyclists for about six walking city blocks (major intersections). I counted only cyclists who were riding and on the road. Out of a total of 263 bikers, only about 45% were wearing helmets. I would like to do a follow-up study on how many also have earphones stuck in/on their ears. And coast through intersections on reds without a peek to either side.

I wouldn’t go so far as to totally let drivers off the hook either, but their infractions haven’t been as audacious as some of the stunts I’ve seen bikers pull. The only attempt at an explanation I’ve heard so far is, “We’re more vulnerable.” Umm … is that it? That’s why you don’t have to obey the rules of the road? Because you’re more vulnerable? Okay. Yeah.

I’ve been known to go out without my helmet now and again. Sometimes I also leave behind my lunch and name tag, the one that people can use to help me find my home again. But I usually get back from my walk okay because I always look both ways before I cross the street. There still seem to be so many bikers out there on whom this lesson is lost.

Oh, and the lesson about not getting pissed out of your gourd and picking a fight with a moving vehicle. Also an important lesson.