Image by Shaun Merritt via FlickrI'm back in Cottage Country just in time to watch Toronto sell its soul to mass, crass, and wise ass commercialism - Christmas or new mayor Rob Ford; pick 'em - to a public much too concerned with the bottom line to notice that Mayor Rob Ford is a few screws loose of a shelf.
Now we hear from Joe Fiorito over atTor Star that Ford - a football coach who apparently never ran a manmaker in his life (see rotund) - has asked our national joke Don Cherry to hang the chain of the city around one of his many necks in the official swearing in ceremony.
"So the mayor wants Don Cherry to hang the chain of office around his neck; what of it? Here’s what of it: The Clamshell is not Coach’s Corner.
Rob Ford is the chief magistrate of the corporation of the city of Toronto. He demeans his office — our office — if he turns the investiture into a sideshow.
The symbolism of these things is such that, if anyone is going to hang anything around the mayor’s neck, it ought to be someone who represents the people of the city. Cherry may be a fine fellow, but he doesn’t live in Toronto, shovels no snow in this city, pays no taxes here. His only currency is his chippy celebrity.Joey Fiorito a Toronto Star columnist with the pop and the cohones to call a freak show just what it is: a wild ride down the rabbit hole.
When you get right to the nitty gritty these guys match up fundamentally.
They're both self-seeking, self-aggrandizing semi-literate goofballs.
Rob Ford is shady and Cherry is a failed coach turned ebullient jackass.
Ford campaigned on a dubious platform.
Cherry remains a dubious spouter of nebbish rhetoric, xenophobic balderdash and some very unsavory views on women.
Ford is a bully.
Cherry is passive aggressive but he's certainly capable of kicking sand in the face of many of his perceived enemies - that dwell within his mushy noggin.
Cherry and Ford both suffer from palpable vestiges of megalomania.
Problem is the people of Toronna have no idea what they signed in for.
And the CBC?
Well it just continues to demean itself by having Cherry on once or twice a week.
Pundits down south regard Cherry and HNIC a joke.
AT least ESPN and other sports outlets south of the border nut up when their broadcasters step over the line.
Cherry?
Apparently he's read some Machiavelli. or maybe the Coles Notes version.
Or maybe he's read "Manipulation for Dummies".
His slurs on women at hockey games, Europeans and fans challenging his authority are legend.
But Joey Fiorito ain't finished so ...
I'll leave it to Joe to end his own column right here:
I met Cherry once, on a Saturday afternoon in an old Catholic Church near the Forum in Montreal 15 years or so ago. I was there for the purposes of a column. Cherry had come to pray before the game, as he said he always did. I don’t know what he prays for.
None of my business. And it is none of his business to endorse Ford. Oh, but Cherry says he’s flattered to be asked to the investiture because the mayor tells it like it is, speaks for the little guy, is not one of the elites.
Here’s news:
The little guy rides public transit, and the mayor is doing his damnedest to kill public transit in Toronto.
I would also remind Cherry, a millionaire, that Ford is a millionaire, and that millionaires are chief among the elite.
A curious note: Cherry owes his celebrity to the CBC, which the Ford crowd considers elitist.
Can’t anyone here play this game?
As for telling it like it is, the mayor has indicated that he wants to stop the wasteful spending. But in trying to kill Metrolinx, he is willing to pour five years’ worth of work and $130 million down the drain.
You can’t tell it like it is when you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth.
Looks like we have a mayor who needs symbolic approval: a municipal high school football coach who wants to be anointed by the nation’s hockey coach.
Oh, yeah?
Coaches lead.
What kind of leader orders a meeting with the transit boss but leaves Karen Stintz, his pick to chair the transit commission, sitting on the bench?
And what kind of leader blurts out a tax freeze without telling Mike Del Grande, his budget chief?
It seems our coach has no idea how to play with others. Isn’t a coach supposed to teach his team how to play with others? An easy prediction: As high as Ford is now? That’s how far he’ll fall.
The original point: having been invited, Cherry ought to come, sit in the gallery and keep his mouth shut.Beautiful!
You go Joe!
But what are the fucking odds?
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