The Clinton Factor

I know... I promised I wouldn't post unitl 2008... but its a slow day at my not for profit. Since November I sold out to the man (the man being Google) and have placed a Google ad on top of this blog. Why? Because I need stuff and I live so way beyond my means I'm this close to declaring Chapter 11. Save me... Google Ads will eventually make me some shekels by peddling my sorry social commentary, which I already do, so in WWSD mode - why give away for free what you can earn money off of.

I have a bet going with my friend Katherine re. the Google ads - if I make a hundred bucks by April 1st, I'll be buying us dinner at Le Paradis, if not - dinner is on her. So far - I've made $8.38 in just under two months, so people start clicking those ads: Katherine needs a sandwich.

Anyway - Google Ads work by scanning the verbage on your website and finding an appropriate match. Yesterday the Google ad was advertising a singles website (great, why don't you rub it in Google, who are you? Sima? "So - you aren't seeing anyone?" "No." "Really, no one?" "Nope." "Why not?" "I don't know."), which I would imagine would be connected to my increasingly depressing and public singledom. (Also another friend got engaged on Saturday so like... happy happy joy joy).

Today - however, takes the cake. The ad is for the New York Times special section on the Hilary Clinton Democratic Nomaination Campaign. How cool is that? It's almost like I'm connected to the Clinton's, maybe I'll get invited to the White House for Chrismukkah 2009! Me thinkey...

Anyway - click on the ad - Katherine wants moules... and I want a boyfriend.

Hiatus?

Int - Faux Hill Starbucks


A young, twenty-something, female - JENNIFER, enters the Forest Hill Village Starbucks. She is wearing UGGs and a puffy coat. As soon as she enters the shop - her friend, JESSICA turns to greet her.

JENNIFER
Jessica - you're back from Dalhousie.
(beat)
You look amazing!

JESSICA
Thanks. Oh Jenn... My stats exam was awful. I think I failed.

The camera pans across the bustling coffee shop, focusing on:

STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE
Great - now the university kids will be back for Holidays.
(mimicking)
"Brenda - how was your semester?"

* * *

Good times obviously in Starbucks today but - it looks like this blog is on hiatus until 2008. The Rama (Yes - that Rama) is coming in for a visit avec girlfriend, and I'm throwing a Chrismukkah party. Plus let's face it - Faux Hill empties out over the next two weeks and decamps to Puerto Vallarta or Florida. So unless a major gossip outbreak occurs you'll have to wait until 2008 for class tales about twenty something upper middle malaise (and besides - this isn't a WASP blog - so I can't talk about waking up in Rosedale on Christmas eve and getting drunk while opening presents and being disappointed. "You got me an IPOD NANO? I asked for a real one, mother. Way to ruin Christmas and pass the champagne - I'm off to the Toronto Lawn").

2007 was quite the year, though... perhaps I'll do a year in review at some point if I get really bored at work.

Oh and more importantly thanks for reading. And to anyone I've offended - my apologies.

To quote the Rama: Toodles.

Doesn't Everyone Deserve a Little Bit of Cashmere?

Canada's most innovative not for profit - Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children (WSPTOTC) is pleased to announce its newest initiative. This winter will see the launch of "Doesn't Everyone Deserve a Little Bit of Cashmere?" a retail/agricultural social enterprise hybrid that will further our ability to help aimless upper middle class twenty something Canadians find meaning in their lives while also spreading Faux Hill's favourite fabric - cashmere - to those who need it most, migrant Argentinian child labourers.

Doesn't Everyone Deserve a Little Bit of Cashmere? [DEDALBOC] is the world's first social enterprise devoted almost entirely to the cultivation and marketing of cashmere. As a unique enterprise within WSPTOTC, DEDALBOC is at the forefront of the burgeoning social enterprise movement. A social enterprise is a certain type of not for profit that delivers on a triple bottom line: financial profit, social profit and environmental sustainability.

DODALBOC's two-pronged business model, emphasizes our mission statement: Through the cultivation of cashmere, we provide project management and international business experience for the underclass of Canadian youth and through employing local migrant workers we allow people who wouldn't normally be offered the opportunity to share the glory of cashmere.

The integrated manufacturing model works as follows:
1) The cashmere farm - Hacienda Cashmerio Los Potreros - to be developed in Argentinas, famed cattle ranching heartland, only an hour away from the colonial city of Cordoba, will be run by Canadian youths who are affiliated with WSPTOTC. An internship at our cashmere farm will provide the Canadian underclass with practical management and business experience.

The cashmere itself will be harvested and loomed by the children of a nearby village. Their small hands have the perfect mix of agility and nubileness to shorn and subsequently loom cashmere. Because of our reliance on youth labour, costs will also be significantly lower then traditional cashmere farms. The characteristics of Aregentian cashmere will also create a higher quality Cashmere product. Because of our integrated manufacturing model we can offer a higher quality, lower cost product that will be available at our very own retail store: Cashmere 4 You.

2) Come March we will be opening a Cashmere Retail Store - Cashmere 4 You - at Spadina and Lonsdale. The store, will feature our entire cashmere lifestyle line-up of products, including classic v-neck sweaters, cardigans and turtlenecks. Because of our close ties to Argentina we will also be featuring some innovative and unique cashmere products you won't be able to find elsewhere.

Including:
a) Favella blanket - Our favella blanket is modeled after the popular blanket that is used to keep migrant workers warm in their shanty towns. Modified for the Faux hill lifestyle and available in a variety of fashion colours - why not get the Favella Blanket for your loved one? Our favella blanket keeps you extra warm on those cold winter nights!

b) Guacho Cardigan - the gaucho cardigan is modeled after the traditional outfit of an Argentianian cattle rancher. Available in a wide variety of colours the Gaucho look is a post-modern take on the north American cardigan mixed with a traditional South American pauncho.

Furthermore whenever a purchase is made at Cashmere 4 You - you are also buying cashmere for the child workers. A full 10% of revenue is re-invested into the community's cashmere pool. This pool of money allows the community to then purchase cashmere sweaters, at cost, for themselves from the Cashmere Farm. Because of your support and the hard work of Canadian youths, the children of the region will be sleeping warm under cashmere lined blankets!

So come spring, why not buy something that makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the outside AND warm on fuzzy on the inside. After all, Doesn't Everyone Deserve a Little Bit of Cashmere?

Village Love

I have something a bit meatier to talk about - but that shit has got to wait for me to edit and alas I do have a job that sometimes requires me to work (odd - I know for those people who think I sit in my cubicle and stalk people on Facebook, which I do occassionally - especially if I've slept with you - then I probably obsessively look at your profile, even if we last had sex like two years ago, then I chuckle at potentially how fat you've gotten, or about how you started to dig chicks after we slept together nd then I wonder if I'm like toxic or something...) and so a little something more light-hearted for this aft.

But anyway - back to my mother, whom I love dearly, even if, our relationship is quite the Faux Hill mother/son stereotype.

"Why are you so neurotic?" A WASPY boyfriend, whose mother was so removed and cold I retrospectically liked her more then I liked her son, once asked me. "You've met my mother haven't you?" Was my reply.

In her sidetime, when she isn't working or cleaning out our basement in preparation for her move to Mexico (circa 2012), Sim Sim Sima does a fair bit of neighbourhood Faux Hillary schmoozing. Of our neighbours her favourite family is probably the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty does something that makes them a lot of money and live in a large house down the street from us. Sim Sim Sima doesn't realize that they are quite famous Toronto celebrity types - she just thinks their house is really nice and she knows they have a lot of money, which impresses her. "They have Frette linen tablecloths!" More importantly, they have a daughter. A younge, pretty, daughter who will inhereit the Ming Dynasty.

"I was over at Becca's house last night." Becca being the daugther. "Such a lovely girl. So well raised. So well mannered."
"Yes mom..."
"She's always asking how you're doing. I think she has a little crush on you."
"Tell her I like penis."
"Still not interested, not a bit? She's really beautiful."
"Nope."
"You wouldn't have to work."
"I wouldn't be happy."
"But you're single now anyway... Why don't you just try?"

And so it continues and I wonder why Sim Sim Sima doesn't spend more time at Upper Canada trying to find me a nice little gaygetz who wants to go to law or medical school? Will fuck for food. I also make a mean spaghetti sauce, and give a pretty solid BJ. All solid selling points. But whatever... I'm digressing.

To wit - my friend Laura wants me to marry our mutual friend whom I'll call Frizzle. Frizzle is a lesbian. She's also Jewish. We're both Gews, gay jews... so its perfect, right?
"She grew up in Cederville, you grew up in Forest Hill. It's perfect. Love across Bathurst."
"But we're both gay."
"You'll please your parents though..."
"What are we going to do - express our vows over a rainbow coloured scruntchie?"
"Please. Hair scruntchie's - what is this 1996?"

So the question is this - to what extent are boys of the Village willing to go to please their mothers? Or perhaps is the question moot; as I told mom how I did on my GMAT's, she voiced: "maybe you should re-write it - you can probably do better." But really... that's how I know she loves me :)

A Holiday Greeting from the Prime Minister

Dear Village Resident!

Friends, or should I say Chavarim!

Take me to your leader! Oh wait - that's me!

Happy Hanukkah. As part of my party's multi-cultural outreach policy as devised by Secrety of State (Minister of Multi-Culturalism) Jason Kenney (or as his homies call him: Yusaf Abdul Cohen), the MP from the very multi-cultural riding of Calgary South-East, I have targeted your house and your neighbourhood (Faux Hill) as potentially voter rich with "ethnic" swing support. I know what you're thinking - ethnic? me? "But Steve- I'm about as white as you can get." In fact the only ethnic person you probably know is your nanny, but she's of no use to me until you free her from the bonds of indentured servitude (who cares about landed immigrants - not me!). But back to you - because this really is all about you: the residents of Forest Hill. It has been brought to my attention that the Jewish people and their support of the Conservative Part of Canada and our pro-Israeli policy is very important to my political future; and by proxy, subsequently the future of Canada.

Kenney (who isn't gay, FYI so, let's stop the rumours - he's from Calgary - there aren't any gay people in Calgary) has let me know that today is Hanukkah, or Chanukkah. And boy do you guys confuse me with your multiple word spellings... I wasn't quite sure what Hanukkah was so I decided to watch a couple of episodes of the OC with Laureen and the kids (what a precipitous decline after Season 1, eh?). That scrawny yid tried to explain this festival as something about a miracle involving some Macabees and oil... not sure what the miracle is about oil - guess the Macabees had never heard about all that oil due East of Jerusalem? I do, however, understand the plight of the Macabees - too much oil increased commodity exports from Temple Mount which then raised the value of the Shekel on the international market, crippling Tel Aviv's burgeoning manufacturing economy. History, shall we say, continues to repeat itself. Matitiyahu - I empathize...

But let me tell you about the real meaning of Hanukkah... which, as I explained to Heather Reisman last night as we lit the first candle and then played dreidel on the floor of her "Dreidel Spinning Room" as Gerry sang along to Peter Paul and Mary's 'Light one Candle' (he is quite the barritone, I'll have you know, but also don't bet against Heather, lost me many a shekel last night) - the real miracle of Hanukkah is that my government - Canada's New Government (we're still New until the decree comes from my office to change that) - has lasted as long as it has. Be it ineffective opposition leadership from Celine, economically dubious tax cuts and inefficient policies from yours truly - seems like nobody can hold us down. Certainly not Antiochus and certainly not that asshole and my former mentor, the Chin who Shall not be Named (cough cough Brian Mulroney cough cough - Laureen! I think I'm choking on a piece of Hanukkah gelt).

But I am digressing from the point of this letter, and I know, I know, you're all busy eating potato pancakes, or latke's (see how down a white kid from Etobicoke is? I'm so down with the current residents of Etobicoke that they call me Harp-izzle), so let's get to the kosher meat of the matter. As we head into the New Year some of you may once again be thinking of voting Liberal in the on again, off again Spring election. With certain threats of corruption and mismanagement being leveled at my government, all of my hard work at convincing you. I'd like to leave you with one final thought on why you should continue to support me and by proxy the Conservative Party of Canada.

Vote for Steve! He understands your needs!

Oh and I'm just saying, perhaps, we shouldn't listen to Karl Schreiber - threatened with extradition back to the Reich - yes, that would be Germany... Hope my point is as clear as the water in the Dead Sea...

With that - I wish you a very Happy Hanukkah. Looks like Laureen is making me latke's for dinner, yummers!

Heil Harper

Fit Gone Bad

A boyfriend once, after we broke up, had the pleasure of telling me: "listen - its not like I cheated on you." I suppose one has to commend someone for their brutal honesty in the situation, ie, if we stayed together - I WOULD have cheated on you...

I spent Monday night at the Avenue Bar at the Four Seasons with a couple of friends and a wealthy financier... again I work for a not for profit and to quote the pretty, but less intelligent man who sometimes shares my bed: if you work for a not for profit - how do they pay you? [sigh... ]

But back to the Four Seasons, where really... every Faux Hillary likes to play, or at least have their Bat Mitzvah. And so as I sat on a couch eating free cashews and cheese doodles, wondering if my visa was going to be declined upon paying for a Tanqueray Ten martini, I ended up thinking about Fit.

Remember Fit? How your average Faux Hillary likes to find a mentsh or maidel who "fits" the bill. I looked at Fit as an inherent positive... part of the building block that creates a strong relationship. Fit = values, shared friends, background and when planning a life together - Fit makes sense.

So the negative aspect of Fit? Proceed with caution - the following are tales of Fit gone bad.

As I pranced through the Avenue bar the other day - telling Forest Whitaker that I thought his portrayal in the Last King of Scotland was tear worthy - I ended up passing by a table wherein sat an old Friend of Bold (FOB). This Friend of Bold, recently engaged to her high-falutin husband, was sitting, or to quote the gossip rags, canoodling with a very attractive thing in a darkened corner of the bar. I stopped for pleasantries, natch, and introductions. Faux Hillary meet Steven. Steven meet Faux. As the Friend of Bold turned to order another round for her and the dude I innocently struck up a conversation prodding for a bit of information.
"Where'd you meet FOB?"
"Oh around." [That'a lie, everyone knows where they meet people].
"Interesting, do you know her fiance?"
"Of course. We play golf together."
"That's nice. And you work in?"
"Real estate equity. I actually live out in Oakville with my wife and two kids, but often work late, so I have a condo right at Bay and Bloor."
"I love real estate equity!" FOB had ordered by now and after catching up quickly with her on the wedding plans [purple brides maid dresses?! Love it!] I left to relieve myself in the bathroom. Where you may ask is FOB's fiance? Mr. FOB is a globe-trotting executive and Faux Hill success story who is very often in New York City or Washington, leaving FOB to decorate the uptown mansion and play with her burgeoning career in event planning. All things being said though - Fob and Mr. FOB work quite well together - friends from university, they have many mutual friends and in fact they grew up two blocks apart. FOB's mother in law knew FOB's mother from high school. With the exception of FOB spending an evening at Real Estate Equity's condo - not to jump to conclusions, but come on! - it appears as if they Fit the bill. I guess, a question, for FOB - if you were really happy with your fiance -would you spend an average Monday evening canoodling at the Avenue Bar?

Which leads us to cautionary Faux Hill tale of Fit numero duo. Meet Jessica and David. David is the son of a very very well known Faux Hill family. David is one of the loveliest people I know. Literally. David has been groomed to take over his father's business and is dating his beloved high school girlfriend Jessica. David, you might argue is living the Faux Hill dream.

Yet.. everyone hates Jessica. Why? Funny you should ask... its probably because, while in law school at Western, Jessica was known to fuck every and anything that moved. So why keep the boyfriend and spread your legs for everyone this side of Richmond Ave? It appears as if for Jessica the status of dating the finest dauphin in the Faux is too much to give up, and for David, albeit lovely, likes the idealized image of his relationship.

It all boils down to Fit darling... only this time - Fit's gone bad.