A crowded patio at night.

The man has sturdy legs and broad shoulders. He’s handsome and looks comfortable in his own skin, like he’s very good at whatever it is he does for a living and is used to moving fluidly through the world. Behind him, holding his one hand with her two, is a blind woman. She is stunning in her beauty, radiant, even. Looking at her it feels possible that a mountain stream had assumed the form and flesh of a woman and appeared amidst us like a miracle. Those of us who are watching her have no conscious choice in the matter. There is something that pure and commanding about her beauty.

She’s blinking awkwardly into the lights above the bar as the man explains the topography of the patio she is trying to navigate through.

“There’s some uneven ground here, and then a slight step up. You okay?”

She nods wordlessly.

As they pass through the thicket of tables and chairs and people, every set of eyes are upon her. Conversations are falling silent, heads are turning and imaginations are sparking. Everybody is watching, trying to enter into the mystery of her life, trying to understand the uncanny sense of relief– of hope, even– we all felt in seeing a person so unable to apprehend her own powerful beauty, a person so unsullied. She moves through us like a saint through fire, and maybe she feels our eyes upon her, feels the hunger and predation that haunt a bar like this, but maybe, perfect in her own wilderness, she feels nothing. She moves closer to the man as the level of spatial complexity increases, dropping one hand from his and letting it idle in the back pocket of his jeans.

And just beyond them a red traffic light sways above the intersection while a bat swoops down through the night and across the clear, crisp moon. Each person there wanting to tell her about the moon, the beautiful moon, and how hopefully we’d throw ourselves into that unknowable night, just to touch it’s face.

As many of you likely remember, Rob Ford, the late Mayor of Toronto, and I were enrolled at Carleton University in Ottawa at the same time back in the 1980’s.

We became drinking buddies then, and I got to know his family a little bit and have found myself in the entirely surprising position as being in a Book Club with Doug Ford, his older, angrier, more politically conservative brother, who was just elected Premier of Ontario.

Here is a partial transcript of the meeting of our last Book Club:

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Doug Ford: Okay, okay, quieten down.

Lucy: Oh, I just watched the movie and it was SO scary.

Me: Was it the original or the remake?

Doug Ford: Jesus and goddamn, put a sock in it!

Me: Sorry.

Doug Ford: I’ll make you sorry Murray. You and I, shot put field after this. No excuses, and for Christ’s sake, use a coaster! This isn’t some chicken shack, here!

Lucy: I would love it if this was a chicken shack.

Doug Ford: Goddamn Lucy, you are on warning!

And if there is one more interruption from either of you, Sweet Jesus, you don’t even want to know. Just try me. ( Several seconds pass) Yeah, you just try me. Okay, that’s what I thought.

Okay then. The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson.

Story of a businessman who saw a really, really sweet real estate deal. He takes advantage and moves his family into this great house and it turns out it’s haunted and everybody gets scared and they run away from the best investment they ever made. But why the haunting, what does that symbolize?

Lucy: It’s the story of Colonialsm. The house was built on an ancient Indian burial ground, and some white settlers arrived and did not honour this, so the haunting is symbolic of the suffering and fury and pain of our first peoples whom we’ve commodified and marginalized.

Doug Ford: I think I’m going puke.

I’ve never heard something so stupid in my entire life.

The ghosts are big government regulations that drove the businessman crazy. He made a good investment. Was doing some renos. Providing jobs for his community. But every time he goes to do something, say make a panic room or dungeon chamber, there’s some inspector pecking, pecking, pecking at him. Everywhere he turns: regulations, taxation, bureaucracy, protests, special interests. Even when he’s trying to have relations with his lady, regulations show up in the form of some spirit!

It’s exhausting. And you think it’s the ghosts who are the victims?? You got a screw loose, Lucy, a goddamn screw loose. The businessman is the victim here, harassed by the state to the point of madness, it’s a miracle that he was strong enough not to go on a mass killing spree!

Me: So you’re saying this book is a cautionary tale against big government?

Doug Ford: Slow clap for Einstein here. Yes, dammit, of course the book is a cautionary tale against government interference, and it’s as plain as this expensive gold chain around my neck.

And if you can’t see that, well, there’s nothing that can be done, you might as well move to Russia, comrade.

He was one of the boys I grew up with in Ottawa, and he was a great guy. Modest, kind and good at everything, he was well liked, the sort of person you always wanted around. Parents watching him grow felt proud, confident and happy in the future that was unfolding before him. He was like all the other pure and wonderful boys we grew up amidst, and whenever I saw him, I saw the happy reflection of all of us who grew up together in that neighbourhood, smiling back.

He jumped from the Alexandra Street bridge last week, falling 120 feet before landing in about six feet of water and then pulling himself to the rocks along shore. Using the word miracle, the police officers said that they had never seen a person survive such a high fall into such shallow water.

The Alexandra Street bridge, which was built around 1900, connects Ottawa to the city that lies directly across the river, Hull, Quebec. I cannot express to you just how important Hull was to teenagers growing up in Ottawa during the 1980’s. At the time, Ottawa was a very conservative, even timid place. There were rules that governed everything and an almost soviet conformity enveloped the city like a cloud. However, in Hull the drinking age was 18, you could buy beer at corner stores and bars stayed open until 3:00am. We flocked there by the thousands, crossing the Alexandra bridge like we were a part of some migratory pattern.

For me and my friends, sheltered, underaged kids who only knew optimistic, suburban existences, the unfettered liberty of Hull was a small glimpse into what we imagined the realm of adults could be. It was a place full of potential. Every time we crossed that bridge we felt that a “first” might take place– the narratives of our lives just then beginning to take shape. It was a never-never land where we could dip our feet into the future, while still returning home each night to the safe nest our parents had constructed.

To this day the bridge has the steely permanence of an antique.

Cantilevered, it vibrates when you pass over it, as if an echo of all the trains that once crossed. Our transits, often by foot or bike, were always made at night. With the water in view beneath the cross-hatched metal and the wind, now feeling slightly alien and hostile pushing at you, a feeling of vulnerable and solitude presided. With untethered blackness above and beneath, and the ghostly hum of the bridge moving up through your body, you were in limbo, as if moving from one realm into the next.

It was here on the Alexandra bridge, perhaps feeling lost between these two worlds, where our dear friend decided to step off. He did not do it at night, but during the prosaic, naked day. What was taking place in his heart at that moment must have been indescribably mysterious and painful, a motivating state of mind that’s bleakly impenetrable to the rest of us, who only by the grace of God, have remained on solid ground.

May he forgive himself everything, and find peace in this living world where he will be forever loved. And may he always remember that he pulled himself to shore. The miracle of his life was of his own creation.

We’re holding up pencils, trading memes about not giving in to fear and bravely demanding news agencies reprint the Charlie Hedbo cartoons, often from the comfort of our sofas while watching The Mindy Project or the hockey game. We’re warriors for free speech and we will not be silenced.

It’s ironic that our courage for free speech is predicated largely upon being able to express it through the distant, quasi-anonymous medium of social media, and it’s even more ironic that the massacre in Paris has only an optical relationship to free speech rather than a substantive one.

It seems unlikely that there’s a single person in the West who believes that curtailing free speech in order to placate terrorism is a tolerable, let alone debatable idea. The cartoons in question will go on to colonize the world, and we will gather together by the thousands in public squares to safeguard our liberties. Free speech will not die, not on our watch.

We should presume that the people responsible for these murders knew that this would be the outcome. It is, after all, always the outcome. Whenever an act of terror is committed, a robust surge of patriotism and anger—which we often mistake for courage—follows. Our tribe rises up and begins to throw rocks at their tribe, and last night as people were gathering in Place de la Republique in glowing, peaceful solidarity, others were enacting the revenge narrative by attacking mosques and bombing kebab shops.

France, the nation that banned the covering of the face in public, has a reputation for being one of the more Islamophobic nations in Europe. The cartoons that Charlie Hedbo printed were puerile, designed for provocation more than satiric illumination, I think. By appealing to a ready-made, Muslim-averse public, they were picking low-hanging fruit. In a different context, the cartoons, instead of being seen as heroic, would be seen as offensive, bigoted propaganda.

There are roughly six million Muslims in France, and they comprise about ten percent of the population. Of that six million, approximately a third identify as practicing Muslims, with the rest, many of whom are marginalized immigrants, leading secular lives that presumably include things like Grand Theft Auto, football and beer. The terrorists don’t want these people to be assimilated into French culture, they want them to be radicalized, and to do so they must feel persecuted and unwelcome. I suspect that the point behind the killings was not to quell free speech, but to ratchet up tribal warfare against Muslims, ensuring that for new, would-be recruits, participation in a holy war will always seem like a decent option.

The response then should be to treat the people responsible as criminals, and not as a part of some invisible, ever-present army. Declaring war on an idea rather than a specific, definable entity seems doomed, and as we willingly suspend our civil rights and try to make our collective fear, anger and grief manifest in physical villains, our principles and values, our quality of life, begins to rot from the inside, and right there, the war is lost.

In it, he asks all sorts of cool, attractive and successful writers a series of questions about potato chips, but for some reason he forget to include me in his survey. This sometimes happens as an awful lot of people find my blinding talent and natural, easy charisma to be terribly intimidating, so they just act like they’ve never heard of me. Also, I’m sure that they figure I would command a very sizeable fee for any sort of participation or association, so I guess I understand why Kevin didn’t ask me.

No matter, as I am generous, I have decided to answer his questionnaire anyway.

1. Tell me about yourself. In 25 words or less, who are you?

I look like Elvis Costello, but remind people of Kanye. Skipped grade three. I do alright.

2.What is your favourite brand and flavour of chip? Of all the chips out there, what make it the every day chip?

O’Grady’s Extra Thick Au Gratin potato chip. They were as thick as a pork chop and covered in some sort of chemical cheese powder and they were awesome. Each chip was like a sandwich, a toxic, completely narcotic sandwich. I think they were discontinued in the 1980’s, although I did see a bag in an Amish General Store a few years ago in West Pennsylvania. (I heard rumours that they were used in the Chernobyl clean-up, but I never believed them.)

3. Have you ever had a negative experience with potato chips?

Yes. I had a Cinnabon flavoured potato chip the other day and it tasted like a fucking Cinnabon. It was disgusting. Also, I have very vulnerable gums and sometimes a jagged, little dagger of a chip can get lodged in them. Very painful.

4. Have you ever incorporated potato chips into love making? If yes, what was it like? If not, is this something you have considered?

Potato chip packaging has been used in a variety of sexual acts, but the actual potato chips have never been used in love making.

5. Finish this sentence, people who list plain chips as their top snack choices are _________.

First against the wall.

6. Dip or no dip?

Dips are for rookies and pretenders, the proper chip, the O’Grady’s Extra Thick Au Gratin chip, needed no such vulgar embellishments.

7. Do you ever mix flavours of chips? What is your favourite combination? Is there a combination you have been meaning to try? What is your signature blend and what do you call it?

Mixing flavours of chips is something a child or somebody who suffered a very serious head injury would do.

8. Dehydrated fruit chips, yay or nay?

If you’re a Dumpster Diver of some sort of Freegan, sure, but for members of society? Of course not.

9. Is there a time for a baked chip? Or is it a fry or die situation?

Maybe in times of extreme deprivation, like in a war, but certainly not when America’s clipping along at full speed.

10. Tell me about your favourite chip memory?

I was a student at University in Montreal and I was broke. I went to the local corner store and begged for credit, which they stupidly gave me. I bought a large bag of O’Grady’s Extra Thick Au Gratin potato chips, a can of Coke Classic, a pack of Winstons, five quarts of Molson and the magazine Celebrity Skin. I think it was the best night I ever had, a moment of still perfection that I travel back to often.

Here are some facts about the Roger’s Centre:

1. It took nearly 40 years of (Asian) slave labour and a loss of over 30, 000 human lives to build the great dome, a fact that is considered a black mark on Canadian history. A banner that reads, WE SALUTE OUR FALLEN ASIAN BROTHERS hangs beneath the Jumbotron as a tribute. Folk legend has it that whenever the Jays or Argos go on a prolonged losing streak that they are suffering “The Chinaman’s Curse,” a retribution for the great losses the Asian community suffered during the time of construction.

2. The total construction cost of the Skydome was said to be nearly $1,000,000.

3.  The name Skydome was chosen by Horatio Clarence Hocken, the Mayor of Toronto in 1914 when the stadium was opened. Hocken, a jew, said that the name Skydome came to him while in an opium dream-state.

4. The retractable roof of the Skydome was not fully functional until the early 1990’s. However, that didn’t prevent the Skydome from being regarded as Canada’s greatest technological wonder up until the Canadarm came along in 1981.

5. In 1914 the price of a beer at the Skydome was $7.00, today, $22.50.

6. In 2003, Canada’s last public execution took place in the Skydome. Abdul Ghafaar Ali was hung to death on charges of suspected terrorism before a sell-out crowd of 52, 000.

7. Since it opened in 1914, there have been over 600 incidents at the stadium hotel of couples having sex in plain view of thousands of fans, as well as 17 incidents of men being thrown out for masturbating at the window. The Jays have a record of 362-289 when hotel guests are caught naked or having sex.

8. Stadium seats: 50,000 seats for baseball; 52,000 for football and executions and 8,000 to 60,000 for concerts (using the SkyTent).

9. During World War II, the Skydome was used as an interment centre for Japanese-Canadians during the Blue Jays off-season.

10. Gwyneth Paltrow and Colplay lead singer Chris Martin were married in the Skydome.

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Ponderosa

By Dan

Fucking A.

The Ponderosa delivers like a goddamn steak mailman.

Unlimited chocolate milk? Unlimited awesome.

Love the swinging doors and bacon bits, and almost everybody working there was wearing a hairnet, so you know that they’re serious about their crap. I’d definitely go back. Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!

The Pink Dragon

By Keo

The food is very good here but I swear to God the place is haunted! I went down to the basement to use the bathroom and while I was washing my hands I saw a pale Asian man standing behind me in the mirror, but when I turned around there was nobody there. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but later I was told that the Pink Dragon was built on an old Chinese morgue and was known to be haunted. Apparently a dishwasher stabbed a cook to death there too, and after that they erected those lion-dog sculptures out front to ward off evil spirits. If you take a close look, you’ll notice that there’s no #9 on the menu, and this is because the cook was murdered on the 9th day of September, the 9th month of the year.

Der Speisewagon

By Anthony

Lauren and I used to go to Der Speisewagon together. It was kind of our place. Felt weird, sad-weird to be there alone. When Lauren and I were together German food seemed kind of fun, like a campy polka, but now it just seems blunt and obnoxious. I don’t really remember what I had, some sort of sausage and a shit ton of beer, I think, so you know, just not very memorable. Lauren, she’s memorable. She was my schnitzel.

Chuck E. Cheese’s

By Susan

Look, I know that this is a place for kids, but Jesus Fucking Christ! The food was awful, like garbage they dug out of a hole. Not even a drunk person could eat it. I ordered the “chicken sandwich,” and I am damn sure positive that what they served was not chicken. Maybe goat. Or squirrel. God knows. The staff was lobotomized and dirty, and the kids unsupervised savages. I saw one 6-year-old girl with hot, greasy cheese strands in her hair and two pepperoni slices covering her eyes. The plus side is that they sell beer. I had four. And then, drunk, I drove my son home, swearing to never, ever set foot in that accursed place again. The horror, the horror.

If Nike were a politician, it would be Rob Ford.

He just does it.

If you’re one of his constituents and you need something resolved, you should just drop Rob an email, because he’s a man who will take the bull by the horns and go to the matt for the ordinary Joe.

What follows is a recent correspondence between a citizen and the Mayor:

From: Stephen Anderson
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 02:16
To: Robfootball@toronto.ca
Subject: Unacceptable and unprofessional behaviour by a Royal Taxi driver (Plate 1736)

This morning, at approximately 1:30 am, a Royal Taxi (Toronto Taxi plate number 1736) picked me up on Front Street. The cab displayed a sticker indicating that they accept Interac payment. The ride was uneventful. At my destination, St. Clair West and Bathurst, the driver claimed his payment machine was “not working” and refused to shut off the meter while driving me to an ATM to pay him, which incurred me additional fees since the ATM was not my home bank.

This has been a repeating problem with many taxi drivers lately, and it is unacceptable. I would like you to look into this please. The driver should have informed me at the time of pickup that he did not have a working payment machine and let me decide whether to board his vehicle.

Thanks,

Stephen Anderson

Dear Steve-O:

Let me tell you, this sort of crap really gets under my skin.

Dude LIED to you!

Me and a couple of my staff-buddies have spent the better part of the day tracking this crook down and his name is something like Makebed, and he’s one of those guys who isn’t really a Canadian. I called him on the phone but I guess I got one of his wives. She was all, “ No speakie, no speakie!!” so I just yelled at her for ten minutes, making sure she knew it was “Mayor Goddamn Ford bringing the hammer!” It’s an intimidation thing I learned playing high school football. If you’re mixed-up with your words but you still want to be understood, you just fucking yell. Honestly S-dawg, it’s helped get me where I am today.

I’m going to guess that if you yelled at Makebed then this whole problem would have gone away, but maybe you’re small or gay or something, and so you’ve done the right thing by bringing the problem straight to the top, to the Big Dog, Rob Ford.

Anyway, I’ve got my staff working on deporting the guy from the city. I don’t want criminals driving cars in my town. If you think you can come into this city and rip off real Canadians, well, you got another thing coming, and Makebed, taxi plate number 1736, is going to get an awful lot of special attention from the city, if you know what I mean. (Just got back from fact finding trip to Chicago and learned a lot about stuff like this)

Anyhow, it’s nearly 8:00, so I’m finishing up and heading out for some beers and shots– if you want to join me and the boys( NO HOMO!) we’ll be upstairs at the Tilted Kilt on The Esplanade. They got the hottest waitresses in town. Boobs everywhere, it’s a Breastaurant, bro, and if they know you, they’ll charge you the regular price for the Super Sporran sized portions.

Ready, set, hut!

Rob Ford

PS: I’ll teach you how to yell. No charge, buddy, no charge– I work for you!