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Breaking News: Coke Dealers are People Too
John Macfarlane has been blowing (no pun intended) us away with his alacrity and journalistic balls lately. First, a dazzling re-design, and now this month’s tour de force- just check out the jitters-inducing coke-rails on the cover! Indeed, this month’s Toronto Life presents the shocking confession of an ‘unlikely drug dealer’ who ‘is from a good family, has a BA from McGill and a house in the suburbs’ (the McGill and Western U. contingents of TOist can only wonder which part of the above description is thought ‘unlikely’ to lead to coke-dealing).
Written by Toronto Star editor Gabe Gonda, the piece details what seems to be shaping up as the Great Yuppie Post-University Experience: ‘Adam’ moves to Toronto, has a series of depressingly banal office jobs, tries to get into indie film work, parties himself $30,000 in debt, moves into his sister’s basement until he notices his ‘tall, handsome’ buddy ‘picking up $400 tabs, always decked out in designer sportswear’ and decides to team up with him.
Sure to not paint the world of coke-dealers as an overly glamorous one, ‘Adam’ describes having to discipline Laura, a model who ‘appeared on the cover of a fitness magazine […] five feet, 10 inches of tanned and toned flesh, smiling like the sun. In person, it was a different story […] her body was emaciated and her limbs flaccid. Her blond hair was limp and stringy, and her eyes were dead from all the late nights…’
Macfarlane makes his intentions in printing this woesome tale clear:
“In this case, seeing is understanding that coke dealers aren’t necessarily the thugs Hollywood imagines them to be; Adam has a BA and would prefer to be earning a living as an actor. Nor are the people dealers supply necessarily urban detritus; Adam’s clientele includes successful professionals.”
This piece comes as the third in a series of confessional testimonials, following Noreen Shanahan’s delectably juicy cleaning-lady narrative and Andy Lamey’s “My Life As a Pimp”. Macfarlane is clearly providing a public service. TOist only wonders if the majority of Macfarlane’s readers are really as naive and WASP-minded as he is.