Elk-Ida Defence Counsel to Wed; Schootsie to Perform Nuptials

Winnipeg - W. D. Stewart announced last week that he is set to marry his beau, Jessica G., next summer. Stewart has risen to prominence - and notoriety - in prairie legal circles for his successful defences of Elk-Ida members in a handful of recent criminal trials. "I'm totally happy for him, bra" said Pen Beterson, a mainstay on Mr. Stewart's client list.

Insiders confirm that Rev. Daniel 'Schootsie Muffin' Schott will preside over the service, which is expected to take place on the roof of the Birchwood Motor Inn, at sunset, sometime in July.

Though Mr. Stewart and Ms. G. have been dating for a number of years, Mr. Stewart was still, for some reason, introducing her as "my new girlfriend" as recently as this past Thanksgiving.

Las Vegas oddsmakers have already taken bets as to who will snag the prestigious position of best man. The list of candidates is a virtual who's-who of the jet-setting 40-something crew: Bell and Ateah are the odds-on favourites. Dan Angus is the (very) dark horse.

Mr. Stewart was unavailable for comment but yesterday, when a reporter asked him who would be footing the bill for the festivities, he was heard to have muttered, "Who do you think?"

The Ottawa Ritz

Ottawa - Roger Ritsema shocked the sailing world last spring when he announced that the summer of '11 would be his last as a member of the Victoria Beach Yacht Club. A former cab driver and long-time Hobie Cat racer, Roger came to epitomise a Victoria Beach generation even as his peers sold out to the glamour of engineering in east Asia or to selling highly caffeineated beverages to skiers, snowboarders, and other west coast kids who weren't good at hockey as kids.

Such a stalwart Winnipeger was Mr. Ritsema that few thought the bright lights and power politics of Ottawa would chames him. But, as this reporter found, no sooner had the J. dried on the Ritsema yacht club locker than had Roger sold out to the high-flying Ontario lifestyle.

I met Mr. Ritsema at the downtown Ottawa Hy's, where, he told me (repeatedly), "he makes his big deals, obviously." Mr. Ritsema appeared to have gained weight, a shock to those who remembered him in his trademarked beach stance: gauntly thin, wrapped in an oversize towel, his head under the shade of a Green Team '96 hat and his eyes hidden behind Hobie sunglasses. Some maintain to this day that Radar's look is an pale impression of Ritsema. He seems to have left that look behind. To lunch he wore a power suit, a gaudy silver watch and what he referred to loudly as "Gucci-bucks-nigga-no-laces."

This reporter expressed surprise that Mr. Ritsema had abandoned a burgeoning academic career in the field of natural sciences for the world of commercial real estate development. "It was a natural switch," said Ritsema, "I went from studying the survival of the fittest to being the fittest." He took a pull on his glass of a rare '58 merlot. "This is me surviving."

Reluctant to reminisce about his down to earth prairie upbringing, Mr. Ritsema preferred to steer the conversation back to his new home. "There's just this raw energy about Ottawa," he said, "it's like a dose of Manhattan mixed with a shot of Ibiza." I mentioned that watching bureaucrats trudge from home to office and back again under gray skies hadn't given me that impression. "You gotta live here to get it I guess," said Ritsema, lighting a cigar as he leaned back in his cavernous chair.

As lunch wound down and Mr. Ritsema spent more and more time touching his hand to his in-ear Bluetooth, I pitched him one last question. Surely, I wondered, he must miss the time spent drinking casual beers and sharing laughs on cold 'Peg City nights.

Mr. Ritsema sniggered as he picked up his platinum Visa and pushed back his chair. "Please," he said, "the night life here makes August long at VB look like Deborah Hill's 16th birthday party."

And with that, he was gone.

VAN BERKEL WINS COMMODORESHIP IN LANDSLIDE

Winnipeg - Last night history was made as Ryan van Berkel became the youngest and first non-Winnipeg-born man to have been named Commodore of the Victoria Beach Yacht Club. In his calculated ouster of former Commodore Kenneth Taylor, Mr. van Berkel executed perhaps the most deft palace coup in leisure club politics since Billy Jean King managed to (briefly) hold the Chairmanship at Augusta National in the early 1970s.

Mr. van Berkel's campaign was a discrete and sure-handed manipulation of the gears of power. The Victoria Beach Council was firmly onside and the local business lobby, led by captain of industry Daniel S. Schott, quietly made it known that it would not oppose Mr. van Berkel, who himself comes from a bureaucratic background.

However, the van Berkel administration has already come under fire for being close to Portage Avenue, Manitoba's gilded centre of finance. His senior adviser, AJ Tooley (who was thought to be a candidate for the commodoreship before his girlfriend became embroiled in a corn-related licensing scandal), is a well-known commodities broker and has long moved in the posh circles of prairie money managing. There have been complaints from the right, too, who worry that Matthew McLeod, once crew to Mr. van Berkel and now a leader in the Manitoba Teacher's Union will hold too much sway in the nascent cabinet.

On election night, though, it was nothing but hearty handshakes and a surprisingly greasy snack table. In an electric moment Commodore-elect van Berkel took the stage to thunderous applause and the familiar strains of Eric Clapton's 'My Father's Eyes'. Victoria Beach, having grappled with the Erosion Question throughout a frigid and grueling winter, is a tense community these days and he acknowledged that he has much work to do in healing a house divided.

Unsurprisingly, he echoed another leader, Abraham Lincoln, who also seized the reigns of power as strife and misunderstanding threatened his community. "From Sunset all the way to Mike Bay," said Mr. van Berkel, "we are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every barbecue and deck to every sports day and masquerade all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Beach, when again touched, as surely it will be, by the better angels of our nature."

A somewhat puzzled crowd cheered and looked on in awe at their new leader.

Big Time

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Tooley Campaign Rents Space on Broadway Avenue; Leaked Photo Threatens to Derail Bid for Commodoreship

Winnipeg - Having made few moves for months, AJ Tooley (pictured at left) suddenly seems to be girding for a pitched battle with Ken Taylor for the Victoria Bach Yacht Club's Commodoreship.

Matthew Metcalfe, a downtown Winnipeg property manager has confirmed that he is renting space in a post-war walk-up on Broadway Avenue to Mr. Tooley and that on the the first of this month, staff moved boxes of files and equipment into the space.

The activity on Broadway Avenue corresponds to Ryan van Berkel - the rumoured Tooley campaign manager - being suddenly summoned from Mexico, where he was vacationing with family. Mr. van Berkel's brother and spokesman, Stuart van Berkel, said that no final decision as to whether Mr. Tooley will run has been made but when it is it will be announced, as always, via letter to Jian Ghomeshi.

Ken Taylor, widely recognized as a master political strategist (though generally a lousy sailor), has not declared whether he will seek re-election. Though Mr. Taylor is widely seen to be vulnerable some pundits feel sailors would be reluctant to vote a sitting Commodore out of office in a year where a major expansion is planned.

In addition, a brewing controversy is beginning to engulf several of Mr. Tooley's closest associates. Two days ago a video was leaked to the press showing Roger and Jeremy Ritsema at a boozy lunch with both Charlie Sheen and John Galliano, two celebrities who are currently mired in serious and thoroughly distasteful public scandals.

And finally there is the issue of the leaked photo of a young Mr. Tooley holding a science class presentation that appears to suggest, in detail, what causes WIND. The question has evaded scientists for thousands of years. If it turns out to be true that Mr. Tooley has long understood the physics behind WIND he could be indicted by the VBYC for failing to disclose his knowledge and participating in numerous Bingo Derbies on false pretenses. A committee has been struck and will investigate.