This week, leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday, has always been considered the Holiest of Holy weeks to Catholics. As a child, I looked forward to new shoes and a showy hat (women still had to wear them in church, back then) and a basket full of goodies – maybe even a chocolate bunny!
I know that Weird Al Yankovic is on tour, which presumably means he’s kind of busy, but hopefully someone’s been keeping him updated on the wacky goings on in Toronto this week.
Is it just me, or does it seem like every week – every day, even – of 2015 to date has been rife with some new horror, political revelation, or scandal involving everyone from the guy on the street to a British royal?
The lady with three boobs, nude pics of Emma Watson, bendy iPhones, lost-luggage sniffing dogs on KLM. Is Facebook really about to start charging for its ‘services?’ And is the U2 iTunes giveaway a recycling of a U2 cassette giveaway back in the 80’s?
I had another blog prepared and ready to roll today about my favourite topic, music, but in light of the last 72 hours of clown car antics from the family of my city’s mayor, Rob Ford, I couldn’t let it go without comment.
Wherein Your Humble Windbag Offers Up a Cyclone of Comments on The Current Problems of the Day According to Facebook…and a bunch of other unrelated stuff.
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Anyone who knows their movie history, knows that rant comes from Peter Finch’s newscaster/commentator character Howard Beale in the movie “Network”. Credit where credit is due. Those words actually were written by the author of “Network”, Paddy Chayefsky. Where am I going with this you may well ask? Well, see I LOVE A GOOD RANT! And that “Network” rant is one of the very best. There are plenty more out there. Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly trying to record a quick promo and not having the time…or Orson Welles losing his patience with a British director on a series of TV voice overs.
History will not be kind to the memory of 2013. It was a year of meanness and spite from people in power, and a deepening of resentment towards politicians, as the ever present 
surveillance and social media exposed every little thing people never wanted known. As they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing … a lot of knowledge is Facebook.
Did you guys know that Rob Ford is the newest twerkgate? Not since Miley Cyrus stripped down to her skivvies and licked everything but the kitchen sink with her giant tongue has one single person’s name been tweeted and repeated so many times. Our little city’s big mayor is getting us all sorts of attention, and not all of it good. While many people are happy to see Toronto trending on a global scale, I for one am extremely sick of Fordgate’s crack gate, and I can’t wait for this night mayor to be over. I’ve become one of those people who plugs her ears and yells “blah blah blah” whenever the name comes anywhere near my field of hearing. Immature? Maybe. But while Toronto and the rest of the world seems quite content to fuel the fire of the inferno the Ford trainwreck has become, I’m inclined to think there are far far better things to think and talk about than our unapologetic and irresponsible manbaby of a mayor.
I am a Torontonian. I was born in East York at East General Hospital 50 years ago this coming Tuesday and raised in Scarborough – both originally neighbouring boroughs of Toronto. I’ve always considered these places suburbs of Toronto anyway and it was made official when they were amalgamated into the new City of Toronto in 1998. I worked for the City of Scarborough for 12 years leading up to the annexing of all the Metropolitan Toronto territories (which also 
included North York, York, and Etobicoke). 44 out of my 50 years have been spent living here. I’ve lived in the shadows both Yorkdale and Cedarbrae malls, on the eastern leg of The Danforth, and in the belly of Malvern when it was still radioactive but before it became a hideout for drug gangs and a haven for grow-ops. I’ve communed at the wolf den on the outskirts of the Metro Toronto Zoo and gone swimming in Lake Ontario at the foot of the Rouge River.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 