I'm baaaaack! Remember me? Anybody left? I hear crickets chirping. I got caught up on all my work, but then it was my birthday on the 28th, and April 1st is our 13th wedding anniversary, so, well...I got distracted. That's what comes from gettin' old!
This month's Town Crier toon. What more needs to be said? Snow be gone, damn you! And bring us yucky, dirty, slooshy slush! (But no basement floods, please).
Here's this month's Town Crier cartoon.
Some background for those not living in Toronto. Toronto City Council has decided to start a user-pay garbage system. Very soon us Torontonians with have to decide how much garbage we are going to produce, and we are going to have to pay for a bin to put our said garbage in. The bigger bin you decide to have, the more you're gonna have to pay.
Now, of course I'm all about decreasing our garbage. And yes, I'd love it if people recycled more. But I just don't think that this was the best idea. First of all, once again, it just seemed to be decided by council PDQ, without much feedback from the people who live in the city, or much attempt to think of alternatives (like, why not a 'pay per bag' concept instead?) I'd love to know how much it cost to purchase all these stupid plastic garbage containers. And will we get reimbursed for the money we had already spent on the containers we purchased to put our garbage in before this dumb decision? Never mind that already people are complaining that the containers are too frickin' large to drag down along the side of their narrow alleyways.
I just don't see how this system is going to encourage people to recycle more. What I see is that we are going to have people do whatever they can to get around this system. People will compress their garbage, so garbagemen will have to deal with bins that are extremely heavy. Then I'm sure Toronto Council will go back and vote on some new law about the weight of your garbage. And there will be a hell of a lot more illegal dumping, you can count on that. Which ain't gonna make this city very pretty-looking. But oh no, Miller says Torontonians "have a choice" with how to deal with our garbage.
Choice my ass.You know what really cheezes me off?? It's this goddam attitude from every level of government that this garbage problem is all the fault of the average little guy. We are made to feel guilty for the endless amount of packaging and crap that we purchase. And yet these same stupid politicians are also encouraging us to "get out there and buy more, spend more money" in order to keep the economy going. Not once have I heard or read Mayor Miller talk about how the corporations are the bastards who keep producing all this useless shit that we all have to deal with. Nope. It's apparently all our fault, and it's all up to us to clean up the mess. And boy, we're gonna pay for it. And so while we are made to feel guilty, and have to once again pay for this problem out of our own pockets, corporations continue to get tax breaks from the government, instead of fucking fines for producing all this shit. Pardon my rant, but this situation really pisses me off.
This latest garbage fiasco is not an effort to really solve the garbage problem. It's a cash grab, plain and simple, and these bloody politicians should have the balls to at least admit to that fact.
January's Town Crier cartoon. Ah yes. Toronto Council and their spending habits. How did it get to this, that it would motivate me to draw a cartoon on the subject? Well, you see, once upon a time there were two Toronto city councillors named Rob Ford and Doug Holyday who apparently have spent so little of their $53,100 annual office budgets that it upset the other councillors very much, because many of the other councillors very happily spent just about all of their own budgets. So because of their apparent thriftiness (and their apparent lack of receipts) these two fellows were subjected to a council-ordered investigation. Well that did not please Rob Ford, I can tell you, so enterprising fellow that he is, he decided to post what other Toronto councillors have been spending their office budgets on, on his own web site. Now trust me, I am no fan of either Rob Ford or Holyday, but I must confess that it was a clever move. And it certainly was interesting to see what councillors were doing with the money that we gave them. Sometimes it ain't exactly what one would consider necessary spending in order to better the city. Oh, and yes, you can bet that the other councillors were none to happy to have their own spending for everyone to see. The end result? The city is now going to examine councillor spending. Naturally I had my doubts as to how effective this would be, but surprise surprise, city councillors have voted away their free dinners, which will save taxpayers $23,000 a year. No it's not a huge amount of cash, but it's a start. I bet if they tried hard enough, they could save plenty of the taxpayer's dinero, so then they wouldn't have to resort to closing hockey rinks and shutting down libraries on Sundays, which didn't work anyway. Ah these crazy councillors! What will they do next?
Anyway...what does all this teach us? C'mon, you know I'm going to say it – there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, baby!!
The December cartoon for the Town Crier. Cute, huh? I wanted a Christmas-themed cartoon, of course, but with a dash of political humour thrown in, for good measure. If you're curious, the two elves who look like they're about to get into blows are none other than Giorgio Mammoliti and Rob Ford. Those two clowns always seem to be at one another's throats.
One of these days I'm probably gonna get into trouble for spoofing mayor Miller. Funny thing is, about two weeks ago I was on the subway, on my way to a morning appointment, when wouldn't you know it, we had a subway delay. This one was a long one (it had been going off and on for over two hours), and I ended up being stuck in this one subway car for almost an hour. The car was really crowded, but overall people weren't that crabby. They did gripe and moan about the state of the TTC system, though (myself included). The common question was why is it that the more our fares increase, the more we seem to experience subway delays? I'd really like to know the answer to that. Do you think if I sit on mayor Miller's knee, he might tell me? Anyway, while some of us passengers chatted and kvetched, I couldn't help but notice who was seated right across from me. None other than the mayor's wife. I could not help but wonder what she would think if she knew who was sitting across from her – that smart-alec broad who draws those ridiculous cartoons of her husband. No, I didn't introduce myself, and she did not mention to the crowd of TTC riders that she was the wife of Toronto's mayor. She just sat still, quietly reading her newspaper.
Oh, and yes, I know I did not post a poem for Silly Poetry Friday. Mea culpa!! Things are starting to really get hectic around here – I'm starting to do my Christmas entertaining, and I've got a large plate of freelance work to deal with (which of course, is good news, but why does it always seem to happen just before the Christmas season?) So blog posts will be quite erratic for the next few weeks, I'm afraid. But I'll do my best to not miss another Silly Poetry Friday. 'Cuz that's just – silly!
Here's the November cartoon for the Town Crier. I had a lot of fun with this one! And you know what? I'm really having a blast drawing Mayor Miller. I love using the brush to ink his big face and long nose, and of course his darling swishy blond locks. What's there not to love about spoofing this guy?
If you live in the city of Toronto and you have an interest in municipal politics, then you know that on October 22nd, the Toronto City Council voted in those two tax increases. Unfortunately Miller decided to compromise a bit with those taxes, so he won't be pulling in as much money as he originally anticipated, so guess what? We'll be feeling the pain somewhere else, more than likely with raised property taxes, and after that, who knows? He's still behind the eight ball with the budget, and as far as I can remember, this is the first time I've ever read in various newspapers of late about serious talk of declaring bankruptcy for the city.
Miller Man, Miller Man, does whatever a Mayor can...
Here's the Town Crier cartoon for October. Your basic celebration of Fall. Of course, I still don't feel like celebrating full throttle, what with all this *&#!!# hot weather lately. Where's all the beautiful blustery cool days that I love so much? I wanna wear sweaters, dammit!
Here's September's Town Crier cartoon. I'm not too sure if the joke is very clear, and quite frankly, neither was the editor. If you know what's been going on with the Toronto Council lately, then you'll know that there's been some nasty on-screen fueding and some issues with mayor loyalty within this less-than-functional family. And let us not forget that very, very sad photo session, which was reminiscent of something out of a kindergarten class. It got me thinking that this council is seriously screwed up, not unlike Tony Soprano's 'family'. So that's the message I was trying to get across, though perhaps not very successfully. Oh well. I was pleased with how I drew most of the councillor's faces, though. Any of you Toronto folks out there recognize them?
I got to double my pleasure this month! Two cartoons for the Town Crier. The first one I drew because as we all know, summer is all about dogs. They are everywhere (and hopefully on leashes) running about, sniffing, barking, and gernerally having a grand ol' time. I'm sure they don't miss wearing silly coats and booties during those cold winter months. And yes, I drew a pug in the pic again. I can't help myself – I really wanna pug! Sniff!
The other cartoon is to honour the wonderful Ed Mirvish, who passed away last month at the age of 92. He did so much for this city – giving birth to the Entertainment District, revitalising the live theatre industry, giving out those free turkeys every Christmas – a man who came from nothing and contributed so much. He will be sadly missed. I'm not entirely thrilled with the drawing of him, but it was the best I could do under a tight deadline. He was hard to draw, I confess, and for some reason I keep thinking of Zippy the Pinhead when I look at the drawing. Mea Culpa, Ed!
The July cartoon for the Bloor West Journal/Town Crier. I've changed the title of this category a bit because when the Town Crier purchased the Bloor West Journal, I approached the editor of the Town Crier about continuing to do cartoons for the Journal, and after some discussion I ended up getting to do a cartoon for all the papers owned by the Town Crier. This means that most of the time my cartoons will have more of a Toronto focus, as opposed to a Bloor West community focus, unfortunately. But I will still throw in Bloor West Toons when I can, don't worry.
Here I go again – kvetching about Mayor Miller and Toronto City Council. It's funny how one's attitude towards politics changes the minute one purchases a house. But it's hard to get over the fact that you bust your fanny so that you can afford a house in this damned expensive city, and then you are rewarded by getting taxed up the ass everywhere you turn. Yes, I know – Toronto is in some serious financial problems, and something had to be done. I'm just not so sure that doubling the land-transfer tax is the way to go. We're not car people, so the vehicle registration increase isn't an issue with us, though I'm sure many people in the city aren't thrilled with it. Both these tax increases aren't in place yet – council still has to vote on it – but based on how the cash grab garbage issue was quickly passed, I'm sure this is pretty much a fait a compli as well. And the liquor tax? Feh. I'm sure it will be approved by Toronto Council, too. Won't stop me, or plenty of other Torontonians I sure, from drinking – we'll need to drown our sorrows with something strong once all these tax increases are implemented.
Whoopsie! I've been so busy I forgot to post my cartoon for the June issue of the Bloor West Journal.
Once again, this is pretty self-explanatory. If you live in Toronto, get ready to see a lot of new street furniture plastered with craploads of ads. Yup, not too long ago Toronto City Council sold out our city for some cold hard cash. Naturally there are people who are very upset about this, but it's a done deal, whether we like it or not. Welcome to the New World Order in TO.
