Lord Tubby takes off

Look, it’s Ben Mulroney on the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival. His eyes are searching for the next big celebrity; who could it be? Let’s see, there are the Colins, Farrell and Firth; Brangelina; the Sarahs, Jessica Parker and Polley.

But wait.

There’s a real Canadian superstar.

It’s the King of all Canadian media: Conrad Black! He’s dragging along his waif like wife Babs, all dressed up, celebrity-style like Jackie Kennedy with the black shades and all, looking every bit like she’s just downed a litre of True Blood.

He steps up.

“Lord Black,” says BM. “What a surprise. I thought you were in prison.”

Lord Tubby issues a guffaw.

“Oh, no dear boy. I’m actually not here. I am back in prison. This is merely my avatar, the one I created to do all the media interviews about my new book, A Matter of Principle which is available for $23 at Costco for executive members only. You’ll be seeing me everywhere this weekend. I’m in the Globe and Mail twice today and I’m on CTV’s W5 with Lisa the Fan Dancer.”

Lord Tubby is suddenly teleported from the red carpet into the CTV studio for a gabfest with Lisa, then whisked to the executive offices of  Vanity Fair for another blorg with his pal Graydon Carter.

Seriously, what’s going on?

Why is the media giving so much face time to a convicted criminal who’s playing hide the soap in prison while I am writing this? Isn’t it against the rules for a convict to profit from his crime as Lord Tubby is doing?

He’s obviously trying to earn enough shillings to keep Babs in the lifestyle to which she is accustomed down there in South Florida by flogging his book and suing everybody on the planet.

I personally don’t think Judge Amy should have sent him back to the slammer. A better punishment would be to shun him, have everyone just ignore the old coot. Better yet, put him into witness protection and give him a new identity, say, the creepy guy running the rides at Six Flags.

Send him to a monastery where he will have to take a vow of silence for the next seven months. That would be just as good.

I’m hoping every penny of his book goes to the people he swindled. He deserves the same kind of treatment as Bernie Madoff, as far as I’m concerned.

He’s a crook, and an unrepentent one at that and everybody is treating him like a movie star.

What’s next: a new reality show from prison? An exercise video? A music video with Snoop Dog and Justin Bieber?

Babs could join the Real Housewives of Florida, perhaps.

It’s ridiculous.

Blacky, Black. Shut it already.

If you do the crime, you do the time.

Stop blabbing about it.

Weight loss and the power of negativity

Yesterday, Scott looked at me said this: “Well, at least you’re not so down on yourself anymore. You’re always so negative.”

He doesn’t get it.

Sometimes you need a little negativity to get started.

Ask the AA people. They’ll tell you.

Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you pick yourself up.

Self-loathing and negativity are important fuel sources for action. It’s like when you’re depressed and you don’t shower for a week. After a while, when you’re all funky and smelling like last week’s raw tuna, you say “I just can’t stand myself.”

Then you shake yourself off and wonder “why didn’t I shower for a week? I feel so much better.”

It’s like the old adage that you can’t truly be happy until you know misery.

And man was I miserable last winter. I didn’t feel like doing anything. All I wanted to do was sleep and each Lay’s potato chips and frozen yogurt.

Whenever I tried to write something, I’d develop a pool of sweat between my boobs and my belly.

Yuk.

I was at my lowest, most negative point. I hated everything and everybody — except the dogs — who can hate them?

Mostly, I loathed the fact that I had become Jabba the Hut.

You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you’re watching The Biggest Loser with a glass of wine in one hand and a bucket of chicken in the other and you find yourself surrounded by negative energy, swirling like a prairie duster, that you hurl at the television screen.

“Wow, just look that woman. She’s monstrous.”

You reach your bottom at the end of the season when the woman, who pretty much looked like you if you were really honest about it, is now a size six and running a marathon. Meanwhile, you’re still rockin’ the easy chair with The Colonel.

Of course, you don’t look at yourself anymore. It’s like you’re in a period of perpetual Jewish mourning with all the windows and mirrors covered.

The lowest of the low.

Finally, you get so mad at yourself, you decide to kick your own ass.

That’s what I did.

Took all that negative emotion and put it into motion.

Sweatin’ like an oldie.

Negativity can be a powerful thing. It can immobilize a person. It can give you cancer.

It can ruin your life.

Or it can get you going.

Your choice.

Spoiler: Pick door number two; always a better option.

I still have a good store of negativity.

I use it for my blog.

To rail against injustice, stupidity and lameness.

To make fun of bombastic barons with too much money and too few morals.

So now I’m using my negativity to combat evil instead of beating myself up.

I’m Wonder Woman in a DD, well, DDD if I’m honest about it.

Don’t mess with me.

Conrad Black’s last stand

Now that Conrad Black is going back to prison, maybe he’ll realize he’s not above the law.

This, of course, is doubtful given Black’s bombastic outbursts during his time on appeal. He just couldn’t help himself but mock the American justice system and that was perhaps his gravest mistake. If Black had kept his mouth shut, if he had been even somewhat remorseful, things might have gone differently.

But this is a man who over his career has made a point of taking no prisoners, of picking pockets without his victims being the wiser.

In trading his Harry Rosens for NDP orange prison togs, Black will be just another grifter who got caught at his own game.

In the end, his hubris will take its biggest toll on his wife, the former Barbara Amiel, a once powerful and influential columnist, now a woman reduced to a frail shell of her former fabulous self. Barbara looked every bit her age yesterday as her husband carried her out of the courtroom.

Here’s hoping she survives this.

While I don’t feel sorry for the former Lordy, I thought he might have caught a break, given his age and the various maladies that plague Himself and his Wife. But the American judiciary is probably right to make an example of him.

It’s time for the Masters of Universe to pay up for their crimes, for taking advantage of their power and their wealth to hurt other people.

We can only hope that Black will take the time in prison to reflect on his crimes and misdeamours. At the very least, he can try to continue to do some good while in there.

Probably, he’ll just write another book, maybe about the Wild West. Custer’s Last Stand.

He now knows what it’s like for the wagons to finally circle.