Donald J. Trump: I just hope that Brad was smart and had a prenup like I did. #ArtofTheDeal

Donald J. Trump: Getting married, like ISIS, is no joke– you need to be ruthless when you end it!

Donald J. Trump: It’s a nuclear situation. #VladisaGreatLeader

Donald J. Trump: Brad Pitt, a little flaky. In a golf tournament with him once. No sense for the game.

Donald J. Trump: Quite a bit shorter than me, but still a real looker.

Donald J. Trump: Anyway, when you’re rich and powerful you can have your pick. That’s the American way.

Donald J. Trump: Brad knows that, so why would he stay with damaged goods?

Donald J. Trump: Why would America stay with damaged goods? Time for a change, America! #TrumpIceGreatestWaterEver

Donald J. Trump: Sure, Angelina was really something a few year ago, but now? After all those cancer surgeries? Brad can do better. America can do better! #VoteTrump

Donald J. Trump: Do people notice Crooked and Sick Hillary is copying my airplane rallies – she puts the plane behind her like I have been doing from the beginning.

Donald J. Trump: Crooked and Sick Hillary is taking the day off again, she needs the rest. Sleep well Crooked and Sick Hillary – see you at the debate!

Donald J. Trump: Wonder if Gwyneth Paltrow had anything to do with the end of Brangelina?

Donald J. Trump: Wouldn’t put it past her.

Donald J. Trump: You gotta watch out for the exes. Always come crawling back.

Donald J. Trump: Paltrow married a Brit. Always putting on a fake accent. Don’t trust her.

Donald J. Trump: Both she and Angelina are washed up. Sad.

Donald J. Trump: Bet Jennifer Aniston is happy now.

Donald J. Trump: There’s an American. A real girl next door.

Donald J. Trump: Rachel, and those headlights? Whoah. What American man didn’t want to shtup her?

Donald J. Trump: I would take my chances with her, she’s one Skittle I’d eat regardless of the poison risk. #NoToSyrianRefugees

Donald J. Trump: Did I have sex with Jennifer Aniston? Gentlemen don’t tell. #Probably

Donald J. Trump: Did I have sex with Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie? All I will say is I am very happy with my beautiful wife.

Donald J. Trump: Melania will be the most beautiful First Lady in history!

Donald J. Trump: I know it’s not politically correct to say, but Crooked Hillary has to be the ugliest FLOTUS in history!

Donald J. Trump: Why would we want her as the ugliest POTUS, too?

Donald J. Trump: Brad Pitt hates Crooked Hillary.

Donald J. Trump: I don’t even think Bill had sex with Crooked, Sick Hillary. #WasChelseaAdopted

Donald J. Trump: Crooked Hillary wants to take your 2nd Amendment rights away. Will guns be taken from her heavily armed Secret Service detail? Maybe not!

Donald J. Trump: However, you do have to hand it to Angelina for taking her clothes off in so many movies. Very brave.

Donald J. Trump: Nobody braver than our troops though! Not even naked Angelina!

Donald J. Trump: She never would have had a done a nude scene if she was a Muslim. #FeministsForTrump

Donald J. Trump: Think about it America.

Donald J. Trump: Commemorative Donald Trump coins now available for order. #Buy9The10thForFree

This was greeted by jeers and laughter from the crowd, and pretty much immediately, John Tory, Ford’s primary opponent, issued a statement accusing him of using “the classic refuge of racists, anti-Semites and homophobes” when he said this.

The next day, Doug tried to clarify his remarks:

“Matter of fact, my wife is Jewish. Her mother is Jewish. And they have to come after me? You got to be joking. My wife was furious last night at John Tory’s statement. It’s disgusting.”

But as it turns out, the Fords are a well—known family of evangelical Christians, including Ford’s wife, Karla.

As I used to drink with Rob Ford back at Carleton University in Ottawa, I am considered a trusted member of the Ford inner circle, and was asked by Doug to come in and consult on the election, offering some advice on the campaign and how best to deal with the sensitive matter of race relations.

These are some of the thoughts that I shared with Doug:

Come out swinging against ISIS!!

Paint your opponents as people who are weak on beheadings, and then in classic Doug Ford mode, intimidation level set to 11, issue a challenge to ISIS to just come and try to behead you. You let them know that if they want a war with Ford Nation, then they can have it! The Jewish community will love you for it! (From this point forward, the War Against Isis will be a primary plank in your election campaign.)

Exposing your neck for the cameras, ask, “Is John Tory willing to put his neck on the line for you?”

Demand to know if John Tory looked at any of the stolen celebrity sex pictures. When he denies that he did, in a mocking voice, ask, “ What? You don’t want to see Jessica Simpson naked, what’s the matter with you?”

You must then imply that you have evidence that he has indeed looked at the photographs, and that he is a sex criminal and a liar. Say it “disgusts” you, as the public loves when you do that, and then challenge John Tory to a boxing match for charity, perhaps to create a fund to keep West Africans who might have Ebola out of Toronto. When he says, no, say, “Geez, you’ve spent so much money on cosmetic surgery that I keep forgetting how very, very old you are. ”

Do not use the expression CHINGLISH when referencing Toronto’s Asian community.

Make note that the Asians are more than just a people who work like dogs, but also have a great love of gambling, and that as a businessman, you applaud both their willingness to take risks and to work hard. Let them know that you would gladly fight by their side against ISIS.

I wanted to see the pictures, even though I clearly understood that they were stolen property. My desire to see Jennifer Lawrence nude was greater than my moral aversion to invading and violating her privacy. The Internet, as it always does, enabled my reptile brain, and in a way in which it’s very likely that I won’t suffer any consequences for my transgressions.

I don’t think twice about watching pirated TV shows or movies, have no qualms about downloading music without paying for it, and even though I work as a writer, I don’t pay for any subscriptions and get irritated whenever I’m asked to jump through a few hoops in order to get access to content. I guess I feel entitled, and instead of viewing things as private property, I see the online world as communal, shared property, imaging a friend loaning me something like it was a book or an album. My relationship to this material is ephemeral and abstract, and instead of taking solid form and becoming a part of my physical landscape, it passes through me and then drifts back into the fog from whence it came, having more in common with memory than actuality.

When it comes to the stolen nude photos I think I told myself that there was an element of performance to them and that they were the quasi-intentional outcropping of the exhibitionism that is celebrity and were part of continuing seduction, and that they kind of wanted them to be seen, even if this was clearly false.

The truth is that I see celebrities as a brand or corporation—an entity that sells rather than a person that actually lives. They exist as a kind of avatar, a very conscious construct, something symbolic, like a myth, and although our attention is constantly drawn to them, we will never know them. They’re projections, both of our longing and our resentments, and this created persona absorbs all of our vitriol and love, until the actual person at the core of it is destroyed and a new star has to emerge for public adulation and sacrifice.

The Internet accelerates this process. The celebrity is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and our appetite for them has never been so ferocious and predatory. We want all of them, all the time, and every once in awhile the real person behind the curtain gets revealed—vulnerable, flawed, even pedestrian or banal– and we all have to step back and ask ourselves what exactly it is we’re looking at, and what exactly the cost of that might be.