These are the text messages I sent my wife Rachelle on Monday:
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Me: Yep.
Me: Dropped Jones off at daycare and am now at the polling station getting ready to cast my vote for mayor!
Me: No.
Me: Mayor McCheese is not on the ballot.
Me: It is a shame. Not only is he VERY experienced, but he’s also delicious.
Me: I agree, we do underestimate taste when it comes to appraising our candidates.
Me: I think Doug Ford would have been a buttery mayor, like wagyu beef.
Me: John Tory? The current mayor? Beef jerky.
Me: He looks creepy. Desiccated and plastic, like if you bred a dry roasted peanut with a Ken doll. Looks like somebody from Blue Rodeo who suddenly got really, really old!
Me: No.
Me: No, that’s not a “dig” at Jim Cuddy.
Me: All I’m saying is that his opponent, Jennifer Keesmaat, has aged pretty well.
Me: What?
Me: Look, all I mean is that she looks as good now as she did 15 years ago. Let’s smash the patriarchy and vote for her!!
Me: Oh.
Me: Well, when you put it like that I guess it does sound a bit like I’m going to smash the patriarchy by voting for a woman I think has aged well.
Me: And you think that’s wrong?
Me: Okay.
Me: Well, in my defence I knew JK back in the day.
Me: Didn’t I tell you?
Me: But look, I also like her transit plan. Very smart. And let me assure you, she’s more than just another pretty face! You should vote for The Keezer!
Me: A nickname I had for her.
Me: Oh, that was so long ago.
Me: Lava Life, I think.
Me: We only went out on one date.
Me: Went to Maine for a long weekend.
Me: Yeah, I guess it was a three day date.
Me: What did we do?
Me: Well, she’s a HUGE Stephen King fan so we went on a tour of his house in Bangor.
Otherwise, we just drank some wine, walked the beaches, talked policy. Stuff like that.
Me: Hunh!
Me: Hadn’t thought about that, but yeah, Stephen King’s house is my screen saver.
Me: Look, I hadn’t even met you yet!
Me: Rest assured, if you were running for mayor I would vote for you!
Me: You would organize the hell out of this city!
Me: You really would.
Me: And I LOVE the idea of making Toronto a Sanctuary City for all the lost animals of the world.
Me: You would be a way better mayor than JK.
Me: I would be a Russian bot for you.
Me: I would lie to congress for you.
Me: You wouldn’t believe how many laws I would break for you political ambition!!
Me: People would be screaming at me every goddamn time I tried to eat out. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.
Me: It’s true. You are the fire with which I burn. You have all of me, my love, you always have and always will.
Me: Yes.
Me: Absolutely. You have my word.
Me: I will change my screen saver.
]]>As many of you will have heard, I have started a daily Podcast with Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund.
This is an excerpt from our most recent episode:
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Me: Well, that was awfully nice of Ontario Premier Doug Ford to come in for an interview and show us his old shot put from high school!
Heidi: Heidi no get shot put.
Me: What don’t you get?
Heidi: It just metal ball you can’t chase! Why have ball if not chase? Like big circle rock, and if circle-ball-rock not used to crush cat or squirrel or dumb bird, what the point?
Me: Well, as Premier Ford explained, it is a display of both mental and physical mastery.
Heidi: Heidi don’t think so. Heidi call bullshit.
Me: You ALWAYS call bullshit.
Heidi: Heidi calls them as she sees him. Why she respected journalist.
Me: You are a good journalist, it’s true.
Heidi: Heidi know. You could learn thing or two from Heidi.
Me: Like how to eat really, really, disgustingly quickly and spill my kibble all over the place?
Heidi: Grrrr. Grrrr.
Me: Well, it’s a shame that we never got to find out if Premier Ford would have won the gold medal for shot put at the Olympics. He’s right, the boycott back in 1980 really did just punish the athletes.
Heidi: Can’t give communism a foothold anywhere! But still, Heidi think something fishy about story.
Me: What do you mean?
Heidi: Well, if he and famous Ford Pack big part of Illuminati as he say, then they control Olympics. They do what they want!
Sex parties and gold medals and meat fat all the time!!
Me: But if they were part of the Illuminati, that would explain the family’s mysterious rise to power! I mean, his brother, a crack addict, was mayor of the city! How could something like that happen if not for the power of the Illuminati?
Heidi: Heidi know thing or two about Illuminati, and all Heidi say is Ford Pack not Illuminati material.
Me: Am I Illuminati material?
Heidi: Heidi not sure. Heidi very, very hungry. Maybe if she had treat would help her think.
Me: Would a liver treat do?
Heidi: Not ones from Dollar Store, liver treats from Italy.
Me: I said liver treat. Not treats. Singular. Not plural.
Heidi: Give Heidi treat.
Me: Okay.
Heidi: Not Illuminati material. Not even close. Bug Illuminati at best. Maybe dirt Illuminati.
Me: Let’s just move on, shall we? I have to say, I really thought Premier Ford dodged the question I asked him about the #MeToo movement! What did he say? “Shot putters never have to worry about the ladies?” What do you think that means?
Heidi: Heidi don’t care. He use Ralph Lauren Chaps cologne to try to hide smell of lies and anger, but smell too strong.
Can never escape his own stink. He all lies and anger.
Me: So when he said he would rather take barbarism over socialism, you believed him?
Heidi: Two-leggers all so naive. Barbarism only system that works.
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And although Doug shares the same bullying, impenetrable forehead and tiny, receded eyes that characterized his younger brother, he is distinct in a few ways. Primarily, he has always been seen as the steadying brains behind the operation. Always a belligerent and pitiless protector of his misunderstood, addict brother, Doug was also seen as the intellectual wind beneath Ford Nation’s wings. Doug dealt dope, while Rob used it.
That sort of thing.
At any rate, Doug Ford is now running against Liberal Kathleen Wynne to become the Premier of Ontario. He is doing better than you’d think, and seems to be riding a conservative, populist backlash that’s shivering up the spine of so many nations right now. Doug Ford, a white, affluent suburban businessman from a political dynasty, has long fashioned himself as being “For the People,” and has been making a point of courting various communities that might find more in common with his traditional values than say, Kathleen Wynne.
Who is a lady.
A lady lesbian.
A lady lesbian who is not For the People.
A lady lesbian who hates your way of life.
At any rate, one of the ways that the campaign is doing this outreach is for Doug and his family to go to a different community restaurant each month and review it. It’s part photo-up, part promotion for small business, and an opportunity for Ford to network and get his face in media. This is his first review:
Doug N’ Dash Food Reviews
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Pukka (Indian)
778 St. Clair
Toronto
I have to tell you, when I heard the name I didn’t want to go. Who wants to go to a restaurant with a name like that? Nobody, that’s who. Lazy marketing there. Imagine if my family had called Deco Labels and Tags, FIBROMYALGIA or something.
Pretty negative, pretty confusing, eh? So the first thing I would do is change the Puke name to something like: GOOD INDIAN FOOD THAT ISN’T TOO GODDAMN SPICY AND COMES AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE.
The Indian people, so famous for their yoga, bright colours and diarrhea, aren’t stupid. No they just need somebody For The People, somebody who knows how to get the job done, to serve as a business mentor to help move them out of all the 7-11’s and into buffet style operations they can run themselves!
You will notice that Kathleen Wynne, who does not love minorities as I do, ever in a restaurant. This is because she has a finger disease in which the the skin is always peeling off. Really gross. Like a snake shedding it’s skin or something.
You watch her fingers.
You’ll see she’s hiding something.
So I had the butter chicken and the wife, who doesn’t much like the Indian food as it can give her the Aztec two-step, had something with kale in it.
You know women. Straight women.
Anyway, my chicken was good.
Not Swiss Chalet good, but good.
I’d give it a 7 out of 10.
Karla said her kale thing was good, too.
THIS RESTARAUNT IS FORD APPROVED!
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