Day 34: Casablanca Dave and the Temple of Dumps

Indiana Jones feared snakes, Casablanca Dave apparently doesn’t care much for rats. Giant rats which drag tails the size of baby arms; rats that make Willard look like the recently deceased Taco Bell Chihuahua (Rest in Peace you 90s icon); rats that make you wonder what the hell little Michael Jackson saw in his pet rat Ben (if it’s not “too soon,” insert MJ joke now). Fievel might have gone west, but the rest of the rats are hunkering down right in the heart of Toronto.

So, I went back to the illegal dumping site today to get a better look:


Though it's not completely visible at this angle, in the bottom lefthand corner, and I shit you not, is an open bag of shit. This is not the cutesy garbage I thought I was going to explore. This is dirty, filthy trash that not even Oscar the Grouch would tolerate.

I didn’t get too close to this nasty pile as I was wearing my new Old Navy flip-flops (as all good adventurers do) and didn’t want to risk flesh-eating disease getting in through my toenails. Besides, the minute I arrived on the scene, a family of hedgehog sized rats came flying out of the pile and into the surrounding bush. For a moment I thought they were charging me, but this would have been far too dramatic to be true. As I walked the railway tracks home—don’t worry safety police, Via Rail went on strike today too—I realized what a big fat baby I was becoming.



My “eww” reaction to the rats surprised me since I never really considered them something to “fear”—in four years of a zoology degree I probably rooted around the large intestine of a dozen or so large white rats; I even recall a lovely three hour lab tweezering through fresh rat feces in the search for parasite eggs. I consider myself to have a pretty high tolerance for creepy crawlers and last night heroically* killed a bunch of spiders and a moth in my apartment, the latter of which unexpectedly had guts that looked like a Kraft Caramel. Alas, I did all this with nary a flinch.

But call me conservative, there is something about a big fangy rat bursting from a crap pile that makes me wonder how much longer Toronto can go on like this. It’s now day 34 of this CUPE strike; even Gandhi's hunger strikes didn't go on this long, and CUPE, I saw Gandhi, I knew Gandhi; Gandhi was a friend of mine. CUPE, you're no Gandhi.**

What started as potentially gross has now become potentially plague inducing. Parks are closed, social assistance paperwork isn’t getting filled out, people are blaming EMS workers for heart-attack deaths, union workers are punching people at garbage drop sites, and that 16 year old lifeguard blogging for The Star is showing me up with her good writing, mature perspective and first hand knowledge of the city strike. Meanwhile the rats are having a big old laugh as they develop our taste for convenience.

Frig, I should go wash my feet.

And speaking of feet, here are the footnotes.

*Heroically because my girlfriend watched me do it! Nothing shows you're a man like killing bugs in front of a woman. And unlike Indiana Jones’s girls, I am pretty sure mine won’t turn out to be a Nazi.

**One of the top 5 most obscure allusions. I barely even understand it. Lloyd Bentsen on Dan Quayle anyone? Anyone?

Raiders of Illegal Dumping: Part I

Last night, I felt like a Goonie. Go on you say? Okay. I will.

Which Goonie was I? I don’t know yet. I wish I could say I was Mikey, but the reality is, I was probably Chunk. While I’m sure there is some facebook application called “Which Goonie are you?” I’m going to do this the old fashioned way: self-reflection based on reaction.*

Last night, while walking home from my local Loblaws (the one that had a rat infestation last spring), I decided I would take a shortcut and walk along the railway tracks. In hindsight, this decision was an attempt at a Stand By Me moment, not a Goonies moment, but I guess we can’t pick which 1980s coming of age stories find us when we’re in our 30s.

So, here I am, walking the rails, trying to get all Will Wheaton, when I happen upon an illegal dumping site. Now, there is a dirt road to access this area, but other than that, I am walking in a very out-of-the-way area by Toronto standards (meaning I can’t see a Starbucks, anyone in skinny jeans, or hear a horn honking for no good goddamn reason). This is the type of area where you have bonfires or drink 4 bottles of Red Dog before your 10PM curfew.**

So, I come upon this giant pile of garbage filling up a natural valley made by the railway and high grass on one side and anonymous warehouse walls with half-assed graffiti on the other. Remember when the Goonies found the Fratteli’s hideout? Yeah, I know…I know.

The trash is fresh, and not even proper trash—a lot of it was simply white paper and other materials which are apparently recyclable (plastic and wrapping). But there was a shitload of it. It honestly looked like office waste, not household waste; I decide I’m in Dateline Investigation territory here. I pull out my camera to take a picture (‘cause this would be wicked investigative blogging) ready to blow the whistle on some corporate scandal and get a street named after me...when I hear a car approach…


Now, if you can picture a grown man scampering, well, shit, I scampered. I am not sure when the last time I scampered was: at least 20 years ago and probably on a Christmas morning. I ducked to the other side of the railway tracks and once there, self-conscious as I am, pretended I was “just chillin’” lest someone in a high apartment or literally, on the other side of the tracks, saw me making this bizarre move. My position must have represented the most unnatural “just chillin’” pose of all time: man with grocery bags, sitting on the rocks beside a railway track, looking intently at nothing in particular, holding an open cellphone, and I probably started whistling…a sure sign of someone who hasn’t seen something.***

I had to take a look at the car, so I peaked over the tracks where indeed, a Reliant K Car**** pulls up, and a man pops the trunk and dumps a few garbage bags into the pile. What was I supposed to do? Does Canada have citizens arrest? Should I call Mayor David Miller? I have raw chicken in my grocery bag! Do I really care that much? And what were the dumpers going to do if they saw me? Frig, what would a Goonie do?

Well, this Goonie hid out and waited for the car to leave. Yeah, I know: way more Chunk than Mikey.

So tonight, while many of my friends prepare for upcoming weddings, the birth of first children, maybe pay a bill and eat a meal with some vegetables, David Brock (b.1979) will put on black clothes, pretend he’s “just chillin’” and go check out the secret garbage dump by the railway tracks. Anyone want to come on an adventure? There are still positions available for a Corey Feldman type, an older brother in the mold of Josh Brolin, and a Data.*****

Footnotes (because they are important):
*Besides, I was slightly dissatisfied with recent Facebook application claims that my Punk Rock self is Iggy Pop (I wanted Fat Mike), my Sesame Street Character is Elmo (screw those second generation SS characters) and my Theatre Career should be Lighting Designer (I wanted “None of the above”).

** Anyone remember the rumour that the logo on a Red Dog bottle cap was supposedly Batman performing oral sex on Catwoman?

*** Or “hasn’t seen anything”. Or “has seen nothing.” There are too many indefinite pronouns which seem to make sense here.

**** Indeed is an overstatment. I don’t think it was a K Car, but it’s the crappiest car I can think of. It was probably a Contour or Malibu or something. I don’t know cars and am a crap eyewitness.

*****Must provide own spring mounted boxing glove, oil dispensing sneakers, and booby traps (that’s what I said, booby traps).

4 weeks In...

For those of you that I had reading this on the first 4 days, my apologies...I was taking my 18 sick days. Now that I know what it's like to take 18 sick days, my sympathies are creeping towards those city workers. We should all get AT LEAST 18!

Refreshed, I will resume...starting tomorrow (it's after 5PM...you can't expect anyone to work after 5PM).