Isn’t that a tragic sight? I realized that I had neglected my ongoing campaign for free Second Cup coffee!

Well, once again I want to praise the graces of this wonderful establishment. Hosanna on highest! Blessed is he who walketh with re-usable mug (also available in stylish assortments from your nearby Second Cup location).

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m getting something for writing this. No sir; 100% unsolicited and, as yet, unrewarded. But definitely my own initiative. I’m asking for free coffee for heaven’s sake!

But seriously, when the wise executives at Second Cup realize what an opportunity this is, I’m ready to talk shop. Gentlemen, I take mine black.

Other than a lack of great coffee, it’s been pretty flat here at the TCL abode. A blanket of dull, grey cloud is oozing it’s way eastward and keeping the streets shiny. It seems to have washed all of yesterday’s colourful characters off the street.

Me? I’ve been rummaging through those terribly time-consuming Toronto Archives again. I always enjoy looking at the photos and creating captions for what’s going on in the scene. But it’s been called to my attention that my interpretation may not always be the correct one. Well, I choose to squeeze that lemon rather than let it make me sour. Not good with coffee either.

So in honour of that most excellent hot beverage company, I would like to open up the floor for ya’ll. Write a caption for a photo in the comments and / or rate others’ using the shiny stars (10 being the best).

I’m going to make this post sticky (ha! No, not in that way. Gross!), until Sunday night (let’s say 8 o’clock). The best comment (if it’s a tie I toss all the winners’ asses into a random number generator and have it sort it out), gets a bag of Second Cup coffee (yes I’ll pay the goddamn s&h – but no air shipping!)  or a prominent ad in the sidebar for a month. Sweetest deal on the web, my friends.

Yeah, well; still better than getting kicked in the nuts, am I right?

Comment as many times as you like, just don’t forget to leave your email address (held in strictest confidence!) with each one so I can get a hold of you later!

Profanity will be absolutely tolerated. Encouraged, even.

Here’s the photo; I believe you will find it amply titillating:

Wednesday.

It started with screaming. Not the usual neighbourhood screaming for the hallucinatory demon to get off the street (he could get hit by a car!). That guy was by at 2 A.M. and he was surely all tuckered out by sunrise. And not the Chinese guy walking by my window now with outbursts of Mandarin-sounding … something.

No, this screamer was a bit more risqué. He was yelling at the sky for them to come and kill him already. He exclaimed he wasn’t afraid to die and tore at his clothes. Picking up a rock, he demonstrated how easily he could dash his own brains out, and then threw it at the cement so forcefully that it shattered. He implored for them to “beam” him out of this “cube” already. I think I detected some tears mixed in with all that rage.

Two cops were already en route from the bottom of the street by the time I passed him.

Wednesday.

Hump day. It always seems a little skewed but today it was quite oblique.

I like to sit at the back of the streetcar in the little semi-circular huddle space. When I sat down this morning, it was empty and relaxed. Five minutes into the ride, every seat was taken. The elderly gentleman with wispy white hair who sat to my immediate left opened up his newspaper, and mumbled something gleefully as he pointed to a headline. I didn’t think much of it until he did it again, but this time without the pointing or the happiness. Then he did it again. And again. Then a whole-body tremor. Then more mormmblingg. And so on for the next six stops.

The man who sat to his left had his eyes open uncomfortably wide, not unlike the fellow at our left. With a winter parka over one knee and an occasional spastic jerk, he smacked his lips noisily at the passing scenery. And you know what? Not a single cake or ice cream shop in sight!

I don’t remember the Weather Channel calling for crazy today. Even the schizophrenic atmosphere caught quite a few people off guard. The morning was a stark, sunny deluge of insanity and the afternoon a sleepy, sedated pillow of rain. *yawn* Even the Chinese guy sounds tired.

I hope everyone gets a good night’s sleep and we can all try again tomorrow. And no skipping the meds this time!

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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Imagining ride-the-rides-till-I-puke fun, and fully intending to top this off with the closing performance of Luminato,  I decided to enjoy a sunny afternoon on the Toronto Islands yesterday.

No sooner had I left the docks than nature decided to go on her rag:

Kudos to all of you who spotted Bobby Lee in this photo.

Despite the ominous ceiling and ravenous  seagulls at Centreville (Toronto’s lumberjack-inspired answer to Coney Island), I managed to scarf down a funnel cake with “the works” consisting of a light dusting of icing sugar (childrens’ cocaine), early-season strawberry goop (later in the year, the storage barrel’s accumulated fly droppings adversely affect the flavour), and ice cream (childrens’ meth). The eight-dollar price tag (four bucks for the pointless, barely-dusted variety), seemed a bit steep, even if they import from Colombia.

The few rides that seemed like they could support an adult man were overrun with coke-crazed kids, and the others were closed down for repairs. Shame. But I did get to wander around, fondle some goats at the petting zoo, that sort of thing.

The northern part of the island has some interesting, less-traveled areas like the hedge maze where children come to do drugs in private and then run around screaming incoherently, presumably because of the hallucinatory insects crawling on their skin. Note for you parents: this is a good opportunity for you to suddenly and permanently “lose” your kids. Well worth the trip.

The beach at the very northern end of the island is surprisingly syringe and condom-free, but the fishy smell and the looming clouds didn’t inspire a dip. Instead, I got a good gander at the cormorants that are re-populating (and defoliating) the Leslie Street Spit, from the pier that juts out into lake Ontario. For a dollar, the coin-operated binoculars provided three minutes and twenty seconds of nude trees and hardcore bird sex.

Sexy. But not as sexy as Toronto’s very own haunted phallus, the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse:

Despite the awesomeness of this photo, the structure is barely four storeys tall. Well, maybe six. You could probably see the light out at a distance on the lake but the tree line would block it out near the island, the only place you would really need it. Most of the trees look pretty old so I can only conclude that they must’ve Agent Oranged the hell out of the place back in the day.

If you were thinking of peeking through that red gate at the base, you would be rebuffed by a Dr. Evilesque voice saying, “You will find that quite im-possible. It’s a very solid door … with lay-zers.” So outside with the mosquitoes, cell towers, and lost/urinating tourists you stay.

The building certainly looks authentic enough, and chunks where cement has patched the masonry are visible but executed very cleanly. The grey and white morning-salute to Toronto should be around for ages to come. I bet it’s breathtaking at dawn.

Alas, the day was growing dark so I returned to the docks, shoved aside a bunch of old (weak!) people and made my way to the front of the boat.

The final Luminato show was an hour-long delay with people in the crowd shouting, “What the fuck? This fucking sucks! Where’s the cock-sucking show you assholes?” Sophisticated art lovers all, just not my type of crowd; plus my dogs were barking something fierce, so I decided to call it a day.

Suckers.

It’s not that I forget about giant red balls or apartment hunting, it’s just that I take a relaxed attitude to writing TCL. Some have described it as procrastination. Others, laziness. Others still, too much banana leaf. Who knows?

Sometimes it’s just because the big red ball needs a day off. That was yesterday. Today, it was up bright and early at the Ryerson campus Podium.

The location was perfect because it allowed the sunlight to hit the ball’s sumptuous, silky surface in the most striking way:

Clearly the glorious red vision was designed to attract because, like flies, children were soon buzzing around it, touching it in inappropriate ways:

I’m sure you’re asking, did I meet the genius behind this wonder? No, I did not. In fact, I don’t believe he was there. The same guy that had crushed my spirits two days ago was the same guy now in charge of the current display. He had a female assistant, but please trust me when I tell you that neither one of them was the artist. They just weren’t Caucasian enough. No, that guy’s probably sitting on a sailboat lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills.

But I did get an attractive brochure:

I’m gonna wax a bit here and posit my own personal belief as to the ball’s purpose. That would be to highlight sections of the city that you may pass daily but wouldn’t otherwise notice if a giant red ball wasn’t wedged in there. It’s a sort of way of saying, take back your city, explore those strange little alleys between buildings, have another look at something you pass every day. And for God’s sake, you can’t see it from over there! Come closer! Come!

It draws attention. Gets noticed. Not afraid to show it’s ass in public. I mean, that’s the very definition of “photogenic”.

So if this was the artist’s aim, I give it two thumbs up. The ball has shown us sacred ground. Maybe it’ll even be visible from a satellite. Maybe it’s a Google marketing ploy. Who knows? I’m still glad it came and allowed me to bask in it’s glory for one brief moment before I had to trudge off to work.

*sigh*

Oh wait, it’s still around all weekend!

If you don’t live in the city, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of how different you are.

This morning, as I was trying to decide which pair of underwear was less disintegrated and thus suitable for duty, a radio spot came on for Walmart’s “Walk for Miracles” campaign. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been to a Walmart in ages. Hence no underwear.

That’s probably because there aren’t an awful lot of them in Toronto itself, and not within easy strolling distance. Walmarts, that is. You have to admit, their distribution in the Greater Toronto Area is pretty uniform, even in the outlying sub-suburbs like the ‘Shwa.

I’m going to come clean right now and say that I don’t care for Oshawa. Not one bit. Didn’t like driving through it, didn’t like stopping for ice cream. It was the first time I saw a bona fide Springeresque trailer park. If you insist on going through, the main thoroughfare’s okay, just … don’t wander.

Anyway, I don’t want to get off track. The point is that the expectations seem to get a little bit lower wherever a Walmart is present.

Look…

…that’s CIBC, well represented anywhere you look on a map of southern Ontario. Also a very heavy presence here in the city. Gentle running seems like a good middle ground of physical exertion. Especially when you look at the 100% downtown Princess Margaret crew:

That’s a two-day bike ride to Niagara Falls. And as an option you can hop along for an extra ride with Steve Bauer for some real action.

Walmart, serving who they serve, decided on this:

Families with kids aren’t really into running. Neither are the ‘Shwabians.

In the trendy, sea-bound urban centers of Vancouver, they also tried walking, and look at the result:

I know, right? That’s exactly how twisted, wheelchair-bound super villains start. I bet he’s seething with rage.

I guess it’s because city dwellers just don’t get “walking”. They need that hardcore rock climbing biznatch all up in yo mother’s face (that’s how they talk out west). Urbanites want to come home with an arm missing or a cavity where there previously was none. CHA-RI-TAE*! WOOOOOOOOOO**!

Better start getting my pudgy ass in shape. Bikini season’s just around the corner!

* Charity — I know, that west coast accent always messes me up too.
** An overdrawn WOO — Them and their crazy Vancouverese, you gotta love ‘em!

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.

The crumply tin chairs and crumply tin tables at Dundas Square were again available tonight and I finally got to sit at one with a crumply six-dollar Stella.

The main show on stage was Disco Inferno who’s name left so little to the imagination that I couldn’t think of a word to write. I sat there certain that the scary security guard, who’s goatee alone would be considered a weapon, was peeking over my shoulder. It just wasn’t an environment conducive to concentration.

I gulped back the uninspiring lager and left the boozy oasis, seen here at back under the red umbrellas:

Note that Disco Inferno did actually have people doing the pushin’-up-the-sky dance (hold palms up and pump skyward – ooi! ooi!). If you can make out the detail above, there’s even an old lady getting out of her wheelchair in the middle of the crowd. Cured!

Here are the Inferno; numerous Bar Mitzvahs, weddings, birthday parties, and corporate events having tuned their act to this singular moment of perfection:

Far too many people were hurting themselves trying to re-live their youth and I didn’t want to join them. I wandered off to the pedestrian part of the square where there hung a bunch of photographs on triangular mounts. I guess these were intended to allow for quick juxtaposition of adjoining images, allowing us to more broadly grasp the photographer’s vision, to understand the underlying narrative that they’re trying to convey, but they were still mostly boring. Here they are being ignored:

To be honest, there were a couple of cool crowd photos. But not many.

A friend notified me that a giant red ball is being moved about Toronto to various spots and I discovered that it will be in my neck of the woods soon.  Giant red ball wedged into city crevices. That just kinda writes itself.

So far Luminato at Dundas Square hasn’t been the outlandishly artsy event it’s been billed to be. Unless you count the L’Oreal makeup tent as art. But maybe I’m not giving it a fair shake. Maybe the ball will silence me with it’s glory.

“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

After my last assignment, I’m sure you’ll understand why I had to lay low for a while. This is a dangerous town and I had to make sure that when I popped my head back up, I wasn’t going to get it blown off. With my Walther PPK strapped snugly against my ribcage, I straightened my tie and headed out.

This time it would be to the George Street Diner.

It seemed pretty far off the radar. Nice spacious outside views from every booth so as to avoid an unwanted side of sneaky assassin with my breakfast. The booths were those proper squishy diner kind that would require close-quarters combat, but that was okay. More fun. And if the contact who was to meet me there proved to be uncooperative with me, the vintage stools at the counter would provide a good place for a quick and painful Q&A. My Q, his A.

I placed my order for the regular; the measure of a greasy spoon’s worth: the bacon & egg special. It doesn’t matter if it’s not called a “special” in this particular establishment, they should know exactly what you mean. Besides, I had ways of letting the female staff know exactly what I meant that didn’t require any talking. The only other male in the place was the kind who’d be the first to catch a bullet in the forehead in a gun fight. Mental note: human shield.

About $9 later, the chipper young waitress brought me breakfast: two eggs, four strips of well-done bacon, a healthy helping of home fries, and toast. Except…what was this? The toast seemed to be coated entirely in some sort of yellow grease. Maybe it was some strange intensely-coloured butter coating or — they were trying to poison me.

My mind started to race. If I kept my heart rate down, I could probably plug each of these yahoos and manage to make it back to my place for an antidote. Unless there were more of them out of sight.

So it began.

I reached slowly, ever so slowly for the holster while at the same time inching the bread towards my mouth. I unclipped the strap and gently tugged at the gun, releasing the safety. I passed the bread slowly under my nose; no detectable odours other than butter. Great. That left about one-thousand other possible toxins.

My senses went into top mode; I was aware of every creak and squeak around me; could see every motion reflected in the stainless steel backboard that ran the length of the restaurant. I could feel sweat gathering on my brow; my hand tightening on the Walther PPK as the bread passed my lips. This was it…death time.

Oops, my mistake. Just butter.

Good butter too, or a pretty good imitation. The bread was soft and moist and caused me to relax my grip on the gun. It was still a very unnatural colour but…no poison. It looked like the staff were regular civvies so I wouldn’t have to kill them after all. It would have been a shame to destroy all the kitsch on the walls though. Some of it looked genuinely old and all of it belonged in an old-time diner like that.

I dug into the meal; bacon was good and crispy; eggs were well done and adequately greasy; organic coffee was dark and a good complement to the meal. The place was licensed but it didn’t look like they’d be able to serve me a proper Martini.

I finished my coffee slowly, waiting for my contact who was now five minutes late. The bill came promptly and I got up to leave. For a man with as many enemies as me, it was foolish to wait around any longer.

Nice place, I thought as I adjusted my Italian silk tie. Good atmosphere and great decor, but nothing explosive about the breakfast. Just as well, I suppose.

Then I spot him, my contact, running down George Street with my suitcase, being chased by a very tall man with what looks like…metal…for teeth and a very nasty looking gun shooting at — my suitcase.

Damn, that makes me mad.