As a source of information, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Sun newspaper, a tabloid rag that panders to the lowest common denominator with a few blurby bits of print parading around on each page awash in seas of advertising. The vast majority of their content comes in off the wire via AP or Reuters, often to the point where you can read entire articles — verbatim — in other local papers.

The Sun “newspaper” carries skimpily-clad Sunshine Girls on the back page, features way more sports coverage than international news, and is filled to the brim with bright, colourful photos, eezee-to-read sentences, and sensationalist headlines up the wazoo.

Basically, if you want to have your news predigested and regurgitated for mindless consumption along with a heaping bowlful of red-blooded stereotype, the Sun is for you!

Normally, I wouldn’t give a toss about the Sun. Live and let exist to wipe my ass with, I say. But recently it’s become painfully clear that this “newspaper” is a reflection of the myocardial infarction we currently have sitting in Toronto’s mayoral chair, as well as his ruddy-faced lap dogs like Giorgio Mamolitti who whine like little girls whenever their precious feelings have been hurt by public opinion, contradictory free speech, or that terrible terrible thing we call a democracy (I’ll have to post his bitchings during the last marathon depositions on YouTube).

And to be honest, I’m getting fucking sick and tired of hearing clamoring idiots calling for myopic, one-dimensional, all-pennies-and-no-brains bullshit with which to fix this city’s problems with.

Most meat-headed partisans like to think they’re in the clear, the “he was voted in so he must have majority support” fallacy. Except that only 47% of the people who voted actually voted for Rob Ford. That means that less than half of the people who voted directly support His Rotundness. Moreover, only about half of Toronto actually voted, so the bellowing loudmouths milling around in Ford Nation account for only about 25% of Toronto. And guess what, most of downtown didn’t vote for Ford — the people who will be most affected by his actions are the ones who can’t stand him the most.

The other fact that Fordites continue to forget is that there are 44 councillors at City Hall which must approve stuff before any of Ford’s ridiculous plans can ever come to fruition. “But Ford is going to do blah blah blah…” Yeah, no he’s not, because he’s a bully and he can barely make friends with a fire hydrant let alone a thinking councillor.

Fordites also can’t seem to come to grips with the fact that their portly hero is full of shit.

… Continue Reading

And here I am walking all the way home like a sucker. What the hell am I paying all those service fees for?!

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.

It’s a little shameful to admit, but when I first heard of “bum fights”, my mind immediately sprung to a well-lit bedroom, two attractive young ladies looking at each other over their shoulders with lustful disdain, ready to have at each other with their voluptuous heinies. It sounded absolutely delightful.

It may have been the general aversion to such a word as “bum” by the company I kept during my formative years, but other than being used to describe:

 
…well, you’re not supposed to call people of no fixed address that. That is the only foul version of that word.

Panhandling is done for many different reasons so I try to judge each book by it’s cover. If the person looks really destitute, I won’t miss a quarter. But there are others who make it a bit harder to part with my nickels.

This morning, for example, I passed a fellow under the subway tracks who I recognized as an area local. Aside from not being able to figure out if people were dropping imaginary money into his cup, or if he was taking sips of imaginary coffee, or if both were real and he was just drinking change, I couldn’t help but notice his clothes.

His shoes were sparklingly new, as were his bright white slacks and a gorgeous scarf tossed carelessly around his neck. Yes, he had an ensemble. Meanwhile, I was walking by in deep need of new shoes and a winter jacket that finally allows me to use the word threadbare. It’s a good word. Lotsa uses.

No, my money wasn’t going into that coffee.

As I stepped on the escalator to the platform, the word “bum” floated through my consciousness and I caught myself feeling a bit embarrassed. But then, with majestic bravado, the manly part of my brain walked on over, swooped that little lady off her feet and told her everything would be alright. After all, he really was trying to “bum” money off me. If the need were great, it would be “begging”, “panhandling”, or “soliciting”. If the need doesn’t seem that great, it’s “bumming”, and the person performing that action is a “bum”.

If we take some of the generalized pejorative connotations out of the word, it sounds a bit more reasonable. In fact, I’m in favour of adding a little weight on the cheeky side of the definition because I believe those kinds of “bum fights” would make the world a better place.

Though down, be not thee out.