Every time I see an article lauding Mayor John Tory’s ‘inspired’ idea of turning Toronto into a ‘Music City,’ I get queasy. You see, I came to Toronto in 1976, when it really WAS one, and have watched succeeding local governments and well-heeled blue noses, waving the banners of political correctness and money over art, stomp the culture to death.
I’ve run out of epitaphs. The battlefield of pop continues to accumulate bodies. During this past week we were reminded of the passing of Karen Carpenter (33 years ago) and the officially recognized Day the Music Died (really? Then what have we been listening to in the intervening 57 years?).
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.
I have lived on a beautiful, quiet, residential street in Scarborough for 15 years this month. Up the street, just a stagger away, is a busy local pub called the Black Dog, where I’ve seen many a friend play, and drank many a cold pint.
There is an old adage that says that you can’t go home again. It has a double meaning – not only can’t you relive the past but in many cases the places where the events in your past actually happened are no longer there.
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
