Ghost town Toronto

And so: king makers made a mis-step//the suburbs got their wishes//a cowboy got his cap//the kids got something to complain about. The subway stalled//the councilors crawled//the gays returned to their ghetto.

Tax is down, the rent's still up//columnists are shooting in a barrel. Pull out chalk sticks and draw a line around the centre//empty day-time scrapers of paper pushers//cycle without worry.

He was hurtled out of Toronto on an aircraft//vote uncounted.

Toronto, empty no longer.

Siren Saturdays

Class War he declared in spray paint on the wall. Sirens and helicopters and news reports tumbled in our heads.

After the storm hit we walked out to assess the damage. Window replacement trucks lined the street; evening workmen held boards and hammered in nails. We walked a familiar city block, traded news and gossip with friendly strangers.

The cops moved in and out of street pockets, leading pedestrians through a maze. A man in a wheelchair screamed the New World Order into a megaphone on the corner. Second Cup served its last latte and bolted all the doors.

We ran forward then back, lost in public panic. The cops shouted North, then South, and North again, held up lines of shields to close off exits. We walked past a gaggle of mannequins in soiled linens, shattered glass, and the dim white glow of American Apparel.

Phone calls were made to lovers and lawyers, arrests of breach of peace. Cab home to fall asleep, hope to dream of peace.

*Photos from FlickR Creative Commons

Twenty reasons to stop trying

Cops on horseback, cops on foot, on bicycle and motorcycle, in marked and unmarked cars. Security stationed on each street corner, helicopters in the air.

Sirens on the streets, paramedics push through traffic; a fire alarm goes off in the mall. Delegates in, homeless out, empty condos fill the sky.

Barricade off closed-door business, let black limousines coast through chain link fences towards pristine hotels; broadcast arrivals on the news.

Let the protesters tear the banks down, throw bricks through windows, eat Front Street alive. Chip off the concrete foundation between skyscrape basements and underground subway stops, feed it to famished mouths.

We need it now more than ever, all ribcage hunger for the beast. We’re dying here, he says: Welcome to the Harper years.

Raise the high roof beam, carpenters and season

The sun hit high noon and the rooftops called our name. After a photo stroll through the market and a birthday dinner, we begin the weekend concert series on top a shop in Chinatown.

Out the apartment window girls in flowery summer dresses stand by boys in band tees and skinny jeans, sunglasses covering all their eyes. The band plays behind too many too-tall heads, the sky rains confetti.

We b-line up the street to an apartment we know, fill another roof. Birds pull the curtains dark, we drink warm beer and watch the day die. Slipping south into our afternoon locale, we fill into a bar back room for another.

Two more cab rides, tracing tracks across the city. Scarf down take-out, wake to two white boxes in the fridge. Re-read the cookie paper, 6 13 28 34 37 40. It says: “Next summer you will dance to a different beat.”

Put the last of the leftovers in the microwave, nod head and accept the fortune.

The key turns, he always returns

Back with the boy in Toronto. Sunlight patio afternoons and dinner with old friends, a perfect Tuesday. More on Montreal and a recent foot injury once the meds kick in and fix me.

Toronto vs. Montreal: the final chapter?

off the Streets of Toronto, towards Montreal...

The rat

It rains on the first day of the hunt. No bother, we say, hit the concrete with one umbrella, no map. The buzz had begun a few days earlier, word was Banksy had been in town.

The proof was sketched across town on buildings and in back alleys, markings of a graffiti artist gone mainstream. There’s a film to promote, so we wondered if it was all a stunt to cause a film-frenzy, but the local experts say the works are real and the papers believe them.

A black and white blur Jamie saw through the window of a cab turns out to be nothing more than a street-side tag by a local author. One down. We walk up and into Chinatown, tramp through back alleys until we find the Rat.

It looks just like the photo we saw of it on the web, but we grin and snap another. Simulacrum. Then its down the Rogers Centre, where we walk in circles and find nothing.

The next day I meet Hali to search through Trinity Bellwoods. We walk the park’s perimeter; see nothing. Strike two runs into a patio, we give up and grab a beer.

After our failure, of course, the blogosphere gives up on the code of ethics its been holding on to in the morning and Torontoist publishes each art pieces location.

It’s up now, the hunt is over: time to head out and find them.

King of cars

So he says to me: “This must be like me covering a fashion show.”

I was a bit out of place. We were at the Gumball, surrounded by luxury cars. The proud and wealthy behind the wheel of Mercedes, Morgans, BMWs, Bentleys: Corvettes and other compensation. I wasn’t sure what we were looking at.

Derek is a car guy. I’m a lifestyle guy. Luxury made those worlds collide, but Derek actually wanted to see cars. I was hunting celebrity. But I missed Xzibit, heard no mention of the Hoff, saw no important daughters or Middle Eastern princes.

At one point I lent a pen so someone from The Wire could sign a book, but that was about it. One ink stain and a sea of pretty, shining autos. I snapped pictures until sunset, when the photos became stained with steely flash.

Still not a car guy, I slipped out of the crowded street and walked all the way home.

Rolls, rolls, rolling

Americana

Lengthy Lamborghinis

Idris Elba (the Wire)

Front page paper press

Slick and streamlined in silver

Somebody get me a drink, he screams

Youth without revolt

The place has been handed down to the young things, the Times tells him today. All the president’s men are children: fresh faced, eager, and ideal. Not unlike those he knows. But wrinkles will crack down all our faces as our watches whip towards the future. In D.C., it’s already happening. To us, it will soon enough.

So she writes: They are learning that Washington often changes you more than you change it.

And he thinks: Yeah, Toronto too.

Nine-oh-five-one-uh-oh

This morning EYE Weekly’s Chandler Levack made a confession. She’s not from Toronto—she’s from Burlington.

My confession? I’m not even from Ontario. I’m not sure if that makes the photos that have been bouncing about the local internet today more or less ironic. The photos, taken last night by Pat Estebar, are of Art Stars and its hanger-oners giving our best duck face, and acting all nine-oh-five.

They’re promo for Sunday’s Baby Huey bash, a 905 themed party nodding to the gentrified and freshly clubby Ossington strip.

Hailing from Manitoba (a province small enough you need not dial the first three digits) my original area code is a lovable two-oh-four. But since I’ve lived here I’ve gotten downtown-ish enough to spot an out-of-towner, fresh off the Spadina exit.

Self tanner or entitlement will usually tip you off—that or bottle blond. But let’s face it: in a city like ours few are actually from Toronto. So this Sunday we’ve decided to embrace our pre-urban pasts.

I’ve got two polos ready, both of which will be popped. As my good friend Jamie loves to point out, that was the style I was wearing when she first met me. So yes, I admit it, these are my true colours: black and purple.

See you Sunday then, on Ossington Avenue: 90510.

an outfit preview: Ralph Lauren with a little Kid Robot

Shhhh, this is a library.

Geeking out in good company

Marie Nicola is a nerd. Her friend Anastasia Tubanos is a geek. If internet rants are to be believed, the two terms are most certainly not synonymous. Still, the difference is debate-able. Some say it’s that geeks get laid. Others say nerds programs while geeks game. It’s all semantics.

Both women are social media nerds, gizmo geeks, fangirls for forums, twitter, foursquare and the like. You get the point. In recent years, Nicola and Tubanos have found something new to geek out about on the web: food and drink.

Nicola is editor-in-chief of Dine.TO, a dining guide to Toronto. Tubanos is producer of the Naked Wine Show, a minute long video blog that profiles a new wine each week. As journalists in the food and beverage business, they have had to learn the ins and outs of each community. They’ve done this the best way they know how, social media.

Over three cups of joe at Balzac’s in Liberty Village we talk about what hooked them on social media, the friends they’ve made on it, and how it’s changed the industries they report on.

Nicola attended the first foodie meet up, where she says she met an amazing group of people. “It was another event that showed there were people that are not just in the industry,” she says, adding that a boom of interaction between local food lovers followed the event. “There was a food explosion on Twitter. There was a lot of foodie pride at that time, and it hasn’t let up since.”

More so than individual twitter users, Nicola says restaurants are hoping to impress more established new media, like locals She Does The City, BlogTO or SweetSpot.ca, as well as crowd sourced sites like Chow Hound, who she calls “a feared bunch.”

“A lot of restaurants fall prey to foodie opinion,” Nicola says. But keeping one ear open is smart, she says. Staying active in online conversations gives restaurants a chance to respond quickly to criticisms, adapt, and show the ever-vocal foodie community that they are being heard. “They need to be able to interact in these circles. If they have misstep, foodies cut them up.”

Tubanos chimes in with a wide-eyed taunt, “You don’t want to mess with the foodies,” she quips, only half kidding.

As a wine industry observant Tubanos has seen the age of the average wine enthusiast fall, a trend she relates partially to web 2.0, which makes information about wine more accessible and the conversation about it less stuffy. Meanwhile, she’s kept a close eye on beer, which she says is becoming more discussed and intellectualized.

The trend, she says: wine is becoming more populist, beer is becoming more elite-ist, and food is for everyone. Then the message is the same for geeks and nerds alike: eat up.

*This post is part of a larger feature I'm writing on how food and web culture intersects in Toronto. It's simulcast on Ryerson In The Moment and my temp micro blog Viral Vegetation

Trash talking Toronto

...and with that he heads home.

Cash for Toronto
Toronto's political scene is about to get a new soundtrack. Mr. Cash--no, not the one you're thinking of--threw his hat in the Davenport ring last Monday night as the newest member of Toronto's New Democrats.

A one-time punk rocker, Andrew Cash fronted L'Etranger in the '80s, but has since mellowed out and turned to folksy-rock as half of the Cash Brothers and as a solo act. And as of Monday, Cash has changed his tune from politcally fueled anthems to professional politics.

Cash is sure to be a major player in the next grab at local power, but as the race still hasn't been formally called, it's a little early for specualtion. Torontonians will either tune in or out, but considering both Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy and two members of the Skydiggers played the party that launched Cash's political career, we can expect that the next election will at least sound better than the last.

We'll have to wait until then to see if Andrew's worth his wait in Cash.

*You can read my news coverage of Andrew Cash's nomination here. NOW, the magazine Cash works for, also reported on the nod.

Late nights end on the lawn

Rain taunted the city all afternoon, but the last of the drops fell with sunset. By then the crowds had begun to swarm, as if art were the only solution to the latest epidemic outbreak. At every angle, all night, we consumed as much as possible. The goal was to eat the whole evening, and wake full in the morning.

Assembled, separated, cell phones, cobblestone, and concrete: every footstep at Nuit Blanche begs to get lost. Inevitably it happens. The decision to head home occurred on a streetcar going in the opposite direction, overcrowded with day-time transit people. The homeless, bar regulars and even artists have been overtaken by couples with caravans parked in driveways a go train trip away. As for the drunk, the young, and the high heeled entertainment district: that was their first taste.

Still, I got what the city paid for. After the performances, floating rabbits, fire, costumes, religious art, and 8-second exposures, I end up alone, late at night, standing on the third floor of an unassuming building filled with graffiti. At my feet is a glowing green lawn coupled with a picket fence and finished off with a few spare tires and an open toilet seat.

I ignore the rotation of touring art eaters and think about the instillation. If the artist was here, I’d grab them by the shoulders, shake him, and say:

”Yeah man, me too.”

The Roller Runway

Meet the rough-and-tumble tough chicks of the Toronto Roller Derby. My feature on the league, the growth of derby culture, and of course that Barrymore flick you heard so much about during TIFF just went up online. Pictures are here, but you can read the in depth story on the Ryerson Journo Site.