The LAST Jim Chapman Post (?)

Well, except for future times when Jim writes something more head-scratching than usual in his electronic educational app. www.thevoiceoflondon.ca , this will be it for a while, my friends.

Because there's nothing that can suck the life and joy out of the soul more than reading Jim's weekly missives and trying to make sense out of Jim's world. The sad reality is that when you do, it all boils down to the same thing. Follow the money. At the end you will usually discover his agenda. And it's not that hard to figure out. Most of Jim's opinions are like advertorials for his client base (as a public relations consultant) of local businessmen and in particular, the development community.

And today's 'Jim Chapman's Boner of the Week' is a prime example and good enough reason to move on to more fun (and far more important) things to blog about - for instance, the upcoming Andy Kim concert at the London Music Club on Wednesday, June 2nd.

Anyway, Jim really pulled a boner in this week's 'Voice' in a column titled 'Downtown Danger Pay?' He tells the story of a friend of his who runs a business downtown with about 50 employees. He wants to expand and hire fifty more - "But he may not be hiring them to work in London."

Why? Because "I would have to pay a premium for them to come here."

The problem isn't London's questionable lack of attractions for young urban hipsters. Or our reputation as "The Town that Fun forgot."

Nope. It seems that this fellow has offices in the Richmond and Dundas area - and once potential job applicants get a whiff and look at all the riff-raff, drug-dealers, panhandlers and neer'do wells who have to catch a bus to East London, well, after that they don't want to work in London AT ALL!

Of course if they took a walk around the entire block they would see the Covent Garden Market right behind there, the upscale restaurant row on the block of King Street. A handful of trendy upscale nightclubs. The John Labatt Hockey and Concert Hall and coming full circle back to Richmond and Dundas - to the north lies the delights of Richmond Row - starting with the Grand Theatre - and to the south of Richmond the other side of King, a collection of independent shops - a music shop, a used bookstore and a comic-book shop and places to buy a bong or get a tattoo.

But because Richmond and Dundas is such a scruffy place and known as Oxycontin Central, these job applicants are too afraid to move and work in London - from presumably Toronto, a city which apparently is free of homeless people, crack-heads, panhandlers and people who use publc transit.

According to Jim's friend, he would have to pay a high premium to these potential employees. They would want danger pay of an extra $10,000 a year. And Jim's friend can't afford to pay them that so he's considering a move to another city.

Now, of course, it hasn't occured to Jim or his friend that there are certainly more desireable places to rent office space in London which would be safer and more attractive to young out-of-town job seekers. Like maybe a couple blocks from there where Jim has his own downtown office. Or the corner of Wellington and Dundas where he does his radio show in a giant office tower. Or to the North, where all the real action is for young urban trendies.

Now, I don't claim to be a businessman, but let's do some math here. You have 50 potential employees. But they won't work in London for less than an extra 10-grand a year. So, naught times naught is naught and five times all those naughts is 500,000. Shit, that's $500,000. That's like half-a-million bucks!

C'mon, fellas - GIVE YOUR COLLECTIVE HEADS A SHAKE!

You mean to tell me that you can't find any good office space in a safe and 'hip' neighbourhood for half a million a year anywhere in this town? Gaze north down Richmond Street boys. Or just relocate to Masonville.

Like I said, I'm not a businessman but that would seem a lot smarter than starting up a separate branch of your business in another town. It all kinda makes me suspect that perhaps Jim's unnamed 'friend' might be an imaginary friend invented for the purposes of telling a story.

... Anyhoo, that was Jim's latest on the Downtown. And in fact it was a sequel to his column from the previous week - 'Fear and Loathing in London' from April 8th. In this one, Jim is talking about how one recent afternoon, he was waiting for a client on the corner of Richmond and Dundas and how "afraid" he felt.

"I wasn't really frightened, a better word might be uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable," writes Jim. "There were eyes on me from people who looked like trouble on the move. There were punk kids (not punkers - I do understand the difference)with angry faces, teenage mothers with tattoos and babies in scruffy strollers, washed out drunks looking for a handout, stoners glassy-eyed and unpredictable, and a nice old lady carrying a handbag half her size. She didn't worry me. But the rest of the cast did."

Jim had his business appointment and then deliberately came back to the same corner. "And stood there for a while. Same people, same feelings. And I noticed something else - the place was filthy and littered with garbage and cigarette butts. Lots of cigarette butts."

Well, NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! That corner has been a human cesspool for at least the past 15 years. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! Geez, this is a guy who fancies himself as an authority on the current state of Downtown - and yet, he expresses SURPRISE at the very long-evident sorry reality of Richmond and Dundas, the very heart of that Downtown?

I won't bother you too much with Jim's solutions. One is having a better police presence. A good idea, even though they obviously monitor the drug dealing and report mass arrests on a regular basis. The other is to have welfare recipients walk around the place on their free time with a broom and shovel. I guess the logic is that since they are at that building picking up their Social Service cheque and Oxy at the same time, they may as well make themselves useful and sweep up some cigarette butts before hopping that bus headed east. ... oh, and ban pan-handling.

But what's far more interesting about all this is the sudden concern on Jim's part. Two consecutive columns devoted to that particular corner - even though Jim also admits in the same 'Fear and Loathing' that "I know the downtown crime numbers are low and my chances of getting mugged are likely higher in some other areas of the city ..."

Well, then WHY are you even writing about it, Jim?

For the answer, all you have to do is go back a few Voice issues to March 18th and 'There are Dreams and there are Dreams,' Jim's profile on Downtown London's biggest landlord and property owner, Shmuel Farhi - who just bought the Market Tower Building which sits on that very corner of Dundas and Richmond. He also owns the office tower - the Royal Bank Building right next to it on Richmond. And between them, that corner of downtown is basically Oxy Central for all your one-stop drug-shopping needs.

As Jim points out at the end of him puff-piece on Mr. Farhi, the guy who owns most of downtown also happens to be a friend and the biggest client of Jim's PR firm. 'Nuff said.

And all that's fine and harmless enough. But about a week after buying the Market Tower, Mr. Farhi was on the A-Channel News strongly suggesting that the City of London get rid of having bus-traffic on Dundas street and re-route the buses. Well, that makes sense. The corner of Richmond and Dundas is the major transfer point of all city buses. So if you get rid of them and the bus-stops right outside your building, then there's no reason for people standing around outside it. People who might not be able to be charged with selling or waiting to buy drugs, can be scared off with charges of 'loitering.' And all of that would be a good thing, even though it would only move all the drug action farther down the street. And since he owns most of downtown, it would probably to in front of one of Mr. Farhi's other downtown office properties.

I happen to be a fan of Mr. Farhi. Our downtown would look a lot bleaker if he hadn't bought so many old buildings and restored them or saved from demolition. The Scotts Building on Dundas between Clarence and Wellington; the old Art Deco post-office on Richmond; the old Public Library on Queens; the Wright Lithography Building. Shit, I'd give the guy a medal just for the Wright Litho Building alone.

And then there's the just restored Capitol Movie Theatre and Bowles Lunch right next to it on Dundas. If you remember right, after buying the long-empty Capitol Theatre, Mr. Farhi demolished the actual auditorium (W.C. Fields once performed there as a juggler in his vaudeville days,) to create parking for his downtown office workers. And when city hall was dragging its feet about renting him more parking spots for the people who worked in the office buildings he owned, Mr. Farhi threatened to demolish the remaining facade and lobby of the historic theatre. And suggested he might do the same with all his heritage properties unless he got what he wanted. See the London Free Press, 2005-07-27, 'City to Study Parking Ills' by Joe Belanger for details.

So I get a bit concerned when I see Mr. Farhi talking about the City changing the same downtown central bus corridor we've had for decades before he was even born. I get more concerned when I read two columns in a row about that very block of real estate from his PR flack. How long till Jim pens his newest epiphany about how we ought to get rid of buses on Dundas?

And that, my friends is why this is hopefully the last of these posts. To quote Holden Caulfield, if there's one thing I hate, it's a goddamn phoney. But what's the point of telling people what a goddamned phoney someone is if they willingly do it themselves in such a blatant obvious manner? Evidence of Jim's phoniness can be found in Sonny's Archives for February 19, 2010 'Jim Chapman: Yesterday's Man' in which Jim is exposed for taking credit on his own website (www.jimchapman.ca) for someone else's writing. Now, as far as I'm concerned, that's reprehensible. That's stealing. And anyone who does it has ZERO credibility in my books.

According to what Jim promised on his radio show, The Voice would be a voice for "silent majority." You know, for the regular folks and working stiffs who listen to his radio show. The same kind of low-income workers who daily catch a bus on the corner of Richmond and Dundas.

But for a weekly newsletter only seven weeks old, THREE of the past FIVE issues have a column devoted to the interests of Jim's "major client."

It turns out that, in Jim's columns anyway, The Voice is really only the Voice of the Development Community and Millionaire Downtown Landlords.

Stayed tuned to future advertorials on some of Jim's other clients in his "communications consulting company" - Aboutown Transportation and Drew-lo Holdings.

TV Ads from the Grave We'd Like to See

Imagine this - a static close-up of the person above. Off-camera you hear a voice-over from Beyond-Neverland. It's a soft fey voice and speaks in a non-judgemental tone, hoping only for a straight answer.

"Did you learn anything?

"I just want to know father, what your feelings were when you bullied me as a child and beat me? I wanna know what your thinking was when you called me lazy and made fun of my nose so often that I had so much plastic surgery done to it that it no longer resembled anything human?

"I wanna know your thoughts when you found out you were left out of my will and that I specified that you would never have custody of my children? After you inflicted a lifetime of abuse and exploitation on me to the point I was a psychological fuck-up and my early death was really a suicide-in-progress a long time coming, what did you think I was trying to tell you after cutting off all contact?

"You made me hate you. You are not deserving of a son's love. I just want to know - did your learn anything?"

... after those last words, the camera keeps running for a few seconds. The face of the man on the screen remains impassive and doesn't change. But that leer of a grin bespeaks of times then and now of laughing all the way to the bank. The eyes are as dead as the soul behind them. The only reflection in them are of dollar signs.

Jim Chapman's Quotes and Philosophies

I was going through some opinion columns on 'Jim Chapman's Voice of London' website (wwww.thevoiceoflondon.ca) recently. This is something I do as a free public service. Here at the Sonny Drysdale Media Empire, in order to keep the electorate informed for the next municipal election, I (Sonny,) do the homework that you don't have time to do yourself. And then I tell you who - and more importantly, who NOT - to vote for this fall.

Anyway, I was digging through a piece by Jim titled 'Public $ervice' in his Publisher's Perogitive section and dated March 25th. I was trying to figure out if Jim was actually serious in his suggestion that all city politicians serve their term for no pay - or, as he claimed the next week that he was just joking. Apparently all you have to do these days when you say something incredibly stupid is to just toss it off as a joke.

He was talking about the proposal that had just been voted on at Board of Control that the wage cutback of five per-cent which council members had willingly taken a year ago as a goodwill gesture to a community hit by the recession, be rescinded and returned to its former pay. They weren't talking about a raise, just restoring their pay to its previous level.

And this is what Jim had to say about their vote - "Board of Control voted on Wednesday in favour of rescinding the cut, with only Bud Polhill protesting (the only real working stiff in the bunch by the way, what does that tell you?)"

Well, it tells me that Bud must have an inferiority complex. Geez man, unless a person is a total screw-up/waste of space, EVERYONE deserves a bump up in pay once is a while. And if not truly deserved, if only for reasons of keeping up with the cost of living. ... All of this is surprising to hear about from The Voice, because I always thought Jim was Bud's friend.

It also tells me that Jim apparently doesn't have a high regard for working class 'stiffs.'

For any out-of-staters reading this, I should point out that City Council's 'Board of Control,' consists of four city-wide elected members. Bud Polhill is a mechanic who runs his own auto shop. He got to where he is today by working with his hands and not being afraid to get them dirty. Good for him, I say.

The other three members of Board wear different-coloured collars than Bud. Gina Barber is a former college perfessor and high-level NDPer. Tom Gosnell is a consultant with strong ties to the development community. Gord Hume has a background as an executive with strong ties to the local business scene. All three have gotten where they are by using their brains.

Jim Chapman, it should be noted, also works as a consultant for the development and business communities and runs his own PR firm. He is also a local radio morning-show host. Silver-tongued Jim has always gotten where he is by using his mouth.

That's why I was surprised to read Jim's back-handed "working stiff - what's that tell you?" compliment about Bud. Because most of Jim's army of listeners are people who make Bud seem like a genius.

Think about it. This is an election year. It doesn't look good when politicians give themselves what the public incorrectly considers to be a raise. The optics aren't good. But two of his fellow controllers voted to do it even though they aren't running in the next election. They voted to restore the pay-rate to the old level because they feel the next council members will be underpaid and deserve it. The other controller, Gina Barber voted the same way knowing that her personal conviction on the subject will not sit well with voters when she starts knocking on doors.

Gina could have done the same as Bud and did a little 'grandstanding' by protesting the move to restore pay-levels.

But she didn't. And this is why Bud is such a genius, and not deserving of the slight of 'working stiff' made by Chapman.

Bud knows darn well that even though the economy is on the mend, that the recession is pretty well over, that it doesn't hurt to do a little grandstanding and show a little humility to the sheep who keep voting you in election after election. It's a page right out of the Paul Van Meerbergen campaign manual - although Paul hasn't yet mastered the 'humble' part.

What makes Bud so smart is that all this pre-election talk about rescinding or raising councillors wages is moot. The election is half a year away. Voters will have forgotten by then. He knows this from personal experience from far too many years in municipal government.

After any municipal election, the FIRST thing City Council does is give themselves a pay raise. There is always a predictable fuss from the public for a week or two. And then three or four years later, they get re-elected again.

Good for you, Bud. Hands of steel - and brains too.

UPDATE - all of that said, it should be noted that Bud still hasn't declared what Ward he will be running in when he runs for Council and until that is done, he still isn't ruling out the possiblity of running for Mayor. But he doubts it. ... Way to make a decision, Genius.