Nuit Blanche was one of those rare nights when the “Bohemian” artist set get to … no, are encouraged to get their lazy asses out of bed extra late. Getting there at half past six in the evening is actually arriving early, ten at night is when things are just starting to get going, and two in the morning is about right to avoid the big crowds and still get a good walk in. I chose the third option and managed, with the assistance of my favourite energy drink, to stay up until closing time. I couldn’t think of any other night to do this than Saturday.

The event was both hoote and anny. It’s hard to know where to begin; so many strange things on the street that night.

First, there were the kids on acid who stumbled onto mindblowing, totally fucked up shit … oh man, this is too much man! it’s too much!

I made that part up. The imaginatively named “Rabbit Balloon” at the Eaton Centre only had a few tired-looking security guards around it.  The kids on acid (and E, and K, and all the other letters too), were freaking out on the edge of Grange Park behind a truck blasting out what sounded suspiciously like happy hardcore. I wasn’t partial to it back in my youth, I’m not partial to it today, whatever it’s being called now. Just a bit too spazzed out for me. I like my music a bit mellower these days.

Hmmm. Except not this mellow. This was called “Dirge for Dead Slang” and I guess it was supposed to be some sort of lamentation for outmoded language. It had this monotonous soundtrack playing over loudspeakers that was a tad too loud, so no one could really hear what the ghosts were listing off. Intended?

Just down the street at City Hall, was this:

This had the unfulfilled title “Beautiful Light: 4 LETTER WORD MACHINE”. I stood around for a few patterns; not letters. As I was leaving, some words … French? I thought this was supposed to be the “4-letter word” machine. I can think of a few to try maintenant, and they’re in English. For an English audience. I was imagining they would at least flash “bull” and “shit” in alternating sequences; isn’t that why it’s in front of City Hall?

My next stop was at this performance, the “Dead Philosophers’ Limbo”:

Radios were alternately brought out into the crowd (I kinda wasn’t paying attention to what was being read on them), and then brought into the center and piled onto one of the girls in the middle. Then, in slow-mo, the dancers came back and removed them. The middle girl jerked around a while, now surrounded by the other dancers, each holding a pose. They alternated between each other, taking turns to move in interesting ways.

I didn’t get it…

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Let me take you way back to last Friday. For me it’s way back.

Anyway, former politician John Tory was on CFRB voicing his views on the announcement by Mayor Miller that he wouldn’t be running for office again next year. John and co-host Tarek took a call from a “Sandra from Toronto” who vigorously defended the mayor and his handling of the garbage strike.

“What the mayor did during negotiations is, for the first time, tackled that with two of the unions and said it couldn’t go on.” – Do I sense a spark?

“And I bet, John, if you run for office, you wouldn’t be able to do what he accomplished.” – Oh my! Is it getting warm in here?

“…putting out the most ridiculous comments about a man who’s probably the most brilliant politician, municipally, anywhere in the country who leads all the other mayors across Canada and was chosen by those mayors to speak on their behalf.” – Woaw, Sandra! Put it back in your pants!

Okay, maybe I’m misreading it, but that’s a whole lotta man-stand-behindin’ for an anonymous “Sandra”. And she didn’t sound like a typical CFRB caller. She was conspicuously comfortable with publicly gobbing off. At least I remember it that way; I was half awake when I heard the replay the following week. The one part that stuck with me, though, was this:

“And good luck to you, John, because you’re a three-time loser and I don’t see you being successful in the future.”

Come on, “Sandra”, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?

Okay, but that’s just the beginning. You see, “Sandra” apparently has a pretty recognizable voice. Tarek asked her, “”Sandra, do you work for the city?”, to which she replied:

“I don’t work for the city, but I’m telling you the truth.”

*ding*

Tarek was having none of it. He was pretty sure that that had been Sandra Bussin, city councillor for the fru-fru Beaches neighbourhood.

So CFRB did a little interview campaign the following day asking various councillors if the voice on the tape sounded familiar. Most responded by saying that it sounded an awful lot like Sandra Bussin. They’d know because she’s also the Speaker for city council.

It’s the Speaker’s job to establish decorum – basically to set and mediate the tone of meetings. A Speaker should also be (or at least appear to be), impartial so that all sides get to have an equal say during debates. So if this had, in fact, been the Speaker that had called in and been both belligerent and clearly in love with Mayor Miller (i.e. not impartial), that would be pretty serious.

It’s essentially breaking the first two rules of being a city council Speaker. Kind of like a cop murdering an innocent civilian and then committing an armed robbery while on the job. Well, maybe not that serious, but still it demonstrates that there’s an incapability there to carry out the primary duties of the job.

On Wednesday of this week, we discovered that – lo and behold – it was Sandra Bussin that had called in to the show. She fessed up and sent a letter of apology to CFRB in which she did the proper politicianly thing and fudged the facts:

“In hindsight, I realize that some of my comments were intemperate and that I should have clarified my identity.”

“Intemperate”, is that what you call just a wee bit of bitch these days? And I’m going to go ahead and suggest that not having an identity and denying an identity are two different things.

But, I suppose if I were doing something forbidden, I might want to hide my identity too.

“It was a very emotional day for me as result of Mayor Miller’s announcement. I called your program on the spur of the moment upset over remarks that were being made about the Mayor.”

Take a page from David Letterman, honesty will set you free, Sandra!

I found myself out west today. I don’t want to be too obvious about it … just in case a certain someone reads this blog … so maybe I should just say I was reviewing my qualifications with two gentlemen for the purposes of negotiating a regular exchange of services for money. AND IT’S NOT SEXUAL!!

I had to travel to the outskirts of Toronto and just a little bit beyond. International airliners were landing next door.

The trip was a bit too long for my liking but at least it gave me the opportunity to loiter in some of the subway stations on the west Bloor-Danforth line. Most of them are the same drab tile tinted a few mild shades … don’t wanna excite the passengers! Not all stations are like that, mind you. Old Mill is a bit more interesting (big!):

The problem with these open platforms is the winter. When it’s cold, it’s cold. Sometimes the tracks freeze, during storms the snow piles up on the edges and the platform ices up, and the shape of the structure seems to actually accelerate the wind as it passes through. And the ticket collector smiling all smug and warm from inside his little booth with his electric heater doesn’t help matters. Then the storm takes the power out. HA HA. Oh. Except now the trains aren’t running.

But at least the view’s nice. Some stations, like Spadina, are entirely enclosed but still connected to the outside; in this case, it’s because it’s a  loop for streetcars:

I imagine that at one time it was probably a pretty grand station. I remember it having two long motorized walkways that connected the north-south and east-west lines. It was so worth it to go one more station past St. George to Spadina to switch lines, even if at St. George the subways are just a flight of stairs away. Unfortunately, the Spadina people-movers are gone and the station’s in pretty rough shape besides. Why would I visit now? To walk down that big hallway? At least have a courtesy vehicle of some sort. Serving mildly alcoholic beverages and perhaps pretzels.

What makes Spadina especially bad is the fact that just a couple of stops down, the Museum stop is decked out to the nines:

They have nubile young women here that bathe and anoint your weary feet as you sit in wait for the next train. Libations flow from faucets in the columns. And if a train doesn’t come regularly every two minutes, they publicly execute the conductor responsible.

It’s a shame they couldn’t use some of that slave labour to fix up Spadina. I mean, if they want to try a passenger carrying service for that hallway, I’d be willing to hop on someone’s back, but I’d rather have the motorized walkway. It was always so much fun to stand there and watch people walking beside the walkway like suckers. You knew you were special then. Now, you’re lucky if they spit on you before they drive that screwdriver into your eyeball. I just wanted a transfer!

The subway could use a whole lotta facelift, is all I’m saying. I know I’ve said it before, but now I have to try to imagine spending three hours out of every day in there, and it’s not terribly appealing. So if there’s no alternative, the two gentlemen may have to discuss someone else’s qualifications.

Okay, whoever’s responsible for the weather needs to just stop and look at what they’re doing, because this isn’t right. To begin with, you’ve got the evening rolling in earlier and earlier.

Actually, that part’s normal. But the cold … where did that come from? Suddenly everyone’s got a coat on and the inappropriately tiny-clothed are dashing for their lives down the street, frantically clutching at their frigid bodies, screaming as they scramble for the nearest entrance. And now they’re stuck in a coffee shop for the night.

Despite my multifaceted enjoyment of underdressed ladies, however, I must profess that they probably had a good reason for being so today. I had on an undershirt, button-down shirt, and fall jacket, and still my armpit hair stood on end from the cold. I simply don’t think anyone expected the wind and the temperature drop. I’m sure that come spring, this kind of weather will be a pleasant preview of the summer to come, but right now it has a pretty mean looking winter breathing down its neck.

I don’t consider myself slight. Slender, I am not. But I didn’t think that the scarves, parkas, mitts, and toques I experienced tonight were too much.

There it is, harsh reality disguised as a smiling silhouette: we’ve totally skipped autumn and gone right to winter! The weather people claim it’s normal and that past years have been freakishly warm. I would beg to differ. But I can’t because my fingers are starting to go numb. The landlord hasn’t turned on the heat yet so I’m warming myself by the glow of the computer. Too bad light doesn’t keep you warm. Damn eco-friendly bastard!

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.

Ah, fall. A time when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of … wait, I’ve done that already. I guess I’m still in shock at how quickly the temperature’s fallen. I’m walking around with pointy nipples for God’s sake!

It’s also been an unusually traumatic week, what with Bill Carroll switching time slots and all. You can smell change in the air. And musty autumn leaves. And urine. Why’s it always urine?

But no matter. The proper urban rat knows all the warmest holes in the ground. In Toronto it happens to be a long-ish path known as, umm, PATH. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be an acronym or what; not that it would jazz it up any.

Today, instead of writing a long post describing what’s there and blah blah blah, I thought I’d just invite you along for the walk. I am so thoughtful!

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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.

At first I thought I was just being a little too sensitive to the sight of construction cranes. After all, they’re not unlike beaky, disciplinarian public school teachers with their exaggerated snoot in every page of last night’s incomplete homework. Then the reading glasses come off and that evil scowl emerges. “Can you explain this, Patrick?” *shudder*

But that’s not it. There really is a lot of construction going on. In just about every direction you turn, there’s a cross educator:

Okay, well, the big ones are more like a cross. And angrier. For example:

That’s is the TIFF / Bell Lightbox, kitty-corner from where this year’s TIFFery took place. I think it’s designed to loom ominously like that.  It certainly doesn’t yet scream “film festival!!” to me.

Not all construction hangs over the city like the cold face of death, though. Take Trump Tower, for example:

Nice lid, right? And what does The Donald have to say about his new erection?

“The thing that excites me most is the architecture. Secondly, I believe that the location of this building by itself will make it very successful. So you have a combination of great location and great architecture—and that’s going to be something very special.”

Sure is, Donald. It’s a winning formula: Donald Trump™ Excitement ® + location = oodles of cash

Secondly, I hope that’s what he means by “special”.

Anyhow, these are just a couple of the more interesting taller buildings. There are many more, including ones that aren’t so tall:

I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said that between any two main intersections, you’d find at least two large construction sites.

I was going to stop the post here without any real point, as I am wont to do. But as I was flipping through the news over an especially messy lunch today (I must omit the details), I found a Toronto Star article about office vacancies and how they’re linked to unemployment. It deftly reveals how all this new office space is opening downtown — I can attest to that! — followed up with unemployment statistics. Get it? Those buildings are stealing our jobs!

I knew it — now it’s cranes and immigrant buildings. And Trump’s mixed in with all this too.

(Sorry about that last link. Have to keep it up as a bleak reminder never to drink and blog again.)

Darn. I was so hoping that one of the local dailies would run something about the TTC, specifically about the subway. There was only more complaining from St. Clair West (the concrete streetcar barriers are built, people! It’s done! Get over it!), something about Robert Prichard who’s supposed to be getting the Metrolinx program underway (trying to bring the TTC and all the regional transit systems under one roof), and some goof who got busted driving his riding mower drunk on one of the rural roads north-east of Toronto.

Haha! I know, that last one’s not transit. But I had to share. I spent enough time around that area to have seen inebriated lawnmower drivers, and let me tell you, it’s hi-freakin-larious. Under normal circumstances, these gentlemen wouldn’t think to drive an unbalanced buggy with sharp, high-velocity, metal blades underneath, up a very steep hill. But then they partake of a few. :D

I guess there was one thing kinda related to the subway, the Toronto Sun’s lament about the state of our highways. Mostly, they were talking about this:

This is the picturesque Don Valley Parkway. It’s picturesque because it’s late in the afternoon on Sunday. At almost any other time, it’s bumper to bumper, stop and go. If you’ve been on it, you know what I’m talkin’ about, right? How many years of your life have you lost on that road? And on some sections, you’ve got a foot between you, the concrete barrier, the car on the other side, and the car in front, and the jerk behind is honking his horn for you to get outta the way. That, buddy, is how that dipshit down in the valley down there crashed his car. That’s why we’re moving extra slow. That’s why you can kiss my flatulent ass you …

Gosh, even thinking about it gets me all worked up; that’s one angry road. The attached 401’s not much better, but that’s a whole different kinda rage; high-speed, low-brow, middle-finger. You can’t shout at those speeds once you achieve them.

Torontonians know what I’m talking about, right? Yeah! Grandma’s doing eighty in the fast lane with nothing in front of her, tapping the breaks a few times a meter. What the fuck is her problem?! HONK H-O-N-K *H-O-N-K* GODDAMMITYARR!! *smash smash smash* GAAAARRR!! Then black out. Wake up under a highway overpass somewhere by the airport with blood on your hands and a dead body in the trunk of your car. Evade police for weeks in a massive manhunt through rural southern Ontario. Eh? Yeah. What Torontonian hasn’t been there?

So to avoid that scene, and since there’s no way we’re biking in from the sticks every day, there’s public transit. But not the fru-fru, surface streetcar my spoiled butt takes every day. We’re talking about the city plumbing; the subway.

There’s been a lot of talk about putting new stuff into the city center, which is fine by me, but it seems like a lot of the outlying, underground stuff is being forgotten. Specifically, the Bloor-Danforth subway line. That’s not to say that the Yonge-University line isn’t need of bit of a facelift too:

Vintage. The tiles look nicotine-friendly, don’t you think? But, at least, in good condition.

However, in the stations, if you’re in a hurry, headphones in, reading email, you might not notice how rustic they’re getting.

Often, it’s not straight ahead; that’s just an attractive young blur. Sometimes you have to wait for the crowd to clear (as in Sunday), and then look up:

Or you have to be at the right end of the platform:

Right, not that right. The other right. Your right. Right :) And you’re right, it is unsightly. But I haven’t heard of any plans to take care of it. Has Scabby Row been foresaken? I did my teen years there and it was pretty grungy. I was back recently and Kennedy Station had an even more watch-your-back feel to it than I remembered.

I’m one of those incurably sunny people who think that one of the ways to deal with the problem is to make the place nicer. For being so busy, it’s a grim station. On one side, it’s got a raised road with a raised LRT train track under it (two storeys of concrete, basically) so it’s dark, and on the other the parking lot of a grey-slab of a community centre. Stabbing or shooting someone here doesn’t seem out of context.

So, change the context I say. I’m sure it’s been tried and tested somewhere. And I’m sure I didn’t come up with it; wouldn’t that be a sad world to live in? I’m just too lazy to find a link.

Spruce up the stations. Scrub off some of that water damage. Repair some of those broken chunks. Put a little more life in there.

That probably won’t come out of the downtown streetcar money, which itself is in question. And that  infrastructure funding that was supposed to have paid for things like this turned out to be not so much. But there is the community.

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.