Toronto Mayor Rob Ford: What He Was Thinking

As many of you know, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and I were accidental drinking buddies back in our College days at Carleton University in Ottawa. We’ve kept in touch over the years and recently, after a series of boozy, late night communications, I’ve begun to work with Rob in an effort to help rehabilitate his image. Inspired by the old New York Times photo series, What They Were Thinking, where people who had candid photographs taken of them were asked what they were thinking at that moment, Rob and I have taken on a similar project in which the Mayor gets an opportunity to reveal what was in his heart when the media snapped a shot of him. These are the preliminary results:

“In this picture I was thinking about the colour of the car, how it was like the bottom of one of those above-ground swimming pools that the poor people put up in their backyards. I grew up with a real pool. We were rich. Pools are a good way of excluding people and creating pecking orders. The football guys liked to hangout at our pool, but without the pool, who knows? I was also wondering about all the sex that took place in that car. A lot, I bet.

“ In this photograph I was thinking about what it would feel like to shoot a monkey, the Ikea Monkey in particular. What was his name? Genesis? Something stupid. Anyway, ever since that monkey became a big media story I’ve been having fantasies about shooting it. Not sure why. It might be the little, gay coat that bugs me. It’s not natural that a boy monkey is dressed that way. “

“ Blow Jobs and the way that pets look at you funny when you’re having sex.”

“I don’t want to sound vain because I’m a man of the people, but I was thinking that I look good in hats. A lot of people say that you can measure a politician’s success by how natural and at ease he looks in different hats. (Don’t know what the policy is for chicks). I think a lot of my political success has to do with my ability to look good in a hat.

“ I probably should have been thinking about the owl, but I was deep in thought right there considering the works of Roman poet and philosopher Lucretious and his views on Epicurean principles and Atomism. I think that a lot of people misunderstand hedonism and I was trying to untangle that philosophical quandary and than suddenly I was like, “Oh fuck, an owl!”