Minutes from my bookclub

Minutes from my Bookclub

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Me: Hey, it’s great to see you all again! Thanks for coming! As you can see there’s a bunch of food and wine…

Doug Ford*: I don’t drink.

Me: Oh, hey Doug!

Doug Ford: No alcohol at all. Not even a drop.

Me: Well, as I was saying, we have a bunch of food, wine and soft drinks on the dinning room table, and you should all feel free to help yourselves to whatever you want– and to avoid whatever you don’t! Anyway, the book we’re going to be discussing is the Hunter S. Thompson classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Thompson, as you know, pioneered Gonzo journalism, and I thought it might be worth having a look back at this book so that we might consider how the media covered politics in 1970 with how they cover it now. Would anyone like to get us started?

Anne: I don’t know, I think the book feels a little forced, a little dated now, but I really like the way that he portrays the American Dream as a kind of nightmarish hallucination.

Cormac: And the illustrations by Ralph Steadman are brilliant and terrifying, a perfect accompaniment.

Doug Ford: (Snort.)

Me: You didn’t like the illustrations, Doug?

Doug Ford: They look like chicken scratchings. Real garbage. Does smudging your work make it “artistic” or something? Let me tell you, the Ford family printing business never would have survived and been as successful as it was– and it’s been VERY successful– if we’d sent out smudgy work all the time.

It’s just unprofessional. Lazy. Makes me sick.

Me: Interesting point, Doug.

Anne: Did anybody see the movie version of Fear and Loathing, the one starring Johnny Depp?

Doug Ford: Luke Wilson.

Anne: Sorry?

Doug Ford: It starred Luke Wilson not Johnny Depp.

Anne: I just Googled it. Here, ( holding up phone) it says Johnny Depp.

Doug Ford: Nope. It was Luke Wilson. ( crosses arms)

Me: Well, ha-ha-ha, one things for certain, they’ve both been in an awful lot of movies!

Anne: ( In hushed voice) Michael, we talked about this. No more normalizing him, okay?

Me: ( In hushed voice) For the love of God, Anne, just be quiet!

Doug Ford: And let me tell you, I go to Vegas all the time, and wherever the hell those dirty maggot journalists in the book were, it sure as hell wasn’t Vegas!

Cormac: I wonder how Hunter S. Thompson would have covered the mass shooting in Vegas? I would love to have read a Fear and Loathing where they were driving to Vegas in order to cover the shooting instead of the motor cycle race!

Anne: Yeah, that would have been a really interesting twist, I think.

Doug Ford: Last time I was in Vegas was just six weeks ago. For a Neil Diamond concert.

Wife is a bit of a Diamond Head, so we do a lot of road trips through the States attending his concerts. I tell you, that is a man with real talent. We should be talking about him. Sweet Caroline? You name me a better song. Go on! I dare you!

( Uncomfortable silence in the room)

Doug Ford: That’s what I thought.

• Doug Ford is a well-known Toronto politician who was brother to mayor Rob Ford, and who is currently running to become the leader of the Conservative party of Ontario.