On Monday, Rob Ford was elected Mayor of Toronto.<\/p>\n

There are probably a few things you should know about him.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s your garden variety Conservative, the kind of guy that gets all red in the face, pumping his meaty fist in the air shouting,\u201d the gravy train must stop!\u201d The other striking thing about him is his appearance, which is of a defeated salesman. A big, heaving white guy, Ford has tiny, receded eyes that makes him look like he\u2019s spent most of his life underground. His hair, so absent of colour as to appear transparent, is thin, sparse and likely styled by a straight guy from Oshawa. And of course, his past is buckshot with the sort of Frat Boy controversy you\u2019d expect from a guy that grew up idolizing Rush Limbaugh and the CFL.<\/p>\n

As such, all the downtown types in the city hate him, a loathing that is only amplified by Ford having dropped out of Carleton University in Ottawa before he got his degree in Political Science.<\/p>\n

Well, I was living in Ottawa at the same time as Ford, and as we both drank at The New Edinburgh Pub each night, we became drinking buddies, and I want all of you to know that real Rob Ford, and not just the caricature that\u2019s been presented in the media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Robber\u201d as he liked to be called, was an ass man. He always over-tipped the pretty waitresses and usually ordered the Suicide Wings. He certainly considered himself the life of the party, and if there were any lampshades in the place, well, he would have been the first to wear one. He had a Fantasy Hockey Team called \u201cFords Friggin\u2019 Freight Trains,\u201d (FFFT for short) that he was very proud of. He could also drink like a champion, putting back about 6 pints of Canadian a night, and whenever he got drunk he would talk in an Australian accent and inevitably start singing the theme to Ghost Busters.<\/p>\n

However, there is more, much more to the man, and I want to share a few of the things that he said to me over the course of our year of drinking together.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike, I know that everybody just thinks I\u2019m a big, jolly ball of light, but I have my pain. I think about things, like why are some babies sick and others cute? Why?\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Rob told me that he had been taking a creative writing course at the University.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what I like writing about, Murray? Trucks. Fucking love writing about trucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBigfoot is real. No shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m like the Captain, and you\u2019re like Gilligan! You ever think of that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we should have any Russians in the NHL. Their names are too hard to pronounce and they\u2019re pussies. You with me, little buddy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get a few beers to go, head back to my place and smoke a joint. I\u2019ve been working on that Honeymoon Suite song on the keyboards and I want to know if you think I\u2019m ready for the Open Mike night on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMur, I swear, if a flying saucer came down right now, I would look up at \u2018em and just yell, \u201cCalgon, take me away!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich character from \u201cFriends\u201d are you most like? I\u2019m like Joey. And which chick would you most want to do? For me it\u2019s Rachel. Big time. You see the can on her?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, Little Buddy, sometimes I just think municipal government is too big.\u201d<\/p>\n

* ( most of this is not true) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, Rob Ford was elected Mayor of Toronto. There are probably a few things you should know about him. He\u2019s your garden variety Conservative, the kind of guy that gets all red in the face, pumping his meaty fist in the air shouting,\u201d the gravy train must stop!\u201d The other striking thing about him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5420,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions\/5420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}