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.

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.

and he just won the race to become the Ontario leader of the Progressive Conservative party after a controversial election. This is his acceptance speech:

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Thank you, thank you!

Thanks.

Hey, let’s give it up for The Dream Police, the best goddamn Cheap Trick tribute band in the entire GTA!!

Okay, okay, I know you’re all excited, but let’s bring it down a bit.

Now.

We can bring it down NOW.

I SAID BE QUIET DAMMIT

I MEAN IT

YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH I MEAN IT

Ok, that’s better.

Well my friends, thank you for coming this evening.

Tonight we took the first step in defeating our opposition. The people of Ontario want the crappy Ontario Liberals cleansed from government, and I am more than happy to be the man to deliver that enema!

JESUS H CHRIST YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME

ARE YOU CHEWING GUM

YES, YOU IN THE FRONT ROW

YOU KNOW DAMN WELL I’M TALKING TO YOU

DO YOU SEE ANYBODY ELSE CHEWING GUM

SWEET CAROLINE DONT MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE BECAUSE I WILL AND I WILL TEAR THAT GUM OUT OF YOUR MOUTH LIKE IT WAS A TONGUE FROM AN ALBANIAN PIG…

Okay.

As I was saying, I want to thank my beautiful wife Karla, my girls, my whole family, and my brother, Rob upstairs. He was incredible. He sacrificed so much for the little man.

Rob, my brother, you always stood by me, you were my rock. I wouldn’t be standing here without your support. And to my incredible team, you were absolutely amazing, your dedication to our cause made this possible. The hard-working people of Ontario, I am truly humbled, very humbled, by your support. You are the ones who kept me going, you are the reason I am here.

We have a lot of work to do before the next campaign. We have a lot to do in a very short amount of time. But I promise you this. I will get our party back on track. We will put a platform forward that speaks to every Ontarian. Together we will return our province to where it belongs. We will make Ontario the leader of jobs and growth in Canada. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: Ontario will be open for business.

Nine to five.

Every single day of the week except Sunday.

Just like our family business Deco Labels and Tags.

We were always ready to serve the public. Always.

Does that sound like white privilege to you?

I didn’t think so.

YOU BETTER BE FUCKING KIDDING ME

AGAIN WITH THE GUM

IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU

DO YOU HAVE A MEDICAL CONDITION WHERE YOU HAVE TO CHEW GUM LIKE A MORON WHENEVER A MAN OF THE PEOPLE IS MAKING A SPEECH

HAVE YOU BEEN ON OPRAH TO TALK ABOUT YOUR CONDITION YET

HOW ITS IMPACTED YOUR LIFE

BUDDY I AM ABOUT TO IMPACT YOUR LIFE LIKE A GODDAMN METEOR

Yeah, that’s better, you just put that gum away.

Snowflake.

Friends, it’s been an awfully long night and I will have more to say about how we’re going to punch the Liberals in the gut in coming days, but for now we have to clear the hall for an Ayahuasca For Seniors Ceremony that’s supposed to be coming in and starting up at 5:00, so if everybody could just make their way, in an orderly fashion, to the exits…

Let’s not keep our seniors waiting.

We’re not doing some social science study here, we’re getting things done.

MOTHER AYAHUASCA WAITS FOR NO MAN OR WOMAN!!!

EVERYBODY OUT, GODDAMIT!!!

He’s receded from public life and many have been wondering what he’s been doing. As it turns out, one of the things he’s been doing is applying to attend an Icelandic Writer’s Retreat in April. The application required that you write a short story or essay based on the following photograph of the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center:

This is Doug Ford’s entry:

Sometimes a guy can go to a pretty black place. That can happen after you lose an election. When your whole life has been about winning, and winning hard, losing feels like a sucker punch to the gut. Not even football or pornography or yelling at people can fill the hole. Sometimes a guy has to go to therapy.

Therapy is for the weak, and Ron Ice, a very successful businessman and philanthropist, was not a weak man. He was a powerful man, a man who was a shot put champion at his high school.

Girls used to gather around to watch him throw the shot put. Ron was like a Nordic god and he did very well with the ladies, thank you very much. Those were good times for Ron, but now, with all the critics and small people yammering away at him after the election, all the people who don’t understand how to run a business, he realized he needed to clear his head, even if it was the weak thing to do.

Ron looked deep into his soul and realized that he wanted to broaden his horizons.

Iceland.

Iceland was the territory that Ron always started in when he was playing Risk.

It had access to markets in both the east and west, had plenty of challenging terrain to hide in and there was little pollution. Ron would move to Iceland and start his empire there!

People loved Doug Ford in Iceland. He stood a good six inches taller than the rest of the population, and as he still looked like a Nordic god, people began to worship him, “Look!” the villagers would cry, “The prophecy is true and the Ice King now walks amongst us! Ron Ice took the country by goddamn storm.

One day ISIS terrorists took over the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center where they planned to burn Christians in cages. Ron Ice would have none of that. Ron drove down there in his jeep, got out and just walked into the place. People were in awe of what big balls he had. When the terrorists saw him they all started yelling and getting excited in that language of theirs. They waved machine guns around, but Ron was as cool as ice.

He just stared at them, a penetrating hate stare, and then he began to yell, his mighty eyes bulging, and when he did they all put down their weapons like subservient kittens and were arrested.

Ron Ice walked out of there, got back in his jeep and drove up to the misty green hills of Norðurland vestra, where he had some property and a condo, and from where he would soon launch his internationally successful printing business Ice King Labels and Tags.

To this day, he never’s beat me. I always dominated Rob on the teeter-totter. Sometimes my mother would ask me to ease up, to let him win one, but I wouldn’t. That’s not the way life works. You gotta suck it up and be tough, and when it’s time to go to rehab, you go to rehab, that’s what it is to be a man. I never gave him a win and I like to think that’s part of what made him the man he is today.

1. Although it doesn’t look like it, I’m nearly 5 years older than Rob, so when we were young I used to command him with my size and strength. I’m a very powerful man. I used to do the shot put in high school.

You might think that’s all about arm strength, but it’s not, it’s core and leg strength, which are a couple of my natural gifts. Anyway, so little Robbie would be on his end, and try as he might, he couldn’t lift me off the ground. His face would be red and he’d be kicking his legs swearing, and then I’d just step off the teeter-totter and the little bastard would break his ass on the ground at a million miles an hour! It was awesome, and it never failed, just like with Lucy getting Charlie Brown to kick the football.

2. Rob was always a pretty chubby kid, so I liked to take off my shirt when I got on the teeter-totter, just to intimidate him. I have to say it worked like a charm because you’d just see this look of defeat, shame and anger wash over his face, and then he never seemed to try as hard.

3. One time, and this was priceless, I was pretending to let Rob beat me, just to get his hopes up. It had been years, he’d lost hundreds of dollars to me, and still, he’d never won. Just as he’s all excited that he’s FINALLY gonna win one, this kid I hired came up behind him and whipped a basketball into the back of his head. Taught him a lesson that day. Your enemies can come from anywhere.

4. When I was a senior in high school and Rob was just a minor niner he had a boner for a girl named Kelly.

One day we went to the park to do some teeter-totter but when I got on “The Plank of Doom,” (that’s what we used to call it) I called Kelly over and got her to sit on my lap. Made out with her. Stuck my hand up her shirt and felt around, too. Rob just forgot about the match and ran over and tried to join in, but I wouldn’t let him, and then he cried and beat up some fairy Chinese kid. It’s the day Rob became a man, I think.