Are you feeling astute today? Well, give that brain a scratch and see if you can spot three things in the following photo that are out of the ordinary:

If you guessed the trucks, but not really sure why, you’re absolutely correct! That’s a movie crew and those trucks are just sitting there like that with not a soul in sight. This is in a slightly sketchy neighbourhood, and people do sometimes help themselves to stuff they “find”. So that’s one.

Number two is the complete absence of people on the street. The aforementioned missing souls are missing from everywhere. I think we can chalk that one up to the cold.

The third, and I must admit not so easy to spot, thing wrong with the photo is that it was shot at the end of September, not today. See? Hard to spot.

But today was much like it looks in the picture. If you splashed a bit more yellow on the leaves and had steam coming up from sewers, this would be pretty accurate. And I still think it’s due to the cold.

It’s either that or my slight frame is getting even slighter. And I start to look emaciated at 170 pounds! So what else can I do but take it indoors again.

I hit the PATH from in front of the CN Tower and Convention Centre South building, which is in the lower left-hand corner of the map. That area gets windy and cold in the summer, and if it wasn’t for the brewery across the street, it’d be a completely desolate wasteland. With a big tower.

From there I shivered across the Skywalk to Union Station, tried to get warm as I made my way up through the Toronto-Dominion Centre, and did my best to thaw out as I headed east of First Canadian Place, north to Scotia Plaza, and then out to the intersection of Yonge and King through MetLife Place. Stopping every four steps to take a photo.

Outside, I was cold again. *sigh*

The Bay Adelaide Centre will be a nice addition. It’ll be the other main artery north and give me something new to look at while I try to lose the chills. My God, it’s still just October!

Okay, enough yammering. You know the drill, if you don’t have the Adobe Flash Player, get it here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

If you can see the dark, grainy silhouette of the CN Tower with a big “play” button on it below, you’re good! Just hit that button but keep in mind that this is a 5 minute animation, so give it some time to transfer to your computer first. Feel like you need a pee break? Now’s the time ;)

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I think I’m going to need that Second Cup sponsorship if I’m to survive this winter. That fine, flavourful, and hot brew on a cold autumn morning, what could be better?

Someone recently noted that TCL seemed to be written by a “young man just a bit on the frustrated side” and that I needed to find “something that excites you, something you can be passionate about and, write about it.”

Frustrated? FRUSTRATED?! OF COURSE I’M FRUSTRATED!!

You’d be frustrated too if you had a day job like mine. But what keeps me going is the thought that maybe, one day, Toronto City Life could be more than just a little blog. *sniff*

Why?

What’s not to love? The walking dissolves the fiery disappointment of the day into a manageable lump of smouldering coal for the evening. So that’s good. And I like what the pictures do. They let me look at the places I’ve been in their moment, seeing everything I couldn’t possibly see at the instant I was there.

So that’s good. And you know, there are so many people downtown that inevitably you always bump into someone interesting. Sometimes they’re people you’ve seen before and feel you’ve kinda glimpsed a bit of who they are. Take this lady, for example:

Note, she’s not panhandling. In fact, I don’t remember ever seeing her panhandle. She’s always been stone-cold sober and more alert than me most of the times I’ve seen her. She’s strong, lugging around all sorts of stuff all day. Lucid and entirely there. And although I’m sure she lives on the streets, she takes care of herself. Now she’s got a story! Always something interesting. So that’s good.

And you know, when you need a breather, it’s nice to get closer to the lake and just enjoy the breeze and the views.

Ahhh, the blissful Gardiner. The only problem with all of this is that it sometimes leads to late nights. Late nights with full bladders require entrance to some strange places. But so far even these have proven to be gold:

Note the garbage bags on the dock belonged to a gentleman who, I believe, would be residing there that evening. He also appeared quite sober and built himself a cardboard shelter behind the cage. Unfortunately, he didn’t understand the requirements of long exposures, and so he’s not pictured. But again, interesting. So that’s good.

As one final piece of evidence, I give you … Chinatown:

I dunno. It sounded poignant, but I’m not sure where I was going with it. Maybe that I’m no artist, so pictures like this simply couldn’t exist in any other medium. Except maybe as stick figures. I can draw that guy with the fingers and teeth biting the horizontal line pretty well. I even add a little hair twirl for effect, sometimes eyebrows! However, I can’t get much more complex than that; the oranges would lead to tears and broken pencils.

But photos just need me to stand there and annoy Chinese people with my camera. I mean, I could try to draw something but my intention is to express enthusiasm, nor horror.

So you see, TCL is both an attempt to share some of my interest in this town, and a fairly thorough lack of skill to present it. And it’s written by a bitter, disappointed guy. I’m not an alcoholic yet, but I’m willing to try. The spiral’s just begun!

So that’s a good thing.

Do you have to use one of these things regularly?

Oh man, I don’t envy you. Now that I’ve had ample opportunity to compare the wheel to the foot, walking is just slightly slower than the car. If you include the driving around the block a few times to find a spot, then shimmying into an unparallel park, and finally gasping in disgust as the ticket machine spits out 2:30 (that’s two minutes and thirty seconds) for your two bucks, walking is actually considerably faster. And the machine makes way more than me per hour.

If you drive stick on an uncooperative clutch like I used to, you start to deform disproportionally as your right arm and left leg gain muscle, while your opposing limbs just get pastier and pudgier — except for the sunburnt left forearm. If the window’s down, that arm’s going on there.

Besides that, the amount of signage on every pole is simply irresponsible. Are we actually supposed to pay attention to all of that while driving?

If you’re not familiar with the snow route sign, you may simply think it means no parking there because the lane will be made into a ski trail. Or something equally enjoyable that employs snow. And right next to it is a sign telling you when it’s okay to park there. And that’s a busy sign. First it lists the two times that you can park there from Monday to Friday. Then the times during Saturday and Sunday. Finally, on the bottom are the arrows that indicate the directions in which this rule applies. And the times and directions thing is also happening on the no stopping sign. Then there’s the small idling limit sign which, once again may be unfamiliar  since it’s a municipal bylaw.

Squinty eyes, at the wheel with bikers squeezing by on the right, pedestrians running out in front, and the streetcar just getting by on the left. And the car behind you honking. That’s always my favourite :) And there are signs you have to pay attention to there? Yup. And they usually come in clusters like this on every pole and the little arrows and, depending on the block, the times change.

Sometimes it’s just not fair:

Did you see the hidden sign? Beneath the no parking one. That’s probably the one with the five-thousand dollar fine. And what about the arrows on that no stopping one? Does that mean that you must drive through the intersection on any light during rush-hour? Just to disambiguate, there’s a no standing one too.

That’s why I always look in all directions, twice, before crossing the street. If you get some driver trying to obey all the signage, they’re liable to kill someone. And what the hell are vendors doing hocking their stuff out in the middle of the street?

It might seem like nitpicking, but since they went to the bother of producing I don’t know how many such arrow-laden signs and sticking them to everything, you’d think they’d try to imply less idiocy on the part of the populace. Doesn’t matter which way you turn that thing, it always tells you that you shouldn’t try to sell hot dogs from the middle of the street. City Hall probably doesn’t want to clean up the mess from the collision with the law-abiding car.

Do we need all that signage? I believe it’s perfectly reasonable for a reflective, observant individual to bend the laws a little. I’m sure we’ve all crossed on a red when there was no traffic. Or mowed down a few pedestrian during a pub crawl. Hey, it’s Friday!

It’s not that I intend to become some Johnny Scofflaw, I just think that someone should re-think all of the stuff affixed to utility poles. Common street laws apply almost everywhere; you don’t need to tell people not to park in the middle of an intersection. That kinda stuff.

Simplify.

Ah, fall. A time when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of replacing that moth-eaten coat and maybe, finally getting that haircut. But there are so many options downtown that it’s hard to make a decision. So I thought I’d do a bit of window shopping down trendy, chic Queen West.

It didn’t pan out.

First off, I wouldn’t know fashion if it ran up to me, tugged at my sleeve, and called me dad. So most of the clothing stores and their slight, jaded attendants with aborted personalities, were out of the question. And any haircut I would plunk down three digits for (as if!), would be experimental. I don’t wear experimental well. I have a utilitarian, European head. It’s made for thinking, imbibing spirits, and spectacular love-making. Not for unusual hair styles.

But that’s okay. If I can’t spend my money on anything else, I can always buy a new MIDI controller of some kind that I’ll use, like, three times and then forget about.

I used to flip through the comics at Silver Snail regularly as a teen, but they don’t carry much of what I enjoy anymore. I keep tellin’ em there’s a market for it. They keep tellin’ me that what I want is “illegal” and “sick” and that they “never carried it” and “please stop masturbating”.  Hey, their loss.

I’ll happily take my business elsewhere.

I enjoy a genital piercing as much as the next guy, but I was pretty intent on getting that haircut. That’s the problem with Queen West though, isn’t it? There’s always something to distract you. If it’s not a novelty condom store or the exciting fall 2009 line of designer bongs and smoking accessories,  it’s street voodoo:

So, naturally, by the time I got to the old Citytv building, the first thing and the other thing (there were two, right?), had broken free of my skull and fled. Something about a hat and a vest?

Oh well, there’s always tomorrow. Wish I could say the same for  poor Moses Znaimer.

Oh yeah, now I remember. Yeah. No way I’m getting a haircut now.

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.

The Copper people are doing their thing in the neighbourhood again:

Exciting scene with some woman getting pulled over by the cop. As he gets out of the squad car, she continues to roll. He yells at her to stop, she revs her engine!! … well, I won’t spoil it for you. But as I write this, the wind is picking up, possibly in anticipation of the interesting weather planned for tonight. Those prop trash bags on the lawn are keeping more than one crew member entertained; they’re filled with styrofoam or something similarly light, and they’re not tethered to anything. Flying, Valkyrian garbage! It’s happening all over again!

:D Not really.

The only things flying around the city these days are rain, knives and performers.

Dear reader, more artisans from Buskerfest (loud link!) for your entertainment. And, ah, if you wanna show your appreciation with a small donation, that would be great. Preferably bills:

Remember the Australian-region guy? He does actually do something. But not before my foot had fallen asleep waiting for him to stop flapping his gums and do it already:

And then this guy did a variation on it. He actually took the pains to point out that, unlike that guy over there, he wasn’t being supported by anyone:

And finally, the item that I so egregiously omitted yesterday, the human beatbox video. To retain the live spirit of the performance, and because I’m lazy, I didn’t edit the video at all.

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Doesn’t that just take the cake?

Well, I’m all buskered out. But those folks are doing it all weekend. And why not? After this it’s back to Dundas Square or subway stations, so they might as well rake in as much as they can.

God’s speed, little buskers.

And to you, dear reader, a fair and pleasant weekend.

It’s been quite a busy day at the TCL city desk today.

To begin with, a bunch of personalities from my wake-up radio station were axed, en masse, this afternoon. I’ve only ever heard promos for the Motts’ show and I accidentally tuned into a Michael Coren repeat one night. Didn’t care for it. And Jacqui Delaney I found to be as awkwardly appended to my daily dose of waking petulance, the Bill Carroll Show, as the spelling of her name, and this clause. Plus, she was kind of abrasive.

But I wish them all well. It’s not always easy out there on the streets.

Take the Carties, for example. Almost everyone agreed that the concept was great; let’s have some alternatives out there on the streets instead of just the ubiquitous hot dog stand. The city clenched their butt cheeks extra hard on the requirements and only eight finalists (out of twelve entries), were accepted into the program. They had to pay a ridiculous sum for the carts which were sold, and branded, by the city. The vendors also had to wear city-issue uniforms. Oh, and the city told them where they would go and conduct their business. Some locations were great. Some, not so much.

There were also suggestions that the city might want to, you know, have a chat with existing street vendors to see how they do things. Kinda pick the brains of some of the people who have done this day in, day out, for decades.

Yeah … no, they didn’t do that.

I once bought a samosa from one of the a la Cart guys. His little shack was impeccably clean, almost too much so. He probably had the city’s sanitation inspectors living in his colon. The food was okay, nothing too exciting; proper City-Hall, middle-of-the-road flavour. And what’s this about handling every little thing with a pair of gloves on? With street meat, you get a dollar-store serviette (as dainty as the word implies), holding up a propane-soaked bun which is cradling a hastily warmed specimen of “dog” of some sort. “Hot” it most certainly is not. No latex glove, that’s for sure.

It’s almost inevitable then that the Carties would start dropping off, isn’t it?

Sad.

But Buskerfest helped me forget all about it! The name says it all; a street carnival filled with buskers. Open guitar cases, hats, plastic cups, and other collection receptacles abounded.

One of the performers flew in from overseas. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say somewhere in the region of Australia:

Strangely, this is as exciting as it got. At least for me. In the ten minutes or so that I stood there, the routine seemed to go nowhere. Those knives never saw any action. I still don’t know why those people were lying there. I waited, I applauded; tried to cheer him on. Nada.

Oh well.

Elsewhere, some of the buskers had so much polish, they were like some kinda disco machines:

It may not be to everyone’s liking, but everyone’s gotta make a living somehow. Even the very tall and gangly:

The evening ended with a rousing human beatbox, but that video is still being transjiggamafied. I hope this will suffice until then:

Do you believe in signs? I mean, warnings of the future? Hints? Stuff like that?

I must admit, I do sometimes peek into the horoscope section of whatever I’m reading just to see what they have to say about my chances for the next day. I never actually follow up to see if there was any shred of accuracy to it afterward, mind you. I just like to be reassured.

I also like to look at the things around me as portents of things to come. Today, for example, I took another route home to try to get some inspiration for this post.  And inspired portents I did indeed find:

O — kay. The experience was even creepier because in the back there was a tent with a hunk of cardboard stuck in the front, presumably for privacy. And the whole tent shook rhythmically.  Yeah, don’t come a knockin’ rhythmically.

I guess it’s possible something else was going on in the tent. Some kinda art thing. Hehe … yeah, “art“. :D

Papier-mâché items like this (sometimes just limbs), littered the space which also seemed to double as an entrance to some flats in the back. I think. The tent was as wide as the alley so that ended that detour.

Anyway, the sculpture seemed a bit disturbing to me. Kinda like death with an empty name card. As in, anyone’s up for grabs. And then a man’s ass emerged from the tent. Eee!

I hauled.

A few blocks later I looked up and … ?!

Could be some sort of Portuguese decoration? Or maybe … ummm … I need help. Wait a minute! I’m in possession of a semi-functional brain!

Me: “Hey pal, could I trouble you a moment?”

Brain: “The heat … I was gonna go take a nap. Is it important?”

Me: “Totally! Look at that. That’s the second thing that’s reminded me of death today. That one especially because it’s obvious. Is this a warning about death? Our death?”

Brain: “Haha! No. That’s probably someone’s ‘art‘. I mean, look at it! Maybe some viral ad for something, but do you think they nailed this here just for us?”

Me: “Hmmm. Yeah, you have a point.”

Brain: “I mean, the odds of you even seeing this are astronomical. Don’t read too much into it.”

Me: “Thanks, buddy!”

Brain: “No probs.”

And then, across the street from the AGO:

Brain: “Wow. Now this surprised even me.”

Me: “Me too!”

I suppose I could look at it through the Tarot Death card interpretation. It could mean the passing away of a personal epoch, or sometimes parts of oneself. Often this is accompanied with a more positive reading, like this process will give birth to new parts of you that you didn’t know existed. Exciting! Cancerous!

That throws some healthy ambiguity on the fire. So I guess there’s still plenty of room for a reasonable explanation. I just hope that one day I find the people who put these things on the poles; they’ll be the ones with the explanation. That tent guy, well, I’m not going near him again, so we’ll chalk that up to “art” and look no further.

Ah, weekends; two days to remind you of how good life could be.

It’s not that I think Mondays are bad, per se. They’ve simply been relegated to being the first days to shatter happiness and joy, to be the harbingers of pain and sorrow. And so on.

The gosh-durn WordPress update never seems to go smoothly (it’s always one plugin after another, isn’t it?) and, well, the weekend was so interesting, I almost forgot that the War still lurked just around the corner — with a bat and a belief I owed it some money.

Sadly, our own local detention center has now moved off-court onto (I believe) wood-chip-covered earth:

Can you believe that it’s been almost a month now?

But luckily there’s a curious twist at this point, otherwise I’d just be regurgitating the same old war stories again. That’s gross.

If you look at the photo again, right at the back on the left are two guys in DayGlo-yellow shirts. They’re actually taking trash from people’s cars and hauling it in here themselves. Somehow, the 416/79 cavalry have managed to miss my little enclave; these guys were actually helping people get their trash in. Most excellent service too, if I may say. I’ll definitely have to ask more questions tomorrow.

But you know that even if they were strikers, which they were not (?!), it wouldn’t stop some kind of festival from happening. With genuine regret, I managed to completely miss the Festival of India parade, but at least managed to fill my crowd quota for the day with the big balls of Just for Laughs:

All the comics must’ve been on their smoke breaks because everyone there was definitely not funny. Well, there was this one funny part where a gymnast flew dangerously off course, and oh-so-close to the audience:

The look on his face as he lifted himself off the canvas was a masterpiece of raw human emotion; disbelief, horror, embarrassment, relief, self-doubt, and anger; the kind of face you make when you’re in the privy trying, grimly, to eject a particularly unrealistic log. OH, C’MON! WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE!

Anyway, it was funny.

Funnier than cleaning my sofa when I got back to my place:

Eureka, leave a comment and I’ll contact you about where you can send the royalty cheques. What? You didn’t think it’d be just one, did you? Just like foxes, you are.

Now, dear reader, before you berate me for the frequency of my house-keeping, I would like to point out that this is a week’s worth of collected Ollie hair and open-window city exposure.

Plus, we’re in the middle of a war! A dusty, dusty war.

Dear reader, it’s not been easy trudging through the trenches today.

I was trying to avoid the roadside carnage by keeping the camera lens pointed upward, but I was met with an umbrella in the face when I attempted a snap of a film shoot on Queen Street west. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t raining horizontally wherever I chose to stand. I considered that maybe he was trying to hide his face, but guess what?

That’s the umbrella guy looking straight at us. Obviously not camera shy; probably just fiercely protective of the set; which was actually indoors. In fact, I have no idea why he gave me the facial parasol. Maybe he’s just angry because of the unforgiving rod that’s up his ass.

So to drive home my point, I crossed the street and took the photo. Zoom lens; they just don’t make umbrellas big enough. Plus, when I finally saw the photo, there was really nothing going on behind him. Not like this:

Merry Strikemas!

Strangely, no one would have stopped me if I had chosen to desecrate this unique war memorial. The “snow” looked a lot more convincing if you were approaching it from down the street. Even more strangely, the stuff piled up against the sides of buildings was real snow (cold and making a big puddle).

Umbrella guy’s motives and the reasoning behind using real snow in the middle of July caused me greatly disorienting confusion. I think this is what veterans describe as shell shock. I stumbled about for a while until the gentle pitter pat of rain on my forehead snapped me back to reality.

My mission to ignore trash was succeeding (mostly), but not as I had imagined.

I suddenly found myself in front of what used to be a convenience store, now lined with young people and a quick banner job around the front advertising the new Harry Potter movie. Everyone was there to meet Tom Felton. The fans seemed to be as old and uncomfortable as the actors in the film (what’re they, like, 30 now?).

Then, remembering my own boyhood love for thumbing through curried library books, I chided myself for being too harsh; I’m sure these gangly teens have a fond childhood connection to their Wiccan mistress. But I don’t remember them guzzling Red Bull at Hogwarts — or was that in one of the newer novels (newer than the first ten pages of the first one)?

A picture as confused as I was.

The rain was now coming down harder and, as I don’t much care for Potter and his kind, I decided to move. By the time I got to city hall, the sun had broken through the clouds and was shining down on a very orderly and polite Iranian election demonstration.

I spoke to one of the gentlemen holding a placard and we swapped war stories. I assured him that he had my support and he in turn wished me luck on the rest of my journey.

The encounter left me calm and peaceful. I strolled home slowly in the bright sunshine feeling lucky to be alive. Things could have gone so much worse; that umbrella could’ve gone right in my eye; all sorts of bad stuff.

Maybe it was General Miller’s inspirational, uplifting words running through my mind that got me through it:

“Get your donut-eatin’ asses back to work in the next five minutes or I will personally come down there and kick them out of the picket line myself you sonsabitches!”