Rob Ford’s Patois Impersonation Is Better than His Mayoral Impersonation

Rob Ford, seen earlier this week, teaching a patois vocabulary course while taunting Toronto's Chief of Police.

Update: Rob Ford did, in fact, appear with the infamous Alexander Lisi in a second video that was shot on the same night as the patois rant.

Yesterday afternoon an email popped into my inbox with the subject line “LOL,” and attached was a video of Robbie Ford in a Rexdale food joint called Steak Queen, calling the Chief of Police a bumbaclot, while bragging about his ability to “hide” from last year’s costly police surveillance operation. Wow. Rob Ford’s done it again: a new racially insensitive and blackout drunk temper tantrum from the mayor of North America’s fourth largest city, caught on tape, that’s handed a brand new excuse for City Hall reporters to press Robbie on his very obvious drinking problem and question his alleged connection to criminal activity. Keep in mind, Rob emphatically declared his frequent drunkenness was a thing of the past during various, predominantly American, media appearances (he told Conrad Black “I’ve drank too much at times and I’ve had enough of that… gonna move on”) during his “Sure, I Smoked Crack” press tour late last year.

Unsurprisingly, the newest “Rob Ford Gone Wild” segment caused a meme-storm on the internet yesterday, with Facebook users comparing his patois-laced antics to the time Homer Simpson posed as a Rastafarian at Springfield’s Lollapalooza, while others shared a grotesquely Photoshopped image of Rob Ford with dreadlocks, and of course there's a dancehall remix of Robbie's patois. No one seems to be too offended by Rob Ford’s sloppy patois impression, because at this point the city seems to realize they’re watching the slow disintegration of a booze-addled mad man. That said, there are some other glaring, more serious issues that the release of this latest video has brought to light.

Problem number one is that the mysterious individuals who shot the video—the Toronto Star apparently turned down a $7,500 sale price, to be the exclusive media outlet to leak the news of PatoisGate, which is a far cry from the $200,000 crackstarter of yesteryear—insist that Rob Ford was with Alexander Lisi when he rolled up on Steak Queen; presumably ready to get down on some juicy chicken souvlaki and a bag o’ banquet burgers. If the holiday season washed away your proverbial mental Rolodex of the alleged criminal conspiracy that is Toronto’s mayoral staff, Alexander Lisi has been accused of extortion, by way of threats and violence, in a failed, alleged attempt to erase the crack video from the face of the Earth. He is currently awaiting trial.

If this is true, and it’s hard to verify without seeing Lisi in the video (although the Star seems sure of it) Rob Ford is still palling around with a man who may have tried to suppress evidence of the mayor’s crack use with violence. This is a major issue.

A preview of the tantalizing offering of eggs and souvlaki that Steak Queen provides. via UrbanSpoon.

Problem number two, of course, is that Rob Ford has once again lied by going against his promise to stop drinking—because we now know that just leads to him unleashing angry, sometimes murderous, rants in front of hidden cameras.  You would think, by now, after Rob has been filmed smoking crack with gangsters and then, later, impersonating a pro wrestler while making drunken death threats, that he would watch himself in public; and that’s not even addressing the rumours that there are other videos, one showing Rob passed out while gang members wave guns over his head, or the even more troubling rumour that someone is holding onto a Rob Ford sex tape. There’s also the possibility that Rob Ford drove to Steak Queen—although maybe Lisi, his former driver, was sober and had the keys—while he was under the influence of booze and delicious meat; just in case you thought all of the above implications weren’t disappointing enough.

Evidently, Rob Ford is a habitual liar and a chronic evader of tough questions. In the previously mentioned Conrad Black interview, he admits to arguing about semantics to avoid dealing with his offensive blunders; to which Conrad basically pats him on the back and says, “It’s ok, bro.” Rob Ford repeatedly denied the crack tape existed up until the point he no longer could. His staff and other close confidants are no different. Just yesterday, Rob Ford’s brother Doug—seemingly unaware of Robbie’s trip to Steak Queen—denied the footage could have been filmed early Tuesday morning because Robbie was off the sauce, just before Robbie admitted that the video was, in fact, filmed early Tuesday morning; confirming that he lied about sobering up.

I’ve had first hand experience trying to get Amin Massoudi, his spokesman, to comment on a story we ran late last year allegedly connecting him to a plot to destroy the crack tape using a hacker. On the afternoon we broke that story, Rob Ford spontaneously admitted to smoking crack, and our story was washed away; save for a couple of press hits showcasing Amin’s general denial of any and all information that was reported in our piece. Likewise, questions such as “How did Rob Ford meet the gangsters who sold him crack?” “Did he personally order Alexander Lisi to destroy the crack tape?” and “Why does our mayor feel the need to ‘hide’ from the Chief of Police?” will likely never have substantial answers for the public; and yet this man is still the Mayor of Toronto.

We may only be less than halfway through Rob Ford’s embarrassing, self-destructive, political rollercoaster. With the mayoral election another nine months away, there is likely to be another spree of videos, gaffes, and strange personal revelations that will deepen the rabbithole that is Rob Ford’s ongoing campaign of embarrassment. As political competitors emerge to try and take his crown, we’ll have to endure what could easily turn into an immature series of debates where Rob Ford is attacked on his love of steak, impersonating ethnic accents, and crack—while the real issues in the City of Toronto fall by the wayside.

Rob Ford’s greatest offense is arguably his constant hogging of the spotlight away from issues and individuals that need attention, in order to progress the governance of Canada’s largest city. Even if all the various, troubling allegations against him are true—the crack narrative is going stale. Clearly the police surveillance operation didn’t net anything useful that could change the city in any substantial way; and it’s unclear whether Rob Ford’s electorate will stand up for him again. What’s certain is that Rob Ford’s time to step aside is long overdue, and what we’re observing now is the overextended tail end of an immature man, slowly self-destructing while occupying the City’s most coveted position of power. It seems as if it’s a long ride down to rock bottom for Rob Ford, and unfortunately, everyone in Toronto is technically his passenger.

@patrickmcguire