June 28, 2010- I said I wouldn't talk politics

But I can't hold back on this one. This patio thing is stupid.

Sorry to my friends on the BIA; I like you, I really do, but this business of forcing patios to move to the curb is just plain dumb. Dumb, anti-business and not friendly at all to a downtown that appears to me to be struggling very hard.

If I were a restaurateur, I'd threaten to take my patio down, too, rather than be forced to move it.

I'd also have a wee word with councillors Foley, Jeffery, Labelle, McNabb and Sandberg and I would be sure to ask anyone who wants my vote in October where they stand on the issue.

I've just spoken with Sean Cripps at Duncan's, and his patio will be gone Monday morning. He says as far as he knows, every other patio is going to be taken down by the July 5th deadline, too.

The vote to move the patios is sure good news for the restaurants on first street and in the west end, though.

As for me, who tries to spend my money downtown whenever possible, it's looking like my backyard patio will be the only one I frequent. Sorry for the noise, neighbours!

June 28, 2010- Sympathy for the Protesters

Well, that was exciting.

Aren't you glad we got to show off our biggest, brightest, most diverse and peaceful city to the world at the big summit over the weekend?
Aren't you glad we just spent more than billion dollars to fund extra-special vacations or renovations for a lot of cops and PR flaks?

I am not actually that excited to pay so much for.... I don't quite know what.
But I know this in my heart of hearts: Nothing that happened at the g8 and g20 took ordinary, regular voting folks like me and you into consideration.

Furthermore, I bet you twenty bucks if you asked your 12 closest friends this morning, you would not find one who thinks much of any real importance was accomplished at these meetings. Those same people would also tell you there's no way their interests were being looked out for.

But you'll also find your dozen friends confused about the protests. We can't really understand what the meeting's for, and we know we have no say in what happens, so it seems a little silly to take to the streets to be truncheoned.

I have to say, though, I have a speck of admiration for the misguided but passionate folks who get angry and violent. The rest of us are pretty sure we're not being listened to or cared about, and know that billions of dollars are being wasted and that somehow, we're likely getting screwed. But instead of doing anything about it, we're having another beer.

At least the protesters are trying to make their so-called democracy, democratic.

June 25, 2010- Revitalization Review

I would love to sing the praises of the 'new' Collingwood downtown, but I just can't.

It would be so satisfying to say to the nay-sayers, "look, it was a lot of time and trouble, but ain't it grand now it's done?"

I can't think grand when I'm waiting what seems like a lifetime to drive three *&%#%&@# blocks.

When I was growing up in the country, it was nearly a rule that you simply had to drive down the main street if you were coming to town.

Now, even though it's (mostly) open, I have been avoiding it like the plague. It's not the bricks, they're gorgeous, it's not the widened sidewalks, they're also terrific.

It's the sticky-outy sidewalks at the intersections. I don't know what they're called, but they're a stupid waste of my time. Were pedestrians really being run down by right-turning drivers at such a rate that we had to take the sneak-around right turn option away completely?

The few times I've driven down it so far, it's been agony. Not just because of all the empty storefronts, but also because every single time, I get caught behind someone who wants to turn right but can't, and I'm stuck there, staring at the aforementioned empty storefronts for far too long.

And don't even get me started on the location of the patios: it's the least-liked decision I've heard of since I moved here.

Saint Marie and Minnesota, you're my new best friends.

June 18, 2010 - Forks in the road ahead

I missed my chance to be a deadhead, but I won't miss out on being a FredHead.

About ten days after I went to my first Grateful Dead show, waaay back in the '90s, a girlfriend acquaintance of mine called to see if I might go 'on tour' with her. She had decided to take the summer off and follow the band, catching as many shows as she could.

I was so very tempted, not only because I'd just had what I considered to be a life-altering experience at that show but also because she was a very, very cool girl and as the only girl in my family, I was hungry for female friendship. For a few minutes, I had a glimpse into a possible life I didn't quite know how to imagine.

After some thought, I turned her down, citing my well-paid summer job at a factory and my desire to be able to pay my tuition at college. My final year would start that fall, and hopefully, my real life would start immediately afterwards.

I've always wondered how my life would be different if I'd said yes. Would I have become a hippie freak, homeless, addicted to drugs, a peace activist, musician, or would I be so disgusted by the hippie freaks addicted to drugs and talking about peace that I would become a reactionary conservative drone? I'll never know, and I've always been a bit regretful about it.

So, when I went on and on about how much I'm a new-born fan of Fred Eaglesmith and a friend said, "We need to go see him again!" I didn't hesitate. So, next weekend, I'm going to a town I've never been to, to see a band I've seen only once, and hang out with people who follow this guy all over the place to hear his music. It's a bit late, but I'm finally getting ahead. Not a deadhead, a Fredhead.

By the way, if you want to see Fred Eaglesmith from the comfort of your couch instead of at the arena in Harriston, like me, tune in to David Letterman tonight.

June 14, 2010-Another thing about the soccer

I'm not sure how I managed to miss this all these years, but I really think soccer is now the sport I will watch henceforth.

Here's why: they take their shirts off at the end of the game!!!

Now, the players might be exchanging them with one another, stamping them in the dirt or even maybe eating them; I really can't say, because I can’t take my eyes off those chiseled, glistening six-pack abs on those unbelievably hearty and strong young athletes.

wow.

How many more games are there? And when does Ronoldo play?

June 14, 2010- The end of the line

Tipper and Al Gore certainly gave us all a start this month when they announced their separation after 40 years of marriage. "Forty years!" a lot of people thought. "What brings an end to their much-touted romance after that amount of time?"

They’re not saying, which of course just makes us more curious. Some strange habits in the bedroom? Affairs with interns? Problems with hanging chads? We will likely never know. But it was fun to speculate.

A lovely woman friend of mine is in the process of leaving the man she married more than 30 years ago. Recently, I remarked on how great she looks, and she said, ‘I should- I just lost 165 pounds!” Besides the joking, I’ve known this sweet, kind, thoughtful and generous woman for more than 20 years and only now am I starting to get a few tentative glimpses into what her life was really like behind those closed doors. It isn’t pretty, but you would never have known it from the happy smiles in those family photos.

The fact is, you can simply never know what goes on in someone else’s marriage. You can never know what brought them together in the first place, what needs they answer in each other, and how the process works that finally breaks those millions of tiny bonds. That’s what makes coupling such a mystery, and for the lucky among us, such a blessing.

June 11, 2010- It IS a beautiful game

The last time I played soccer must be in grade five phys-ed.

The last time I tried to talk about it any meaningful way was during the 1998 World Cup, when I 'covered' some of the games during the tournament for the radio station I used to work for in Toronto. I use the word cover very loosely. It actually meant: go the bar where fans of that day's game are collected and twice an hour, put a couple of them on the radio, being excited, or give a report about how excited they are. If the other team scores, get your mic over to their bar, and fast. You might have noticed the 'coverage' hasn't really changed. I bet I could dig out my reports from back then and replay them, and no one would be the wiser.

The Dutch were very nice, I remember, gathered in their orange shirts somewhere along Bloor street. I had the good luck to find a member of the Canadian team who happened to be there watching, and put him on the radio. My boss thought I was a rockstar.

Really, though, that's about it for me, soccer-wise, and I'm pretty sure having my neice in a league in Richmond Hill doesn't exactly buy me any credibility.

So, my on-air partner and I were at rather a loss about what to say this week about the big tournament. We decided to do what pretty much every Canadian sportscaster is doing this week: we are making it up. The difference is, we're not pretending to know a damn thing.

We have, however, chosen teams to cheer for during the tournament. I am backing Slovenia, because I like their shirts (they remind me of Charlie Brown), followed by Portugal, because of the fabulous lips on a guy named Ronoldo. Apparently, I'm not alone in liking him, there are approximately seven million women in The Rest of the World, The Part that Watches Soccer thinking he's pretty fine. However, I'm pretty sure our radio station is the only one where you'd hear Ronoldo compared to Pavel Bure, an NHLer from the 1990s. Hey, they have the same lips.

I'm watching the France/Uruguay game right now, and I feel as though I'm being attacked by a swarm of bees. Those horns everyone's hooting! It just never stops! Can't they put them down for one minute for heavennsakes?

June 9, 2010 - So far ahead, I think I'm behind

A very, very rare thing happened to me this Saturday morning as I sifted through the big fat newspaper that arrives in my mailbox on weekends. I read a review of a book I was nearly finished reading.

The import of such a discovery is huge because my usual way of acquiring a novel goes something like: read a review, fall in love with the book, write down the name of the book, stuff it into my wallet or daytimer (remember paper? Yes, I'm the one who still uses it), promptly forget about it, or shuffle it about until the pencil has worn off and it's nearly unintelligible, (remember pencils? Yes, I'm the one who still uses them) then finally put the title and author's name on my 'book list' at Christmas, and wonder what the heck my gift-giver was thinking when they wrapped up this particular tome.

This Saturday, though, the Globe had a bang-on review of the book I was nearly finished: The Imperfectionists, a fine first novel by Vancouver-based journalist Tom Rachman. I picked it up on a whim after hearing an interview with the author and deciding I simply could not finish the day without owning it. The novel is composed of a series of character sketches inserted between short histories of a European-based English-language daily newspaper. The characters are generally very flawed, if that's a polite way to put it, and yet compelling and knowable.

As a lover of newspapers and of journalists and of the dying art of the finely written word, I highly recommend it, especially for fellow journalists who, like me, are very flawed.