I was suprised to be contacted by Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently.

As many of you will remember, I was an old drinking buddy of his brother Rob, who was mayor of Toronto for a controversial stretch of time back a few years ago.

Rob and I attended Carleton University in Ottawa at the same time in the 80’s and it was there that we became drinking buddies at Rooster’s, the campus pub. We were never best friends or anything, but much later, when I moved to Toronto and we re-connected on Facebook, Rob would habitually open chats with me when he was drinking and looking to revive the “good, old days.” According to his brother, Rob truly valued what I had to say and as Doug put it, “If you were good enough for Robbie, you’re damn sure good enough for me!” and with that he offered me a job as a staff writer at his office. My first job has been to write some follow-up ads promoting that fact that Doug’s new government made good on their promise to make it legal for beer companies to lower the price of a beer—if they want to—from $1.25 to $1.00.

This is the script for my first ad:

( Doug Ford speaking to camera from his basement den )

“ I haven’t had a drink in over 25 years– not because I have any sort of problem. I don’t and I never did, and I will sue the bejesus out of anybody who says different.

Just try me. ( Two second pause)

No, I stopped because I’m disciplined. Good governance and fiscal restraint require discipline, a quality I learned as a shotputter and as the no-nonsense businessman who steered Deco Labels and Tags to be voted– by the readers of Etobicoke Style magazine– as one of the top three Label and Tag operations in all of the region.

For four years running.

We’re proud of that.

But none of this means I don’t remember what it was like to have a nice cold one. I do. And I remember how powerful it can make you feel. You and your crew, cruising the streets of the city looking to blow off some steam. Not looking for trouble, but sure as hell not afraid of it, either, and The Stones are blasting, maybe Street Fighting Man, and you’re all piled into your dad’s Beemer, roof down, and it feels so good. Oh, and all the ladies in their summer clothes? (Doug–make direct eye contact with then camera and then smile, teeth showing) Ah, the stories I could tell… (Doug– chuckle to self) Well, those were different times, I guess, but we felt like rowdy, young gods, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario thinks everybody should be able to afford to have that feeling, too, which is why we’ve now made it possible for Ontarians– both men and women– to enjoy a 25 cent reduction in the price of a beer!

Government by the people, for the people.

I’m Doug Ford, and I’m your premier.”

( This is the first ad the Doug Ford ran before I got involved:

https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2018/08/03/doug-ford-says-buck-a-beer-coming-by-labour-day/ )

As many of you know, I grew up in the same part of Ottawa as Canadian Prime Minister and Rolling Stone Cover Boy, Justin Trudeau.

Although I was a few years older, our paths still crossed many times, and even if we’re far from good friends, we have an amicable, nodding relationship that has well positioned me to assist him and the Liberal party in the creation of a series of Justin Trudeau romance novellas.

What follows are excerpts from some of the books:

****************************************************

Book Title: Never The Same Way Twice

His fame and internationally renowned good-looks made it hard for Justin to live the simple life he so often craved. Sure, he got a lot of satisfaction from being the most influential man on the planet, photobombing wedding shots and ministering to refugees, but what he really missed was just rocking out at concerts like an average Canadian, an average Canadian who was lucky to live in the second best country in the world, according to U.S. News & World Report.

But tonight, tonight Justin was going to let the world save itself.

Disguised as a relatively plain Canadian– but for his fantastically lithe and toned body– Justin was going to let loose at the big Blue Rodeo concert.

It had been a long time since he’d rock n’ rolled.

It’s funny how two lives might entwine, and little did Blue Rodeo super fan Brenna Macdonald know, as she took the number 95 OC Transpo bus in from Orleans to catch the show, that her life was about to be forever altered.

Book Title: A Song Of Ice And Fire And Good Governance

Sansa’s heart was racing, galloping so hard that she was sure he must hear it. He took her chin in his hands, his hands made so strong by all the beautiful planks he regularly executed, and raised her lips toward his. At that moment he ceased to be Justin Trudeau, the widower Prime Minister of Canada, the lost Parliamentary Democracy of Westeros and only hope in the battle against the White Walkers, the White Walkers who had taken his bride, and he became something else. He became a vessel of passion.

“Je veux faire un amour doux mais ferme envers vous, ma reine,” he said to her in his mystical language, as he pulled her to him.

She could feel his manhood pressing against her, his lips now so passionately, so respectfully, on hers, and her release was so great that Sansa felt as if she was marble melting under the light.

Book Title: For Love Of Country

It was the best Pride parade that Toronto had ever seen, and the joy of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he marched the streets– his white shirt soaking wet and clinging to his smooth body from all the water gun fights– was infectious. Sal, like everybody else, could not stop smiling as he watched from the crowded sidewalk. And then, as if a divine hand had ordained it, Justin’s eyes locked with his. The free-spirited and inclusive leader of a great nation beckoned for Sal to join him on the street, and immediately security parted the sea of people to make way for him. Sal, in a wheelchair and impotent since the mortar explosion in Kandahar, rolled out to him. The Prime Minister asked for permission, and then playfully sat on his lap and put his arm around him as they proceeded down Church Street and into a future neither one of them could have imagined.

************************************

The Citizens for Constitutional Freedom Press Conference, January 12th, 2016

Ammon Bundy: Our intelligence officers have informed us that David Bowie has passed away. After careful study we have confirmed this as true, and not some prepared government disinformation constructed to demoralize my patriots. The news came as an absolute shock to The Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, and we feel that we’ve lost a brother in our fight against tyranny.

Ryan Bundy: He was our Diamond Dog, may the Lord hold him in his sweet embrace! Swing low, sweet chariot!

Ammon Bundy: David Bowie was a formative presence in my life. It was difficult for many of us, confused young militia men marginalized by government tyranny, to come to grips with the strange and new feelings we were experiencing while growing up in remote Nevada.

Our constitutional urges were so strong and they felt so true, yet still, the mainstream shunned us for them.

David Bowie…. okay okay, just give me a sec. His passing there, guess it dug deep… Giving me feelings… You know how you put stuff in a closet and you don’t look in there, and then something happens one day and it all just comes spilling out in tears, gunfire and arson? That’s what this is like. I’m just a little emotional here, but let me tell you, if there’s one thing David Bowie taught me, it’s that it’s okay to be different, and I will be different for the Constitution, knowing that it is okay to enforce my interpretation of the Constitution on the nation by any means necessary.

Ryan Bundy: Hallelujah, they named a knife after the shape shifter! Bowie was the man!!

Ammon Bundy: As you might imagine, many of the men are shaken, some so much so that all of their resolve has left them. We lost five men to grief last night. Crippled by sadness, they drove home to their wives and families, and soon will be watching the NFL playoffs and listening to their favourite David Bowie songs. We wish them godspeed. However, the rest of us have rededicated ourselves to the struggle David would want us to fight. David Bowie, apart from being a creative genius, generous spirit, and fashion icon, was first and foremost a patriot, and he would want us to continue in our battle against tyranny.

Ryan Bundy: Anybody who slept with Susan Sarandon and lists Frank O’Hara amongst his favourite poets is okay in my books! He’s my starman in the sky!

Ammon Bundy: And so, until the government– stooge to the bird lobby– cedes to our demands and gives us, The People, all the land they own, we will remain, defending freedom.

We will be heroes.

Ryan Bundy: Please, American patriots, do not forget to send in food and snack donations, keeping in mind some of the warrior’s dietary restrictions, such as nuts and gluten! Nuts and gluten are weapons of tyranny! Just press Donate on the Donate tab on our Facebook page. Long live our Space Oddity and death to tyranny!

It’s a bad movie, a very bad movie, and bad in a way that only a movie made in 1985 can be bad. If you’ll recall, Rocky ends up in Russia to fight Ivan Drago, the invincible Soviet super villain played by Dolph Lundgren.

Various dramatic things happen and Rocky wins, as he does pretty much every second movie. What’s striking about it, beyond how awful, cliched and child-like it is, is how vivid and oppressive the American propaganda is.

America has never been particularly subtle about propaganda, and this movie is no exception. It’s an Us Vs. Them proposition, the Soviets are all passionless robots and functionaries living under a cruel and despotic regime, and the Americans, well, they have heart, man, they’re real!

About five years after this movie was made the Soviet Union collapsed beneath it’s own rotting weight. This meant that The Cold War was over, and once again all that was good and free and just and true had won. However Operation Desert Storm, in which the US invaded Iraq, immediately commenced, and ever since, the Middle East (in one form or another) has been the enemy of the West.

After seeing Rocky IV, it struck me that America was always at war, it was as if they HAD to be at war, as if it was a necessary and functioning part of the system. “The Military Industrial Complex,” as it is conspiratorially called, is a huge business in the US, accounting for hundreds of billions dollars. It is a primary economic driver, one from which so much else flows, and it surely looks like it now exists as an essential part of the economy than some subordinate wing of government used to defend abstract principles like justice.

Recently, on December the 2nd there was another mass shooting in the United States, this time in San Bernardino. It was the 355th of the year.

As the news broke, politicians assigned some assistant take to their Twitter accounts and Tweet out their feelings. The event, immediately politicized, had one flavour of politician crying out for gun control, while the other flavour of politician offered “thoughts and prayers.” It turns out that the “thoughts and prayer” crowd had all accepted donations from the NRA.

https://twitter.com/igorvolsky

Granted, this is no scientific study, but it seems to confirm something that we already knew.

On the face of it, the NRA and the on-going weapon crisis is utterly mysterious. Why only in America? Why haven’t they done anything to try to solve this problem? I mean, from 2004 to 2013, there were 316,000 firearm deaths in the US set against 313 deaths from terrorism, but the resources are where?

In the US, politicians and thus policy, are bought.

That’s the way the system works.

War, be it with the Communists or the Terrorists, is very profitable, as is the production and sale of guns. It’s the sort of thing that should actually be put in the Constitution, just so everybody is clear about profit, rather than freedom, being the guiding light of the nation.

Until the anti-gun lobby starts to give representatives money commiserate with what the NRA does, then we are going to have to expect these trends, and all these deaths, to continue.

The team was stripped of federal protections for six of its trademarks, including that of their cheerleaders, the Redskinettes. Now this doesn’t mean that the team is going to have to change its name any time soon, but it is one more example of the ever-gathering disapproval that’s raining down upon them. Apologists can argue all they want about the true etymology of the word Redskin, or that the name is meant as an honorific rather than a slur, but it’s irrelevant.

The Native American community, a small and not particularly powerful minority in a vast and powerful nation, have made it clear that they find it an offensive racial pejorative, and that in and of itself should be sufficient motivation for Daniel Snyder, the white, billionaire owner of the team, to step into the world the rest of us live in, or at least the world we hope to live in, and change the name.

I have come up with a few suggestions, which I now offer:

1. The Washington Cherry Blossoms

2. The Washington Indigenous People

3. The Washington 1%

4. The Washington Spooks

5. The Beltway Snipers

6. The Washington House of Lies

7. The Washington Interns (Defensive line known as The Stained Blue Dress)

8. The Washington Anthrax Attack

9. The Washington Department of Doom (Defensive line known as Homeland Security)

10. The Washington Freedom Fighters

An alert on The Weather Network page for Moncton, New Brunswick issued in the morning:

Dangerous Person

Issued at 9:32 AM Thursday 5 June 2014

Importance

HIGH

Recommended Action

The RCMP have advised residents to stay inside their homes and to lock their doors.

Description

A number of RCMP officers have been shot in Moncton. A manhunt is currently underway for a suspect.

A Tweet sent by the RCMP just after midnight:

RCMPNBJun 06, 12:30am via TweetDeck

Justin Bourque arrested by RCMP at 12:10 in Moncton. He is in police custody. Residents of north Moncton can now leave their homes.

A First Hand Account of the Moncton lockdown:

“Janelle and I took the kids down to the basement and told them we were going to have a Super Fun Adventure Day and that there would be no school. We played games, watched their favourite movies, had a little dance party and made forts out of blankest and chairs.

The kids had no idea what was going on, but all Janelle and I could think of was Justin Bourque, this insane killer loose in our neighbourhood. The whole thing, it was just like from a horror film. Do you think the two are connected? That sick people imitate horror movies or that there are two parallel streams, both running with the same polluted water? I have no idea, and the truth is that I couldn’t think straight all day. I was just a tangle of horrible, frenzied nerves, imagining every possible scenario. I was so glad that the hospitals had canceled their elective surgeries and that I didn’t have to go into work, because I really needed to be with my family, that need just pulled me from the inside, you know? Lord, everything was closed, schools and colleges, public transit, shopping malls, government offices, even the zoo, anywhere large groups of people might have been. It’s just awful, to have to think like a killer, just horrible.…Eventually the kids, oblivious, exhausted and actually happy, fell asleep, but Janelle and I could not. We drank wine and held one another for an hour or two and then I checked my phone and saw that the RCMP had sent out a text saying that they’d caught him and all I wanted to do was go outside, and so we did, all four of us. I had been hoping for stars in the sky, again like a movie, but this one with a happy ending, but it was raining lightly, and even though it was late the Benoit family were also standing outside their front door, and when they saw us they smiled and waved, and that’s when I just burst into tears.”

–Amanda Cunningham

Now, in the 21^st century, forward thinking Klan members are looking at ways to financially exploit this successful brand, giving the organization a more corporate sheen and putting the defining racist principles that govern the organization on the backburner. In an effort to accomplish this goal, they’ve put out a broad call to agencies and individuals across the globe to help in a rebrand, and I was one of the people lucky enough to be contacted.

1. KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack

A fast food franchise throughout the rural south would serve as an excellent transition business, moving the KKK from violent hate group to an affordable, family-friendly eatery in no time. Competing with KFC, but with a more authentic, regional flavour, a Klansman with smiling face exposed–but still wearing the distinctive white hood– would be the corporate logo, much like Colonel Sanders for KFC. KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack would be racially inclusive, thus combating any negative connotations that might linger about the past of this emerging corporate titan.

The signature dish would be fried chicken skin crisps, and like MacDonald’s Happy Meal, KKK’s would serve The Hooded Order, which would be two pieces of chicken, an order of fries and a bottomless Coke, as well as a KKK action figure for the kids.

2. KKKSN   Klu Klux Klan Sport’s Network

There’s nothing, excluding beauty pageants and guns, that’s’ more American than sports, and the marriage between the KKK and sports entertainment is a no-brainer. The network should focus on competitive eating (cross-marketing with KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack), crossbow hunting, street fighting and various rural soldier type programming. Over time, the network could expand to include more conventional sports, but to start it must specialize in that which it’s core audience loves best.

3. KKK: Guardians of the Earth

In the era of Global Warming, nothing could be more important to the public than the appearance of trying to save the environment. The KKK, showcasing their defining uniforms, could roam the land as a kind of cross between Forest Rangers and Guardian Angels, policing the public and making sure that people are not polluting, using too much hot water or otherwise disrespecting the land. One of the bonuses of this is that the KKK could still position itself as anti-government.

4. KKK Dog Walking and Pet Care

This would essentially be a corporate shell, existing primarily to keep members of the KKK in the public eye and achieving the positive association of being caretakers of the pets that American’s so love.

Rob: You hear about the fucking cronut burger????

Me: It’s all anybody in Toronto can talk about!!

Rob: It’s a fucking doughnut that’s been bred with a croissant and a bacon cheeseburger! I want to eat about seven of them!

Me: It’s made 100 people sick! The city (YOU) shut down the stand at the CNE!

Rob: No way! That doesn’t sound like the free market! Gonna fuckin’ look into that. Gotta let the people decide.

Me: I love the word cronut.

Rob: I love being drunk.

Me: Me, too, buddy, me, too.

Rob: Cronut, it sounds like the fart noise you make after you drink chocolate milk.

Me: It sounds like the name of a military transport vehicle.

Rob: Or like the sound of fucking Hulk Hogan’s arm breaking when I arm wrestle him on Friday!!!

Me: You really doing that?

Rob: It’s what Da Mayor’s got to do. Can’t back down from bullies. Rule numero uno. It’s good fuckin’ governance.

Me: You should get him to eat a cronut before the match so he’s poisoned and weak.

Rob: Good thinking, gonna get my people on that, make a cronut task force. Get special cronuts for Hogan. He’s a bitch.

Me: He’s a big bitch

Rob: Like his daughter, tho. She be spicy! Anyway, I like this cronut game. Let’s keep playing!

Me: Cronut: A verb, slang for shitting the bed.

Rob: LOLLOLOLOLOLOLLLOO!!!

Me: The Cronuts: the name of an Improv comedy troupe.

Rob: Cronut: the sound your head makes when ur really drunk and you fall down!

Me: Saint Cronut: The patron saint of irony.

Rob: Cronut: The sound two reporter’s heads make when you fucking bash ‘em together!

Me: Cronut: The traditional Serbian ceremony performed when a boy passes into manhood.

Rob: Getting a cronut: What you say when you mean you’re going out to score drugs!

Me: My Little Cronut: A pet name for your lover.

Rob: Rusty Old Crunut: What you call a crack whore.

Me: Okay, I gotta go to bed. Rob, great chatting with you, and remember, you’re just governing the shit out of this city. Keep up the good work!

Rob: Don’t I know it!  Alright, think I’m gonna go get me a cronut right now, gotta stay alert, get some of the cronuts for my arm wrestling thing! Fuck Hulk Hogan!!! Fuck him!!! Wonder if his daughter will be there?

He couldn’t be stopped, his dick had to be seen.

Of course, politicians have long been engaged in reckless, sex scandal drenched behaviour. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia and robust anti-gay activist has actually been celebrated for his aggressive sexual posturing, with his PR team strategically releasing sex room chat transcripts to the public in an effort to bolster his macho image by “gay-baiting,” a practice common in Russia, a nation now dealing with the fallout from Putin’s new anti-gay laws.

Here is one of those transcripts:

Bear60: Tell me! What is it you are wearing!!

Twink23: Black leather chaps and a wife beater. Also, I’m hard.

Bear60: You must prove this to me! I demand it!! You are submissive!!

Bear60: Ha! I am not gay and now you have sent me a photograph of your hard penis!! The joke is on you, fag-boy!!

Twink23: I like it when you talk like that, you want some more, don’t you?

Bear60: It is a nice penis you have, strong. It is a shame you waste it on men and not women!

Twink23: I would waste it on you.

Bear60: Tell me Twink, what sort of men do you like? Do you like Russian men?

Twink23: Oh, you know I do. I love the HARD consonants of the language, I love everything HARD about Russians—their lives, their hands, their dark secrets.

Bear60: Maybe it is one of your homosexual fantasies to imagine sex with a powerful Russian man who was once a killer in the KGB!!?? Perhaps that excites you Twink23!?

Twink23: Tell me more, Bear, tell me more!

Bear60: This man, he would take you roughly because he hates that you have unnatural sex! And to show you his anger and disgust he would tear off all your clothes, and it would just be the two of you in the secluded barn that had been sheltering you from the storm! Because you are weak, you would demand to be punished sexually for the things you have done and the Russian Bear would humble you with great force and beauty, and then your skin would glisten and emit a satisfied and loving rosy hue!

Bear60: Ah, Twink, I see I have tricked you into sending me another abberant photograph of you! Ha, you are a fool, but I see you must workout! A lot. I also work out, for I am a very vigorous and heterosexual man. Do you know where it might be possible for me to trick a black homosexual into sending me a picture of his penis and muscles? Maybe the three of us could chat?

Day 1:

Spent half the goddamn day looking for the thing. Turns out Lupita put them in my desk drawer. Never know what that woman is thinking. I don’t hate illegals or anything, but I think she might be stealing from me. Why would she hide magic glasses unless she didn’t want me to see what she was up to?

Day 2:

Had soup.

Chunky Sirloin Burger with Country Vegetables.

Came out of microwave way too hot.

Glasses failed to respond to voice command, “Soup, cooler!”

Very disappointing.

Day 3:

Found on button.

Day 4:

Magic glasses allow me to watch TV in my head. Barack Obama continues to destroy the nation with his socialism. Clint Eastwood doesn’t want or need any help from the government. Government, just get out of my damn way!

Also, squirrels making a mess out of the backyard. I won’t need any government intervention to handle this one.

Day 5:

Heard something about that new pope washing the feet of juvenile delinquent girls. Don’t like the sounds of that. Isn’t the Pope just supposed to wash man feet? What the hell has Easter become? Thank God baseball’s started.

Couldn’t find glasses again, then later discovered I was wearing them. Fell asleep early.

Day 6:

Wore magic glasses on shopping expedition to get a heating pad. Woman at the cash was making a big deal about me being ‘the famous Clint Eastwood.” Hate big womanly fusses. She kept asking me to point my finger at her and say, “Do you feel lucky, Rose?” Glasses failed to weaponize upon command and so I just left without buying heating pad.

Very dissatisfied with glasses—Rose still alive, not even wounded, no heating pad and vision hasn’t improved.  Google, I’m no longer going to play your game.