special disco mention #9: Rob Ford

What a car crash. Rob Ford is one of those horrid men: privileged, arrogant, wealthy, stupid. They never come unstuck. They run the world. They sit behind a wall of media/state/police protection as they rub their greasy hands together, counting money and pouring misery on the poor, horrid minions below. But this is one fat cat who’s come unstuck. He’s come unstuck to such an extent that he’s broken into a hundred pieces. He’s exploded into a viral sensation – an anti-hero for the youtube era. 

If you’ve somehow missed it, the story goes something like this: Mayor of Toronto is caught on film smoking crack, denies it, is exposed for it, another video appears of Mayor of Toronto clearly out of his mind, threatening to kill someone and appearing to suggest he’ll take on Mike Tyson in the process. Mayor then admits smoking crack, but refuses to seek help, properly apologise or, crucially, step down as mayor. Mayor is then challenged in a sort of emergency congress meeting, where he pushes over a female councillor while trying to force his way up to the public gallery to fight some hecklers. That’s about it so far, but if you’ve followed the story you’ll know that there are likely to be many more chapters before the whole thing comes to a close.   

This piece isn’t an attempt to make light of drug or alcohol addiction (of which Mr Ford clearly suffers on both counts), more a celebration of the fact that even those in the highest political ivory towers can be outed in this technologically advanced day and age. Rob Ford clearly needs help, and I hope he comes to his senses and seeks it out, but he is so far from that point that he appears to be under the impression that denial is a river in Egypt. But, aside from the addiction issues, he really does appear to be a nasty piece of work – so there is a grim pleasure in witnessing his unravelling. All it took to cut this grotesque figure down to size was a well placed camera phone. On the back of this whole mess, Paul Flowers, the Co-op Bank chairman and Pastor has been outed for buying crack, ketamine and Crystal Meth (now that’s a party) in the period that the bank, under his stewardship, was going to the dogs. So, let’s hope that these big powerful behemoths begin to realise that their positions aren’t quite us bullet-proof as their bloated egos have led them to believe and that, maybe just maybe, they begin to tailor their actions to fall in line with their positions. I’m rooting for BoJo being caught in a three-in-a-bed crocidillio orgy with a gloucester old spot and des lynam to be the next big expose. One can hope.

Rob Ford plays the fool this Saturday night in Toronto. For tickets, click here.