Tag Archives: For Those About To Rock

Meet A Mayoral Candidate — Part VIII

Posted on by
1

Don’t know about you people but here it’s Friday, and here Friday means: Meet A Mayoral Candidate!

Up this week, Keith Cole for Mayor. So just Get Over It!

If ever a mayoralty campaign in Toronto needed the panache and zazz that Keith Cole brings to the table, it is this one in 2K10™®©. To date it has been a largely dreary affair, damp and musty with pessimism and hostility. Everything, it seems, is negative and out of control at City Hall and without severe measures, our future will be bleak.

With most of the frontrunners adhering to this narrative and vying to prove themselves the meanest, toughest, cuttiest and slashiest som’bitch out there, Cole is all about the positive. He is the can-do to the others’ can’t. We can’t think big in terms of public transit, they say. We can’t provide secure, well-paying jobs to our public employees. We can’t stand up to the egregious neglect shown us from the provincial and federal governments.

Well, colour candidate Keith Cole unconvinced and unimpressed to such unconstructive sentiments.

A performance artist, Cole is naturally passionate about the arts and what they contribute to the well-being of the city. “Toronto is more than TIFF, LUMINATO and Harbourfront Centre,” Cole told us. “Our city has more events (often free) in one week than anyone could ever attend. We have to foster, care and support the arts in our city. We are so lucky to have this vibrant artistic culture in this city but we have to care for it or it could disappear.” A timely thought, what with the battle now waging over how to use the revenue from the new billboard tax. Lead by the organization CityBeautiful.ca , there is a call for all the money to be directed towards the arts, a notion championed at City Hall by Budget Chief Shelley Carroll and mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone. That’s not going to happen this year but we have a pretty good sense which way a Mayor Keith Cole would vote on the matter.

But it’s not all about the arts for Cole. The overlying theme of his candidacy is civic engagement. Imagine JFK in a wig, dress and pumps, invoking his fellow citizens to ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country, and then tap dancing to Michael Sembello’s Maniac. That’s candidate Cole.

“Think of what Toronto could be if more people just got involved,” he said. “Educate yourself. Figure it out for yourself. Get involved with politics and your politicians, your community and your city.”

And pick up your own fucking garbage, we might add, agreeing whole-heartedly with Cole’s assessment of the city looking dirty, inundated as it seems to be with litter. True civic engagement means not thinking others are going to clean up after you. Or assuming someone else has called about that burnt out streetlight in the back lane or the huge pothole in the middle of the road. Engaging means participating and Keith Cole sees that as the first step toward living in a healthy, exciting and fair society.

Like many of the candidates running for the mayor’s office, Cole’s campaign is full of ideas and short on matters of implementation. How does one demand and get increased civic engagement from the population? In a city allegedly strapped for cash, how would a Mayor Keith Cole ensure that funding for the arts is maintained, even increased, in the face of competing demands from other sectors and the philistinism of a council filled with Rob Fords, Giorgio Mammolitis and Doug Holydays?

Granted, the task of building and strengthening is much more complex than the simple wielding of an axe to hack and diminish as many of Cole’s mayoral rivals advocate. Even though the theory goes that it requires more energy to frown than smile, the opposite is true when it comes to governing. Keith Cole stands for optimism, engagement and a heaping help of civic pride in Toronto. That’s an uphill, rockier road to travel compared to the easy and smooth sailing of political destruction and reactionary malevolence that has been the main theme of the campaign so far. This race needs to hear more from Keith Cole and the little ray of sunshine he would bring to the proceedings.

When asked to answer our feeble question, If the present mayor would like his legacy to be that of the Transit Mayor, how would a Mayor Cole like to see his legacy written?, Cole initially expressed surprise. “Is that what David Miller wants?” Thus, he became the first profiled candidate to call us out on the issue. We… think so, would be our response. Pretty sure we read that somewhere. Let us get back to you.

Having not had that cleared up for him, Cole gamely proceeded. Keith Cole Art Mayor, he told us but also wouldn’t rule out being The Bicycle Mayor before finally settling on a legacy. Art. Bikes. Green.

Now if we can only get the other candidates espousing such positive, constructive and proactive ideas.

— dutifully submitted by Cityslikr

Why We Love This City

Posted on by
Reply

Prone as I am to impulsive acts of merriment and derring-do, some of which have taken me far afield for weeks on end, I’ll be the first to say that there is a time and place for such pleasure seeking. One has to set boundaries or else it’s all play and no work. That, my friends, is the slippery slope on the road to pure hedonism, and take it from someone who has been there, done that and purchased the tank top to prove it, it is a tough, seductive slog back to the land of the dreary everyday.

So it was last night. We decided to take our editorial meeting out from the fetid confines of the office/media viewing room, pungent with the smell of non-stop sports spectating, chocolate ingesting and the agony of defeat. It was necessary to find a TV-free venue if we hoped to accomplish any semblance of work; jonesing as our colleague was with an insatiable need to cheer for someone, anyone.

We discovered just the place at the northern tip of the hot, hot west end strip of Ossington Street. The Painted Lady, it’s called. Had I known it would ultimately live up to its alluring name, I would’ve insisted on returning at another time when work wasn’t the reason we were looking for a bar.

Pure hindsight, unfortunately. It all stared innocuously enough. Ossington was quiet, what with it being the Tuesday night after a long, long weekend. The weather had returned to spring-like conditions from the blast of summer we’d received over the past few days. The Painted Lady was sparsely occupied, perfect for a work meeting. One could see, however, the appeal of it with a full crowd crammed into its fairly narrow confines. A slightly elevated stage sat at the back of the room past the long bar, underneath a ceiling decorated with deliberately gaudy baubles. Was that a picture of 70s icon, Xaviera Hollander aka The Happy Hooker peeking out from the back wall behind the drum set, slightly obscured by a heavy velvet curtain?

You want to say that The Painted Lady has a very lower, east side Manhattan feel but NYC comparisons are as futile as they are useless. It reveals a paucity of imagination on our part which I have just done by pursuing this thought out loud. So I’ll stop.

Things went swimmingly at first although it was a task to keep distracting Cityslikr from peering longingly up at the empty TV screen hung over the bar. We amassed future civic issues to follow, politicians and media personalities to praise and chastise. We even found ourselves downing delicious (if slightly sweet) pulled pork sandwiches prepared by our friendly if slightly reticent bartender who told us that this was something we could not expect when crowds filled the place.

Fair enough. But on this particular evening, all was well for the brain trust of All Fired Up in the Big Smoke.

That is, until the band arrived.

Why I didn’t insist at that very moment on paying up and heading out, I can’t honestly say. That the meeting was at an end was beyond doubt. There would be no more work talk to be talked. The bigger concern was for tomorrow (now today) and perhaps a few more days after that. I can personally attest to situations like this spiraling out of control and wanted no part of it now. My colleagues could not see (or chose not to see) the danger lurking. They were deaf to my protestations.

The band called themselves Rambunctious and were an ad hoc group of musicians featuring mainly horns and woodwinds with a drummer and accordion thrown into the mix. Only after it was too late did we learn that Rambunctious got together every Tuesday for an improv jam. And jam they did.

My best description of it was a sort of Broken Social Scene gathering playing dirty jazz. It immediately took me back to my days auditing religious courses at Loyola University in New Orleans where I frequented a down and dirty place called The Maple Leaf Bar, listening to the likes of the New Orleans Nightcrawlers. It was that good.

Which is why I had to leave. Eventually. Someone had to be the responsible one and it was quickly obvious that neither of my colleagues would be up to the task. I gathered together my meeting notes and took one for the team, calling it a night prematurely. Bidding the other two adieu (which they barely acknowledged), I ventured out into the drizzle, looking back one last time to witness as they shared a round of Jägermeister shots with the band. No, they would be of no use in the morning.

As I made my way home, I wrapped myself in the self-righteously edifying cloak of being the responsible one in the crowd. Besides, there would be other Tuesdays for me. At The Painted Lady. With Rambunctious.

— longingly submitted by Acaphlegmic

Meet A Mayoral Candidate

Posted on by
1

If today’s Friday then it must be Meet A Mayoral Candidate day here at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke.

What’s that, you say? Meet A Mayoral Candidate? Since when? Since today, silly. It’s our debut posting of Meet A Mayoral Candidate where we shine a light on the neglected and overlooked candidates who are aiming to replace David Miller as Toronto’s mayor.

There are 23 of them in the race at last count. Candidates, that is, not neglected and overlooked ones. Since the race officially started in early January we’ve heard plenty from the likes of frontrunners like George Smitherman and Rocco Rossi. Giorgio Mammoliti and Joe Pantalone have soap boxes of their own. No, this is for those not given a fighting chance and thus ignored so far by the mainstream media as well as by nobodies like us here at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke. But today, that all changes.

So let’s get ready to Meet A Mayoral Candidate!

First up, Sonny Yeung. Vote Sonny Yeung!

A seasoned municipal candidate with two runs for councilor in ward 41 under his belt, this time around Mr. Yeung is vying for mayor because the race is wide open with no incumbent to overcome. Incumbency is an obstacle many new candidates face and at the municipal level it is almost an insurmountable one. Points should be doled out to any newbie who gives it a whirl.

That is not to say that Mr. Yeung is in the race purely due to the fact there is no incumbent to try and unseat. Looking through his website and talking to the candidate, he has ambitious plans if he becomes mayor with priorities being on the environment, education, job creation and cross cultural diversity. He pledges a solid commitment to public services that are vital to a healthy city especially those for low income families.

How this kind of social program heavy platform gibes with his avowed fiscal conservatism caught our attention. When asked about this, Mr. Yeung responded with talk of improving work flow processes, small modules and Master Budgets, leaving us floundering far out of our depth of understanding. It was more detail than we’ve been given by the frontrunners so far. Having already read through the proposed city budget, Mr. Yeung said he had thoughts on how he would limit increases to a 1-3% range for the following year, his first as mayor if he wins in October.

No armchair candidate, he has blazed a hectic schedule so far including participating in such grassroots projects as ChangeCamp, a citizen led event with the stated goal to “re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation.” While jokingly referring to himself as the Mayor With Hair (let’s keep that one to ourselves so that Sue-Ann Levy doesn’t try and run with it), Sonny Yeung does not come across as a frivolous, fringe candidate. He is serious minded and genuinely appears to want to make his city a better place to live.

The only mayoral candidate hailing from Scarborough (which we won’t hold against him), Mr. Yeung is also so far the lone candidate of Chinese descent which, given the abysmal visible minority representation at City Hall, presents another uphill battle to his candidacy. When asked to answer our lame-ass generic question we’ll ask of all candidates (If the present mayor would like his legacy to be that of the Transit Mayor, how would a Mayor Yeung like to see his legacy written? – OK, bad but not If You Were A Tree, What Kind of Tree Would You Be? bad), Mr. Yeung responded: I would like to see the Mayor Yeung legacy ushering in a golden era of change following the almost Great Recession.

Not pithy perhaps but a grand plan from a candidate worthy of further consideration as mayor of Toronto. Hopefully, he’ll get a chance to show his stuff on a bigger stage as we get closer to election day. Sonny Yeung deserves that opportunity.

— dutifully submitted by Cityslikr