Rose's Cantina

Okay, okay. So I was going to make Rose's Cantina a Duffy free zone today, but it just wasn't possible. Like the Ikea monkey story, this one continues to have legs. It wasn't enough for Duff to get a six figure salary plus reasonable expenses. Nope, not Captain Potato Head from PEI. He wanted to be a Minister without Portfolio so he could have a car, driver and a bunch of staff. And be paid not just from the government coffers but also from the PC Fund. Was there no depth to which Mike Duffy could sink? I can't remember the last time there was a Minister without Portfolio. I seem to recall that was the brain child of the Trudeau Liberals, but I can't remember what a MWP actually did. I mean, you have to think Crime Minister Hairpiece would have to give people some indication that the MWP was doing something aside from riding around in cars getting coffee with comedians. The car wouldn't be too good to get Duff to Conservative speaking engagements ...

The scandals in Ottawa have done one positive thing. They have gotten people to pay attention to politics again. Until two weeks ago, I hadn't watched a single episode of Power Play -- boy, that Don Martin is a laugh riot. He reminds me of Jon Lovitz. We've got a crisis, here, see? says Opera Man through his clenched teeth. A Goddamned crisis! Gallery members must be having a field day, raking in the cash as they ping pong from political show to politic show. (CRA take note!) And the best news of all is that, thanks to Duffy, Frank magazine is coming back again. Gosh, how I've missed Frank. An honorable member, no, no! It's another place the Gallery makes money by feeding gossipy stories without attribution about slimy people they deplore. Some of the big media stars in Ottawa built themselves some pretty nice piles in Rockcliffe on the residuals from Frank . Not! They probably made enough money to feed the meters leaking to Frank , but money's no...

The first thing you must do, when recovering from a life-threatening and career-ending addiction, is to try to gain insight into your own life. This is not terribly easy and even people who have successfully rehabbed often don't have the capacity to gain insight. You see these guys in lots of AA meetings. They've successfully won the battle against addiction but they haven't won the war. They're still dysfunctional schlubs and idiots who have traded one addiction -- booze, pills, sex -- for another (AA). Acquiring insight doesn't mean listening to what friends and family have to say. Friends and family are working their own agendas. Rather, it means looking at yourself frankly, digging deep into the root causes of your addiction and pulling up those roots and planting new flowers. People who aren't addicts don't have a clue. Even with years of training and observing addicted rats, the medical professionals are not any closer to finding a cure for ...

5:30 a.m. Awake with a start realizing that you're on deadline in France. Hobble out of bed, let the dogs out, put the kettle on. 7:00: Four web stories written. Mission accomplished. 7:15: Push button to send invoice. 7:30: Off to gym. Then to Farmboy to pick up kale and carrots for juice. 8:00: Head ache. Back home to feed the dogs. 8:30: Peck the husband on the cheek. Send him off to sell cheap cars to sacked public servants with severance. 9:00: Check Facebook, Twitter, newspapers, look for fodder for the blog. 9:03: Score! Rob and Doug Ford. This shit literally writes itself. 9:15: Blog finished. 9:30: Juice and three egg omelette 10:00: Check email. Nemesis in France is fired because, to quote her words, "everybody hates her and thinks she's evil". Think to oneself: God has answered prayer. Send the Holy Spirit a high five. 10:05: Send condolences. Secretly hope she drops off the Eiffel Tower. 10:10: Note to newest boss. We will hav...

Man, those Ford brothers are an articulate pair. First Rob Ford "allegedly" but most probably called Justin Trudeau a "fag" in the infamous non-video. Now his big bro is calling the media "maggots". The Fords certainly are poets. I have a question. How exactly did the Ford brothers get themselves a talk show? Who is paying for the air time? Nothing in radioland is free, so are they paying for it themselves, being that they are rich and not in need of salaries? If others are paying for their air time on NewsTalk 1010, do they have to file that expense with Elections Canada? Giving a full hour over to a couple of jokesters like the Ford Brothers kind of smacks of Third World despotism, doesn't it? Does NewsTalk1010 allow equal time to others? I found it incredible yesterday that CTV News Channel gave the Ford Brothers whole pieces of their newscast for several hours so they could blorg on about how they were going to take media types behind t...

I read in the Globe and Mail this morning that Doug Ford was a hash dealer back in 1980. A refrain of an old song went through my head. Those were the days my friend, I thought they'd never end. We'd sing and dance for ever and a day. I didn't smoke a lot of hash in 1980 but I did smoke my share. It was during my rock and roll days when I was a music reviewer for the Ottawa Citizen and I was tooling around in my bright white bowling alley car, sometimes ferrying musicians over to Hull where we would get wasted, then roll home to sleep for 12 hours. I only got arrested for drunk driving once -- another story entirely -- and I only snorted cocaine once, but I did do it. I remember vividly being high on coke, sitting on a Go Train and feeling my throat swell up. I also spent six hours at a Tim Horton's. For a time during that period, I might have been fashioned as a drug dealer, though I like to think of it as being a purveyor of organic substances that wer...

Stephen Harper would do well to tell Senator Marjory LeBreton to zip it. Instead of giving Canadians some useful information yesterday, she took the time to lambast other parties and what she called "media lickspittles" for asking legitimate questions about the Senate expenses fiasco. This is vintage Marjory, herself a quintessential "lickspittle" or toadie mouthpiece. LeBreton is well known as a hyper-partisan having polished the toenails of Tory leaders since before Brian Mulroney was pocketing Shrieber money. Essentially, the good Senator has been on the public dole since 1984 -- that's thirty years -- and she's got another few to go, suckling at the public tit either as a patronage princess dispensing goodies to Conservatives across the land or as a publically-paid apologist for Tories everywhere. Yesterday, she was showing her partisan thong accusing people who are paid to question the government of being biased towards the opposition. I can tell...

Word came down from high yesterday that Mike Duffy's expense claims were going to be re-examined by the same Senate committee that whitewashed his case in the first place. This, after a Liberal proposal failed to have the whole thing punted into the waiting arms of the RCMP. Doesn't this make you feel better? And didn't you feel even better upon hearing that our Fearless Leader was "upset" and "angry" yesterday? Let me give you something else to think about. The head of that Senate committee is one Dave Tkachuk from Saskatchewan, a man who had a distinguished career as principal secretary to Grant Devine in the 1980s. His claim to fame back then was the time he tore the blouse of a female MLA. Which again makes a sane person wonder: how do these guys pass the smell test? Okay, so a history of sexual harassment shouldn't disqualify a guy from getting a cushy seat in the Senate and leading a probe into the expenses of his peers, right? T...

Shortly after Prime Minister Harpo finished his back-patting speech about what a great job the Tories did at improving accountability in Ottawa, I saw a post on Twitter from canada.com which described Stephen Harper's talk as "angry". No, I corrected them. He wasn't angry; he was defiant. Harper is a political firebrand, the kind of leader who rises to the top because of his own brand of psychopathy. As Hannibal Lecter describes his own condition, "you have a perspective, I have a view". To a psychopath, the truth is irrelevant as are the implications of their actions on other people. All that counts to a psychopath is himself, and in Harper's case "the brand". Harper didn't defend Duffalump and the other woozels because he cared about them. He only cared that they had been loyal foot soldiers. Duffy and Wallin did the fundraising. Wright did his dirty work. And now, he sits atop a heap of political rubble still not understa...

My neighbor Squeaky always looked forward to Queen Victoria Day. It was the day he got to blow up frogs. And blow them up real good. Squeaky and I would go down to the pond on Cole's Farm and catch frogs by the pail. I was never up for blowing up frogs; I preferred burning down the Little Red School House. Nobody got hurt and we school kids delighted at the fact we could commit symbolic arson at least one day of the year. We didn't have money for the big fireworks, but it didn't matter. Squeaky's dad Art, the rich gladiola baron always put on a show just down the road. On our farm, we'd sit in rickey lawn chairs and eat hot dogs and popsicles while Squeaky's clan had steak and pie. It was always seemed to me a little unfair, the class difference. It just reinforced the great divide between poor farmers and rich farmers. Oh well, we could live vicariously through Art's brood. I was thinking today about how special life was when we were kids. How th...

Watching yesterday's clown parade in Ottawa, I couldn't help but feel some nostalgia for the old Press Club. If the Club were still alive, we would all be heading there noonish to chatter about former colleagues, rivals and ne'er do wells who seem to have their knickers in some pretty serious knots over their juvenile spending habits. The talk would turn to Mike Duffy, of course, who, as the French say had been farting above his asshole in recent days. The usual crowd would chow down on Chef Paul's famous roast beef and pea soup lunch. Everybody who was anybody in Ottawa would be there. Charles Lynch, Stu McLeod, Gus Cloutier and the Van Dusens in one corner. The French table spreading out in the middle. Nino would be fighting with Michel Vastel who would be telling the manager to go fuck himself. Vastel would be expelled. Again. Over at the Sandinista table all the Tories would sit in their various states of "in or out". They would be chain smok...

Could you qualify for a seat in the Canadian Senate? Take the following standard psychological test. Do you agree or disagree with the following statements. Be honest! 1. I can be very smooth, engaging, charming and slick. 2. I can be very self-assured, opinionated, even a braggart. 3. I can be shrewd, crafty, sly and clever. I can also be deceptive, unscrupulous, underhanded, manipulative and dishonest. 4. In my life, I have repeatedly used deceit and deception to cheat, con or defraud others for my personal gain. 5. I often don't feel much concern for possible losses or suffering of persons I leave behind. 6. If something goes wrong, I rarely take full responsiblity but tend to manipulate or put the blame on others to divert from my own failures. 7. At times, I feel the need for novel, thrilling and exciting stimulation. This might result in me taking chances that are risky. 8. I have made significant amounts of money by intentionally exploiting or manipulati...

A knock at the door. "Come in, come in." "Sir, you wanted to see me?" "Ya think?" "I can explain everything. I was just doing what we do on Bay Street. You have a problem that involves money, you solve it with money. It goes away. Gerry taught me that." "Ah, well, I guess this isn't Bay Street." "Seriously, sir, I know it looks bad but it's on me. I was the one who took the decision, I am the one whose bank account is $90,000 lighter. Besides, by keeping you in the dark, I've given you plausible deniability." "This might work in the private sector, but this is fucking Ottawa. When you fart in a room in Ottawa, it sticks to everybody's clothes. The smell rises to the top. And who is on the top?" "You your Majesty." "Damned straight." "Sir, the man couldn't afford to pay back the money. He's nearly a million dollars in debt. He has a heart condition. And f...

I've known Mike Duffy for three decades. Drank with him. Dined with him. Travelled with him. Duff is one of my favorite people of all time. He was always kind to me when others weren't. He was generous to a fault. When our good friend Annette Leger died a few years back, Duffy offered to throw a wake in the Parliamentary Restaurant -- on him. Nobody questioned where the money came from. It was the kind of thing that happened on the Hill all the time. Old School. The Gus Cloutier way of doing things. In retrospect, it explains a lot. Playing loose and fast with the public purse used to be the way things were done on Parliament Hill. Wonderful Wednesdays in ministers' offices. Posh Christmas parties. Next to free meals, dry cleaning and hair cuts. The Press Gallery was right in there, lapping up the canapes and swilling cheap beer out of a vending machine in the "hot room". Reporters also benefited from free phones, offices, supplies and parking. ...

As William Shatner noted yesterday, Chris Hadfield is one big show off. What can't the guy do? He's a doctor. An astronaut. A singer/songwriter. Triple threat really. Winner of this year's edition of  World Idol. Chris Hadfield is a nerd amongst nerds, a guy who makes geekism cool. Like the boys on the Big Bang Theory. Until Chris Hadfield, nobody wanted to be an astronaut. Especially a Canadian astronaut. Now space travel is cool again. Where do we sign up? Oh wait. The Harpos are gutting the Canadian Space Agency, making it a laughing stock. They are cutting research, too. Seems Stephen Harper didn't pass his science and math exams. Doesn't see the benefit of evidence-based science. No matter. Today is not a day to gripe about assholes. Today is a day to embrace our inner geek. Chris, we Canadians are so damned proud of you, we are practically showing our bra straps! Throwing you virtual panties. How can we possibly repay you for making lea...

Chef and bon vivant Anthony Bourdain admits he's a French Canadian sympathizer. He does have a French name after all. But his recent piece on CNN about "Canada" was a little over the top even for him. First, he chose to present to the CNN audience a picture of Canada that had nothing to do with our home and native land. Instead, it focused solely on the Quebec culture -- which would have been alright if it had been called Parts Unknown: Quebec. The piece was entertaining fodder, following a group of Quebecois gourmands as they chowed their way through a series of artery clogging, heart stopping meals while lubricating themselves with expensive wines. These blobs could give Epic mealtime a run for its money. They frolicked through the countryside eating beaver stewing in its own plasma sauce. Then it was off to a hipster place to savor more organ meat, to a fishing hut and onto a Via Rail One club car. Bordain included every cliche in the book. ...

A few days ago, the baby Skylar was flushed and pooping, so Nick came up for a consult. I told him that it was probably nothing, just a reaction to the heat wave. He wasn't sure, so he took her to the doctor. Sure enough, she had an ear infection. The bill came to $60 (what!) and so Nick sullenly returned, cap in hand, to see if I could help out til next week when Shyla gets paid. Scott and I are tapped out, thanks to both of us being unemployed for four months, but I agreed to lend him the money for the afternoon, while Shyla went to her mom to shake her down. A financial plan was arranged, baby was medicated, and all was right with the world once again. A few hours later, I went down to their apartment to check on them and discovered that Skylar was back to her bouncy self. Nick, on the other hand, looked very much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining : hair all akimbo, long scraggily sideburns, black under the eyes. I remember that look. All he was missing was the swe...

Have a good look at this guy, Mike Jeffries. You've probably never seen him before. Now he's all over the news because he doesn't want to sell apparel to fatties. Not just to fatties, but to girls who can't fit into a size 10 jean. I have never been a size 10, but I've been a size 12, and that was pretty skinny. I had absolutely no fat on me, just big hips. When I was a size 12, I bought an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt while shopping at the West Edmonton Mall. It had a moose on it and I thought it was cool. I no longer think that Abercrombie and Fitch is cool. I think Abercrombie and Fitch is the lowest of low. Not quite as low as companies that make apparel in countries where they use slave labor, but low. It is Mike Jeffries' choice to sell to whomever he wants to. I shop at Addition Elle and they don't sell clothes to skinny people. Scott can't buy a suit in his size at The Bay, either. So we shop at the big, tall and broad stores. I co...

I couldn't have picked a better week to do a juice cleanse. It's hot as a whore out there, so who wants to turn on the stove? In fact, I'm using my stove as my juicing station now. It's also nice not to have to think about what's for dinner. You know what's for dinner, lunch and breakfast. I bought this Breville Juicer about three years ago and I used it, like, twice. Now I'm cranking out my entire week's worth of eats in it. I can make an entire day's worth of juice in about half an hour. I thought juicing was going to be expensive, but it turns out that I can do it for less than ten bucks a day if I go Farm Boy and buy my apples, oranges and peppers in the discount bin. What does it matter if the skin is a little bruised? It's going to be pulverized anyway. The worst thing about a juice fast is what comes out the other end, especially after a beet juice session. Not for the faint of heart. But energy. I feel like Bradley Cooper in ...

I'm proud of getting off the blood pressure medication. But it also has had a negative side effect. Since losing the BPM, I've gained 10 pounds. The reason is simple. If you have BPM, you have to take water pills. Water pills significantly reduce the bloat. Now I'm up two pant sizes. So it's back to the drawing board. I've been sweatin' to CNN daily for years now, but all that gym activity has done absolutely nothing to reduce my weight. Truth be told, the gym has made me heavier. It's also given me a Kim Kardashian tussie. Now I don't mind the bubble butt. For years, I've prayed for even a little piece of ass. Genetically, a bubble butt was never in the cards. I come from a long line of flat asses. Genetically, I also come from a line of women blessed with spare tires. It's like wearing a belt of unleavened bread. So I have been looking for a solution. I was watching Dr. Oz last week, and he did a week of shows about cleanses desi...

Last night, I taught my son Stefan to muddle. It isn't the sort of skill one learns at their mother's knee, like sewing or first aid. Muddling is a lost art in a video game playing, Red Bull drinking culture. Most kids these days have never muddled in their lives. It is now only an essential skill for those who read the Sunday New York Times and who frequent the Vintages section of the LCBO. Sort of like pipe smoking in a tobacco loathing world. The lesson began as a kind of request. Stef has recently been promoted to bartender from server at his job and many folks have been complaining that the joint where he works cannot make a proper Mojito. They are too sour, the patrons railed. The Mojito recipe had been handed down from Head Office along with an ingredient list which was right and proper, save for the addition of a little too much lime. Head office required bartenders to make the Mojito with a shaker which, I told Stef in no uncertain terms, wouldn't d...

You can buy just about anything at the Ottawa Farmers' Market which opened today. Of course, the fruit and veg are still in short supply, but you can buy any manner of four legged awesomeness -- piggy, heifer, elk -- everything except for chickens. You can't buy the chickens but you can buy the eggs. Scott is shooting a documentary about the market so he was up early (5:45 a.m.) as were the hounds, as was I. That is why I'm writing this blog so late in the day -- I had to have a little snooze before I could face the throngs of public servants who were buying their cuttings and their artisan bread. Here's a quick view of what Scott saw this morning at the crack of dawn. Happy Cinco de Mayo!  

Everybody was griping about the weather this winter, but as a farmer's daughter, I thought, good. I say good because the terrific snow coverage is going to mean a banner year for the farmers. And it's about time they got some good luck. (Sorry, Saskatchewan, cheers.) Last year was pitiful and challenging. This year is going to be sweet. I was thinking about this very thing this morning over my morning coffee. I read in the Ottawa Citizen that the Ottawa Farmers' Market will reopen at Brewer Park across from Carleton University this Sunday. Going to the market every week has been a little treat for us, and Finnigan, who grew up before the eyes of the vendors last year. I'm sure they will be amazed that the little puppy who was often caught pinching the odd vegetable has grown into a full-fledged horse. The jury is still out as to whether we bring little Sophie the pug, but I'm thinking, why not? She is sure to delight the shoppers, though I will have to ...