Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti has spent much of his career irritating people. He has usually appeared to find their irritation fun.

No longer, he said Tuesday. At his first council meeting since brain surgery less than two months ago— he says he was told he might not live — he smiled a lot, teared up in thanking a doctor at St. Michael’s Hospital, and renounced the colleague-tormenting he has turned into a kind of high-concept performance art.

“I can honestly say that this experience is life-altering,” he said in an interview in which he seemed serene. “It changes who you are as a father, it changes who you are as a politician, who you are as just a person.

“And you recognize that there are a number of things that probably need to be changed to finish out your life. And sometimes you have to be a little nicer, a little calmer, and do your job in a way that doesn’t make all the enemies that perhaps comes with being a politician. So I’m going to try all of that. And maybe you’ll see a little something different from me.”

He said he will not stop being “passionate” but will “stop getting under everybody’s skin.”

“I know I’m good at getting under other people’s skin,” he said with a smile. “But I make enemies, and I really don’t want to fight with people to that degree anymore. It’s time for me to change a little bit.”

Mammoliti, 51, is an unabashed political chameleon known for his inflammatory rhetoric and unusual policy proposals. He began his career as an NDP MPP, in 1990, before shifting to the right — then joining left-leaning mayor David Miller’s executive committee, then joining the executive of his former arch-nemesis, Rob Ford, and denouncing Ford critics as “communists.”

Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) announced his resignation from Ford’s committee on the November day the mayor appeared to have been ousted from office by a judge.

He said Tuesday he plans to continue supporting the administration’s agenda but thinks the city should focus on raising revenue rather than reducing the size of the government workforce.

How does the new Giorgio Mammoliti think the city should raise revenue?

“I’m talking about casinos; I’m talking about lotteries — a Toronto-driven lottery, which is within our realm to do; I’m talking about certain user fees, perhaps, that we could get away with; I’d like to look at whether or not couriers that ride bikes can actually be licensed. Not all people that ride bikes — couriers.”