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.
]]>This year, in an effort to be a little more sensitive to those who might be upset by the images, Sports Illustrated hired me to write Trigger Warnings to precede each photograph:
Trigger Warning:
Viewing of the following image of totally inaccessible supermodel Tanya Mituyshin may trigger traumatic memories of the time you saw high school goddess Marie-Therese Vitzhum in a bikini at a pool party when you were in grade 10. You might recall how out of your league she was and how she seemed like she might have been from Europe, or some angel galaxy that was as far from Ottawa as anything could possible be. You might recall feeling bony, insufficient and pale, watching as she sat piggyback on the shoulders of the muscular Randy Rafter, her breasts pressing against the back of his head as she leaned forward laughing. This image of Tanya Mituyshin could trigger such memories, creating a constant, deeply haunting reminder that you never mustered the courage to speak to MT– as she was known to her friends– and how regardless of the status and success you might achieve, you will always feel like that overlooked and scared 14 year-old boy.
Trigger Warning:
Viewing of the following image of supermodel Hannah Davies may trigger traumatic memories for people who have had difficult relationships with fishing nets in their past. This photograph could spark a deeply repressed memory of the time your friend, as a “prank,” threw a fishing net over you down by the boathouse while attending a cottage party, and instead of fighting to escape from the net, you lay in a fetal position and quietly wept for your mother, certain that you were about to be murdered, as you had always had premonitions of death by fish net.
Trigger Warning:
Viewing the following image of supermodel Gigi Hadid may trigger feelings of profound resentment and homicidal rage in people with a history of despising life in a society where Gigi Hadid, a glittering, young celebrity, is considered an achievable model of feminine beauty. Recollections of unreasonable and cruel demands may flood over you as you navigate the aisles of Shopper’s Drug Mart, your mind flashing red to every cultural message that has ever helped make you feel that you were somehow just not enough. You’re just trying to get some shit done after a long, grinding day behind your desk at the Ministry of Transportation, and then there’s Gigi, smoulder-glowing out at you from the pages of a stupid magazine, and suddenly, before you know it, you’ve kicked the hell out of an entire display stand of kale-and-beet-infused shampoo and punched-out a pharmacist, Club Optima points be damned.
