Crack, Alcohol, Dishonesty With A Twist Of Ignorance – A Mayor’s Cocktail

I wish this were reality TV. The thing I like about reality TV is that I don’t have to watch it. I can change the channel, or just not watch TV. If I want to watch the News, or listen to the News, or read about the News, I cannot escape the reality TV that is the Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s life. When someone says to me that the Kardashian TV shows are stupid, I’m always quick to say that I wouldn’t know, because I don’t have time for that bullshit, and neither should they. I want to say the same thing about the Rob Ford saga. I really don’t have time for this bullshit. The only problem is that THIS is the News. I DO have a choice to not watch the news, but it’s a choice to be misinformed, unlike the choice to not watch the Kardashians….. a choice which made properly, I believe salvages some of my intelligence. Rob Ford is in my living room every day. He’s in my living room drunk, belligerent, defensive, dishonest, stammering, mumbling, and that’s just when he’s not allegedly on crack. There isn’t a day that goes by when this isn’t a huge story. I’m really tired of it.

I’m well past the point of caring if this man smoked crack or not. He either did or he didn’t. If he wasn’t representing our city, I wouldn’t even have a problem with it. It’s his life. It’s not about politics either. He could be doing a good job at City Hall for all I know. He says he’s doing a good job, and that must be enough for most of his supporters. A strong group of which don’t seem to care that he’s a walking embarrassment for the city. They were obviously the ones that voted him in. A surprising number of them are still really strong supporters of him too. They feel he’s being picked on. If anything, I think it’s making them relate to him more. I think it’s because there’s the whole Right Wing vs. Left Wing at play here. Of course individuals HAVE to be one or the other (God forbid we actually just voted for whoever we thought was the right person). Everybody LOVES to be on a team. This team is called Ford Nation! Yes, they actually have a team name. He repeatedly claims to be saving money for tax payers, but I don’t think you can save me enough money to compensate for the humiliation I feel when a hack like Jay Leno can make jokes at our expense.

The problem for me is that if there’s one person that truly represents a city, it’s the Mayor. Ours can’t stay out of trouble for more than 30 seconds. He’s only been in office for 3 years and at least 2 years and 11 months have been a shit show. So much so that the rest of the world has taken notice. For the EXTREMELY IGNORANT people who say ‘any press is good press’, let me remind you that he’s not an actor or a singer. He’s the Mayor. Bad press is bad press. It makes us look bad. We don’t need bad attention. The incidents that have occurred both major and minor are increasing in number. Where does he find the time to get into all this shit? It takes a lot of time to get into this much trouble! How does he do it?

I want a Mayor that can look people in the eye. I want a Mayor that can talk like an educated person. I want a Mayor that doesn’t get super hammered in public (just for the small percentage of his life that he happens to be Mayor, but if he wants to get smashed every other St. Patty’s day for the rest of his life, then fuck it, why not?). I want a Mayor that doesn’t smoke crack. I want a Mayor that handles adversity with grace, rather than getting into grade five-esque shouting matches with reporters. I want a Mayor who after causing a city such a heaping amount of embarrassment would have the good sense to step down. Most of all, I just want to be able to watch the news in the morning without having to see this moron, and his ridiculous shenanigans taking up precious valuable space in what’s left of my brain.