Ohhhh Torontoist

There’s nothing more satisfying than when David Topping, editor-in-chief of Torontoist, gets the piss taken out of him for another one of his clueless douchebag moves.

This time, however, not so fun.

What do the tweeps think?

You can read more at your pleasure at @torontoist or @dtopping on Twitter.

[Short background: Many of you know, I’m not from Toronto. I’ve lived here for over 3 years, originally from St. John’s, NL. When I moved here, I started reading Torontoist. It taught me so much about the city and it’s culture. I have to thank it for making my life here that much easier. I appreciated its writing style and editorial stance, but soon grew tired of its page view hunger.]

A few weeks ago I tweeted I was done with Torontoist after a tasteless fat joke (after weeks of really shitty fat jokes), which Topping claimed wasn’t a fat joke as it was prefaced by some witty musing saying exactly that. 

I was told by Topping “[I] used to be cool.” I replied that Torontoist “used to be smart.” I think my argument is holding up.

Depends on your definition of ethical I guess. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see the thought process behind posting those pics– controversy. Hits. The almighty dollar.

Look, that’s how websites work. You need traffic. Appealing to the lowest common denominator is not a crime. It’s just that people used to hold Torontoist to a higher standard. If that’s the direction Topping wants to take the site, I guess that’s his choice, but he seems to be losing a lot of discerning readers on the way.

It wasn’t very long ago that Topping removed a post about a Broken Social Scene show at Parts And Labour as it didn’t mesh with the ideals of the event’s corporate sponsor, and was thusly spayed and neutered. You can read it’s skeleton here.

I don’t see this as unforgivable as some, but here’s the rub: Topping makes a huge deal about transparency, points out the lack of it in others, and touts his own on several occasions. Any Torontoist post that’s been updated after its publishing date gets a huge disclaimer telling you what was changed. Except of course, in this case.

Again, I could forgive this. But in those cases, and now this one, there is the common link. David Topping can never admit he is wrong, and it’s of detriment to him and Torontoist. 

To Topping: You’ve done nothing illegal. Congrats. But you have done something wrong. You invaded many people’s perceived privacies, and backed it up with robotic insensitive language. Your writer added 500 words of research to bikini shots. Who are you kidding?

I’ve never been a stripper, shocking I know, but it’s a job, and like 99 per cent of the jobs on this earth, I assume it sucks. And you want to know what you do at shitty jobs? You take every chance you can to share a moment with someone else who knows how shitty that fucking job is.

You go out on the roof and have a smoke and shoot the shit. Whether you’re slinging donuts or g-strings, I think you have the right to do that privately. It’s the world’s social contract with the workers of all shit jobs. 

Maybe these women love stripping, though it still doesn’t mean they should be paraded for Torontoist’s hits. They have families and lives outside of Zanzibar – I’m sure – and perhaps those are worlds that never intersected until today.

Are you proud of that David? Did you inform your audience? The city? Or have you now (with the Sun, and I’m sure others to follow, clamoring to get in on your fuck up) let an insignificant moment in these women’s lives balloon into something that could have far greater repercussions.

Maybe you’re the one who needs the hobby, dude.

no cilantro

Dear Cluett,
Why do you hate Cilantro? 
Anne

Fuck cilantro. To me, cilantro tastes like dousing your food in perfume. Shitty old woman perfume. HEY I’D REALLY LIKE SOME CHANEL NO.5 ON MY BURRITO!

Fuck that. ALSO OF NOTE: Some of us have a genetic aversion to cilantro. If Julia Child can hate cilantro, so can I.

Next question.

fuck it, man

I love mailbags. I’m going to start a mailbag. Use the comments to ask questions.

I hate milk bags. I prefer my milk in cartons.

My latest Craigslist email exchange

Michael Femi: Hello Seller. I will like to know if this Laptop is still available for sale.

Me: It is. Local sales only

MF: I am so happy to here that, actually i am buying the phone for my cousin who school in west africa, i will like to know if the phone is in 100% good working condition cause right now i am not withing the country to come and pick the laptop up. I will like you to do a favour for me i am going to make payment to you from where i am right now to you through paypal immediateky you receive a message from paypal you can go ahead to ship the laptop to him shipping address will be send to you through paypal. I am also going to pay you for the shipping Thanks, i will be waiting for your reply.

Me: It’s a computer, asshole.

MF: Yeah i know are you selling or not

Me: Yeah, but the price is now $20 000

MF: Ok i am gonna send you $2000 and $200 for shipping send me your paypal email address and paypal name so that payment will be mad as soon as possible

Me: No problem. My paypal email is gofuckyourself@knob.com and user name is cuuuuuuuuuuunt.

I’ll keep y’all informed of whatever happens next…

More Netflix cheese

Last week I watched Brewster’s Millions. That’s right. Friday night. Brewster’s Millions.

Short version. Shitty minor league baseball player inherits $300-million but doesn’t get it until he spends $30-million in 30 days with nothing to show for it, and he’s not allowed to tell anyone why.

It also had Richard Pryor and John Candy on the cover. Laying on CRISP AMERICAN MONEY. Who could resist?

Little did I know, Brewster’s Millions was based on a 1902 novel of the same name by George Barr McCutcheon. Yeah, I haven’t heard of him either, but his early 20th century writing has inspired a gazillion flicks.

Anywho, the movie proved quite topical, when Monty Brewster decides he can waste all of his cash by running for office. It’s on Netflix people.

Shawn Ryan can run a show

My friends are sick of me talking about Terriers. I think it’s brilliant for the same reasons I like and dislike other shows I’ve mentioned – it doesn’t insult the viewer.

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen this far into the show, so if you are super concerned about a minute non-spoiler spoiler, read no further.

The most recent episode takes place during a wedding. You barely see any of the wedding, but if no one told you, you probably wouldn’t notice. I’d say the ceremony maybe received 45 seconds to a minute of screen time, however if someone asked you after the fact if you actually saw the couple exchange vows, you’d say yes.

The show thinks of its viewer as smart enough to subconsciously piece together the background clues of a wedding taking place. You feel like it happened, but you didn’t see any of it. Any other show would have beat you over the heard with the “I do” and “you may now kiss the bride,” but not Terriers. I was just so blown away how it totally trusted the audience.

I don’t know if it’s product of the showrunners/writers wanting to see if they could do it, or just not having enough money in the budget to stage a full wedding, but it’s a great thing to watch.

Blooooooooood

I’m diabetic and use an insulin pump. This means that every three days I have to change an infusion set – a thin catheter that’s inserted into my abdomen and sticks on using medical adhesive. I usually don’t feel it, but once in while (say like 1 out of 10 times) it’s uncomfortable.

After changing the set on Saturday morning, this was one of those times. I should have waited until Tuesday to put a new one in, but it was so uncomfortable I wanted it out of my body. This morning, before getting in the shower I removed it, this is also an uncomfortable process. Imagine ripping off a Band-Aid made of duct tape. Now imagine that Band-Aid is stuck to your Sean Connery tufts of stomach hair.

So, I rip it off, but this time it’s different. Blood starts pouring out of the needle sized incision. And I mean gushing. It was completely fucked the amount of blood just pumping out of me. I must have nicked an artery. There was blood all over my stomach, streaming down my leg, and the bathroom floor. In my fury to find something to stop the bleeding, my bloody handprints were smeared all over the wall and sink. It was CSI: Blansdowne. Took a while to clean it all up.

I hadn’t bled that much since I was a child. The summer before I started kindergarten, my cousin and I were jiving to some hot Sesame Street tunes. I was spinning round and round, trying to make myself dizzy. I succeeded and fell down head first onto the brick fireplace, splitting my head open and bleeding profusely all over the living room. My father was at work and my mother was at home with me and my cousin and no car. 

I remember laying on the kitchen floor, with a cold cloth on my head – my mother panicing and trying to stop the bleeding. I don’t recall a lot of the rest; my uncle came and we sped to the emergency room and I think I scolded him for running a red light. There was a doctor with a beard and he gave me stitches (five I believe). He later gave me a pineapple popsicle. 

My father left work and met us there. He asked me why I didn’t save him half the popsicle. I can only imagine my reaction was, “Dude, I just split my head open, I can have a full popsicle.”

He wore the denim jacket he sported for most of the late ’80s.