My War on Toronto's War on Fun

The elections are over, and that guy you all hated lost.  Oh wait...

Anyway- we've all moved on, and now we're all complaining about something else, so let's begin.

Contrary to my usual posts, this one isn't really negative.  Well, yea it is.  But it's negative about other's negativity.  Allow me to explain: today, BlogTO posted a link to a story from Macleans called Toronto's War on Fun.  The main statement in the article is that Toronto hates it when people have fun, so they do everything to ensure that we never have fun because really, anyone in any sort of position of power in this city dedicates every waking moment to crushing our souls.

Red is "souls in tact" and white is "souls crushed"

This isn't the first time someone has complained about how truly and utterly un-fun our city is, and every time I hear it, I am left more stunned than the time before.  

I moved to Toronto in 2002 from Winnipeg and have pretty much had a blast the entire time.  Some cities are for the young hipsters (Montreal) and some are for the boring old people (Ottawa) but Toronto has it all.  When I was in university, I loved what the kids call "indie rock."  Bands were only cool if you had never heard of them, they were only fun to go see if the show was in a sketchy basement that smelled like patchouli and feet, and the music was only good if the person singing them had long, greasy hair.  These shows were usually about $5 or free, the people at the shows were all my friends, and the alcohol was relatively cheap.  All in all, a night out around that time probably cost me about $15.  As I got older, I realized that I was aging past the ability to stand on my feet all night and watch mediocre bands play even more mediocre songs.  My ears hurt at the end of every show and my head hurt every next morning.  I then started going out dancing more.  There are a ton of different dance parties in this city with different themes, on different nights, in different locations, with different DJs.  Again, they're usually only around $5 and you don't need to go down to the club district to have a great night out.  Lately, I haven't been going out as much, but have spent a lot of time just walking around the city.  The sun is out, people watching is great, there's always fun neighbourhoods to explore and new stores/restaurants/bars/coffee shops to walk into.  

But that's just me.  Let's look more closely at the aforementioned article for what the broader scope of complaints about this fabulous city is.  

"Two years ago, a community group took over an abandoned shack in Christie Pits that had an old oven in it, and started hosting impromptu neighbourhood pizza nights. The city’s response? Pay a $100 fee for a permit and cough up money to pay a city staffer to watch over things." 

Holy shit, NO WAY!  The city asked someone to pay for a permit to use something that they didn't own that the city did?!  What's next?  I'm going to have to PAY to rent a car because it doesn't belong to me?!  What is this world coming to?! 

 Here's the thing- no one told them to stop.  They just said "hey listen, this is actually not your property, and you can still use it, but if something happens to you while using it, we, as the city, are liable, so we're gonna need you to have someone watch over things so you don't turn around and sue our asses when some kid sticks his arm into the oven."  

And what about THIS atrocity? "This was pretty much the same approach the city took in February, when organizers of a youth group in Toronto’s immigrant-heavy Jane and Finch neighbourhood thought it would be fun to host a skating party at a local rink, complete with cookout and hot chocolate with marshmallows. The event was seen as a way of helping teens from places like Somalia and Cambodia get accustomed to the leisure rituals of their new country. It too was kiboshed, after the city demanded the group spend $80 applying for a permit and then purchase $2 million in liability insurance."

Toronto: denying immigrant kids the right to marshmallows.  You fucking terrorists.  Again, no one told these guys to stop doing it.  And that $2 million in liability insurance?  That doesn't mean it COSTS $2 million dollars.  It means it has to cover up to $2 million dollars in potential damages.  In actuality, it costs a couple hundred dollars at most, and it covers you, in most cases, for an entire year.  Again, is this property belongs to the city, and therefore the city has to ensure that, should something happen while this space is in use, they are covered.    

It's a bit similar to the painted bike issue- someone decides to use/alter/move something that isn't theirs, and then gets all whiny when the person whose property it is says "uhhh, can you stop that please?"  

I spend a lot of time on the aforementioned BlogTO, and find the comments to be hilarious but also kind of depressing.  Recently, there was an article about the frozen yogurt shops opening up just in time for summer.  They're admittedly quite awesome.  You pay for your yogurt by weight and there's a bunch of different flavours that you can mix, or you can just have one flavour.  There's also a variety of toppings and sauces and- fuck you guys, it's just awesome, okay?!  Anyway, someone actually commented saying that these shops are boring, that there is no variety, there's not even a taro flavoured yogurt.  Yea, that was actually said. There was a LEGITIMATE COMPLAINT about frozen yogurt shops not having taro flavoured yogurt.  

I couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculousness of it, and immediately messaged a good friend of mine who lives in New York about the comment (he's a big taro fan, so I kind of secretly wondered if he had posted the comment).  He told me that, on the websites he visits which are mainly New-York-music-scene-centric, many of the commenters complain about free concerts.  Stuff like "this venue's gonna be so packed, they should charge like, $5 for this" or "this year's free concert line up isn't as good as last year's free concert line up."  It then occurred to me that these are merely the problems of the over-cultured.  Our cities aren't trying to kill our fun- it's that our cities are SO fun, we complain about the most ridiculous, mundane non-issues.  For example, imagine if there was no access to public parks with abandoned ovens.  Someone comes along, builds a park, puts an oven in there (because when I think "park" I then automatically think "oven") and says "hey townspeople!  You can hang out in this park and use this oven!  We're going to have to charge you, as it takes staff to maintain this space and to keep you safe while operating this equipment, but it's a flat rate of $80 and you can split it up amongst your group."  Man, those formerly oven-less, park-less townspeople would love it!  But we've gotten used to having SO many options of things to do for SO cheap and SO often, that we actually complain about things like having to pay to use city property, or being fined for defacing city property, or NOT HAVING ANY FUCKING PLACE TO GET A GODDAMN TARO FLAVOURED FROZEN YOGURT.  

Pro-Taro groups take a stand

Remember the documentary "Let's All Hate Toronto"?  This was it.  The point of the documentary was to find out why everyone in Canada hated Toronto.  In the end, it is discovered that actually, the only people that really hate Toronto (or care enough to think about it this much) are Torontonians themselves.  You know how people say that confidence is sexy?  Well those people haven't spent a lot of time looking at boobs.  But also, the idea is that if YOU think you're sexy/awesome/cool/hilarious, then other people will think it too.  Because it is the reality you present to them.  Well Toronto, it's the same for us.  Instead of complaining about how terrible our city is, why don't we appreciate all that we have?  If you walk along Bloor between Bathurst and Spadina, you can go for sushi at what I would guess is about 453 sushi restaurants.  There's almost the same amount of frozen yogurt places and if one doesn't have your favourite flavour, but has one you like slightly less, you can probably fill your cup half full with that slightly less enjoyable flavour, and then go to another place and fill the rest of your cup with your favourite flavour.  If you were feeling really crazy, you could probably even just fill your cup exclusively with toppings and really, what kid DIDN'T want to eat their weight in sprinkles and chocolate sauce?  You can easily pay for a permit to use an oven in a park and have neighbourhood picnics- hell, you could not use the oven and just have a picnic for free! 

Let's take some pride in our city and all that it gives us.  Freedoms and opportunities that the majority of this world does not see, that we take for granted.  Because once we do that, the rest are sure to follow.  Hell, it might even earn us some of this.