Mr. Toronto

Welcome to my first ever blog entry.  If you had told me twenty five years ago – when I was living in the USA and flunking out of my college Fortran course (the only “basic” computer course you could take) – that I would one day be living in Canada and sharing my thoughts on Toronto with an “electronic” audience, I’d have thought that too many games of “Pong” had warped your brain.  Yet here I am sitting in front of the screen in my newly-adopted hometown, wanting to share with you some nuggets on what I now think is truly one of the greatest cities in the world.  We may not have the excitement of New York, or the history of Rome, or the cafes of Paris, but we have bits of each of those, and a whole lot more – unrivalled ethnic diversity, an awesome indie music scene, incredible restaurants on every street…and Tim Horton’s.

In these weekly blogs I hope to turn you on to some of my favourite haunts and let you in on some of my Toronto secrets.  I’ll tell you about events you may not know about (for instance, baseball fans, I just went to the USA vs. Venezuela game of the World Baseball Classic at the Rogers Centre last weekend!), give you the heads up on upcoming shows in advance of the general public (U2 on September 16; tix on sale end of the month!).  My first hot music tip involves my very own Delta Chelsea Hotel downtown (where I work): every Thursday night in March and April, our bar, Monarchs, is bringing together a band including 2 of the city’s hottest blues musicians – Jack de Keyzer on guitar and Jerome Godboo on harmonica – for 3 sets of incredible toons.

Let me know the kinds of things you’re interested in, and I’ll get to them in future blogs.  Thanks for checking in and look forward to chatting with you!  – Mr.Toronto