In a tizzy about tiff

Every year at this time, my already formidable misanthropy goes into overdrive. As summer turns to fall, I feel my hatred boiling and I know that the Toronto International Film Festival is near.

This year is worse than others because I am in the thick of it. I currently work right in the middle of the festivities and there is no escape. As I write this, every art fag and starfucker in the Northern Hemisphere is within three blocks of where I work. On Friday afternoon, I was told that Paul Giamatti, one of the greatest thespians of our age, was in front of my building. Sadly, he fled before I could give him shit about the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Tiff begins the slow and sad process that culminates with the Oscars, where James Franco and Anne Hathaway humiliate themselves and their entire industry. In a crafty response, the industry is deploying Eddie Murphy, who surrendered his dignity decades ago. And it all begins here in Toronto.

Don't get me wrong, I like what passes for our culture just fine. I just like it a whole lot more when it isn't blocking the fucking sidewalk. There's nothing like rubbing shoulders with depraved Hollywood studio executives and their demented marketing experts and listening to them scheme about the 42nd reboot of an exhausted comic book franchise to provoke a murderous fury in decent and honourable men like me. I don't like knowing that I could snuff out a human life, but if I hear another sleazy mogul angling for an invite to Bono's after-party, I might embrace it and act on it.

For eleven days in September, Toronto becomes a penal colony of stupidity, glad-handing and broken dreams, and too many folks in this burg think there's something liberating in that. As a city, we embrace and celebrate our status as Hollywood's retarded cousin, and rejoice when the Big Players and Serious People come to visit. Oh, if only we all could polish Clooney's majestic knob, we could be Big and Serious, too.

You know what? You can have your brushes with glory. You can coddle and swathe your inner sycophant to your heart's content. I don't begrudge you any of it. But I make no distinction between Jeremy fucking Piven and some schizophrenic homeless boozehound when they make getting to the subway any more difficult than it already is. Actually, that's not entirely true. I recognize something approaching a soul in the boozehound. I see some of myself in him, which isn't true of the Entourage guy, who I believe is among history's nastiest monsters.

Not even my regular Roman orgies are enough to unburden me of my frustration. No fewer than two women tried heroically to drain my anger and contempt through my cock, but to no avail. That's not to say that I won't try again and again. As you well know, I'm no quitter and there's another week of this monstrosity ahead of me. There is no escape. I know that now. There's only surviving it the best one can.