After five weeks off the job and finally managing to walk away with the bank, you’d think the unions would be eager to get back to work, wouldn’t you? I would too. But we’d both be wrong. Now they’re fussing over how they should return to work.

Have you ever done that thing where you rub the palm of your hand into your forehead in an agitated, twisting motion? Yeah.

Do you wanna know what I think happened? I think that City Hall saw Caribana looming and figured it couldn’t afford to lose it. Perhaps because of money. Perhaps reputation. Perhaps both. The negotiators blinked and, as a result, Miller has offered our collective anuses up for all sorts of wanton abuse. I can’t believe I used to call him General.

Oh well, at least it’ll be settled soon and we can all get back to doing whatever it is we do. Which is actually pretty much the same thing we’ve been doing all this time. How exciting.

Sarcasm, you say? Moi?! The impropriety!

Just hit the streets if you require evidence of various, excitingly subversive a-goings-ons:

Now who feels like an impudent little monkey?

Unfortunately, these people are so underground, I have no idea who they are or what this is all about. It’s clear they’re fucking with the post office, I  just can’t fathom why. Until they make themselves known, I guess we’ll just have to call them the Jacket Mailers Collective, or JaMaCo for short.

I know, right? That would make a good song. JaMaCo, down in Key Largo, blah blah blah blah, on the go, etc. Already half written! Unfortunately, JaMaCo is going to need a kick-ass stage show because someone already beat them to the headlines:

Pleasehelpusmrsnixon.com, a domain whose brilliance is bested only by torontocitylife.com

The nifty people behind this campaign are targeting one Janet Nixon, wife of Gordon Nixon, president and CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada. RBC is one of the few remaining bank conglomerates in Canada and I believe Gordon can have people legally “disappeared”. He’s that powerful. The bank invested in a, let’s say, controversial project called the tar sands. It’s a messy way to get oil out of tar-covered sand patches.

The group has been trying to stop the project’s source of funding, which is RBC, but Gordon doesn’t much care for their company. What to do?

Of course; talk to the guy’s wife!

The website features a fireside chat addressing, in a casual and friendly manner, Mrs. Nixon, asking for her assistance in helping her husband see some reason. “Thank you, Janet. Thank you very much.”

So nice.

In keeping with the sentiment, I’m so glad you could join me and share a moment of your time. That’s right, I’m pointing directly at you. Thank you.

Now, unfortunately, I have other duties to attend to, so I’ll have to bid you adieu. I’m sure you understand that I would never eschew you for something if it wasn’t critically important.

Thank. God.

Thirty-six days of military analogy was getting to be challenging, to be quite honest. For some strange reason I had decided I would never use the same term twice to describe the unions. Maybe I was trying to illegitimize them. Half an hour each night trying to come up with a new military unit: squad … squadron … division … unit … Luftwaffe … damn it! … squad? … I’VE ALREADY SAID THAT! … hmmm … how about … unit? … *much wailing and gnashing of teeth*

Not easy work; the cogs turned slowly and in circles much of the time. Did it keep me honest? Oh no, just constipated.

Terrible.

But at least it’s over. Here, have a final gander; bury your face in this one last time:

Has anyone invented Smell-O-Web yet? Because this is the reason to avoid that.

However, I really want to take a moment to stress that this really is both temporary and isolated. A TCL reader had expressed concern that the agreement would be too little, too late for this weekend’s Caribana festival.

I give you my personal pledge of honour (it involves a hand gesture!): even if the strike hadn’t been resolved by this weekend, the wiser and more responsible Caribana leadership had a contingency plan in place. Too many people would be really bummed out if it was canceled, especially over something like garbage. There’s the loss of income thing too.

Besides all of this, neighbourhoods and businesses have done a great job in keeping their own surroundings clean. They’re not as clean as usual, but that should be taken in context; for a major metropolis, Toronto is unusually feces free.

Anyone with a struggling shop open in a highly populated area understands that people don’t want to be shopping on rotting filth. It’s just natural that they’d want to keep the place looking neat.

If you’re looking for something to worry about during your visit, may I suggest murderous teens?

I had followed this case a while ago because it had so many interesting elements. The story basically goes that a teenage girl withheld sex and goaded her boyfriend to kill a girl she had perceived as her rival (though they had probably never met). The boy stabbed the “rival” outside of her own home on New Year’s day, and the murder’s been pretty much under wraps until the verdict. That came today.

The guilty part wasn’t surprising. The fact that they tried and convicted her as an adult was. And the life sentence. First-degree murder, pre-meditated through hundreds of very clear text messages. Not a very bright girl. And then there’s this:

The guy killed for that?!

Look, that’s not even being shallow; everything I’ve read indicates she’s unbelievably self-centered, clearly manipulative, crass, and devoid of any remorse or personality. Along with the extra storage for the winter months, that doesn’t leave much room for advancement in her life, does it?

Obviously, the boy’s father should be held responsible for not teaching him about masturbation, porn, the internet; even a simple Sears catalog for heaven’s sake! The whole nightmarish thing could’ve been prevented.

Such lovely brazier models. If only …

I had my heart broken by the union back when I was in my mid-teens, schlepping books around at Cedarbrae Library. I was tough; I grew up on the gritty streets of Scabby Row. So did my sister. And our pets. And folks, of course. Come to think of it, it was a pretty nice neighbourhood.

But I was hard.

Then, just before Christmas one year, I was handed an envelope. On it, in scratchy writing was “Happy HoliDa ys, YOUR UniOn”. Hand-written; that couldn’t be good. It felt thick – was this a letter bomb? Had my antics finally pissed them off?

I tore into it. What in god’s name could it be? I flipped it over and shook the open end over my palm in front of everyone (that way we would all go together – including the bastard who delivered it).

With a yule tide jingle, out came exactly $2.47 in change.

I believe it was a dollar coin, four quarters, four dimes, a nickel, two well-worn pennies, and one face in absolute disbelief. I held the envelope up to the light to see if there was anything else in there.

Nope. Nada.

And that’s how it ended. No goodbye. No thanks for the dinner. Nothing. Not even a hello.

That was, in fact, the first I’d heard that I was in a union and that I had been paying fees off every paycheck. I don’t recall signing anything or anyone welcoming me into the “brotherhood”.  I felt so violated.

The stuff in the envelope were the crumbs distributed to part-time lackeys like me; a fair cut of whatever unwilling contribution I had made to their organization over the past year. For a kid who could clear two to four-hundred a paycheck, that was just a slap in the face. Ooh! I can buy a coffee! — Here, keep it. No seriously; buy yourself something frilly.

God, I was a petulant youth.

But that’s the impression unions left on me. So when I hear that CUPE 416/79 are ready to strike, I’m already a bit defensive. When I see the mess that the garbage crew (of that union) leave on the streets every week, I’m also not enthusiastic. And when I compare their demands to cushy private sector jobs like mine, I think they’re being pretty bold.

But that’s not so bad, not when you read the latest few items on CUPE 416’s own site. Their further demands are that “all concessions” (of which there are 118), that the city has tabled for discussion be cleared. In other words: “City, our members want to communicate just how much we don’t give a shit about any of what you want.” (Wow! Somebody got into the wrong cookie dough!)

I’m going to point out the blazingly obvious and say that this is the worst time for that kind of approach.

I’m sure the hammer swings both ways, but Monday’s the day when the city could be without trash pickup, and for what?

For the love of all that is good and holy, won’t someone please remember Chinatown!

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I gotta be honest with you, when I finally spotted that big red ball, my hopes were about as deflated as it was. It was folded neatly in front of the cube van in an alley on Elm Street, thus dashing my vision of watching them rolling it up Yonge Street in rush-hour traffic.

So I decided to come home and do a bit of surfing through the local newspapers. I maintain that “surfing” is still used among webby people. As alternatives, we sometimes use “slacking” or “pr0n hounding”.

Anyway, most of it sounded absolutely dreadful. In fact, if it wasn’t for one thing that kept bugging me, I would’ve just flipped to Wipeout so as to at least try to quench my unfulfilled desire for a big red ball.

Because I’ve been whoring this site out quite a bit lately, I’ve noticed that I’ve started to become keenly aware of not only ad placement but also of content. For example, on almost all major news sites, there’s a banner above the main story and the “sweet spot” of advertising gold sitting in the site’s left armpit (your lower-right).

Please allow me to demonstrate:

Here we have a heartwarming reminder about father’s day and a rather cheap looking credit score ad at the top. Usually these ads are placed here based on context or relevance to the article. At least, that’s the idea.

When I started to take more notice of these and the content they were connected to, it highlighted how open the market for contextual advertising still is. Monkeys, infants, and hamsters could all do an equally compelling job.

In the mess above, the computer responsible for deciding which ads go where concluded that a dead guard would probably remind you of your father. The mood called for a murderific Father’s Day gift, but not at the expense of your credit rating.

Here’s another interesting combination:

At least the computer here was being pragmatic. You got old dead man, you gotta wash that old dead man stink out. And hang on to your hard-earned dough ’cause you could be next, sucker.

Pragmatic but awful!

And what about this?

The computer may be trying to herd us out into the middle of the desert for something; get us all stinking drunk, no money, just sand and heat and scorching sun. That’s really the only connection I can see between murder and showing us where we should go to get away from it: Crime-free Nevada.

In case you need further evidence:

We all know that the OLG is run by shifty robots so that doesn’t leave much place for the humans. And they’re being left to die and rot alone in the cities, not like the cramped but happy humans being transported to the Las Vegas processing facility.

Or…the computer that decided to put these ads here is just dumb. Maybe you’ll never look at web sites the same way again. Maybe if I didn’t spend so much time slacking or pr0n hounding, I’d think of something more interesting. Maybe some real content tomorrow. Maybe a big red ball.

“What’d you do on the weekend?”

“Not much. Raped and murdered a couple of women, had a few beers with friends on Saturday night; nothin’ special. You?”

“Oh, you know, same-old same-old. Finally got that raw fecal smell out of the apartment on Sunday; turned out that I hadn’t flushed in three weeks. Can you believe that shit?”

“I hear ya! So, did you read about that guy that got shot…”

It’s the same old boring water-cooler conversation every Monday, more or less. If it’s not about Oprah and her hijinx or the smell of poop in one’s apartment, it’s about the latest homicide in the city. It does seem like someone’s getting shot or stabbed almost every day recently, doesn’t it? In April there were 4 murders in an area stretching from Mississauga to Durham. June’s looking a bit busier so far.

I wonder if Toronto Police will be able to cope. Then again, some old photos I’d seen in the Toronto Archives remind me that men of the Service’s past have done far greater with far less. Submitted for your consideration:

(a lot of photos in this one…)

… Continue Reading

For the past three weeks my breakfast plans had to be put on hold because I had no tea. This was simply due to the fact that I had neglected to follow my own advice to write my shopping list while sober. Delicious, chocolate-covered snack foods always made it on there somehow, but not tea.

So it was a happy day today when I finally remembered to pick up a box at the local Metro. As I stood in line at the checkout I ran through the great conversation I would have with the cashier: “I see you bagged that tea quite expertly. Would you consider yourself a professional teabagger?”

Two things put a major damper on that:

First, the lady ringing in my box of Wagon Wheels and no-name English Breakfast Blend had a pretty rudimentary grasp of the language and it probably wouldn’t have made the splash I was looking for. It was intended for her benefit, after all; I already know how witty I am.

Second, she preempted me abruptly with, “For five cents each, would you like to buy bag, sir?”

That shrunk my enthusiasm down to embarrassing cold-water scrotum size, and it was all thanks to that new plastic bag bylaw that came into effect today. Retailers must now sell their bags to customers at a minimum of five cents a piece and at this time next year, no retailer will be able to carry bags that are non-biodegradable.

Right.

The Indian woman with the unlikely name of Linda stood there behind the counter blinking at me, waiting for a response. “I guess I’ll take one,” I replied, “but make sure to put the tea in professionally.” — DAMN IT! The whole paying-for-a-bag affair set me off kilter. In my displacement, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why this bothered me.

It’s not the concept of paying for bags that bothers me. The intent is to put less into landfills while still giving the option to people if they want them. I think that this is as far as the planning for this project went at city hall. Had they not been so eager to get out and hoist a few, they may have noticed a few byflaws in their bylaw (damn that’s witty!):

• The money for each bag is collected and kept by the retailer to do with as they please. The bylaw recommends that this surplus money be put into community initiatives and such like. I’m sure you’ve already reached the same conclusion I have: yeah, right.
• The five cent charge is the minimum. Retailers may charge as much as they want. Locals may be apt to punch the greedy store owner in the face, but tourists…
• The Blue Box program recently started accepting plastic bags, presumably for the purposes of recycling. If this is not the case…ummm…why are we recycling again?
• My plastic bags, the same ones I use to take excessive, non-biodegradable, non-recyclable packaging to the garbage bin in, don’t really seem like the worst offenders in the grand scheme of things. Could we charge industry for packing all those unnecessary layers in there? Maybe some compensation to the Ontario Health Plan for the benefit of all those who experience injury and suffering sustained while trying to open some of those horrible plastic packages!

Consider this:

Plastic bags can be very useful and I feel it’s fair to say that no one likes to see them flapping from trees. A nickel is not a terrible price to pay for a bag that you can reuse a few times if you are so inclined. Some of the detractors of the bylaw are trying to convince people that cloth bags are cesspools of bacteria and fungi. True, if you’re keen on keeping your bag in that warm, special, moist place. So hang it up on something for a couple of days. Not really a very good argument.

Besides, plastic bags aren’t the biggest problem. I don’t mind an initiative to reduce them as long as there’s an equal share of the responsibility on the manufacturing end. Our sacks are important and everyone must lend a helping hand to support them.

I know, that was terrible. I’m still traumatized from that cashier lady.

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When I read about the baby potbellied pig that was found on the highway today, it made me want to become a vegetarian.

I mean, what if that were my own potbellied pig out there?

Okay, so pig is the wrong word; let’s say gourmand. — Would I be able to eat him?

Look, have no illusions here; I’m fairly certain that Oliver would be feasting on my bloated corpse the moment I breathed my last. He might do so sadly, with a tear in his eye, but still manage to splatter bits of my entrails all over the kitchen floor. He is, after all, a meat eater. A very messy one. He’s just built that way.

So are we…kind of. We can do quite well on a non-meat diet and people have been proving that for quite some time. Let’s face it: meat eaters, of which I am one, really have no good excuse except maybe to say that it’s tasty.

I can’t rightly say don’t eat meat, just maybe not so much. And even less baby animals; that just doesn’t seem right, does it? While we’re at it, why not choose meat from an animal that has had a decent life? Of course you pay more for that, and that’s because it really should be a premium: Eat it less and savour it more. Veggies are, pound for pound, dirt cheap anyway, even if you buy organic which simply means your food’s been exposed to less crap. Save money, potentially more healthy, and happier creatures. I fail to see the downside.

Those who will tell you free-run, organic whatever tastes better are, for the most part, sadly deluded. The non-organic fruit tastes as good as the organic, the free-run don’t run on the butter better than the no-free-run — now three times fast.

There is this one milk that, to me, seems less gamey and more creamy than other local brands, but aside from that I wouldn’t recommend buying these things for improved flavour. Some, like fruit, will actually go bad quicker than the non-organic versions, but that’s probably because bacteria aren’t repelled by it.

Ultimately, it seems like it’s not a bad thing to be a bit more mindful of where our food comes from, even if just for ourselves. Making food more precious makes it taste better somehow, despite what I’ve just stated in the previous paragraph. It’s the difference between a single orange and a crate-full. You’ll never eat the whole crate before they rot so you can, nay must, be wasteful. You could fling armfulls at people for fun and still have a glass of freshly squeezed. A single orange, though, would be peeled so much more carefully, coquettishly even. And long after the orange was gone, the rending peel would remind your of the golden days of yesteryear, when you still had your orange.

I was going to start this paragraph with “But I digest…“, but after some reflection I came to the conclusion that I can’t stomach that kind of humour. I’ll just end by reminding you of that orange. Remember that orange? How it looked up at you with those sad, teary eyes? Remember?!

Breasts, bikes, and beer; the triumvirate of alliterative seduction is now complete!

At around this time last year, the Rickard’s beer company (one of a number Molson‘s subsidiaries), introduced a white wheat beer that I had absolutely no interest in. It’s not that I don’t enjoy beer but my interest in it wanes, much like my interest in full-time employment. Currently, it’s waxing.

Usually I imbibe my alcoholic beverages with deep political convictions; a pint of Guinness with a sipping shot of B52, for example. Rickard’s White, though, doesn’t really make a statement other than “I taste good” — which it does.

White ale, if you’re not familiar with it, is an unfiltered beer (hence the cloudiness), that has orange peel and coriander added to it to produce a slightly citrusy flavour. Unlike lager, ale is fermented more quickly and at room temperature (lager’s kept cold).

I’ve poured all sorts of fermented crap down my gullet and this drink is truly inoffensive. The slice of orange (sometimes lemon), shown in the photo is how it’s served at various pubs around Toronto. Friday afternoon’s tart and bitter post-work bitch-outs at Shoeless Joe’s just wouldn’t be possible without it.

I’m hardly a scholar of beer and it’s fair to say that the term “enthusiast” wouldn’t apply to me, but I can recommend this one. It’s the gateway drug of the legal alcohol world.

If I could leave just one parting note to our American neighbours, I would point out that Canadian beer tends to contain a man-level of alcohol (5.5%+), so take your time. And for the rest of you who may be wondering why this entry is uncharactersitically short, you will find your answer at the bottom of my pint glass.

Cheers!

I met my superintendent outside my building as I was coming home yesterday and, I dunno if I mentioned this already but, he’s going to be leaving soon. We got to talking about what he’d be doing once he left and, despite the fact that he’s pushing seventy, he’s still lugging paint cans around and mowing the lawn with one of those mechanical push mowers. It’s amazing when you think about it – and even when you don’t; by that age I’ll be lucky if I’m breathing on my own let alone doing yard work. In fact, I’m already planning my daily diaper soiling regimen now; “plan ahead” is my motto.

What struck me as even more amazing was the fact that his girlfriend (considerably younger than he is), dropped by my place with an Austrian beer and an offer for me to take over as superintendent. Me! Can you imagine?! –* sip

I said I’d think about it. And then I thought about it.

On day one I’d be fishing snakes out of the pipes. I don’t know how they’d get there, who they’d belong to, or even why they’d all be venomous, but I just know it would happen.

“I’ve had it with these motherfuckin’ snakes in this motherfuckin’ drain!”

Day two would involve a fire.

There would be no day three.

No, I don’t think I’m cut out for that job. Also, having everyone’s keys readily available would be too much temptation.

Jobs like that should go to someone like this:

This is Pam McConnell. She’s the city councillor for ward 28, of which I am apparently a member. In this ward, the Gardiner is named a little differently, and council gets the job done! Just read between the halftone.

I know I’m going straight to hell for stating the following and, although I don’t intend to be mean, it’s also out in plain sight.

To begin with, I’m sure that Pam’s days on the dating circuit are probably over. I suspect she’s married and she’s probably on top in the bedroom – she da boss! Her clothes scream full-figured comfort and looking at her face always imbues me with a sense of motherly warmth.

In other words, Pam got to where she is through intelligence and insight, not through looks or a bitchin’ beehind. I suppose she could have connections but if she’s in any way tied up in shady dealings, that’s even cooler.

Pam puts out a quarterly newsletter which she crams full of the major photo-ops of the past few months. Here is a sampling:

She really is cute, isn’t she?

And look at all the shit she’s accomplishing. I mean, Regent Park used to be a scary place, but there’s a lot of community involvement and genuine re-building going on there. That little woman’s out there kicking asses and taking names.

I really hope that one day I catch her somewhere around St. Lawrence Market and persuade her to let me snap a picture of us together. Perhaps shaking hands, perhaps not; I don’t know if I’ll be able to contain myself. I’m already giddy!

I guess it’s just because she’s the kind of politician one could get behind, you know what I mean?

No, not in that way, even though that would be a great picture!

Toronto the good? Is that the best they could come up with?

You can just see the committee (and you know it was a committee), discussing how they were going to present Toronto to the world:

“Well how about Toronto the So-So?”

“I don’t see that as being particularly appealing, Mary.”

“Well, Dick, it’s about not raising visitors’ expectations. That way they’re mildly surprised when the city’s not that bad.”

“What I meant was that we had a vote last week on that word and we decided that the first ‘So’ was negative and the second positive. We had also decided that we didn’t want any negative connotations for Toronto in its slogan. Since half of that word is, as unanimously decided, negative, I must object to its use.”

“I second that motion.”

“Thanks, Bob, but this isn’t a vote.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve got it! Toronto the Adequate! Same idea but no negativity. High five!”

“Thanks, Larry. That’s a great start, but I think we could punch it up a bit. You know, give it a pair of balls; tell ‘em what Toronto’s really made of.”

“What do you think of Toronto the Good, Dick?”

“That’s great, Mary! You’re finally using that girl brain of yours; good for you! All in favour? … all opposed? Motion is carried! Now, onto the urinal cakes at city hall…”

Eighteen ninety-eight. That’s 1898.

That’s when that name was invented, and I believe a new meaning of word “suck” was invented that very same day; call it coincidence. You can also call it coincidence that every hack/lazy writer and their dog has been dredging that old nugget out for irony ever since. The “Good” tag is just so entirely inadequate. Good what? Hot dogs? Weather? Footwear?

As I was deviating from my regular route home, I ended up in Little Portugal. I didn’t know Toronto had a Little Portugal, but it didn’t surprise me. I’m sure there’s a Little everything out there. And that’s why “Toronto the Good” is such a crappy choice. It could be “Toronto the Cosmopolitan” or “Toronto the Global”. I’d even live with “The City of Communities”. It’s a bit long but it’s both correct and sounds nicer.

To the casual observer, it might seem like these communities were planned by the city. Street boundaries are surprisingly strict with little spill-over; one block further in any direction and you’ve missed it. The street signs all tell you what community you’ve just walked into and if you happen to miss that, just look around. If it’s Portuguese, it’s in front of you. Even the people on the street suddenly suddenly seem more tanned.

It’s the same in Chinatown, of course. It all looks so genuine that it seems like it’s a setup. You might get the impression that this is mostly for tourists and occasional 4 a.m. revelers in search of greasy Chinese food and “special tea”.

In fact, I think that most of these areas are one-hundred percent authentic, functioning communities in every sense of the word. I base this on a little hard evidence I gathered on my romp through one of Chinatown’s markets. I happen to know that the products I found would only be purchased by actual Chinese people who hadn’t lost their taste for food back home, or the reconditioned expat who had acquired the taste for such items over many years living abroad. As I had.

This first example can be found widely throughout Toronto, but it’s still a proudly Taiwanese drink. The Taiwanese version of this labeling guarantees a minimum caffeine content! Awesome!

I’m still not sure exactly what Oligosaccharides are (“Oligo!”), but this sure is a tasty drink/meal:

With ingredients like lotus seed, red bean, black bean, and artificial  creamer (a must for all Taiwanese beverages), you know this is authentic:

There are products that aren’t fully legal in Canada, like this original Thai Red Bull with no English whatsoever:

And with Engrish like this, you can be assured that the Western market probably didn’t figure big in ChaCheer’s marketing:

No folks, those rats in the windows weren’t put there to draw crowds, they’re the real thing. This is authentic; I truly feel like I’m walking the streets of Taichung again. I still don’t know where it comes from, but they even managed to recreate that special stench of human excrement I remember so vividly from Taiwan’s open sewer/rainfall-runoff canals: kinda eggy with hints of fish and barley.

It’s a genuine, fully-immersive experience that’s within walking distance of home. That’s how the city should be billed: “Toronto the Experience”.

Jimmy Hendrix wailing on guitar….and….cut!

You’re welcome, Toronto. Now use this knowledge for good.