Going Underground

Toronto councilor and TTC Chair Karen Stintz will be featured on an upcoming episode of Undercover Boss Canada, the television program where top executives get to experience what it is like to be a front-line and/or entry-level employee in their organization.

 

The episode, which was filmed last summer during a break in council’s gravy-hunt, will air sometime in February. In her hour-long installment of the series, we see Stintz getting to dig a fabled expansion subway line for a day, napping in unlikely places, sending a few texts from the driver’s seat of a bus, and even getting to visit the hidden subway stations of Lower Queen and Lower Bay. “It was a lot harder than I thought it would be,” admits Stintz. “These people who forget to ask for a transfer until they’re leaving the bus are hard to believe. Also, a lot of riders don’t seem to know much English yet want to use expired day passes and put their shopping bags on seats. But was really opened my eyes [to the challenges of a TTC employee] was learning why the late-night Yonge bus is referred to as the Vomit Comet. TMI, people!”

The councilor also had contact with a fellow city haller while doing her rounds on the Queen streetcar. “Yeah, the Mayor gave me the finger as he passed my open doors and told me to ‘get the f— out of the way.’ I don’t know where he thought a streetcar could be otherwise but that’s okay—he works hard and plays hard and I know he was on his way to Huntsville and wanted to beat the traffic before the 400 clogged up with ordinary folk. When I told him later that it was me waving to him, he didn’t recall the incident and his spokesperson confirmed that it couldn’t have been him.”

Pocket Watch 2012

lazy spoofing at work

In an exclusive interview to tbothot today, Toronto Mayor (th)Rob Ford revealed that the (in)famous 911 call(s) placed from his home in the wake of being “assaulted” by CBC Television’s ‘comedy’ program This Hour Has 22 of Everything last fall were in fact the result of pocket dialing and any comments overheard by the emergency dispatcher were in fact of him speaking to his family in a private context.

“Nope, that’s right—I didn’t know the line was open to 911 because I never called them intentionally… if at all, or that’s what they’re saying,” explains his honourable corpulence. “I regularly call my wife and daughter ‘the bitches’ in a friendly, joking way. They’re totally cool with that, yeah. And they call me ‘Mr. Ford’ in return. It’s a funny bit that we do. When I said ‘don’t you know I’m the f’ing Mayor’, that was also not directed at the dispatcher. It’s just something I put at the end of most sentences around the house. We all get a kick out of it because, I am the f’ing Mayor, geddit?”

Well, that settles it. Our public broadcaster should stick to mowing their own lawn, the Mayor needs to lock his BB keys, Chief Bill Blair is a good guy whose account of the 911 tape should stand, and there be no cause for further speculation in this matter.

About the reported 911 call possibly made on Christmas Day from casa Ford by the Mayor’s mother-in-law? “Also pocket-dialing,” says his Fordship. “Absolutely.”

Gold Not Pictured

Help Is On Its Way

Wrong Marcus

Drunk girl just asked me whether I’m in Mumford & Sons… at the concert… while the band was on stage. Responding “how could I be?” she came back with “I dunno, you just look artistic.”

Still got it, haven’t I?

Insert Comedy Headline

thehandoftamm grew, for those who count such things, older at the weekend and a pal of mine invited me to breakfast (Guinness, vodka) for a fry-up along with Premiership football. And oysters [What exactly did you have in mind, Dave?] and sea urchins [zoinks].  “Urchins?” I asked as he pulled out two prickly balls and thrust them in my direction. “Have you had them before?” he asked, eyebrow raised. I could only recall Uncle Monty’s questioning of whether Marwood was a “sponge or a stone” and decided I would not hold myself from experiencing new sensations. The spines of the urchins were moving, albeit slowly, possibly in communication with one another in a vain attempt to stave off the inevitable.  “Laugh it up, fuzzballs!” Dave and I chanted before dispatching the spiky spheres and eating what little meat they offered. The quick review: melt-in-your-mouth texture, leatherlike taste. My heart was impaled.

Stern Justice

Casa thehandoftamm is a near-impenetrable fortress at the heavily guarded eastern border of the stronghold that is Corso Italia. Few make it in, none make it out again. That one so small, bold, and cunning dared to enter is shocking. thehandoftamm must and will rain down blows as is custom: only swift mercy in reward to the crazy-brave, else one should no longer be considered lord of the manor. As a family, we were greeted by this sight before breakfast; last night’s measures having made good overnight. I nearly burst with solemn pride when the elder lad remarked that his dad is really very good at killing. I replied that such actions are committed without joy, only a sacred sense of duty.

Roadtrippin’ III

New York City, it has been claimed, has it all. The job of thehandoftamm is to devise simple experiments for finding oneself stymied in straightforward searches for everyday things. A city that offers countless treasures should be, within minutes, able to provide one mauve shirt with French cuffs in 17.5 by 34/35 along with suitable tie, preferably containing turquoise elements to work in concert with Mrs. thehandoftamm’s cocktail dress. Not so fast and not so easy, hando!

While the rest of the family raided the stores of FAO Schwarz, I waltzed into Bergdorf Goodman’s like a hand to the manner born but was soon betrayed by my wallet and paucity of elite shopping experience. I might be justifiably accused of aiming above my station when one considers that most of my wardrobe has come free with fill-up at Petro-Canada. My lack of proper cultivation became glaringly obvious when I began choking on my TicTacs as the schmata slinger elegantly turned the $695 price tag of the first shirt to my eyeline. Hoping to regain some dignity by continuing this shopping charade for a moment longer before giving myself a plausible out, I instead placed my Wallabees in my mouth with the question of whether the buttons were included in the price. ‘Sir! You forget yourself,’ came the reply as the salesman raised his arm to point my way to the nearest exit.

Spirit dented but unbroken, I marched up and down 5th Avenue with the hordes of other touristy shoppers, in and out of every men’s clothier. The results were less dramatic than my first stop but equally unyielding of success. After a quick rendezvous with the family to compare the number of shopping bags we had gathered, even they abandoned me in disgust, returning to Brooklyn and advising me not to come back without game in my hunter’s satchel. The naked disappointment on the faces of my children told me dad was at risk of losing status as a hero.

I redoubled my efforts away from the scene of my embarassments and before long found a reasonably tony store with a sympathetic salesperson who assured me she had something for me in their Palooka section. If it wasn’t bang on to specs, at least I got close enough to return to the family and dress myself for a party.

The rest of that night, it won’t surprise you, reader, is a blur–but I can assign that blame to the open bar and my pressing need to get the taste of 5th Avenue out of my mouth.

Roadtrippin’ II

The family went swimming while I went to the carwash to work on the Family Trusckster’s interior for an hour. That upholstery is showroom new, sort-of. Following that, we hit the last 250km of road and all went smoothly until the vinegar strokes of New Jersey, at which point traffic, construction, and cops put hours of frustration between me and my next Marriott. That’s what makes the ‘just arrived’ cocktail all the sweeter, of course. And the ‘settling in’ cocktail.

Because no long voyage shouldn’t be celebrated with leisure, Mrs. thehandoftamm concocted a scheme for the family to walk 3 hours along the West side, culminating with the HighLine, which was lovely. Once back in Brooklyn with aching legs, my search for tonic water resembled the earlier search for a hotel in Pennsylvania. What do Americans drink their gin with?

Roadtrippin’

The sun was shining, the back roads route we had selected was picturesque. This was family roadtrippin’ at its finest–at least for the first five or so hours. Life teaches you little without the occasional challenge and yesterday’s challenges included pulling over twice to clean vomit out of the back seats. The Family Truckster is further along the rank end of the aromatic scale and my first duty this morning will be to attend to that if only I can find some remedies here in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. We are heading into some sort of holiday Memorial Day weekend in the US of A and many Americans are already on the move and in need of shelter for the night. As a result, we were forced to stop at five hotels over 50 miles before finding a single vacancy. The greenish child in need of a lie-down took it in stride. His parents less so. Eventually lodging was found and the duty free purchases pressed into duty. There’s nothing to be found on television of a Thursday night in Dickson City but ol’ faithful innernet provided us with election results from back home as we slurped our rum drinks and looked optimistically toward a glorious tomorrow where family thehandoftamm would Brooklyn by storm…a storm of vomit, if need be.

EDIT: Turns out the holiday was Columbus Day weekend, whatever that is. In my defense, it was a native New Yorker who speculated that it was Memorial Day weekend–turns out not everyone views holidays with the same reverence.