Four things we learned from Uncontrollable, Mark Towhey’s book about Rob Ford
Uncontrollable, the aptly named tell-all by Mark Towhey, Rob Ford’s one-time chief of staff, went on sale on Tuesday. Even though some of the more, um, enlightening parts of the book have already been excerpted elsewhere, there are still plenty of previously unknown details for readers to discover. Here are the four we liked the best:
1. Towhey adds some colourful details to the story of Ford’s night at the Garrison Ball, first reported by the Toronto Star back in 2013. In Uncontrollable’s version, Ford arrived visibly intoxicated (looking “like shit on a stick,” in Towhey’s estimation) with his two children in tow. Towhey says Ford suggested that the two men and Renata “all party together”—festivities which would, according to Towhey’s recollection, have involved “get[ting] some whores.”
2. Towhey describes some wasteful behaviour by the mayor. Exhibit A: the daily “Sandwich Run,” a two-and-a-half hour task performed by staff that involved driving out to a sandwich shop in Etobicoke, buying a sub for Ford’s daughter Stephanie, and hand-delivering it to her elementary school. In one of the more memorable exchanges in the book, Towhey recalls asking Ford why he doesn’t buy the sandwich the night before and pack it for her. Ford’s answer: “It has to have tomatoes and they get soggy if it’s not freshly made.”
3. The famous “murder rant” video, in which Ford thrashes about in a violent rage while muttering death threats directed at an unknown person, has been a mystery since it first came to public attention two years ago. Towhey says his “sources” tell him that Ford was just engaging in an addled role-playing fantasy, in which he was fighting either Justin Trudeau, Mike Tyson or Hulk Hogan. The same night that video was filmed, Towhey says, Ford summoned his friend Bruno (presumably Bruno Bellissimo) to the house. When Bruno arrived, Ford punched him in the face so hard he (Bruno, that is) fell over.
4. According to Towhey, the ex-mayor often made things even more uncomfortable around the office by inventing slanderous stories about his employees. Some aides, Towhey says, were hired essentially to serve as moles for Doug Ford. Others took bets on how long their coworkers would last in their jobs. And, Towhey says, the whole office had a habit of joking about Ford’s “solid two-hour” workdays, which involved attending breakfast meetings as “a flyby on his way home” from whatever he was doing the night before.
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None of this is surprising. What is surprising is that there are still individuals willing to ignore this man’s outrageous behaviour in office and vote him back in… Where was the integrity of those around him? How is it a book is written, but the behaviours, drugs, drunken driving, working while intoxicated, putting his kids in jeopardy, bullying employees…. these things are unacceptable and apparently no one felt it important to stop him? We all know addicts and all know the long hard road they take to recovery… Rob Ford can’t fast track sobriety… he will repeat these things, hope that someone has the guts to put a stop to it before he takes another life with his….
What is sad is that despite all of this information we now have about Rob Ford, he still has support! It is mind boggling that he is allowed to be a city Councillor.
bhahaha he fantasy fights Trudeau, Mike Tyson or Hulk Hogan.
Tell me, in this fantasy does Trudeau have a mohawk and gold chains?
His ever dwindling support is at an all-time low. The Ford’s are finished as a political entity and are now scorned by all the major parties. Perhaps the Rhinoceros Party will return with Doug as it’s new leader.
But but but he was the best mayor Toronto ever had. He said so. Again and again. He also said he was the hardest working mayor ever. How can it be that he only ever worked 2 hours a day and spent the rest of the time high and drunk. Someone is lying. Please tell me it isn’t Rob Ford. Why would a man like that lie? Is the whole Conservative brand a fraud? After finally seeing through Harper’s fictional “economist” BS and realizing that his whole tenure as PM was an exercise in mediocrity and paranoid control games, I have to now accept that the “best mayor in Toronto’s history” was no more than a bit player in the PM’s adult diaper where he kept his pet pols marinated in evangelical malfeasance and anti democratic crappola.
He’ll be dead soon.
Your ever dwindling support from anyone is non-existent. It is kind of like your support of your own vagina. Congratulations on getting banned and causing the Toronto Sun to close their Disqus comments. Your mom must be proud or is she your dad too becuase vagina blindness runs in the family