Rob Ford and the Juicy Fabrication

The Star says Saturday at Taste of Toronto a woman threw juice at Mayor Rob Ford. The Mayor denies doing juice with anyone: Ridiculous, a woman he doesn’t know, an event that never existed. The Star says a witness, one Zelda Doyle, says the juice was a slushie. Of course it’d be the Star. At least those maggots aren’t saying there’s an alleged video. But . . . there’s this photo. No biggie. Rob Ford is no juice addict. If he’s in photos with thousands of women, well, he’s the Mayor. And doesn't our Mayor go to umpteen Toronto events? Folks, take Pride.

Zeno Gets Lucky

When Zeno finally landed himself a girlfriend, he soon learned she liked to take things slow. It was three dates before they held hands; months before she let him kiss her with his mouth open.
     She seemed to like it all well enough, but he was never entirely sure they had the same goal in mind. Eventually, he got to feel her up . . . over her blouse and then under. A little surreptitious grinding, then onto third base . . . but again with the over and under… then finer and finer progressions, over the next three years . . .
     . . . until Zeno finally just got lucky.

Image: La Promenade  by Marc Chagall, 1918.

Losing my edge

Every decade after my happy first, the Tooth Fairy has bestowed a new, unwelcome dental truth upon me: in my 40s, via a root canal. An uneventful one, as these things go. Only six hours passed between the throb that woke me up and the needle that dialed me down and the little saw that stole the pain away forever. I didn’t even have to get a crown. My tooth was still my tooth. Till yesterday, when I brought a loose thread hanging from my sweater to my teeth and realized I could no longer feel how hard to bite.

Tempus Tristitiam

For 24 hours now, Wicked Games has been worming my ear. I’ve always had a Pavlovian response to songs written in the minor key and anything from the Beatrix Potter theme to Townshend’s Was there Life, throws me into minor depression and inexplicable longing. When I was tiny, Puff the Magic Dragon made me cry, then Moody Blues' The Voice brought a palpable urge to escape the trailer park and become a pirate. Now with Chris Isaak’s beautifully melancholic if over-exposed-soft-porn-soundtrack rattling around in my head I want to go back in time to a place that never really existed.