Oct 06
Scotiabank hardly knows how to bank. It should come as no surprise that they can’t throw an artshow. I tried to attend this year’s Nuit Blanche. I put on a black suit, towed along my infernal device and a couple of infernal friends, thinking that there might be something to do or, at least, something …
Aug 16
Parkrotica on Vimeo on Vimeo via Parkrotica on Vimeo. Parkrotica from Ryan Oakley on Vimeo.
Aug 16
This city is as humid and reeking as a hooker’s quiff. And I could certainly do without ever being asked again: “Aren’t you hot in that?” Obviously I am. Everyone is hot. Even naked, they are hot. You know why? Because the weather is hot. That’s why. And I can’t take the weather off any …
Aug 07
YouTube – Smurfy Brown does Michael Jackson. Vid by The Chairman Many of my fellow Torontonians may have seen this fellow. He’s been a fixture on Queen West for years. What the casual observer may not know is that he has a thousand and one names and, if you recite them, he will appear in …
Jul 22
pic nicked from here Our mayor, our unions and our whole government is a fraud. It’s a simple system: The people pay taxes to the government. The government provides services. This is a basic social contract. And yet something has gone drastically wrong. Man was born in a clean room but is now everywhere in …
Jul 13
YouTube – Toronto Garbage Strike. Week Three. July 2009. This is Toronto. I’m not sure what’s worse: The garbage or the hippies dancing in the park.
Apr 05
Toronto’s Transit Commission plans to ban smoking within ten meters of bus stops. I was not even aware that the TTC owned the side-walks, air and private property around these stops. They certainly do nothing to maintain their property. Furthermore, I’ve never seen any TTC security patrolling the side-walks. Ever. In my whole life. Not …
Feb 18
Music by Les Baxter and Bas Sheva Video by Ryan Oakley Length 2 minutes thirty seconds February 17, 2009. A Tuesday Evening. A date which will live in infamy In a disaster that some are already calling Toronto’s second September 11, the neighbourhood coin laundry on Queen West, filled up with smoke. Fire-fighters braved the …
Jan 17
A couple of days ago, over 100,000 people were left without power in Toronto during the coldest weather the winter has yet offered us. Though suffering from a recent shoulder injury and drugged out of my mind on muscle relaxants and painkillers, I was fairly well prepared, being in possession of a headlamp, an emergency …
Jul 06
A friend of mine put this video together. He’s a fairly private person so I’m not going to give away his name but, safe to say, he has one of the most finely tuned bullshit detectors I’ve ever come across. He’s funny too. Watch the video. [youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=QQlJqGAR9qM] Toronto has certain sacred cows. Before I was …
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (sci-fi), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap.
