I was sitting in my favorite workin’ man’s pub in The Scar when it hit! Sideways rain, hail, patio umbrellas falling over! The works! Total fuckin’ Apocalypse! Later, making my way South down Markham road through the wreckage, I saw this! This isn’t the tree that fell at Lawrence and
Continue readingTag: Life In Scarborough
BigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: The Gangs Of Scarborough
When I moved out here my car insurance went up about thirty bucks a month. As one of my co-workers said at the time: “They’re worried someone is going to pop a cap in your ride!” So, in the past couple of days there’s been this, and this. And today
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: The Barflies Of Scarborough
So I was sitting in a “Workin’ Man’s” pub in Scarborough. The old East Indian guy by the window was a regular; he occupied my favorite table the whole time he was there, the only table in the place where you could plug in your netbook. After having Vivian the
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: Today, A Curse Was Laid Upon Me…
…by a little old lady in Sunday-Morning-Churchy gear. She was walking towards my bus shaking her fist at the sky. When it slowed to pick her up, she pointed and began hurling imprecations. Naturally, the driver accelerated away quickly. In spite of this, I hope to have a pretty good
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: Mormons In The Storm
Waiting for a bus that had got stuck behind a line of plows this afternoon, way out in Scarborough, I ran into a couple of Mormons who were using the occasion to proselytize at the TTC stop. “Have you ever had a chance to read The Book of Mormon?” one
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: The Celebrities Of Scarborough
I sat next to a gal at a bar today who claimed to have been in show-business once. She said she knew Hugh Hefner and had visited the Bunny Ranch, back in the day. In fact she said she had slept with Hef, and had offered him some life advice
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: Got Me Some Ford Nation Hoodys!!!
My bus crapped out around Lawrence & Warden. The bus-driver kicked us all off due to mechanical difficulties, and told everyone the next 54 was coming along any minute. After 15 minutes waiting, I noticed that our stop was right out front of the Ford Campaign’s Scarborough office. It
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Sometimes Scarborough Makes Me Proud
For example today, nursing a beer in a pub in the heart of Ford Nation, I overheard several working-class types discussing the CPP. They quite rightly observed that the current government’s plans to raise the retirement age to 67 was really just a way of giving you a few more
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: Guy On Bus, Muttering Obscenities
So I’m riding a bus home through Eastern Scarborough, and I hear this guy behind me talking shit. Weird, obscene stuff. And it goes on and on and on, the whole bus ride, in halting English, and it keeps circling back to the same few phrases again and again: “This
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: I Think I Saw A Mink
They’re all around T.O. apparently, but I was here: …which is a fair distance from water (although there’s a creek a few hundred yards North, if you look at the map). It came out of the bush to the left of the tracks, and slowly loped forward towards me standing on the
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: Scarborough Youth Discuss Their Social Media Presence
So I’m sitting in a bar in Scarborough (I’m always sitting in a bar in Scarborough), and this young couple a few booths down start arguing. She starts giving him the third degree about what he’s up to on Facebook. She starts talking about all the women he’s “liked” recently,
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: Scarborough Youths Reject The Lure Of Tar-Sands $
Overheard a young couple yesterday in one of Scarborough’s relatively upscale pubs. He had taken her out for dinner. They were both Millennials, sporting elaborate tattoos. He said that he had considered leaving for Fort Mac to shovel bitumen outta the tar-sands, but decided that doing so would mean
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: A 2nd Brief Note On Property Ownership (In Scarborough)
So I find there’s a petition being circulated in my Condo building. People want to boot out the current property managers and hire somebody new. This after already forcing the hiring and firing of four supers from the current company during the one year my wife and I have owned
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough: Olivia Chow On Better Bus Service
Olivia Chow will take downtown, but she has to do OK in the burbs if she wants to win the T.O. mayor’s race. In fact, I would argue that she has to win Scarborough. And she can if she plays her cards right. Her pitch for better bus service is
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Serious Question: What’s Crapping On My Balcony?
I’m nine floors up in outer Scarborough (or, as we call it down here, The Bro), facing West, and every once in awhile I find animal poop on the balcony of my condo unit. Too big for a mouse or rat–and how could they get up here anyway?– not a
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Life In Scarborough Ontario, Part Whatever
I visited my local Walmart the other night, shopping for a new desktop PC. There was a guy hanging out at the entertainment department the whole time I was there. He had a cell-phone pressed to his ear. He was saying into it: “MMMM….mmmm…MMMM…mmmm…MMMM…mmmm…MMMM…mmmm….MMMM… MMMM….mmmm…MMMM…mmmm…MMMM…mmmm…MMMM…mmmm….MMMM” Later he attempted to
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