Prelude
I was born in Lachine, a suburb of Montreal in the province of Quebec. My family moved to west Etobicoke, Ontario in 1974 when I was 7 years old. I moved out when I was 20 years old, but it wasn’t until I was 23 that I moved downtown, where I’ve remained. For almost 20 years I lived within the boundaries of Bloor/Christie/St George and College, with a brief stint on Brunswick Avenue a few blocks north of Bloor. In 2007 I moved to Cabbagetown, east of Yonge for the first time. I fell in love with what’s known as West Riverdale, and I’m here to stay for a while.
This is my city. Especially the downtown. My various workplaces over the last 20 years, where I went to school (ah, OISE), my volunteer gigs, my credit union, all within this relatively small space in the larger city that I love so much.
Art, culture politics. In the late 1990s I read my written work for the first time in my life, to an audience as part of the Mayworks festival, at a venue on Church Street.
Why this preamble? Because today this was not my city. Today my city was taken over, today, I saw Toronto in a way that I have never seen it before, and it wasn’t good.
Saturday June 26, 2010
2pm
There are no streetcars running on my stretch of Carlton Street, so I walk to University Avenue. I pass Yonge Street and see my first set of police, standing around, not doing much, their riot helmuts dangling down one leg, and a large pouch strapped down their other leg. What’s in the pouch? Tear gas canisters? Extra rubber bullets? I will never know.
I arrive late to the march and rally, and join it in progress at University and College.
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“What I Learned from Preston Manning and William Shatner”
Given that I’m neither a father nor a son, my understanding of issues facing fathers is pretty miniscule.
But yesterday, Friday June 18, the Globe and Mail featured two articles, one written by Preston Manning, the other about William Shatner. As my more devoted readership would already know, reading the newspaper almost always enrages me, and no good can come of it, except maybe a new blog post.
1.
So, first, Preston Manning’s father-worship piece.
Deep cleansing breath.
I haven’t read such an emotional, yet fascinatingly cold-hearted suck up/ praise/ celebration of white ruling-class masculinity in a very long time. Certainly not something at least mediated by quotes and footnotes and a feminist/ anti-racist/ post-modern critique.
This undiluted stuff is pretty harsh, astringent. Like Old Spice mixed with Liquid Drano. Basically, a bio-hazard.
Preston mentions, rather off handedly, that he was one year old the year his father was first elected premier. What follows is a sad, disconnected piece praising his father’s political “achievements”, but demonstrating nothing about who his father was as a person, since of course, Preston doesn’t have any access to that information or experience. Nor did he care to, apparently.
Hey everyone.
I’d like to introduce a new guest blogger who will be blogging here in this space occasionally.
Slumberjack’s intro is:
a few words from the white dude corner….some white dude who believes that corporatism is the root of all that renders human beings into favoured and unfavoured categories, and purposefully set upon on one another through the processes of exploitation.
Welcome, Slumberjack!
feralgeographer, a way cool queer blogger, has told me about NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. The idea is to post every day for a month, and it’s November 2009, and it’s on. I’m even a few days late. Damn!
So I will do today’s post with some links to videos that have caught my attention recently.
First is Chimamanda Adichie on “The Danger of the Single Story”
Wow and super wow. Take 19 minutes out of your life and watch and listen.
Second is Two Hot Transsexuals Finally Give Some Answers!
Funny and smart!
Some of you may have read of my friend and colleague B’s adventure in a downtown Toronto emergency room in April of this year.
This is the story of my sweetie, R, and his adventures a few weeks ago.
What happened was R accidentally got his hand caught in the doors of those old-style freight elevators. He began bleeding profusely and called security of the building, attempted to stop the bleeding in a public washroom, passed out (!!) briefly, and was taken to the hospital which was about three blocks away.
He called me from the waiting room, and by the time I got there 30 minutes later, he was being seen. As I waited for him, I realized he wasn’t coming back out, that they were actually treating him.
Within 30 minutes?
In a downtown Toronto hospital?
Have I mentioned that sweet, lovable R is a white guy?
