Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Crack Cocaine, and a City Awaiting the Tale of the Smartphone Video

Rob Ford at the wheel. After a weekend of denial, Torontonians await the tale of the tape. Image Credit:
(Aaron Vincent Elkaim/Canadian Press)

Rob Ford and a City Awaiting the Tale of the Smartphone Video

I wonder if Torontonians knew what they were signing on for when they elected Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto in 2010. How closely was everyone paying attention? The slogan, I'll admit, was very clever at the time: "Respect for taxpayers." That saying lost some of its cleverness as Ford became increasingly attached to the word. Other conservatives then picked up the ball. Now the word 'taxpayer' is right up there in the political vocabulary with 'Toronto elites.' These are words designed to evoke caricature images of people who belong to certain economic classes and hold certain beliefs.

In the former case, it's Regular Joes who vote Conservative and hold the highest respect for someone who will keep cash in their pockets - and out of the tax man's. Because the most important thing in life is saving money. Not the quality of the neighbourhoods we live in or the level of services cities provide (everything from water sanitation to outdoor pools in the summer)

Toronto elites, of course, are the Michael Ignatieffs, Dalton McGuintys, and David Millers of the city. Highly educated people with money who have left leaning political views. Oh, and they know what's in all our best interests. Tell me the phrase 'Toronto elites' doesn't bring to mind Premier Dad, as McGuinty was nicknamed when he led the Ontario Liberals.

Since his name has embedded itself in the minds of Toronto's public (not to mention the brains of federal and provincial politicians) what mental images does Rob Ford bring to mind?

In the last two weeks that image has been of a man keeping company with drug dealers while smoking crack cocaine. After the story broke, Ford kept silent for a week. His brother, city councilor Doug Ford, even disappeared for two days himself, dropping off the Grid, as it were.

Until now Rob's brother has a history of defending the error prone Mayor promptly. Why the silence? Why the disappearing act? Then there is Rob's prolonged silence. When he finally did give a statement to the media on Friday, May 24, he said that it was under advice from his lawyer that he kept mum.

Oh, and there is the small matter pointed out by the Toronto Sun that Ford did not take the step of suing The Toronto Star and Gawker for libel. If a newspaper of record were to say that I smoked crack cocaine in the company of drug dealers, I would certainly pursue legal action. But Ford has not done so. Why?

Also interesting to note, before Rob Ford spoke on May 24, his brother Doug defended him on May 22. To quote: "Rob is telling me these stories are untrue, that these accusations are ridiculous. And I believe him." Then he goes on to defend his brother's administration.

Did you notice how Doug's language leaves room to wiggle? When Rob spoke for himself last Friday, again there appeared language with wiggle room to spare. "I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine. As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist."

To the questions. Does that mean he has never smoked crack cocaine? Since he leaves the possibility of the video's existence open with that sentence, does such a video exist? (He has since repeatedly denied that it does)

Then the exits began. Within the last week, Ford has fired his former Chief of Staff Mark Towhey. Then, today, George Christopoulos, his press secretary, and Isaac Ransom, deputy communications officer for the Mayor's Office, quit.

Oh, and his former Press Secretary Adrienne Batra ripped Mayor Ford in The Toronto Sun.

Where Does Toronto Go from Here? 

Denial of the allegations came a little too late for my liking. And since Gawker, the outlet that broke the story, reached their goal with the indiegogo fundraising campaign, it's time for the video's owners to come forward. If it's true after all these denials, Ford should exit stage right and save what dignity he has left.

Side Effects

If you still haven't had your fill of drugs and political intrigue, I suggest watching Side Effects, a thinking man's thriller from director Steven Soderbergh. It touches on many questions that should be asked about an increasingly anxious, medication dependent society. Where does responsibility lie when someone on medication breaks the law? No spoilers will be forthcoming here. You'll just have to watch it for yourself. 

I Was A Catholic Boy, Redeemed Through Pain...

To my surprise I found out over the weekend that poet and rock n' roll star Jim Carroll died two months ago in New York City. I went straight to the New York Times' website to read his obituary, which you can find here. A heart attack killed one of the world's most compelling and original writers. He was 60-years-old.

Reading the Times' obituary I was struck by the 2002 photograph of Carroll the Times' editors chose to run. He looks like a debauched priest, minus the robe and collar. With his arms folded across his chest, Carroll stares at the viewer with piercing blue eyes framed by cheeks that look as if they're caving in. To put it bluntly, Carroll looks downright seedy in this photo.

The second thing that struck me while reading the piece was the date of Carroll's death — September 11, 2009. Eight years to the day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that saw the Twin Towers blown away. I wonder if he didn't have some kind of perverse satisfaction that day, being so close to 'Ground Zero.' Carroll had certainly fantasized about New York as Ground Zero in his writing.

Let me explain. Jim Carroll was the author of two books I'm very fond of — The Basketball Diaries (1978), which chronicled his basketball scholarship to a private school and descent into drug addiction on the ruthlessly mean streets of New York City, and Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries, 1971 to 1973 (1987) which tells the story of Carroll's time spent working for Andy Warhol and chumming around with then unknown photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Carroll's then girlfriend Patti Smith.

There's a section in The Basketball Diaries which I remember very clearly. Carroll is hustling in downtown Manhattan to fund his increasingly hungry drug habit. He fantasizes about a nuclear bomb dropping on Manhattan, with himself standing at Ground Zero. While Carroll wrote this memoir the United States was still in the grip of the Cold War. Mutually Assured Destruction seemed a very real possibility. The passage is a beautiful contrast of those two trusty themes: sex and death. Nuclear annihilation as the biggest orgasm of all time.

To say a bit more about The Basketball Diaries, it covers a three year period from fall 1963 to summer 1966. By the end of the book Carroll is in prison trying to kick his habit. The book spares nobody — not the priests, the abusive coach, or Carroll's fellow travelers in New York's underground. The Basketball Diaries is often hilarious, an effect of the book's complete and unashamed honesty about some of Carroll's truly base behaviours, and the appetites that drove him during those years of his life.

Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries, 1971 to 1973 is a more polished work than Carroll's first memoir. Downtown Diaries contains some particularly acid observations about Warhol and his 'Superstars.' Truman Capote is described as a, "pill-stained thousand (dollar bill)" And the scene where Carroll accompanies Mapplethorpe and Smith to an exhibit featuring plastic body parts modeled on cancerous organs left me with a deep sense of unease. Again, as in The Basketball Diaries, Carroll doesn't pull his punches. He shows his readers all the scars, needle holes and mental wounds borne by his real life characters. Together these memoirs are not only fantastic word portraits of a time and place, but also reveal messy truths about being human and failing. In Carroll's case it was the failure to become a basketball star because he was pulled down by drugs.

In his lifetime Jim Carroll had other accomplishments as well. Besides being a damn fine writer he was a poet and a rock star. I haven't heard much of Carroll's music, which he recorded with the Jim Carroll Band, but I do own the band's first album, Catholic Boy (1980). The title track was used in the soundtrack for the 1995 movie adaptation of The Basketball Diaries, which featured a young (and very handsome) Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. You can find the soundtrack version of Catholic Boy here on YouTube.

I respect Carroll for his honesty in recounting sometimes funny, often ugly events, and in so doing turning them into art. He managed to capture the experience of being human in words, which is the highest praise I can give. Goodbye Jim.

On a side note, if you're interested in reading more about New York's once unbound counterculture, I suggest reading Bruce Benderson's Sex & Isolation and Other Essays. Benderson is eloquent, and his views are his own; nothing borrowed here. His insights into sexual politics are scalpel sharp, and his storytelling skills are anything but ordinary. You can read more about Benderson's essay collection on the UW Press website here.