In the thick, slurry voice of head trauma, he said, "Oh, yeah, well, I seen the dumpster last night and I got all excited to come out today and see what it had!" I asked him if he'd found anything good, and he seemed a little disappointed, "Nah, not yet, although I got a few of these old VHS tapes, here. Don't know what's on 'em, though." Helpfully, I said, "Maybe it's authentic Bigfoot footage and you can sell them for 10 million dollars." The man looked a little bit stunned, and then he asked, “ You don’t think that Bigfoot guy is real, do ya?”

Up Broadview we passed a ramshackle home with about eight wounded hippies on the deck. Homemade signs in rainbow colours, pasted about the porch, advertised a variety of services ranging from Anger Management to Diet to Yoga to World Peace Meditation, but I did not feel confident that anybody there was really learning how to create world peace with their minds, as none of the people sitting there looked capable of making a dinner reservation.

At the corner of Queen and Broadview people began to whisper about the menacing clouds on the horizon. They were getting excited, a cooling wind coming from the north, portents of the divine.

Strippers in bikinis, partially covering themselves with towels, leaned out the side entrance to Jilly’s trying to keep cool. Holding cigarettes between long-nailed fingers they fanned themselves, talking saucy to the men walking by, trying to entice them into their lair.

And then the sky broke and the rain came pouring, pouring down and the city ran for cover. But I just stood there for a minute, letting it saturate me, and then the dog and I, both smiling, ran through the cooling rain, happy to be alive in it all and heading to a place called home.

Luckily, I hardly noticed that feeling of euphoria and peace that slowly washed into my body and lifted me up -- as if in the fragrant arms of angels that looked like Lynda Carter in her Wonder Woman costume-- toward the ceiling whenever I took the medicine. (Hey world, look at me! I can fly! You’re all so small, like little pieces of rice with legs and faces!!) Fortunately, I never felt the NEED to take my pills every four hours—as it said I could on the bottle-- but only did so because I like to follow rules.

And so it was very easy for me to stop taking these pills when the prescription suddenly ran out yesterday.

I have an iron will, you see.

This is my journal from yesterday:

9:45 AM: Woke up into fucking heat wave. The world is stupid and I have plans to destroy it!

9: 53 AM: Ceiling fan was making incredibly irritating WHHIRR sound that I never noticed before. Threw my empty prescription bottles—after licking interior—at it. Did not solve problem. Threw shoes at fan. Same result. Threw Rachelle’s alarm clock at it, broke window. Fine. Finally get some fresh air in this hellhole.

11:30 AM: Dog started to lick my face. She’s a manipulator, this one. Just wanted me to walk and feed her, well fuck her.

12:48 PM: Stepped in dog pee in hallway while on the way to bang on the wall to tell the neigbhours to stop boiling water so loudly. I attacked the dog and tried to use move I saw on Mixed Martial Arts bout the other day on her. Miniature Dachshund was much stronger than she looked and was able to quickly subdue me by standing on my incision.

1:00 PM: After vomiting, I took the dog for walk. Although very hot out, felt cold, so very, very cold and shaky.

1:10 PM: Gave sketchy guy in Jimmy Simpson Park $20 and smoked joint with him. Had a beer at picnic table with him, too. Nice day.

2:30 PM: Made big lunch of Kraft Dinner with wieners. Excellent!! Drank chocolate milk, too!

3:00 PM: Nap.

5:30 PM: Rachelle returned from work and woke me up. I was furious! I NEED MY SLEEP IN ORDER TO PROPERLY RECOVER!! I thought she looked ugly and mean and told her so. She began to cry and asked why the window in the front room was broken. I can’t take her incessant nagging!!!

6:00 PM: Took the dog for a walk to Jimmy Simpson Park where I gave $50 to a man for some vitamins in a bag. Took a few and then went to patio to have some wine. Nice night.

9:30 PM: Returned home with flowers for Rachelle. Taped garbage bag over broken window and watched episode of True Blood.

10:35 PM: Took more vitamins from bag.

11:00 PM: Watched City TV news. Katherine Humphries and Mark Daly are so funny!! Have such great chemistry!!

11:39 PM: Noticed that for some reason Rachelle was all distant and out of sorts. Offered her one of my new wonder vitamins but this just made her cry.

Lula Lounge is on Dundas Street in Parkdale, and it has a thrown together Bohemian décor—you know, a multi-ethnic and mismatched collection of things found at garage sales. The crowd on that night didn’t feel exactly friendly, or even happy. No, the majority of the people looked like vaguely unhappy hippies, like people that might have named their children after spices, trees or foreign countries, and bitterly rued that their lives had been ruined by politics and society, man.

No matter, I was excited. I’ve been a fan of Mary Margaret O’Hara since 1988, when I came across her brilliant Miss America. It’s hard to describe this album, but I guess I found it transcendent, that at times, O’Hara was able to transport herself and her audience out of their bodies and into a state of ecstatic improvisation.

At any rate, this was the only “real” album she’s produced, and over the years has earned the reputation as an eccentric and reclusive genius, one who very rarely ventures onto the stage.

Her presence was slightly comic, but not exactly in the Ha-Ha way. Watching as she hunched her shoulders and swung her arms, marching around in odd, chicken-scratch circles, I thought of her sister, the comedienne Catherine O’Hara portraying a character in a Christopher Guest film. Mary Margaret’s sincere eccentricity bled through whatever stage persona she might have hoped to erect around herself, and she gave off the vibe of an earth mother who might at any moment command the audience to “finger paint!” or “switch partners!”

She was strange, even a little mixed-up in intent, it seemed.

Eschewing a traditional vocal narrative, O’Hara chose to create a kind of collaborative soundscape with the other artists on the stage. Working from the background, O’Hara embellished their performances with vocal flourishes that suggested canine yips, ghostly murmurs and a scattering of baby talk that spoke of possession.

It was like watching a broken oracle.

Always subverting herself, O’Hara would pull back or deflate whatever artistic ascent she might have been developing, taking cover beneath the accompanying instrumentation as if hiding from enemy fire. For whatever reason, she seemed either unwilling or incapable of letting her genius take flight, and so for the course of the evening she kept it safely tethered, like a bird that had chosen to live in it’s cage.

Watching, I thought of my recurrent dreams of flight. Inevitably, as I defy gravity and time and soar through the world, I lose control of my gift and it takes possession of me. Suddenly, I can no longer control where I am going, and it’s a terrifying experience, rendering me completely vulnerable to forces I can neither understand nor control, and I have to wonder if taking the stage and singing is a little bit like that for Mary Margaret O’Hara.

Hello there,

I am Chris Malvin from Salt Lake City. I want to buy a water hose and would like to know the types you have in stock. Get back to me with the types and prices so that we can go from there. Have a nice day and I wait for your response.

Chris.

****************************************

This is the response that I sent back:

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Dear Chris:

I want to thank you for considering Mike’s Water Hose Mansion for your water hose needs. As we’ve only been in business for three weeks, we really appreciate the business! First of all, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you how Mike’s Water Hose Mansion came to your attention?

Was it our YouTube ad? The water hose sculpture we constructed at the Burning Man Festival?

I’m guessing it was our promotional Star Wars themed car wash, as that got quite a bit of media attention after the police shut us down for prostitution (not true!) and not having the proper city permits for the Pigeon Shoot section of the wash experience. Live and learn, Chris, live and learn!

I think it’s important for you to know that the hoses at Mike’s Water Hose Mansion are multi-purpose. Our hoses may be used to transmit any type of fluid you like. It does not have to be water, even though that is what the company name might imply. Chris, we don’t judge or put any limits on the imagination of our clients. No sir, we simply accommodate. If you want to use our hoses to beat a cat or for some Mormon sex thing, well, that’s up to you!

I’m not sure how familiar you are with how our company works, but in general we keep a very small stock of hoses, as keeping them coiled in the apartment gives me the creeps. It always makes me think I’m living amongst snakes, and I don’t like that. Heck, once while a little loopy on painkillers and Sauvignon Blanc, I mistakenly hacked up a coil of hose, thinking they were King Cobras, with a kitchen knife! Imagine that, destroying your own stock! Crazy! Anyway, so what we do at Mike’s Water Hose Mansion is find whatever the product is that you, our valued customer, is looking for.

If you can send us a rough drawing of what it is you need, giving us your colour and length specifications, I will send out one of my many agents to procure this product for you. As we are in the business of salvaging unattended hoses from backyards, gas stations and poorly guarded stores and factories, we can almost guarantee you the best rates anywhere on the Internet!

At any rate, thanks for thinking of us, Chris, and we’ll look forward to hearing from you and supplying you with all of your water hose needs!

Sincerely,

Michael Murray

Instinctively, like a lot of people, like 70% of Americans, in fact, I don't like the idea of building a high-profile mosque near ground zero.

It just feels wrong to me, like a ham-handed statement of tolerance and inclusion, rather than an actual example of tolerance and inclusion.

That being said, it’s obvious that any group has a categorical right to build a place of worship wherever they damn well please. That’s religious freedom. That, in fact, is what America, in all its weird and crazy and inspirational glory, is predicated upon. It’s a first principle-- sacrosanct and beyond debate.

Still, there is opposition. Bleeding rage, political opportunists, bigots and various lunatics have been swinging from branch to branch howling like a bunch of monkeys. These responses have been brutish and visceral, bringing shame and embarrassment to the majority who’ve assumed a more ambivalent posture. Personally, if I was faced with such a fervid and blind intensity of opposition, it would infuriate me, and I would redouble all my efforts to assert my constitutionally enshrined rights. I would not let “them” win.

I get that.

But it seems clear to me, really strikingly obvious, that it’s just too soon, and perhaps far too hopeful, to try to impose this gesture of tolerance and acceptance, on a nation that still doesn’t even know how to address the wounds it incurred on September 11th.

I mean, the stated mandate of the Cordoba Initiative (the project behind the complex that will house the mosque) is to improve relations between the Muslim world and the United States, but they seek to initiate this process by doing something that a huge majority of Americans oppose and would obviously resent. This seems either wholly disingenuous, or a tragic misreading of a nation.

Regardless of how wrong-headed you might think the protests against this mosque might be, you simply have to respect the sincerity of those opposing it. Maybe it’s just not the right time to try to drag these people into an imagined future, and perhaps it would be best for those within the Muslim community to step forward and acknowledge that perhaps this is not the time and place for a mosque, and out of respect and love for the community that they are a part of, scale back the project.

Of course, this wouldn’t satisfy the radicals, but it would satisfy the majority of people, and that would go a long way to start the process of improving relations between the Muslim world and the United States, as the Cordoba Initiative claims as it’s goal.

It was an entirely surprising scene, one that was simultaneously sad and beautiful.

It was on the north side of the street, trapped in a kind of corridor that had been formed by a construction fence bordering the sidewalk and the storefronts facing it. Terrified, the deer ran along the cement path, searching for some sort of escape. It turned into the entranceway to one store, sort of scrabbled at the door with her hooves, and then, with a look of panic in her eyes, turned around and took off from whence she came, vanishing down some side street.

This entire micro-drama took place-- without the benefit of any sort of soundtrack-- in about five seconds. If I had been changing the radio station instead of staring out the window, I would have missed it. It’s kind of odd to think about that, to consider for just a moment all the strange and remarkable things in this world that we don’t see, even those that are literally taking place right in front of us.

But it wasn’t just the event that was strange, but also my response to it. For a moment, just before the deer ran away, it turned and faced me. When this happened, I got out of the car. I suppose that whenever a person happens upon an unexpected or dramatic scenario, they want to embed themselves in the narrative somehow, and I guess I was following that instinct. I have no idea what I thought I might do, but I wanted to help, I wanted to be a part of this story.

At any rate, a few astonished people, scratching their heads, emerged from some of the stores along the street, each one asking the other, “ did you just see a deer? ” Nobody really believed what had just happened.

I spoke with one woman who described-- very poetically and emotionally-- seeing a stunning male deer, just minutes before, running down the middle of Queen Street. She’d been told that a herd of deer were swimming in the lake, and that somehow they’d been scared out of the water, (I imagined boys on bicycles, playing a kind of cowboys and Indians, hollering and screaming, marveling at the strange powers they had to influence the world around them) and then scattered and took flight, quickly finding themselves up in the chaos that was Queen Street.

The fear and panic that I saw in the deer’s face and body was vivid. Completely dislocated, she had been shaken free from her world of comfort. Hooves slipping on the pavement, streetcars, like terrible monsters, rumbling past, she was in a blind frenzy to find some sort of safety, some sort of center.

You see this sort of fear in people in the city, also. Lost to innumerable sorrows, they traverse the streets looking for some kind of home, too. But few of us watching step forward to help as we did with the deer, when astonished, we marveled at her unexpected beauty and worried about the uncertain life awaiting her just around the corner.

But did I do anything special?

Sure.

I wanted to spread the joy around, and so the first thing that I did was to hire Justin Bieber to perform at a huge party I was going to throw for all of my friends at the ACC. I want you all to know that Justin—or J-Dawg as I call him—is a class act. He’s a real little gentleman, and the performance he gave at my bash was entirely off the hoof. He Rocked The Casbah and Let All The Dogs Out!

Unfortunately, as most of my time is dedicated to Fantasy Baseball and the art of the Blog, I have little time to socialize and don’t have very many “real life” friends, and so my party wasn’t all that well attended. (17 people—the party was on a holiday weekend) No matter, I still had fun, as the quarter of a million dollars I paid Justin also allowed for us to “hang-out” for an hour, which we did playing classic Nintendo.

As Rachelle absolutely loves animals, I bought her a zebra (named Stripes) that we have been keeping on our balcony overlooking Queen Street. Well, it turns out that maybe Rachelle doesn’t love animals quite so much as she claims she does. After Stripes kicked-out our window AC unit (I bought 6 more!) Rachelle insisted that I get rid of Stripes, and so I took Stripes to Jimmy Simpson Park, hoping that I could maybe set up a kind of petting zoo. I bought supplies to build a “Michael’s Ark” that would house the animals, and informally hired some local park denizens (homeless, wounded, drug-afflicted, etcetera…) to construct the ark, thinking that what I was doing was good for the city. Unfortunately, a ramshackle kind of drinking and prostitution hut was constructed, from which drug deals were made, and many of the construction supplies I had purchased had been used as weapons, (a huge spate of break-in’s along Queen East and the corridor streets) and sadly, Stripes was killed by a streetcar. I have been fined a rather large amount of money, and am presently fighting the city in court.

I bought 12 houses.

I also bought 12 cars, hoping that will serve as an incentive to get my driver’s license.

I also bought a private island of the coast of Dubai, one that is shaped like the continent of Africa, where one day I hope to erect Michael’s Ark.

I have also invested a great deal of money in developing a True Blood Theme Park based on the hit HBO show about sexy vampires. In my vision, there will be a signature ride called The Tunnel of Blood, and on this ride each ticket-holder will, in order to simulate the vampire experience, receive a bite on the neck-- light, but firm enough to draw just a tiny bit of blood-- from a mechanical device that is presently in development.

Oh, I also paid to have Billy Crystal appear as a guest at a birthday party we threw for Rachelle’s mother. He’s a small man, and really quite sour until he gets a little bit of gin in him.

Almost two weeks ago now, I had surgery to correct something called a Hernia of Morgagni.

It’s a rare condition, rare enough that my thoracic surgeon-- who has been around-- declared it "fascinating!!" In fact, it was so impressive and strange that he asked if he could show my x-rays while giving a lecture at the university, a testament to my singularity that I found simultaneously flattering and demoralizing.

I had a tear in my diaphragm that was roughly the size of a grapefruit. It was through this hole that my intestines had migrated, snaking up from my abdomen and into my chest cavity. Here, as nature abhors a vacuum, my intestinal tract took up residence in the space that was once inhabited by my left lung, which had been surgically removed about a dozen years ago to facilitate treatment for Hodgkin’s Disease.

It was a mess, and the condition caused me all sorts of problems including digestive issues, pain and difficulty in breathing, as my internal organs were now pressing against my heart and one lung, instead of living comfortably in the abdominal basement.

The surgery was fussy and kind of delicate, but not overly dangerous. Very gently, my surgical team tugged, coaxed and persuaded the intestines back through the diaphragmatic rip, and then sewed up the tear and reinforced it with some sort of mesh screen so that hopefully, this never happens again. This took about four hours and proceeded without event.

I was lucky. There was a fair amount that could have gone wrong, both in surgery and in the aftermath, but there were no problems. The surgery worked, and in due course I’m going to take my rightful place on the world stage and become the champion of So You Think You Can Dance and win both showcases on The Price is Right.

At any rate, I had all sorts of well-articulated anxieties about this surgery, almost all of which had to be burdened by my family and Rachelle, who took them on with patience, love and a keenly felt optimism that was nothing short of a miracle. But still, whenever I closed my eyes and thought about my Hernia of Morgagni, (so mysterious and exotic! Named after a 17th century Italian pathologist and anatomist!) I saw a man in a tall, black hat twirling his mustache.

I really don’t know whether my fears were rational or not, and I’m not sure if it matters. We all have a man in a tall, black hat twirling his mustache in our imagination. The villain might be a physical illness, a broken relationship that won’t shake free of the heart, or a fear of simply not being present when most needed. It could be anything.

I want to express my profound gratitude and thanks to everybody who helped see me through this, and offer to you the hope that I can one day pour this love and compassion back into you.

And now, I would like to leave you with some words from Plato, words that serve as a lovely guide into each one of our days, “Be kind, for everybody you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

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Four-eye-two-legged-treat-giver away in big castle full off sick people for long, long time! Heidi have to go without late night treat for ages! Cruel, very cruel! Nobody think of Heidi!

When he come back to den, he move all slow and bent like old squirrel that can no longer climb tree. He smell funny, like freezer in grandparent’s bungalow, and he have big fight wound on belly like he attacked by big owl! Stupid four-eyes! Must always protect belly from owl attack!! It basic! Learn that when just puppy!! His voice also so thin that not even mouse scared of him! He weak! Time is right for Heidi to eliminate him and take over his pillow and meat portion!

Heidi smart. Make big display when four-eyes come home. Wag, wag, wag tail! Jump up and down! Run in circles and bark like found great cave of sausage! “Oh, Master, Heidi miss you so! Didn’t know what to do when you gone! Poetry leave Heidi life when you not around! Beautiful master, you the best, you my hero, without you Heidi nothing!!” Four-eyes drink it up like big sap he is. When Heidi lick his face, she taste the weakness and fear, when she wags tail, she feel his soft, vulnerable belly.

Heidi push Kibble into inhaler four-eyes suck on when can’t breathe. Clog system so no help him when he try to climb stairs! Heidi also unplug AC unit during day when Rachelle at work, so weak four-eyes get all dehydrated and scared, and then at night, when pack sleep, Heidi curl into four-eyes. He think Heidi bringing him warmth and Dachshund strength, but old squirrel wrong! When Heidi lick spot where owl attack, he think she trying to heal his wound, but not true, Heidi so gently, so delicately pull at stitches so that old squirrel fall apart and Heidi get all meat! Going to be a great Fall!!

I spent the last week in a hospital wardroom in the Toronto East General Hospital. It was a Spartan and loveless space that contained three beds and little else. The only effort to decorate the room came in the form of a slightly whimsical patient questionnaire called MY STORY that had been affixed to the wall behind a sheet of plexiglass near each bed.

Presumably, the opportunity for such self-expression would be good for morale. It would give the nurses an opportunity to get to know the person that inhabited the body that lay before them, and it could help create a kind of energy chain, infused by the melancholy and optimism of all that filled it out, that would connect all the patients over the years.

However, it was clear that this well meaning project was almost entirely ignored, as I never saw anybody even so much as glance at one, and of the 50 or so that were scattered about my floor, only one had been filled out. This was by somebody who called himself Kesooni, one of 28 children. He had a cat named Princess, and he loved Las Vegas and show tunes. He was at his happiest when standing in the Cash Blast, and listed his job as “bringing people’s kitchens and bathrooms to life!” I imagined a newly arrived immigrant, somebody so enthused about the life he was building for himself that even from his hospital bed he saw business opportunities blossoming all around him.

This is the MY STORY that I filled out.

PEOPLE CALL ME BY Clive, like the virile actor Clive Owen, only in this case not so much, as I’m just a guy in the hospital named Clive.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME: I’ve never had much upper body strength, but the Good Lord made me nimble and determined, like any good Scottish sheep thief.

MY PET(S) INCLUDE: Heidi, a 3 ½ year-old Miniature Dachshund who was the fastest dog in the entire GTA, until she got fat, on account of me being needy and giving her Kielbasa so that she would love me.

MY HOBBIES/INTESTS/ACCOMPLISHMENTS INCLUDE: In grade five I was Patrol of the week for seven straight weeks. This record has NOT been broken. I can also fill out a personal questionnaire while on Percocet.

MY LOVED ONES INCLUDE: Petal, the bright light of loyal love that is my life. This list is also defined by my family, who blessed me with a beautiful life, and to whose unbreaking love I ceaselessly return. And of course, my infinitely complex, inspiring, frustrating and beautiful friends.

I AM HAPPIEST WHEN I enjoying an Epidural. Man alive, I feel like I can fly when that’s taking a place! I could dunk in your face, motherfucker!

You think you want some of this? Come and get it!

On St. Laurent a man that looked a lot like film director Denys Arcand was picking cigarette butts up off the street and putting them in a little baggie he kept in his back pocket. Later I joked to my uncle that Arcand’s career must have really tanked, and as it turned out my uncle was a friend of the director’s brother. He told me that in the family cemetery outside of Montreal, their mother had erected a huge cenotaph with Denys’ name on it when he was a teen as a stern reminder to him of how things were going to turn out if he continued in his wayward ways.

In the west end a young woman in hot pants leans in through the widow of cab, striking negotiations. Finally, the driver is convinced and nods his head, and the girl runs off around the corner, shouting and waving her hands. Immediately, six boozed-up and party-bound teenagers come running out of the darkness and pile into the cab, elbows, knees, mops of hair and cans of beer sticking outside the open windows.

In Old Montreal I went into a little souvenir store looking for an Expo baseball cap. I asked the East Indian guy working the cash if they had any, and he said that they did not, adding a little defensively, “Sir, that team has not existed for quite some time!”

“ No, you’re wrong, “ I said, “the Expos still exist” and I pointed at my head, trying to indicate that they lived on in my memory, but he didn’t seem to understand this and grew agitated. Standing up and waving the Subway sandwich he had been eating for lunch, he shouted, “No! It’s is you who are wrong! They are no more!”

“The live on,” I insisted.

“Ask anybody, they are no more! You are making a foolish man of yourself!”

“Oh, they exist alright, they exist,” and then I left the store.

From Mile’s End to NDG at 1:00 in the morning, the cab climbed Mt. Royal when I wasn’t paying attention, and then suddenly, outside the window, all of the city glittering beneath.

At any rate, the train was packed, and as there was no reserved seating, everybody was struggling to find a place to sit. I had a little fight with one woman (who was sitting directly across the narrow aisle from me) who had been trying to reserve the seat next to her for her luggage and two dolls, in spite of the obvious fact that the train was sold out.

Before our dispute escalated, a young girl of about 10 squeezed in and shared the seat with this woman’s luggage, thus establishing a kind of compromise. But still, I was far from satisfied and kept shooting the woman dirty looks.

She was probably in her mid-thirties, and she actually looked like Penelope Cruz, but I hated her guts. She was an evil Nazi who skinned cats. She wrote fan letters to Mel Gibson. She turned off her lights at Halloween and pretended she wasn’t home.

Anyway, the two dolls that she was traveling with were not beautiful or interesting dolls. They were ratty, balding things that looked like they’d been purchased at Value Village or snatched out of the mouth of a dog. One of them, the yellow one with the pink bonnet, she held on her lap like a child, while the other blue one sat looking at her from its perch in her backpack.

After a spell, the girl and her fell into conversation about these stupid dolls, named Benny and Jet. The woman showed the girl pictures and movies of the dolls she kept on her iPhone, and spoke of all the different outfits she dressed them in according to the seasons. And in no time at all, she began to speak in her doll voice—in insensible, high-pitched babble-- as she waved them about. It was utterly creepy, like a mental illness, and I couldn’t stop looking over.

The little girl’s three brothers, all younger than she was and eating Harvey’s hamburgers bought back at Union station, came over and crowded around, too. They were yelling and shouting questions, and the woman with the dolls got more and more excitable, too, feeling validated that a bunch of six years old were interested in her mania. The dolls were shrieking, the kids were shrieking, the burgers were dripping, and I was staring, my face a mixture of rage and horror.

The woman, aware that I, her enemy, was staring over, began to speak to me through her doll, Benny.

In a screechy voice, “Hey, Mister Mean, you have to turn that frown upside down!”

I looked directly into the doll’s dead eyes, “I just have a stern resting face,” I said.

“You mean fart face!” Benny responded.

All the little boys howled with laughter.

“Fart face, fart face!!” They chanted.

“He smells like an old chicken full of onions!” Benny screeched.

At this point, full of a kind of beautiful rage, I reached across the aisle and grabbed Jet, and with one hand on her throat and the other on the top of her head, I said, “Benny, if you say just one more word, I am going to rip her head right off.”

Three other passengers began to applaud my action, while the doll woman burst into tears and began to scream like the Dustin Hoffman character in Rain Man, and the boys continued to shout, “Fart face,” only this time with some admiration in their voices.

At this point, we were still three and a half hours from Montreal.

Ninja-black in Spandex, fit, unsmiling mothers with perfect blonde hair hurry their strollers down the sidewalk. From behind expensive and unfriendly sunglasses, they seem like Cyborgs from the future. With mathematical precision, they cut around clusters of elderly Asian women, all standing beneath colourful umbrellas, protecting themselves from the late afternoon sun.

Blonde waitresses from the Comrade start slowly. Sitting outside smoking, they pose and shift like advertisements for the bar, before heading off to get some ice for the evenings shift.

An immense couple, each one riding their own mobility scooter, inch down the street, pausing every ten yards or so to inspect the garbage that’s been placed out on the sidewalk.

“This fan looks good,” she says.

“It’s a piece of junk!” he shouts back.

“You haven’t even looked at it, Harold! Jesus H. Christ! If I say black, you say white!”

And then, with some authority she slams the fan into the basket on her scooter, shooting Harold a vicious and hateful scowl from over her shoulder.

Bonjour Brioche, which closes after lunch, has a semi-enclosed patio bordering Queen Street. It’s here where ironic hipsters wearing Run DMC t-shirts and Adidas sneaks take up residence. In the dark, they might smoke a joint, but during the early evening they sip traveling beers brought from their patio-less apartments, enjoying a middle-class alternative to the more sincere street culture that does the same thing in Jimmy Simpson Park just a block away.

In the park, black kids with some hop in their game, play basketball at one hoop, while surrounding them at the other baskets are the Asian boys. Always passing, the Asians keep their eyes on the other, more stylish and accomplished game-- the one they hope to play in one day.

On a bench sits a man wearing a sleeveless, black t-shirt. His bicycle lies flopped on the ground beside him, and behind his sunglasses and greased hair he has a glazy, drug smile on his face. Leaning back, he has his arms outstretched, as if he imagined them encircling two hot babes.

On a bench perpendicular to him, are two old men wearing hats that are as old as their grown children. Everyday at this time, they meet. Speaking together in their native tongue they never smile, seemingly unhappy with the world they find themselves in.

At Rowe Farms a woman stands at the cash speaking into her Bluetooth. It’s business, and she’s making a point of being efficient and crisp in her dialogue, but still, although she’s playing to the audience of customers in the store, she never once stoops to make eye contact.

A man in a vivid, gingham shirt and skinny jeans holds hands with a pretty woman in a sun dress. With her free arm, which displays a sleeve of colourful tattoos, she reaches over and holds out her ice cream cone for him to taste.

I wasn’t’ very good at this, so I contacted the supervisor of the program and asked if she could maybe give me a different inmate, which she did. This is the first letter that I’ve received from my new pen pal:

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Friend:

As I spend a lot of time alone, I am very happy for your correspondence! I want you to know that I am a thinker, and that I am often wondering about Jesus, who is my friend and co-pilot in all that I do.

For instance, I wonder what Jesus’ favourite sport would be? I like Roller Derby, as I was on a team called the Death Track Dolls until the trouble started. I was pretty good at mashing people, and didn’t mind the blood at all, but I don’t think that Jesus would really like Roller Derby. Perhaps he would be more of a fan of swimming? What do you think?

I have been saved by Jesus, so I think that he’s pretty cool. If I liked guys, I think I would like somebody that looked like Jesus, but I don’t like guys. I like girls. Does that weird you out, thinking about girls with other girls? I’m not sure if God likes it when girls love other girls, but in prison here there are only girls. Perhaps God would feel differently if the devil had put him prison with nothing but other God-Men?

I have been told that I look like Charlize Theron from the movie monster.

Who do you look like?

Jesus saves and the Devil spends!

Roller Debbie

*********************************

Roller Debbie:

Let me first tell you that I am open-minded and not at all grossed-out by the idea of girl on girl action, I mean, relations. You see a lot of that sort of thing in, oddly enough, prison movies, and on TV shows about vampires. Did you ever see the movie The Hunger? Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve made-out and I would be shocked, utterly completely shocked, if God had a problem with that. In fact, I’ve long suspected that God might have been behind that.

I also think that Jesus would like Roller Derby fine. There’s a fair amount of handholding in Roller Derby, and a lot of camaraderie so I think it would make Jesus happy. I don’t think that he’d like paint ball very much, or Short-Track Speed Skating, which is just stupid. (If you committed a crime against Short-Track Speed Skating or Short-Track Speed Skaters, then I think you’re a hero and I support you entirely!)

I think that Jesus’ favourite sport would be tennis, as I believe that white is his colour.

I look like a Spanish soccer player.

It’s been excellent to meet you and I look forward to our correspondence!

Stay well, Roller Derby Debbie!

MM

*************************************************

Brandon Marshall Age 37

My favourite coffee mug has a picture of Farrah Fawcett on it.

I was never a big fan of Charlie’s Angels as a kid as I thought it was a girl’s show, and anyway, Farrah Fawcett wasn’t really my type—too skinny. I thought that Cheryl Ladd was way hotter. Anyway, I’m just telling you this so you know that this isn’t my favourite mug because of her. Anybody or anything could be on it and it would be my favourite mug.

About ten years ago my friend Paul was hosting a poker game. There was a guy there named Allan-- a friend of a friend of a friend-- and he was a real asshole. He had a grating, yippy manner, and he was just out of synch with the rest of the guys. Our games were always relaxed, you know. We’d have a few beers, maybe smoke a joint and just allow the poker game to serve as the event around which we talked, but this Allan guy needed to dominate. He bet more money than was appropriate, got drunk, told shitty, racist jokes and to make matters worse, kept winning.

Well, he was drinking out of this Farrah Fawcett mug that night. I remember he pulled it out of his knapsack-- with a bottle of rye and two cans of diet coke—which he drank from all night. Like everything about Allan, it was irritating.

To make a long story short, I busted him in one hand. I took everything he had, including this coffee mug. Allan was certain he was going to win the hand, and he kept betting extravagantly and taunting me, and when I won, all of the other guys at the table began to applaud really slowly, and Paul, who was hosting the game, said, “Allan, I think you should probably just go now.” And then Tom began to sing that Habs chant:

Nah, nah, nah,
Hey, hey, hey,
Goodbye!

And everybody joined in laughing.

I'd never felt closer to my friends.

It might sound ridiculous, but I swear to God, it might have been the best moment of my life, and that’s why this is my favourite coffee mug.

Demonstrations almost always make me uncomfortable. It seems that regardless of how worthy I might find the cause, there’s always somebody “on my side” who just makes me want to slither away in shame.

Canada, where I grew up and live, is an entirely decent place. It’s a relatively progressive country that’s infused with humanitarian values, and the honest truth is that it’s pretty easy to live as the person you want to be without too much difficulty. The protests here generally have less to do with how we think we should be treated, and more to do with how we think that other people should be treated. Rarely urgent and spontaneous expressions of rage, demonstrations are essentially political marketing displays, theatrical events designed to sway people come election time.

In the wake of G20 Summit in Toronto, YouTube has been flooded with videos designed to support the claims that the police behaved in a brutal, authoritarian manner. Surely, they did, but just as surely, they did not, and the tribal insistence of many activists that the police were “evil” and the demonstrators “good,” is a self-serving and deceptive reduction that lacks generosity, I think. Quite frankly, it’s the kind of thing that keeps me an observer rather than a participant when it comes to activism.

www.youtube.com/watch

A primary example of this is the Officer Bubbles video, which has now received over 200, 000 hits. In it, a pretty 20-year-old woman dressed in camouflage fatigues is blowing bubbles into the face of a police officer. The officer doesn’t seem overly put out by this, and smiles thinly back at the woman (who later claimed to be a volunteer street medic rather than a protestor). However, another officer-- a man, a big, black man-- gets pissed off , strides over and barks at the woman that if she doesn’t stop she will be arrested. Feigning wide-eyed innocence, the girl, acted brutalized and stunned by the request. “For blowing bubbles? But I am light, love and purity! I’m just expressing myself!” the seductive pout on her face seemed to suggest.

(Imagine standing in line at Price Choppers and watching some guy with a pair of sunglasses perched on the top of his head blowing bubbles in the face of the cashier. How would you respond if somebody was doing that to you, or if your child was doing that to somebody else?)

At this point of confrontation between the officer and the bubble girl, there is an edit in the video, and a graphic that says “several minutes later.” We then see the girl who had been blowing bubbles getting arrested, and are led to believe through the construction of the video that she’s being arrested for blowing bubbles, but this isn’t the case. The arrest took place in a different part of town, under a different pretext, by entirely different officers who knew nothing of the bubble imbroglio.

No matter, a martyr was born, and legions of people rallied behind this disingenuous piece of propaganda, citing it as dramatic evidence of the brutal police state in which those of us in Canada live.

The G20 Summit provided those who were so inclined with a three-day bubble in which to attend a kind of fantasy activist camp. Downtown Toronto became a theme park in which people stepped outside of the obvious comfort of their daily lives, and acted out romantic fantasies of revolution, all the while knowing that in a day or two, they’d be able to return to the lives of privilege and ease they’d grown accustomed to. They camped it up and ran around with cameras, snapping pictures of the cops like they were tourists at the zoo.

The need of some in the protest movement to feel good about themselves, even holy, completely obliterated any sense of empathy or balance they might have for those external to their tribe. In the case of some, believing is seeing, and even though nobody was arrested for blowing bubbles, the “arrest” still became the central narrative and truth of the G20 Summit, and so I watched in dismay as this video metastasized and people used it to determinedly shape the truth they needed with the zeal and certitude of religious extremists.

Well, it’s taken forever, but it finally looks like I’m going to have surgery for my tear, and so Rachelle has taken the initiative to find a trainer to help me with my rehabilitation, picking some 41 year-old Jamaican dude named Treshaun. Apparently, he lives on a diet of nuts, seeds and mangos.

As Rachelle was showing me his web page, which had a kind of creepy photograph of him, shirtless, crouched in the snow like a tiger, Rachelle commented, “Oh, Michael, look how his smooth, black skin contrasts so sharply with the snow!”

Seemed like a weird thing to say.

“I guess," I said, "but what about Anastasiya? She seemed nice.”

“Her phone line was disconnected because she was a dirty whore. Michael, didn’t you think it was odd that there wasn’t a photograph of her on her website, but just an avatar?”

“You just hate Russians.”

“ Treshaun is a CERTIFIED personal trainer. He’ll create a meal plan for you and work with you three times a week. It will be good for you.”

“Does he know I don’t like fruit? I’m not eating a fruit diet, and if he wants me to get some warrior tattoo, well, he can just fuck off!”

“You’re not going to have to get a warrior tattoo. Oh, and Trey…”

“Who?”

“I mean Treshaun, he’ll be swinging by my work before your sessions. I thought it might be a good opportunity for me to get in shape, too. A few of the girls thought it would be a fun thing to do as a group, so we’re all going to do it!”

And then Rachelle’s phone rang-- some new reggae inflected ring tone I had never heard before-- and she ran off to the next room, giggling, to take the call.

The home where the estate sale was taking place was a 15, 000 square foot palace, one surrounded by a gate that had the family name on it. I’d never been to an estate sale before and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but for some reason I imagined people somberly walking about, quietly looking at furniture and then making a hushed bid to a representative of the estate.

Well, this estate sale was nothing like that.

The place was packed, a frenzy of elbowing, inarticulate greed. Women, as if in a state of competitive panic, tried designer shoes on in the middle of the staircase. A man in a Vince Carter jersey, indifferent, dropped his Tim Horton’s coffee cup in the bathtub before walking out with a scale pressed to his chest. People, focused on whatever treasure they imagined lay just behind the next door, pushed past one another, never pausing to make eye contact or exchange a kind word. It was remorseless, unceasing scavenging.

In the kitchen, all the cupboards had been thrown open, revealing the terrible intimacy of all the medications the couple had been taking before their deaths, but people didn’t seen to care. They plowed indifferent through the home in packs, dropping what they didn’t want without a second thought.

In one of the living rooms, a huge space that looked like it had rarely been lived in, a music box, abandoned, played heartbreakingly from the sofa. A woman with a stack of towels (the one or two she didn’t want she had dropped into the bidet) marched out of the bathroom, looked at a painting of a Flamenco dancer, turned her nose up and then pushed it away.

I wanted to rescue something of the people that had lived there. I wanted to preserve some part of the story of the young man that had emigrated from Italy to Canada, and with his own hands built a successful business from the ground up, and then erected a castle from this success. Maybe his World Cup Italy 94 baseball hat, an item from the room in the basement where the wife had pickled vegetables and hung pasta, or a souvenir ashtray from a favourite vacation resort, but that seemed a little presumptuous.

Everything that was there was being consumed, quickly and without sentiment. It was like one of those wildlife shows in which you see time-lapse photography of nature washing over and devouring a carcass.

And the next day we drove past one of those junky antique stores that line Queen East. Sitting out front were a couple of old guys with bushy, gray beards that kind of looked like civil war soldiers. They were hopefully selling their wares to people passing by, and within their offerings we recognized that two of the displayed items were paintings taken from the foyer of the Woodbridge estate just a few hours earlier.

Lindsay Lohan is beautiful.

I don’t mean that she’s exceptional within the hierarchies of Hollywood, or that she has some sort of idiosyncratic quirk that renders her astonishingly unique-- it’s just obvious that through any sort of rational analysis, she’s a beauty. I mean, if she existed in the circle of our friends, she’d be the stunning one everybody gravitated to.

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be beautiful, how that would shape the person you were to become. I’ve seen people walk into bars and restaurants and immediately had all of the eyes in the establishment trained upon them because of their utterly compelling physical charisma. What must that do to you? Everyday, wherever you go, you’re the focus of everybody’s attention.

It could certainly give rise to all sorts of horrible insecurities, but I think it would also instill in you a natural sense of entitlement. How would you feel if one day, people stopped looking, and what would you do to get them looking again?

This, I guess, is celebrity in a microcosm.

Our current cycle of celebrity immolation has been focusing on the public self-destruction of Lindsay Lohan. As you will have heard, she’s just been sentenced to 90 days in prison for failure to comply with her terms of probation. Opinions differ on whether this was an appropriate sentence or not, but what’s striking is how we, like we did with Britney Spears before her, having been following the spectacle of her demise as if it was entertainment.

Spears seemed to be a princess that floated up from the septic of a trailer park. A teasing schoolgirl, she was the taboo sex bomb that every man in the world wanted to screw, but once she realized that sexual potential and became a wife and mother instead of the forbidden fruit we dreamed about, she was brutally cast out of celebrity-Eden. And then, with a truly creepy glee, we watched as she went insane.

Lohan is following in a similar arc, although perhaps not in quite so sympathetic way. It was impossible not to see Spears’ vulnerability. She simply did not have the tools to deal with the brutal and confusing chaos her life revealed itself to be. However in Lohan you got a sense that she had the ability to control her own fate. Could you imagine Spears citing Article 5 of The Declaration of Human Rights or handing her lawyer a page of neatly printed out notes concerning her case as Lohan recently did?

Lohan, the product of an ambitious, upper, middle-class New York family was an ace student who left high school in grade 11 to maker her fame in tweener-friendly movies like Freaky Friday and Mean Girls. When she got old enough and started to realize her precocious sexuality at nightclubs and parties, things began to fall apart (as they often do for young women in Hollywood), and she became a skanky train wreck.

And last week, while listening to the judge deliver her sentence, Lohan had written out in the perfect script of Tracy Flick-- Fuck U on the nail of her middle finger, which she subtly flashed at the judge.

It’s almost inconceivably childish, of course, but even more penetrating is just how much it illustrates how powerless and disconnected from the “real” world she must feel. I mean, can you think of a more impotent and pointless gesture? But still, it’s very much worth noting that the poor, little rich girl whom everybody is persecuting, never would have had this bizarre, little indulgence discovered if not for the intrusive and ever present eye of the media. They, and we, are watching every single thing she does.

But as I watched her sobbing, distraught at the unfairness of the world, all I could think about were her lips. A naturally beautiful woman, now just 24, she obviously felt the need to have plastic surgery done on them, and now they look weird, and kind of cruel. Her mouth looks like it’s in a permanent sneer, and it struck me how Hollywood has this Dorian Gray effect, compelling beautiful looking people to alter their appearance, in the hope that will change their identity and how they’re perceived, but inevitably they just create grotesqueries that reflect the arrested and terribly compromised interior of a flailing narcissist.

********************************************

Heidi very, very hot.

Not good hot like King-the-Doberman-killing-a-squirrel-hot, but Bad hot, very Bad hot!!

Heidi covered in fur, you know.

My fur black, too. It concentrate sunlight so it hit Heidi like laser beam. Make me feel all puky. Rather fight an Owl than live with this humidity! Hardly have any appetite. Good for four bowls, and then no more!

Heidi try to be team player, but when four-eyed two-legged treat giver take me out it feel like being thrown into stupid hot bath with cats! Quickly, I seek the wet dirt, but he yell, "No, Heidi, No!" like I trying to smuggle bomb into airport. But no smuggle bomb! Just trying to throw heat from back by rolling in mud puddle!

Master stupid in the head!

Real buzz kill.

And take him forever to climb stairs back to apartment. He moan and makes sigh sounds, whimper like scared of thunder. After 30 minutes, when he finally drag himself up stairs he go to bathroom to make sick noises for rest of day, completely forgetting about Heidi!

No water in bowl make Heidi dehydrated, feel woozy and start to see mice everywhere! Chase mice, bark at mice, jump at mice!! Get real mad! Hate stupid mice!!

And then realize not mice at all, Heidi just chasing her tail!

Very embarrassing.

Stupid heat!

I recently heard a story about an acquaintance that tried to make dinner reservations for some adults and a baby at a restaurant in Toronto. She was told that they didn’t allow babies in their establishment, and this infuriated her to the point where-- believing it was a human rights violation-- sought to take legal measures against the place. It’s worth noting that this was the same woman that didn’t allow children to attend her wedding just one year earlier, thus illustrating that an individual’s politicization is often born from feelings of personal exclusion rather than empathy for others.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether children have a place in adult spaces such as restaurants, movie theaters and concert halls. I’m certainly sympathetic to the isolation a new mother, perhaps feeling excluded from the pulse of civil society because she’s taken on the responsibility to attentively raising a child must feel, but on the other hand, I absolutely hate having my evening hijacked by the enforced spectacle of somebody’s child rearing.

We’ve all been there, and it’s difficult to know what to do. Becoming increasingly preoccupied by the offending parties, I tend to quietly seethe, which is probably what most people do. It’s awkward as hell, and there’s a political subtext to the battleground that’s entirely frustrating.

At any rate, this entire debate is pretty much the exclusive precinct of the upper middle class. Typically, the people impassioned by these sorts of annoyances are those that have become acclimated to privilege and entitlement. Many of my peers waited until careers were firmly established and finances in place before having children, and have become habituated to having some authority and power over their environment. These are people with disposable income, living lives plotted by the freedoms money grants access to, and when they find that their leisure time and social liberties are now impeded by the presence of a baby, well, they find religion, so to speak.

Of course, getting babies into to an upper end restaurant in Yorkville is likely not going to be very helpful to the vast majority of weary parents just scuffling along. No matter, for most of these well-heeled new parents, there is nothing that takes precedence over the development of their child. Bach for babies, organic meat, exclusive schools, summer camp for the gifted and an appropriately limited exposure to third world poverty, are all typical of the upper middle class narrative.

The child becomes a vessel of concentrated light, one that contains the brightest qualities of both parents, and this potential is guided lovingly into the world with such radiant pride that it can’t help but burn bystanders standing outside of the immediate family unit. For these proud parents, imposing on the comfort of 50 other people in a restaurant on a Friday night so that they might spend time with their child seems perfectly natural.

I guess what I find frustrating about such scenarios is that these parents typically ask the rest of the world to become participants in the narrative of their lives, rather than using their imagination to become a part of the narrative of the rest of the world.

Back in 2001, seeking a new slogan with which to attract business and tourists, the city of Ottawa came up with Ottawa: Technically Beautiful. I think that as the new century dawned, the Ottawa brain trust hoped to sell itself as a global High Tech capital, and that from far and wide, the young, beautiful and entrepreneurial would flood the city. Well, the High Tech industry crashed, and Ottawa, as always, plodded along like the government town it’s always been.

And now, in 2010, the city is undergoing a “location branding exercise” and is looking to find a new “tag line” with which to define itself. The following list, winnowed down from hundred of entries, are the finalists.

1. Ottawa: Where beauty and regulations converge.

2. Ottawa: The city that talks it out.

3. Ottawa: Where friends live.

4. Ottawa: Between Montreal and Toronto.

5. Ottawa: Just waiting for life!

6. Ottawa: Multifunctional.

7. Ottawa: A pleasing compromise.

8. Ottawa: Good governance makes for good times!

9. Ottawa: Where different cultures come together to be similar.

10. Ottawa: Other cities are for shopping!

11. Ottawa: Proud of her green space.

12. Ottawa: We play fair!

13: Ottawa: Designed by bureaucrats!

14. Ottawa: First in caring.

15. Ottawa: There is public skating on the canal.

16: Ottawa: You’re no better than us.

17. Ottawa: Where people still read newspapers.

18. Ottawa: Toujours gai.

19. Ottawa: It’s easy to get away for the weekend!

20. Ottawa: Tuliperiffic!

21. Ottawa: Retirement in working.

22. Ottawa: The biggest small town you’ll ever visit!

23: Ottawa: Two hours from Montreal.

24. Ottawa: Officially fun!

25. Ottawa: To infinity and beyond!

“That’s a stupid move.”

“You’re not very smart for an Asian girl, are you?”

“She’s going to crown your ass if you do that, dingbat!”

“You girls are losers, you’re going to get torn to pieces in high school!”

It turns out that the girls had quite a bit of grit to them and I quickly found myself in a round robin checker tournament with them in which the winner had to pay for the others movie ticket and concession stand treats.

As I expected, it came down to a battle between Thanh and I in the finals. Although she seemed sincerely shaken when I told her how the Twilight Saga ended and that Justin Bieber was a robot, I was unable to throw her off her game. She just kept advancing on me. She was relentless, and all the while, her stupid friend Ashley—whom I crushed—kept dancing around and shouting stupid encouragements.

“My giant bag of Nibs is going to taste so fine!!”

“You should just call her King Thanh because you’re always having to King her!”

“I think it’s time you took your pet dinosaur for a walk, Old Spice!”

Witty stuff like that.

I have to say, I’ve been fighting a bad head cold all week and so I wasn’t at my best, and just as I was mounting my incredible comeback I had a horrible coughing fit that caused me to spasm and knock all the checker pieces off the table and so the game had to be canceled. As I was leaving to go see my movie, Thanh and Ashley got all G20 protesters on me, and started shrieking that I was a fascist oppressor or something and that I owed them all sorts of candy and the price of their movie tickets. (Shrek Forever After)

This was clearly not true.

The final game was a draw due to an act of God.

It was God’s Will that our game was interrupted, and if anything, Ashley owed both Thanh and myself our admission and popcorn! She was the loser! But I didn’t press that point too fiercely, as I am a leader, and as I’m not easily provoked (although I did have my hand on the Pepper Spray I keep in my pocket), and like to set a good example for the youth of today, I just walked away like the class act I am, and always will be.

* By the way, Toy Story 3 is an absolutely first rate movie. In each one of the films that I've seen by Pixar, I've been astonished and moved by the melancholy that's ever present. They have this magical capacity to always capture something essential about aging, rendering it simultaneously beautiful and sad, and I think that every adult who watches these "kids" movies is inevitably moved near to tears.

The build-up was as exhausting and hyperbolic as the one that precedes the Super Bowl, and when game day finally arrived, people were as hysterically partisan about the demonstrations as if they were rooting for their country in the World Cup. My Twitter feeds were apocalyptic shrieks:

“ We live in a Police State!

“The protestors are Douchebags!”

And on it went, each person with a radically different view of the same event.

The demonstrations had a clearly defined US and THEM, and each side played out their roles and delivered their lines as if they’d been rehearsing them for years. People, it seemed, only saw what they needed to see to reinforce their beliefs.

For the most part, as Rachelle and I live on Queen Street East, in a part of town far from the emotional and physical epicenter of protest activity, I felt very removed form the proceedings. However, the detention center for detained G20 protesters was at Eastern and Pape, just a few blocks from where we live and on Sunday, all day long, there was the sound of sirens down the street.

A demonstration had been taking place at the detention center and my little patch of Queen Street was serving as a conduit for all the people and resources flowing to and from the event.

Media trucks were assembled in front of Jimmy Simpson Park, each one with a pressed and bouncy correspondent practicing looks of gravitas. Horse manure lay flattened on the street and small bands of fashionable, young scenesters strolled happily down the street, as if off to attend a sunny afternoon of Art in the Park.

It had a convivial, touristy feel-- like a fair grounds.

However, as the increasingly humid day stretched out, the feeling began to change.

In front of the Ralph Thornton Center, people gathered for their weekly AA meeting stood out on the sidewalk smoking. With looks of resentment and suspicion on their faces, they watched as white buses full of riot police drove down the street. Store owners came out of their shops and neighbours looked down from their windows curiously watching as ambulances, oddly empty streetcars and EMF’s rumbled down the street.

Having the G20 drama shift from the mutually agreed upon arena of downtown to an actual neighbourhood, gave the proceedings a surreal, intimate feeling. The people on the streets weren’t invested parties bused in for YouTube moments, they weren’t choosing to participate or witness an event, it was just happening right where they lived.

I chatted with a 20 year-old who had been knocked off his bike by police at the demonstration earlier in the day. He was pale and angry. Uncertain what to do he stared hatefully down the street as if at the officer who knocked him down. It was clear that he’d been marked by the experience. Something he had not expected had happened to him, and it was something he would remember and recount for the rest of his life.

Standing out there I had the same feeling I get just before a fight breaks out. It was tense, and you could feel a reckless, inarticulate energy rising. Every once in awhile, somebody would scream out at one of the buses full of cops, and as this was happening, more and more people emerged from doorways.

I returned to my apartment upstairs, only to be greeted by my quivering Dachshund who was terrified of the exploding firecrackers that somebody had thrown down on the streetcar tracks. The dog could not get close enough to me, and so I sat there soothing her, and then after 15 minutes or so, the sky broke and the rain came pouring down. People retreated from the streets, and relieved for all sorts of different reasons, they returned to their lives, and with that the G20 Summit quietly ended.

I took the dog out for a walk early in the afternoon and the humidity was punishing. As we moved slowly down Queen Street, normally so vivid with life, everything seemed unnaturally still and quiet. Above us, two military helicopters sliced through the heavy air, circling again and again, keeping watch over the G20 summit.

The streets were practically deserted, and Jimmy Simpson Park was completely empty, and so Heidi and I took up residence in the outdoor hockey rink there, where we played fetch on the bleached concrete. The dog splashed happily through oily, warm puddles, fishing the ball out of the corners where little pockets of garbage had accumulated. We did this until I found a syringe, which quickly took away all of my enthusiasm.

I felt like I was living in a dangerous place, as if this was life during wartime.

While on the sidewalk heading home I got a phone call from Rachelle. She was excited, having just felt the earthquake tremors out at her office in Scarborough, and wanted to know if we had felt anything in the city. I hadn’t, but upon hearing the news experienced an immediate and deep sense of disquiet. It was weird, and the emptiness of the city just amplified that sensation.

An earthquake.

The ground heaving beneath your feet.

Family photographs rattling off the walls of my parent’s home back in Ottawa.

It’s humbling and dislocating, an event that makes you feel mortal and appropriately small in the face of an unknowable eternity that’s ever expanding around us.

As most people know, security for the G20 Summit here in Toronto has really been ramping up. The Police are everywhere, most often traveling around in packs of 12 on their bicycles. This gives them the look of some sort of pre-teen gang, but it turns out that this is something they have absolutely NO sense of humour about.

On Monday, while having a few beers on Sherbourne Street with some buddies, a bunch of Cops-- thinking they were big shots that ruled the planet-- cycled past in some display that was clearly meant to intimidate me. It’s a mistake to try to intimidate Michael Murray, and if you don’t believe me you should just ask my dog, Heidi.

At any rate, when I saw these dongs, all making a big show out of flexing their calve muscles, I stood up for democracy.

“Hey girls, did you just get your training wheels taken off?!” I shouted.

I don’t remember much after that.

According to Godzilla, the only English-speaking street person in my drinking party that night, I had been shot in the chest with a beanbag. This may sound, you know, kind of playful, but let me assure you it is not. The riot control beanbags are tough, canvas bags filled with birdshot and fired out of gun into your chest, hurt like a motherfucker. I now have a bruise the size of an island on my chest.

Thankfully, Godzilla and the crew dragged me away before the police got to me, and so I have been able to continue to fight for freedom.

The other day, while buying some licorice at the corner store, I happened to notice two police officers standing in line behind me, and still annoyed from being shot in the chest, I began to oink. I don’t remember anything after that.

Tony, the owner of the corner store, told me that I had been Tasered. He later showed me the footage from his video surveillance camera and it looks like the police officer shot me in the base of the neck, execution style. As I watched the video of myself collapsing into the chocolate bar stand, I could see that eating a bucket of KFC chicken an hour before getting Tasered was not a good idea, and I am very sorry to Tony for the mess that was left on his floor, but clearly the blame lies with the Fascist State and not me.

On Saturday I went to Trinity Bellwoods Park to watch Rachelle and some friends play tennis. It was a lovely day and it seemed as if half of the city was scattered about there, all engaged in some form of languor.

Stoned girls in sunglasses sat on benches, sucking lemonade through straws. A hobo with long, elegant grey hair staggered up to me, “Hey Bro, you got a light?” and when I told him that I didn’t, a look of heartbreak coloured his face. “Aww, gee!” he said before wandering off, only to return ten minutes later to pose the question again, having forgotten he had already asked me.

Under the shade of trees couples held onto one another. Rolling cigarettes or staring up at the clouds, they all struck poses of accidental beauty, living moments they would recall in their hearts 40 years in the future.

Directly in front of the gates opening up into the park, a red MG sports car was parked on Queen Street. With the hood down, a guy of about 20 sat alone in the driver’s seat. Pretending nonchalance, he strummed an acoustic guitar as if unaware of the world unfolding around him. He had a mop of intentional hair that begged autumn leaves, and he was clearly everything he had ever wanted to be at that exact moment, waiting to make the first impression that would last a lifetime.

There really couldn’t’ have been a more ethnically diverse assembly, and it wasn’t uncommon to see an adult child serving as a translator for their parent, who invariably, couldn’t make head nor tails of all the forms and instructions they were being given. It was actually entirely sweet, and as the World Cup soccer game between Spain and Switzerland unfolded on the TV, we all sat together, smiling and nodding, trying to pass the time as easily as possible.

After a sufficient amount of time had passed, a woman who was serving as her mother’s guardian looked around the room and judging that not many people were really watching the soccer, asked if anybody minded if she turned the channel. There were no protests, and so she switched the channel to Tyra and pulled the largest chair in the room right up in front of the TV. Smiling, she said, “Well, if I have to be here all day, I may as well make myself comfortable!” And so she did.

After about 15 minutes a man returned to the waiting room from one of his tests. He took one look at the TV, and seeing Tyra instead of the World Cup, shot me an utterly stricken look. For the next 10 minutes, as he went through his important-looking office documents, he made all sorts of facial grimaces, as if he was now suffering the most horrible physical pain. Soon enough, the Tyra-watching woman and her mother were called away for a test, and the man immediately asked the room if he could turn the volume down, making some disparaging remark in the process. Once again, there were no protests.

The room now in awkward silence, the man kept looking over to me for support. He saw in me a compatriot, I think, as we were both white, similarly aged, apparently healthy in appearance and sporting a clichéd “downtown” look. Out of the blue he started to talk to me about architecture, design and various restaurants.

It was pretentious, of course, and more than a little embarrassing, but I strove to be generous toward him.

Illness levels us all. In the hospital you’re no different from anybody else—we’re all vulnerable and subject to fates and circumstances we can’t control. It’s scary, and when you look around the waiting room at all the other people—some very ill, some scared, some powerless to even communicate-- you see reflections of yourself, and I don’t think that man liked that. He needed to be something else. He needed people to know he was different and that he didn’t share in the mortal apprehensions of the rest of us. And so, using language that nobody else needed to communicate, he whistled past the graveyard, conspicuously trying to separate himself from the pack.

**************************************

Had weird dream last night.

In boat eating cheese and then bad, bad weather come and begin to rain and Heidi get wet! Hate being wet!! And then no cheese, cheese I eating just vanish! Horrible, horrible dream!!

Guess a lot been bothering Heidi lately and anxiety must be creeping into dream world. Heidi very angry G20 summit taking place in Toronto city!! This crazy! Who plans this, bunch of stupid cats and squirrels?!

Many dog parks closed and dogs forced to work! In chains, dog must smell where two-leggers can’t smell, must bark when no want to bark! It awful!! Two-leggers clear out all veterinary clinic so they have “trauma capacity” should any of their fancy pets—(cats from France!!) eat bad piazza crust and get tummy ache! Not fair! This democracy?!! Not democracy!! Bad government, BAD, BAD government!!

And stupid two-leggers uproot small trees because they “security risk.” What, man people use them as spear for fight?! As if! And the Squirrelists don’t hide in small tree, hide in big tree! So stupid!! When take away tree just take away place for dogs thrown out of hospital to take pee!! Solution not to take away tree, solution to take away dangerous squirrel! Dangerous squirrel everywhere!

Not politically correct to say, but maybe G20 can be good for dog if two-leggers clear downtown of riff-raff. Time for cats, pigeons and squirrels to go! They be drain on society long enough, make city, make country look bad! Pigeon have big shot attitude because can jump in sky long time. Big deal! Never see pigeon play fetch! The bird brain carry disease! Should put them all on reserve far away!!

Country not like used to be.

Hope meat for dinner.

Could eat meat forever.

Think I like to marry meat.

The unabashedly commercial Andy Warhol was the gravitational center of the exhibit, and it was astonishing to see just how prolific and relentlessly present he was in our cultural landscape. His work bled into everything, and wherever you looked, (be it an episode of The Love Boat, a print ad in a magazine or a postcard) Andy Warhol was looking back at you. However, in spite of his ubiquity, there still seemed to be nothing of him in the world, and so he just floated about, the specter of celebrity haunting our days.

Many of the other artists whose work appeared in the show (Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst) had a similar familiarity. Mass marketed and ceaselessly recycled, the themes and images these artists created were inescapably present in our lives. They were the oxygen we breathed, and as such there was nothing particularly surprising or dislocating about the work. I mean, if you switched on Entertainment Tonight, you’d see a segment on Jeff Koons right after the one on Bob Sagat.

The Pop Life show exited this familiar context in the final room of the exhibit and showcased some contemporary Japanese Pop Art. Exuberant and bursting with colour, this room was fun and playful, and a smile immediately appeared on my face when I stepped into it.

Dominating the space on a giant screen was a Takashi Murakami produced video starring Kirsten Dunst. Portraying a Magical Princess, Dunst sang the 1980 hit Turning Japanese while kittenishly parading about an idiomatically Japanese world. It was an expert and dislocating mash of popular cultures, fusing the actress from Spiderman and a classic pop song with the weirdo edges of Japanese subculture, but more importantly, (much more importantly), it was sexy and fun.

www.twitvid.com/4E77A

I think that the pieces I liked the most in the show were two sculptures—just huge figurines, really—by Murakami. In one, a female anime character with exaggerated breasts, smiled brightly as milk spouted from her nipples. From the milky liquid she’d encircled herself with a kind of fecund skipping rope. Facing her was a male anime character with ejaculate streaming from his penis, which he held above his head like a potent lasso of lightning. Subversive yet cute, it was startling and funny, presenting a fresh and alien twist on the Pop Art most of us grew up wearing like a second skin.

I thought them brilliant bookends, and if the gift shop sold them as miniature souvenirs, well, I would have bought them in a second—which would have been the realized ambition of every pop artist in the show.

And so yesterday, after spending the majority of the week with a throbbing head, ear and jaw-- which I mystifyingly attributed to my sinuses-- I went to the dentist and found out that I have an infected tooth that will require antibiotics, and perhaps two root canals.

I was in a pretty grim and fragile state while this examination and diagnosis was unfolding and found myself unusually irritable.

The assistant who led me to the dentist's chair room was a woman I hadn’t seen before. Normally, whenever I go to the dentist, there’s an assembly of well-turned-out young women working there. All exuding optimism and good cheer, they’d happily flash a perfect smile, and I’d feel instantly reassured by their evident confidence, professionalism and competence. They always, just as they were supposed to do, relaxed me.

But yesterday this didn’t happen. The assistant that was looking after me seemed lost, like she was replacing a friend for a day. Short and round, with unusually textured hair, she looked different than everybody else, and unlike all the other employees, it looked like she had just one outfit that she wore to work five days in a row. She spoke haltingly and with a heavy accent, and she seemed uncertain of what she was supposed to be doing. She moved about robotically, like she only saw what was directly in front of her, and she actually looked scared, like she was just waiting to fuck-up.

Because her English was so poor, I had a very hard time understanding her instructions, which she seemed uncertain of in the first place. (It was like she was trying to remember a script she had memorized but could not recall) I was tired and in pain, and I was getting frustrated with all the mistakes she was making and her nervous demeanor. Eventually she got me up for an X-Ray, which was irritating because she could not communicate what she wanted and was too scared to ask for help. After the X-Ray was taken (it was one of those panorama things that rotates around you) and I was disentangling myself from the machine, (that you kind of wear) the whole apparatus, that is controlled by hydraulics, was shut off and fell on me.

I wasn't hurt. I was able to duck and slide out of the way as it slammed down, but it really pissed me off, and I spun around and shouted at the woman, “What are you doing?!”

Startled, she just shook her head. She didn't know what she was doing.

A stranger in a strange land, each day she must get up to a job she isn’t very good at. She likely waits for things to go wrong around her, to be misunderstood. It must be so very lonely, so very frustrating. And as the staff was fussing over me making sure I was alright, I saw the dentist, who very nearly had tears in her eyes, talking to the assistant, “Oh Rosa, it wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t! It could have happened to anybody!”

And from Rosa you just saw an acute portrait of loneliness.

I want to now provide you with a partial list of some of the ghosts that my tour will be visiting.

1. Ginger the cat

The Broadview Hotel-- famous for housing Jilley’s strip club-- has long had a cast of colourful characters living within its’ walls. One of these people was Busty Goldmine, who at 68, was the oldest stripper in the country. In 1976 she died on stage, and her cat Ginger, who was a constant companion and sometimes stage partner, was so distraught that she threw herself out their fourth floor bedroom window. Witnesses described Ginger taking a deliberate leap, and twisting as she fell to her death to ensure that she landed on her back, and not her feet as cats typically do. They say that on full moons you can still hear Ginger’s horrible death mewl cutting through the night, and feel a chilling rush of air past your face.

2. Screaming Joe the rooster.

Back in the 1930’s cock fighting was a thriving business in the East side of Toronto. Screaming Joe, a sensitive bird by all accounts, was brutalized by his owner and forced to fight night after night in the dark alleys of the city. One night, just as Screaming Joe was released to fight a rabid dog, he let out a chilling cock-a-doodle-do and attacked his owner, managing to blind him in one eye before being killed by the dog and several opportunistic rats. On certain nights, if you pass by this alley, it is said that you can hear Screaming Joe’s warrior cry and see his red rooster eyes glowing in the dark.

3. Kong the dog.

In the 1950’s, Kong-- a German Shepherd--used to wait at the corner of Queen and Jones for his master to get off the streetcar after work. A notorious drinker and trouble-maker, Kong’s master got in a fight with a group of men, one of whom accidentally flicked some cigarette ash on him as he got off the streetcar. In the ensuing mayhem, both Kong and his master were killed. Ever since, people getting off the streetcar at this stop have complained about hearing growling and feeling violent yanking on their pant legs, as if being attacked by a dog. People have said that this was the ghost of Kong, who even in the afterlife, was still trying to save his master from his attackers. Back in 1964 the stop was moved because many of the city drivers refused to stop there, and passengers refused to disembark, fearful of the ghost of Kong.

4. Colonel Beckett the pigeon.

In the late 19th century Colonel Beckett, a belligerent pigeon, presided over the primary water source beneath the Queen Street overpass with uncompromising brutality. If a pigeon happened to drink from his drainpipe, he would stab them in the eye with a sharpened feather quill he clenched in his beak. Pigeons stopped inhabiting this area altogether for years, and it’s believed that Colonel Beckett died a sad and lonely pigeon. However, his ghost is said to still haunt the area, with pedestrians making frequent reports of being suddenly overwhelmed by the sensation of beating wings, the scent of brandy and a mysterious stinging in their eyes.

In the late 70’s, along with Warren Cromartie and Andre Dawson, Valentine was going to usher in a golden age of Montreal Expos baseball. The three of them were expected to form the most awesome outfield of all time, with Valentine, who could throw a baseball through the moon, leading the way. Six feet four inches tall, he could do it all on the baseball field and was pretty much the opposite of me in every conceivable way. Great, great things were expected from him, and all sorts of people—like me-- dreamed of being him.

In the baseball card, which may well be from his rookie year, you can see an incredible confidence in his eyes. Cocky and unbroken, with the world stretching out before him, he seems to be daring the pitcher, saying, “Yeah, you just try it.”

Well, as it turned out, Valentine’s career didn’t unfold as anticipated. After a couple of promising years, he got hit in the face by a pitch that broke his cheekbone. Many think that it was the injury to Valentine that kept the Expos, who had an incredibly talented nucleus, from the postseason, a place that they never in their history visited (excluding the strike shortened 1981 season). When Valentine returned he had to wear an awkward football type guard on his helmet, and he just didn’t look right. He looked suspicious and fearful, hardened in a distrustful way, and he was traded to the Mets the next year.

At this point, unbeknownst to a lot of people, the Expos were full of cokeheads, Valentine being one of them. He sucked as a Met, and then sucked for the handful of other teams he played for, too, before leaving Major League Baseball for good in 1985. It should be noted that his first job outside of baseball was working at a rental car company where he earned $4.25 an hour.

However, his story isn’t a tragedy, as he’s now a happy and healthy guy finding immense gratification in working with at risk youth. If you were to ask him, he’d probably say he wouldn’t change a thing, but still, there’s a real sadness for me in this story. As a boy I had an awful lot invested in both Ellis Valentine and the Montreal Expos. Valentine flamed out amidst scandal and disappointment, and the Expos, well, they didn’t even flame out, they just sort of faded away, and it makes me sad to think about the beautiful potential that they, and all of us pretending to be them on Ottawa baseball fields, used to have.

Looking for Lava Love-on a budget
Michael Murray, Gureilla - Ottawa Culture at Ground Level

After desiring a relationship with writer Michael Murray for some time, Guerilla determined that the best course of action would be to buy his affection. We took it slow and kept things casual, suggesting only that he contemplate what he might like to contribute to our pages for the standard fifty-dollar honorarium. As we’d hoped, the prospect set Murray’s eyes afire—lit with the smoking and glowing intensity of lava.

*****************

Ok. Here’s what happened.
With Guerilla’s fifty dollars burning a hole in my pocket, I went online in my ongoing quest for true love while documenting the experience in a weekly journal. But before I present any of the details, here’s some of what my Lavalife profile looks like:

Lavalife Section: Dating
My nickname: A DOUBLE TAKE
Opening Line: I like to gamble.

In My Own Words (description of me):
"In my own words." It sounds like the title of a bad poem. One of those poems that is shaped on the page like a swan or a heart. At least, that's what I think. I guess that means that what I'm writing now is my own lousy poem: a humiliating heart-shaped song of myself. I'm embarrassed and ashamed already.

But hey! I'm here because I'm interested in people, in opportunity. I think the idea of this is fun, straight out fun. I like writing to people and having them write back. Fun, fun, fun! I also like meeting the people, talking with them, and finding out about their lives.

Versatile, me. My friends describe me as "awesome," "unbelievable," and "amazing." I emit a good buzz. I’m wicked funny and dress well. I don't miss hockey. I'm a writer. Well, I'm trying to be a writer. I'm nice, did I say that? I should have. I'm nice. My instincts are kind and sincere and Jesus Christ I am super rich. I'm optimistic. I think that everything is fun. If it's not fun, then at least it's interesting. Taking the bus! Fun, fun, fun!! And Jesus, you should see me when I take off my glasses—"You Are So Beautiful" starts playing in everybody's head, and all the angels pause, forgetting what they were doing for a moment. I’m a crime fighter, dashing like Batman. And modest. Did I mention my modesty, my irony, my self-deprecating wit, my wealth?

Personal Details
Gender: Male
Age: 39
Height: 5' 9''
Body Type: average
Ethnic Background: white
Smoking Habits: do not smoke
Religion: non-religious
Drinking Habits: socially
Language(s) spoken: English
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Week 1

Thursday
Well, Lavalife is both highly addictive and banal. I can sit for hours, blankly clicking on the profiles of women I might want to date. But I’m not really processing anything, I’m just staring—very much like channel surfing. Actually, it’s probably more like playing the slots. I like slots. They’re fun, especially if you’re a creative type and you can make a drinking game out of playing. (I am very much the creative type, I really should have put that in my profile.) I wonder if the casino is still doing well? Probably. They have good entertainment there. Man, I remember that one time myself and Matty went down to play some black jack. That was an awesome time! After smoking a joint, we got lost and ended up taking in a Neil Diamond tribute act called “Nearly Neil.” I should give Matty a call, see how he’s doing.

There were expenses associated with my preparation, and I’m now down to about 30 loonies or so. Fortunately, you don’t have to pay to get started on Lavalife. Posting a profile is free, but if you wish to initiate contact with another person, you have to pay approximately three dollars to send an e-mail. Now that my profile is live, the combination of my devastating good looks and magnetic charm pretty much assures me that I will have an avalanche of women plunking down the three bucks to send me alluring messages.

I will now check.

Hmm. That’s funny. It would seem that there have been no responses to my profile. Weird. I wonder if maybe the system was down for the last couple of days or something. Possibly a computer virus.

Saturday
I have returned to compulsively checking out profiles. I’ve noticed that women have great affection for their pets. Apparently, if you’re not a “cat person” then you might be in for some trouble. Many of the women claim to miss hockey. This disappoints me as I thought one of my most attractive qualities was that I don’t miss hockey. Perhaps they’re lying. Probably, because the truth is that I kind of do miss hockey and I’m glad it’s back. I think that Dany Heatley trade is going to be fucking awesome.

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Week 2

Monday
I find that I cannot stop myself from checking out profiles. I get no work done, I just sit there—click, click, clicking. It’s like something out of a sci-fi film. No, maybe something from a Stephen King novel. I’m just sitting at my desk, feeling absurdly picky, eliminating people on the basis of their nicknames and other petty impulses. She has brown eyes? Not for me.
Maybe I should bite the bullet and spend the coin to write somebody.

Wednesday
I received my first Lava e-mail today. At first I was very excited but then found out that the writer, nicknamed So_happy_to_be_single, is my ex-girlfriend. She was not looking for a reconciliation. Instead she seemed to think it would be good to make fun of the orange turtleneck I’m wearing in my photo. “can’t believe you used that photograph!” she wrote. She also added that I was only a “social” drinker if by “social” they meant “constant.” Ha-ha. Went on to tell me about how she herself was inundated with solicitations, how she was going out on a different date every night. She was even kind enough to include a rather graphic description of an encounter with some dude in a parking lot. Ended her note by saying “dog doesn’t miss you.” Nice touch.

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Week 3

Monday
Accidentally broke my computer after reading that e-mail from my ex. I now have to log on at the Ottawa Public Library. Still haven’t received any real messages. Just noticed that a lot of homeless people tend to go to libraries. Kind of counterintuitive, that. I always imagined that libraries would be full of smart people, people interested in reading, but really it’s full of people who are sick of being outdoors.

Discussed Lavalife with my friend Andrea who claims to know about these things. Using diplomatic language, she told me that somebody who looks as “unique and confident” as I do might be better off not posting my photograph right up there for all to see. “Let them get to know you a little bit first, so they will see the force of your personality in your looks,” Andrea said.

Wednesday
I have written a note to the Lava administrators to ask them if my account is working properly. They assured me that it is and that it is not uncommon for men to have to make the first move. They encouraged me to spend some money and write some women. They told me not to get discouraged.

Friday
I am not discouraged. No sir. I feel very attractive as I sit here in the library beside a bag lady who is trying to hide the fact that she’s eating an egg sandwich. I feel radiant and confident, and the stitches in my forehead from the accident with my computer are coming out soon. No, I did not lose any confidence or self-esteem when Andrea told me that I would be better off without a photograph of myself. Nor was my confidence shaken when she told me that I should stop trolling for hot girls in their 20s and maybe focus my attention on some of the women more in my “league.” Whatever.

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Week 4

Tuesday
I have decided to be proactive. I spent some money and wrote an e-mail to Hotchik21. She likes rollerblading. In fact, she had posted a picture of herself rollerblading. Looks good in Lycra. I wrote to tell her that she looks good in Lycra, figuring that an attractive young woman like her would probably like to receive a compliment from a distinguished gentleman such as myself. Did not hear back from her.

Later, I noticed that Hotchik21 made a change to her profile. Right near the top it read “NO CREEPY OLD GUYS PLEEZ!!”

Wednesday
I have taken Andrea’s advice and removed my photograph. Now a person will have to request to see my picture, and at that point they will already be in love and not quite so intimidated by the fierce intelligence my photograph projects.

I am going to write up a storm. Beautiful, delicate, hilarious, and wonderful messages to all the wonderful women out there (aged 35 to 45 as Andrea has instructed).

Thursday
I just wrote a woman named SuddenlyScotland. She said she liked whiskey and chess. I sent her a note about playing chess while drinking scotch, about how I approached chess as a drinking game. She seemed charmed and asked to see my photograph. My photograph appears to have intimidated her as she no longer responds to any of my e-mails.

Later I wrote Yoganita. Her profile said that she was socially conscious and liked the Indigo Girls. I wrote to tell her I thought she was very pretty for a gay, hippie chick.

Friday
Apparently, there is a function on Lavalife where you can “Block” certain users from communicating with you. The administrators wrote me a helpful note telling me that Yoganita had “Blocked” me from writing to her. Some people just don’t know how to take a compliment. I’m not at all surprised that Yoganita is single.

Tonight I wrote to a woman calling herself LondonCalling. A really funny e-mail about getting drunk on jungle juice at a high school-type party and then throwing up while people danced to the Clash. I thought it would be funny to add that the party took place last weekend, that myself and my buddy Matty crashed it after a night of gaming at the casino. I did not hear back from her. Was notified by administrators that I had been “Blocked” again.

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Week 5

Tuesday
It’s funny how easily you can start smoking again. I mean I hadn’t had a cigarette in over a decade, but when I hit the casino with Matty, well, ever since it’s been like I’ve never stopped puffing away. Forgot about how much it stains the fingers and teeth. Turns out that the bag lady at the library is pretty cool. Sometimes we go out to share a smoke and make fun of all the government workers. I’ve told her about Lavalife and what an excellent way it is to meet people, how much it improves one’s confidence and social skills. Donna Mae (that’s her name) seems interested to try it out.

Thursday
Today I received two e-mails. However, they were “collect calls” which means that I have to pay to read them.

One of the e-mails came from a woman in the Phillipines. She listed her interests as “touching, kissing, oral sex, and intercourse.” Her Lava name was Nanny69. I decided to spend the money and read her letter. “dear sir, I am very much interested in meeting mature gentleman for pleasure. Please send pic and I will do same.” I sent her my photograph, asking if she liked what she saw. I have not heard back.

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Week 6

Monday
Donna Mae got some new clothes from the shelter and now really looks like she could live in somebody’s home. Even though we were shushed several times by the librarian, we were able to create a Dating profile for her on Lavalife. We nicknamed her Hardstuff. I greatly underestimated Donna Mae. She has an awesome sense of humour and has been very generous with her sandwiches. Really a lot of fun.

Tuesday
I borrowed my father’s digital camera so that Donna Mae and I could take photographs of one another and post them with our profiles. Action shots from all across Ottawa—posed on Parliament Hill, smiling by the canal, hanging from the branches of a tree in a park. Stuff like that, stuff that expresses our vitality and optimism. I am psyched! This will be so cool!

Thursday
Alright. It turns out that Donna Mae was not “all of that” after all. After a fun day of photography, we went to the Dominion Tavern to celebrate with a couple of drinks. We got a little bit tight, I guess, and it turns out that although Donna Mae can really hold her rum, she is a bit of a nasty drunk. She said some very unflattering things about both my appearance and my personality. She snorted at how my profile says I am 5’9” with an “average” body. She thought that was “rich.” Anyway, I was pretty pissed off about some of the things she was saying so I went out back to chill and have a smoke. When I returned, both Donna Mae and my dad’s digital camera were gone.

Saturday, 11:30 p.m.
Don’t laugh. It’s not funny. I cannot afford to buy my father a new camera. The editor of Guerilla says it’s “not my problem” and refuses to pay any more money for me to document this entirely shitty and humiliating Lavalife experience. So I’m up a creek without a paddle, as they say. Sitting in a stupid library, spending my last loonies writing e-mails to “Hardstuff”, begging her to return my dad’s camera. No, not funny.

On the weekend Rachelle and I went up to Planet Ikea in Scarborough. While there I fell into conversation with one of the cashiers, asking her how her weekend had been going. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and I guess it really doesn’t take very much imagination to realize it was a stupid question for me to be asking her. She gave me the look I deserved and said, “Well, I’m here, ain’t I?”

The woman was probably somewhere in her late 30’s, and she went on to enumerate all the ways that work had destroyed her weekend. She made a pretty compelling case, as it seemed that pretty much all of her time was spent either at work, getting to work, or getting home from work, and the slivers of time that existed otherwise were dedicated to cooking and cleaning. The woman was unhappy and irritable and the last thing she wanted to do was indulge some man who was buying $300 worth of picture frames.

Outside the store a young man, probably around 20, was working loading customer’s purchases into their cars. Polite, competent and appropriately cheerful, he was good at his job, and it was clear that he didn’t hate being there. I mean, I’m sure he would have rather been swimming in a friend’s pool, but there would be plenty of days for that. For now, he was working so that he could study in Montreal, take a trip to Australia or buy new hockey equipment. He was working toward something-- toward becoming the version of himself he always imagined he could be.

It was an interesting juxtaposition.

The cashier clearly felt that the life she wanted to live was inhibited and restricted by her job. Working, the only time she had to herself was consumed by exhaustion and disappointment. Life was taking place elsewhere, in the past, but for the boy, who was still perfecting himself, the world lay unfurling before him and whatever he was doing that very second, was propelling him into bigger and better days.

As it’s been another hot one here in Toronto, I once again decided to take advantage of the AC in my local Laundromat on Queen East and set up my Fortune Telling stall.

Shortly after setting up my table, a young girl came in off the street and asked me if I could read her fortune. She was probably a young high school student, and she wanted to know if she should “do” some guy named Gerasim or not. As she sat at my table, she actually called the guy on the phone, “Yeah, Gerry, I’m talking to some old fortune teller dude right now. No. He’s white. Does it matter? Fuck! It shouldn’t matter, sometimes you can be so prejudice! Anyway, he’s going to tell me if I should screw you. Yeah, I’ll call you back.” And then she flipped her cell phone shut and gave me a look as it to say, “well, come on!”

I quickly found out that Gerasim worked at the girl’s local video store and was actually 36 year’s-old. I sternly told the girl that the cards said a union between the two would be disastrous and bring great misery to her and her family. She seemed relieved to hear this, and immediately called the guy, telling him, “Nope. He says you got crabs and I’d be better off with Jemarcus. It’s not my fault, it’s what the cards said!”

Although the girl only paid me a loonie, I felt pretty good about the session as I’d helped prevent her from making what I thought was going to be a very bad decision. About an hour later I guessed an old man’s age (intentionally going low) and we then we sat together and chatted for a few minutes. While this was going on a nun came in and began to do some wash. I noticed that she was looking over at us, giving me a bit of the eye. After a spell the old man went out to continue his bottle collection (Monday is recycling day on our street) and I was left alone with the nun.

I smiled over at her, asking genially if she’d like me to read her fortune.

She fixed me a look.

“You think you big man with your fortune cards,” she began in an Eastern European accent, “ you are not. You are leettle devil man child. Prophecy belong only to God, not to moron in Laundromat!”

I was taken aback and wasn’t sure what to say, so I just shouted out. “I give people hope!”

“Ah, hope! Hope in devil! You bring devil to weak people! You know what your future is? I tell you, devil man, your future is purgatory. Yes, purgatory forever. Like in spin cycle, around and around forever, you and your blasphemy fortune in purgatory!”

“I thought nuns were supposed to be nice, “ I stammered.

She just wagged her finger, “Prophecy only for God! Purgatory for you, false prophet!” And then she twirled her finger in a circle, as if to suggest my eternity in a purgatorial spin cycle.

The subway ride from Bethesda to Dupont Circle in Washington was dominated by the presence of one man. He was standing behind me, back toward the doors, and he had a disturbing half-smile on his face. His eyelids were droopy, as if he was drugged, and he seemed to be staring into a dimension that was invisible to everybody else. He was ominous, this guy. Never blinking, his gaze managed to pass either through or around all the other passengers, and in this way he never looked upon a person directly, but still you felt the threat of him everywhere, his presence a haunting. Every once in awhile, for no apparent reason, his smile would broaden and then retreat, and then he would slowly, fastidiously, dab around the corners of his mouth with a Kleenex. It was creepy, and although Rachelle kept squeezing my hand whenever I turned to look back at him, I couldn’t stop myself.

We were delighted when our stop arrived, exiting at the opposite end of the train from him, wondering where he was coming from and where he was going. We took the incredibly long escalators up to the surface, watching as one couple walked the steps between the two escalators, as people, happy and joking on a Friday night, shouted encouragements, “ Dig deep! You can do it! Just 3000 more steps! You the man!”

We had a wonderful dinner at DC Coast, and then amidst the professional beggars and partiers, made our way back to the subway. The Washington-Baltimore baseball game had just ended, and the train was full of baseball fans returning home. Everybody was midnight happy, pushed close together and sharing stories. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of one man sitting alone, probably in his 60’s. He had the classic look of a Washington insider--loafers, lovely dark blue suit, pinstriped shirt, designer tie and tortoiseshell glasses. It struck me that he very much resembled a type, and that was the progressive democrat, the type of person I used to see on Sunday morning talk shows all the time when Clinton was in power, but whom I haven’t seen in a long time since then.

There was a sweetness to this man, and he looked upon Rachelle and I with a real gentleness. He seemed happy, like he was grateful to have found himself at this time and place in the world, in this city, with so many happy people around him.

Very positive.

For instance, right now I am very, very hot, as our apartment is constructed out of fire, and I am also broke, as I just spent all of my money on a poor baseball card investment.

But do you see me complaining?

No, no you do not.

I see my life of destitution and heat prostration as an opportunity, not a burden.

While I was down at the Laundromat on Queen East earlier in the day, I noticed that the facility was air conditioned, and that amongst the people doing their wash (all bored and staring blankly ahead), there were also a number of other people—who looked a little down on their luck and could probably use a little guidance—who were taking refuge from the heat by sheltering themselves in the AC. It was clear to me that not only could I keep cool in the Laundromat, but that with a captive market looking for something to do, I could also make some money, and so I decided to open up a Fortune Telling stall in there.

Charging $20 for a Tarot Card reading, with a special “heat wave” reading (where I randomly select an item of clothing from the dryer and tell the person about themselves based upon the “vibe” I got off it) tossed in for free, I set up a table that I had decorated with a plastic skull, a few Bhutanese prayer flags, a game of Operation and some incense. (Rachelle’s perfume that I had sprayed onto some candles)

It took a little while, but I eventually got my first customer, a heavy-set woman (particularly the belly) with coarse red hair and a stain from the chocolate milk carton (1 liter) she was drinking from, on her shirt.

Refusing to pay $20, she insisted on paying me with a single load box of Tide. Sitting down at my table she said, “Okay pretty boy, tell me something I don’t already know!”

There was a tone in her voice.

I flipped over the first card.

“The Page of Cups. This suggests that you have digestive problems that are likely to continue unless you curb your sarcastic nature.”

She gave me a hard look.

“Just give me my lotto numbers.”

A man with a beard and a little shopping cart full of plastic bags came over to watch, “yeah, give me my lotto numbers, too, and tell me if the Leafs are going to make the playoffs.”

The red head woman gave him a look. “Badger, if you don’t step down right now…”

The man backed away, but added, “Carla, he’s good. You know you have the digestive problems, hell, I could smell your toots from across the room!”

“Whoever smelt it, dealt it, fuckwad!!”

And then Carla ran at Badger.

“The cards see conflict!!” I shouted, but nobody was listening so I took my box of Tide and closed up shop for the day.

*****************************

Joe Mazzilli has the blunt appearance of guy who really likes to eat meat.

Sausages, in particular.

Looking at him, you’d think that in his younger days his buddies on the Jersey Shore might have called him The Mazz, or maybe The Mazzurbator.

He has that sort of vibe about him.

Likely closer to 60 than 50, Mazzilli is pumped up and beefy, proudly sporting his thinning, dyed hair like it was some studly crown. Always in a tight, black muscle shirt and wearing a jangle of classy jewelry, he’s an utter cliché, the sort of guy who probably sits around laughing his ass off while watching ancient DVD’s of Andrew Dice Clay. And it’s this man who is the PI at the helm of A&E’s new reality series “Runaway Squad.”

The review gets softer, but not by an awful lot. I eventually concede that although it’s manipulative and insufficient in depth, it is consistently touching, in that happy reunions (runaway and parent) are irresistible.

Shortly after the review appeared, Joe Mazzilli, the heart and focus of the show, wrote to Pajiba, and this is his letter:

Normally I wouldn't respond to a person like
you, someone I never even heard of, but, it is
a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, here in the USA,
and thought I would say a few words. First of
all I would like to say that I am very happy to hear that a racist, like yourself, does not live
in our wonderful country. Secondly, I find you as
disgusting as Andre Dice Clay. Finally, I don't
really care what you say about the show and I have
no control over the editing process, but, I have
brought home many children, saved them from dieing, got them proper medical attention and worked hard to change laws, to help the children
of the world. So, Mr whatever your name is, WHAT
ARE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN LIFE, oh, thats right,
you write trash articles, tell lies, make ethnic
slurs and you are a racist. Please stay in Canada.

Joe Mazzilli
Runaway Squad

This took me back a little bit, and not just because he’s a massive, ex-cop from NY who knows how to shoot a gun, but because he makes a few good points.

Although I don’t think I’m a racist, I have no doubt that I took more liberties in describing an Italian-American in the manner that I did than I would have from people in other minority groups. Part of this is because of the aggressively Italian, almost ironic way the show depicted the Runaway Squad, but part of it is probably because the community is so well entrenched and successful in North America that it’s a part of the cultural mainstream, and not on the margins. No matter, it’s really not for me to say whether my use of caricature was offensive, and if Joe Mazzilli says it was—and he did—than I will simply have to take him at his word.

As for what my accomplishments in life are, well, that’s a good question. I've done absolutely nothing as substantive as helping to save children from lives on the street, and I should sit down and figure out how I can be more useful in the world.

Writing for a web site that publishes “scathing reviews for bitchy people” it’s often easy to forget that there are real people behind the images we celebrate or crucify on the TV screen. On a “reality” show like Runaway Squad, we’re seeing both a condensation and amplification of a person. In the case of Mazzilli, the production team has chosen to stress the aspects of him that they think will make the best TV, and that’s exploiting the Badda-Bing tough guy persona that’s instantly recognized at a glance when flipping through the channels. Whatever Mazzilli’s intentions are, and I have no doubt that he does want to rescue kids, which is noble and beautiful, he’s also in the business of selling us product, and in that, he’s the one who’s allowing his ethnic heritage to be exploited by the producers of the show.

Working on my laptop in the lobby around 10:30, I listened as the desk clerk took telephone calls from prospective guests. One of the customers he was speaking with was clearly difficult, and although the clerk remained polite, there was an increasing edge to his voice. When the call ended he hung up the phone hard and asked the clerk who was coming in to replace him for the 11:00 shift to look after things for a few minutes so he could go cool down.

When he returned 20 minutes later, he had not cooled down but had in fact heated up. He complained bitterly about his job, and about a laundry list of everyday annoyances that for him were becoming unsustainable. His girlfriend woke him up early. A bird shit on his car. The movie was sold out. The list went on and on and on, the anger and frustration building in his voice as he recounted each misery.

At 11:00 a new clerk took over and immediately began his routine, which included changing the station on the TV, turning up the volume very loud and then setting up the coffee station for the morning. He suggested that I and the other man working in the lobby go to the Business Center around the corner, a small windowless room with two desks. It was from here where I looked out to see the clerk, happily ensconced in his familiar habitat settle into the sofa to watch TV alone for the rest of his graveyard shift.

In the morning a shuttle was provided to take us to the airport. The driver performed his job efficiently and without sentiment, and at the end of the trip we decided to tip him $5. However, neither Rachelle nor I had anything smaller than a ten, and when we asked him if he had any change, he quickly said “no,” and then held our gaze, and so we gave him the ten, which he accepted without gratitude.

At the airport we discovered there was a hidden fee for checking our luggage and when we asked about it the woman working the counter responded shrilly and with a curious satisfaction, “it’s been that way for two years!” before throwing the luggage onto the conveyor belt.

None of the employees there really looked like the photo ID’s that hung around their necks.

The woman who took our boarding passes never once looked up from the tickets she was being handed, possibly missing out on meeting the person whom might help carry her into a brilliant and unexpected future.

Buffalo is a depressed city, a place that is widely ridiculed, and all of the people I had encountered were living on the outskirts of this place, having found an economic niche serving Canadians that were looking to save a buck on their travel expenses. It’s probably safe to assume that none of these people were working at the jobs they felt they were born for. It was as if they were expecting to be disappointed in people, and having received little generosity in their lives, were unwilling to offer any.

On the plane a man in his 40’s spoke self-importantly into his cell phone. He had a dusting of grey hair and a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head. He was speaking loudly, as if he wanted everybody on the plane to hear him and be impressed, but it was clear he was a bottom-feeding salesman overmatched by the world. When he got off the phone he began to try to put a book –Mediation For Dummies—into his laptop bag. It wouldn’t fit, and he began to jam at it with greater and greater ferocity, eventually tearing it's cover. He sighed, and then as he stood up to put the bag in the overhead compartment, he conked his head on the ceiling.

“Just one of those days,” he said.

And looking on was the gay flight attendant, who said, “don’t I know it,” adding sarcastically, “ and you know, it just keeps getting better and better.”

And there you have it, right there, the spirit of Buffalo.

Whenever we make the drive from Toronto to Buffalo, I immediately get a completely different feeling as soon as we cross the border into the States. There are billboards advertising insurance companies and lawyers, and elderly people often man the tollbooths. Abandoned Ferris wheels and cranes, rusted, loom over territories they once ruled. American flags, some the size of city blocks, flap over car dealerships.

We always pass by a massive, fenced-in waste site. From a distance it almost looks attractive. Covered in green grass it’s carefully landscaped, dotted with shrubs and trees it rolls beside the highway like a golf course. But as you get closer you notice vents protruding from unnatural spots, escape valves for the toxic gases oozing from the waste heaving beneath.

Less than a mile away there are three diamonds full of men playing baseball, not softball. It’s raining lightly, and just down the street you can see the bar some of them will drink in after the game. Heroes--a flat, white bunker just off the highway, it has neon signs in the window and looks like the sort of place that Aerosmith might have thought to shoot a video.

In a suburb outside of Buffalo we stopped at a restaurant called Protocol. Linen napkins, décor from the 80’s and a scattering of Canadian businessmen waiting for flights out of Buffalo. Jazz music, the middle of the road type that somehow belongs to the 1970’s played and a woman who had to have been there since the place opened, led us to our table. The waitress, who had a late summer tam, introduced herself as Kristy and told us about the specials, blaming the economy for the slow business on this Tuesday night. The food was good, and as we left the bartender, a 50 year-old woman in a tube top, scolded one of the men drinking at the bar, “Now, I don’t know you well enough for that,” she said, the devil in her eyes.

About a dozen people get on the bus, here, including an Asian girl who carefully cradles a box that advertises Tim Horton’s doughnuts. All the passengers keep looking at the box, of the picture of doughnuts on the box. They all want to eat one, it’s obvious, but I’m not convinced the box is full of doughnuts. She’s holding it with such delicacy and tenderness that I think it might contain a baby bird that she wants to mother.

A woman who looks like she might hangout at Big Daddy’s Crab Shack gets on the bus. She’s slightly angry looking, as if her boss might just have it in for her. After her difficult and stressful work day, she consoles herself by knocking back a couple of Caesars on Elgin Street.

Two high school students with style talk without pause. They’re discussing Barbara Gowdy’s novel The White Bone and The Arcade Fire. They’re alive, these two, blessed with excellent haircuts and the freedom afforded by good health and active minds. Up front, sits a gaunt man who’s wearing a red ball cap. He looks fragile, like it’s a bit of an ordeal for him to be out. He glances around warily, nervous, as if physical contact with other passengers might present a danger.

The Montfort hospital is on this route. The patchy hair beneath his hat suggests he’s battling an illness.

The bus turns right onto Riverdale, entering a nice residential area. The houses are set back and up, giving the street an air of opulence and grandeur. The two students get off here, as does the man with the red hat. Moving very slowly and uncertainly, he coughs into the back of his hand while the boys stride up a side street, moving forward.

Canadian Geese inhabit a park near Billings Bridge. It’s their territory. The invasion was successful and they’ve reclaimed their rightful land.

Off of Heron, the bus snakes through areas with names like Alta Vista Heights. Above the A & M Confectionary, a man trudges up the stairs to his apartment. Past bungalows and road hockey, we return to Bank Street.

Here, a guy plays a game to keep himself amused. Without holding anything for support, he stands in the aisle and sees if he can maintain his balance while the bus lurches about. It’s like he’s surfing, riding a wave into shore.

A boy with a Batman knapsack strapped to his back hurries onto the bus. His mother is calm and stoic. Sitting quietly beside him, she projects dignity. It’s clear that she doesn’t have to say much to make him behave. She just has to shoot him a look. When they get off, near the bridge, he immediately runs at the Geese in the park, shouting and waving his arms about. The geese were not moved, having seen his type before. His mother shoots him a look and he puts his arms down, returning to her, obedient and calm.

A woman reads her horoscope in the paper, wondering what secrets the stars hold. She looks like she might be a Leo. “Fasten your seat belt! The pace of your daily life is definitely going to accelerate in the next four to six weeks!”

It’s a list of 90 different kinds of bitches.

Types of Bitches
1) Dirty dumb ass bitches

2) Aint got no ass bitches

3) Dusty trick bitches

4) Fishy bitches

5) Don’t know how to fight bitches

6) Got all that mouth but can’t step bitches

7) Ugly looking bitch that think they all that

8) Can’t keep a man bitch

9) Track wearing bitches

10) Bitches that be trying to steal your man

11) Hoochie looking bitches

12) Ain’t got no damn sense bitches

13) Stupid bitches that act dumb

14) Bitches who can only get a dirty boy

15) Want to be jocking bitches

16) Bitches who think their man love them but get pregnant and be left alone

17) Bitches who think they better than me

18) Instigating bitches

19) Talking behind your back bitches

20) Loud mouth bitches

21) Pissy bitches

22) Stingy bitches

23) Funky looking bitches

24) Short hair bitches

25) Spanish bitches who think they all that cause of their hair

26) Bitches that be ignoring you when they know they can hear you

27) Staring in your face bitches

28) Big eyed looking bitches

29) Crazy bitches

30) Nappy tender headed bitches

31) Booty shorts wearing bitches

32) Coast-signing bitches

33) Dick riding bitches

34) Whipped bitches

35) Buck tooth bitches

36) Cheesy teeth bitches

37) Same wearing clothes each day bitches

38) Ghetto bitches

39) Hair dyeing bitches

40) Wearing shoes that be talking bitches

41) Bitches who think they hard

42) Bitches that think they get money

43) Bitches that go to a dirty school

44) (page missing)

45) (page missing)

46) (page missing)

47) (page missing)

48) (page missing)

49) (page missing)

50) (page missing)

51) (page missing)

52) (page missing)

53) (page missing)

54) (page missing)

55) (page missing)

56) (page missing)

57) (page missing)

58) (page missing)

59) Gay bitches

60) Stanky fishy coochie smelling bitches

61) Tomboy bitches

62) Stain on your pants bitches

63) Dry scalp dandruff bitches

64) Dirty hair bitches

65) Stealing bitches

66) Stinky feet bitches

67) Big gap bitches

68) Protecting their store bitches

69) Pajamas outside bitches

70) Ragly braid bitches

71) Stanky butt bitches

72) Greedy bitches

73) Slimy grimy bitches

74) Psycho bitches

75) Drug dealing bitches

76) Geekin’ bitches

77) Suntanning bitches

78) Goofy looking bitches

79) Triflin’ bitches

80) Skanky bitches

81) Mugging bitches

82) Sloppy bitches

83) Dirty fingernails bitches

84) Dirty sock wearing bitches

85) Uncreative bitches

86) White bitches that think black people poor

87) Conceited bitches

88) Tall bitches

89) Short bitches

90) Jealous bitches

This list has become an Internet sensation, the launching point and inspiration for all sorts of different projects across the globe. I’ve decided to fill in the blanks and write entries for the missing spaces between 44 and 58, and these are the entries:

44) Always be talking about her graduate degree bitch
45) Allergic to bees bitch
46) Just pretending to like hockey to get a man bitch
47) Skinny yoga bitch
48) Always dress as sexy cat on Halloween bitch
49) Smell like carrots bitch
50) All I can talk about is my fucking wedding bitch
51) Like Star Trek bitch
52) Always sending back her food bitch
53) Nose bleed on the bus bitch
54) Bring her own bag to grocery store bitch
54) I been to Europe bitch
55) Think she got a cool bicycle bitch
56) Ugly boot bitch
57) Do I look fat bitch
58) Think she seen a ghost bitch

I just found out that Tyra Banks is writing a series of fantasy books. I tell you, that woman can pretty much do anything, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see her on the US archery team in the 2012 Olympics.

She is fierce!

I went to her website and eagerly read the message about the series that she had posted for her fans, part of which I have excerpted below:

The story happens in a make-believe place called Modelland—every girl in the world wants to go there because it’s where “Intoxibellas” are trained. Intoxibellas are drop-dead beautiful, kick-butt fierce, and yeah, maybe they have some powers, too. (But I’m confirming NOTHING! Ha. You gotta wait for the book.) The story follows a teen girl and her friends who find themselves magically transported to Modelland, even though they’re really not supposed to be there. (Okay, now, that’s ALL I’m saying!)

Fierce and Love,

Tyra, aka TyTy

****************************

I have always considered Tyra to be something of a role model, as she has never failed to inspire me to be a better, more beautiful and fierce Michael Murray. (Props to you, my Amazon Queen!) As such, I have decided to follow in her footsteps, and like Tyra, have decided to write a series of fantasy books for young adults based on my life.

The story happens in a make-believe place called Michaelland—every girl and boy in the world wants to go there because it’s cool, and nobody ever gets falsely accused, as can happen in the real world, of shoplifting. The King of Michaelland is Michael Murray, who after being falsely accused of shoplifting in the real world was made King of Michaelland. In Michaelland, King Michael rules over the land with his best friend, a boy magician named Harry Putter. King Michael and Harry Putter embark on a series of adventures, where they do battle with an evil race of shoplift accusing Nazi’s, called the FatBitchHeads, who are attempting to infiltrate Michaelland. With King Michael captured, Harry Putter, using his boy magician skills, summons the white witch Queen Rachelle and her hound of fury Heidi, but will they arrive in time to save King Michael and Michaelland from destruction at the hands of the FatBitchHeads? (That’s all I’m saying for now!)

Pigeons and smart bombs.

Michael Murray

I have to say, one of these geese had a real attitude problem.

He kept looking at me.

Hissing.

I didn’t know geese hissed.

It started to get on my nerves, this.

After about five minutes of this abuse, this particular goose charged right into me. It pretended it was just chasing after William-- who had been feeding it and was hiding behind me-- but I knew it was no accident.

I gave the goose a serious look and said something threatening under my breath. The goose, clearly the pack leader, measured me and then rose up, spread out its wings and hissed.

Startled, I might have retreated to the parking lot and locked myself in the car, apparently honking the horn in a "panic." This could have happened. Not sure. The video that Rachelle showed me looked convincing, but it’s entirely possible that it was doctored, as the the children, who in the video were encircling the car and chanting, “ Scaredy Michael, Scaredy Michel!” sounded like a post-production addition, one that the ad company Rachelle works at could very well have added.

No matter, ultimately it’s not important. What is relevant is that as the undisputed Alpha of the Maynard clan, the person to whom all look for leadership, I disentangled myself from the complicated Japanese seat belt in the car, (I thought it was voice activated) and confronted the goose.

I charged at the animal, but as I did so, I unfortunately slipped in a Scat Trap that the goose gang had laid for me. It was at this time that the goose, or a series of geese, in some sort of crazed Wonder Bread lust, started to peck at me in an attempt to steal the bread that I had in my pockets. This infuriated me. Fighting off the geese, I took shelter behind a tree, and began to throw pocket change at the them. I suppose I spent well over five dollars, but eventually the terrorist geese dispersed, and I had made the park, once again, safe for Rachelle and her family, who at this point, blind with terror, had fled the scene and gone to the Dairy Queen, where I later caught up with them.

Recently, when I take the dog for her walks, I sometimes pop into the Value Village at Queen and Logan to see if they have any hidden gems. The other day I noticed that a bird had flown into the store. This very much excited the staff, who were all trying to figure out how to remove it from the premises.

After devising some sort of plan, a half dozen of them began to roam the aisles of the store in a state of happy agitation, as if they were embarking on a lynching. Half of the people had a fragment of a cardboard moving box, that when near the bird, they were all to hold over their head (like a Vote Obama sign), thus creating some sort of “bird funnel” that would flush out their quarry into the waiting arms of the hunters of the group.

The hunters were two middle-aged men armed with found objects. One of these men did not speak English. He had bad teeth and a nervous giggle. He carried with him a white, mesh curtain, which he was presumably going to use as a net, like a gladiator. The other man, who wore a tight-fitting sweater, looked like he’d always wanted the opportunity to tell his boss to Fuck Off. He was holding a tennis racquet, with which he was clearly hoping to kill the bird.

I watched with stunned fascination.

The bird, sitting on the railing of the activewear section, was approached by the mob. A soft, gay man with a waxed mustache and a Paul Frank t-shirt that the revealed pale, tattooed flesh around his belly whenever he lifted up his box portion, lisped, “Oh, I don’t know if this is a good idea.” The person he was speaking to, also holding a piece of a cardboard box, yelled “BIRD!” and they all raised their pieces of cardboard, about five seconds after the bird had flown past them into the VHS section.

I suggested to them that they might prop a door open, and that in short course the bird would fly back out, just as it had likely come in. This seemed to disappoint the group immensely, particularly the man with the tennis racquet.

As this was unfolding, a woman fell into conversation with me about my dog, Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund. She was completely taken with the dog, praising her shiny coat and bright eyes, saying "it's so nice when an animal is loved!" She cast a look at the man with the tennis racquet, and then at the little dog wagging her tail, and she shook her head. Looking away, just slightly emotional, she said, “I’m sorry, I just don’t know how a person could be cruel to an animal,” her mind clearly traveling back to some moment in her past.

At any rate, supporting the theory that I actually am a hockey fan is that on Tuesday night, I decided that the third game of a second round playoff series was somehow important. I was excited about the Habs-Pens match-up and wanted to share that excitement with a bunch of similarly connected strangers, and so I went down to a local pub (The Roy) on Queen East to watch the final period of a tense game.

I live in Toronto now, and Toronto is different than Ottawa in many ways. For instance, at the pub I went to, which was full of about 50 people, there was not a single person watching the game.

Not one.

In Ottawa, you probably wouldn’t have been able to even get service, as the staff--who probably had money riding on the outcome--would have been focused like laser beams on the game. In Ottawa, people care about hockey. In Toronto, people care about the Maple Leafs, and as soon as they vanish from the landscape, so does hockey.

It’s a big city, culturally revealing kind of thing, I think.

Growing up in Ottawa I always felt that it was an in-between place. Neither big nor small, whatever authority or relevance the city had (government) was externally imposed upon it, and as such, it never really seemed to have an authentic, organic sense of itself. To be young in Ottawa was to feel inhibited and self-conscious, to feel like you were living in a city designed for stable adults, who having already measured themselves against the conventions of the world, were now happy to settle into a “good quality of life.” It seemed hopelessly boring to me as a 16 year-old, and as such I was always looking outward for self-identification.

Really, this is just what it means to be young, but Ottawa was without a major sports team at the time, and so we all identified with teams from other cities.

I was like the Montreal Canadiens.

I was like the Georgetown fucking Hoyas.

I was like the San Francisco 49er’s.

It sounds like a cliché, but without the intense blanket coverage of the hometown team, or the easy access to cable packages that broadcast every single game of a team, you had to take what you could get and spread your interest around. You had to find versions of yourself in all sorts of different places, and in all sorts of different styles.

In a larger city it sometimes feels like less of the external world bleeds in. There can be a kind of myopia, the feeling that everything you need is right there and you need never look elsewhere. Sometimes with fewer options we become connected by broader things—we would all watch a hockey game in a bar—but with more options, we break-off into our chosen niches, and in an ironic way our lives can become smaller, rather than larger.

The Asthmatic
----This is a term of respect that honours my strategy of pretending to be out of breath in order to fool the opposition into a state of complacency.

The Fart Master
----FART is an acronym, like AVG, that refers to a softball player’s Fully Accumulated Real Totals, a statistical category in which I have unparalleled dominance.

Oprah
----This nickname came into being because of the folksy, black wisdom I dispensed on the bench, and because, like many African-Americans, I am very good at sports.

Bunty
---I was so named because for two seasons in a row, I bunted every time I came to bat.

K-Mart
---This was to honour my ability to strike out the opposition, and the lucky tracksuit I wore to every game.

Thunder
---Because there was thunder in my bat.

Muffin
---There was no explanation for this nickname.

The Grey Goose
---This nicknamed honoured the George Clooneyesque grey accents I have in my hair and my penchant for drinking vodka in the latter innings of the game.

Head and Shoulders
---This nickname either honoured that fact that I was “head and shoulders” above the rest of my teammates in ability, or because one season I had a scalp infection that might have been misinterpreted as dandruff.

The Trembler
---There was no explanation for this name, but it probably had something to do with me striking fear into the opposition.

Nancy
---This name was given to me because like Nancy Drew, I was good at sleuthing and was always able to figure out what pitch was coming next.

Further along down the street, my dog and I passed through the Kingdom of Solitude. Here, beside Jim’s Restaurant, crumpled and decaying men sat in chairs scattered along the periphery of Ming’s Auto Collision. Neither speaking nor watching, they smoked cigarette after cigarette, as if in total darkness.

In front of the K & S Family Restaurant, a tricked-out gangster boy sat in a wheelchair smoking, determined to project a tough-guy image out into the world. I was going to say hello, but when I caught his eye, he stood up and gave me a look, and instantly, all of the warmth I felt for him vanished.

A Barista who had a mustache that could launch a thousand ships, served me at the Mercury Espresso Bar. Each morning he must stand in front of the mirror, lovingly waxing his mustache until it was perfect, and he was, once again, the man he wanted the world to see.

In front of Ed’s Real Scoop we sat down on a bench and watched as a couple got out of a car and started to run errands. The man, spotting Heidi and I sitting there in the sun, commented that it was a gorgeous day, to which I agreed. He then added that it was even better if you were facing South, which was the direction from which the sun was beaming, and just at that moment an attractive young woman came strutting down the street from that direction, and he looked immediately embarrassed, worried that I was going to think that's what he meant.

A girl who works at Bonjour Brioche drove by on the scooter she’s trying to sell for $750. She was wearing a helmet that made her look like a superhero, which I imagine is why she got the scooter-- which she's now found impractical-- in the first place.

A silver fox lawyer with a mane of gray hair walked quickly past, in a hurry to get some fish and chips. In his glittering suit, he spoke into the phone, " I thought of you immediately, as it's a massage case!"

A frail looking middle-aged woman with a cane walked slowly toward us. She was wearing a pair of Crocs, and upon each one she’d attached a little rainbow pin with a peace sign on it. When she saw my dog and I, she gave us the thin, sad smile of somebody who has learned to truly appreciate the small pleasures of the day.

Our last stop was the Laundromat, where I came across a tightly folded-- and now very clean-- piece of paper that had been lost in the dryer I was about to use. Written down in pencil, in a very focused manner, were the words I MUST THINK POSTIVILEY, again and again and again.

Hwy 400 SB at Bayfield Street, Barrie

Hazard-Wood debris on Lane 2

Reported: 0829 hrs.

***********************************

Hwy 401 WB collectors at Yonge Street

Hazard-Disabled vehicle off to the right shoulder

Reported: 0854 hrs.

***********************************

Hwy 400 NB just south of Langstaff Road

Hazard-Dead raccoon on Lane 1

Reported: 0913 hrs.

*************************************

Hwy 401 WB Express at Allen Road

Hazard-Tire debris on the 2 left lanes

Reported: 1026 hrs.

************************************

Jane and Finch NB

Hazard—2 dead bodies on street

Reported: 1046 hrs.

Hwy 407 EB at Hwy 427, Vaughan

2 vehicle collision off to the side

Reported: 1052 hrs.

*****************************************

Jane and Finch

Hazard—speeding 4 to 6 car gun battle between rival gangs causing a traffic slowdown throughout district. It is recommended that only highly skilled drivers attempt to navigate area at this time

Reported: 1127 hrs.

**************************************

Hwy 401 WB at Simcoe Street, Oshawa

Hazard-Pedestrian walking along the right shoulder

Reported: 1150 hrs.

***********************************

Queen and Sherbourne

Hazard—Crack head crossing street erratically

Reported: 1203 hrs.

***************************************

Queen and Sherbourne

Hazard—Crack heads arguing in middle of intersection causing traffic delays

Reported: 1213 hrs.

****************************************

Queen and Sherbourne

Hazard—Crack head brawl on street resulting in closed street. alternate routes recommended.

Reported: 1236 hrs.

**************************************

Hwy 401 EB Express at Liverpool Road, Pickering

Hazard-Metal debris across all lanes

Reported: 0124 hrs.

************************************

Queen W and Ossington

Hazard—attractive woman in provocative mini-skirt and tight white t-shirt causing a traffic slowdown

Reported: 0148 hrs.

*********************************

Parkdale

Hazard—TTC bus driver gone mad and plowing through bus stops causing traffic delays. Commuters recommended take Subway or Streetcar

Reported: 0159 hrs.

********************************

Hwy 401 EB at Harwood Avenue, Ajax

Hazard-Disabled vehicle off to the left shoulder under the bridge

Reported: 0217 hrs.

*********************************

Hwy 401 EB Express at Islington Avenue, Etobicoke

Hazard-Large orange tarp on the left shoulder

Reported: 0248 hrs.

********************************

Jane and Finch

Hazard—sniper fire. proceed with caution

Reported: 0305

*****************************

402 HWY - at the Bluewater Bridge

Hazard-- a mother duck crossing the 402 causing a traffic slow down

Reported: 0309 hrs.

Spring is good time for dogs.

Cold, white dirt become water, old treat from winter everywhere! Easy for dog, even fat dog with cat face, to get lucky in spring! Dogs very horny!

Muddy, mud and roll in gorgeous dirt smell! Squirrel stupid and groggy from long sleep, so easy to chase onto road where they get splat by speed machine! Good times, good times for dog!

But problem, too.

Heidi have bad seasonal allergies!

Bad allergies, bad!!

Dig in park and eyes get itchy and watery, no see dirt and miss treat! Body itchy and scratch, scratch, scratch! Drive Heidi nuts!

When hunt mouse always sneeze! Give position away! And when chase cat from corner store, Heidi start to wheeze, and cat run away, give Heidi smug look like she so fast and smart, but not smart and fast! Stupid cat just make allergies, no suffer allergies! Heidi no wheeze because fat from winter treats! Not true!! Heidi wheeze from stupid pollens!! Heidi look great soon! Just need play more fetch, that all.

Hate cats!

Very, very hate cats!

Hungry now.

Wonder what for dinner?

Hope meat.

Love meat.

As everybody knows, the cloud of ash that’s risen from this improbable little island has grounded about 100, 000 flights across the world. Forget for a moment about the commercial and economic consequence of this event, and simply consider the personal.

Millions of people had their lives altered. Stranded in airports and cities and countries not of their choosing, people were marooned from their lives, ceding to an authority that they’d never even imagined existed, and discovering in that, that the world they inhabited was not one that they had shaped.

Lovers were kept apart--the aching hours they spent waiting for one another stretching from days to weeks. Other people, now with something fresh and big in common, found love in unexpected corridors. A donated organ didn’t make it in time for one person, but did for somebody else. A man in a hat got religion, and a wife, who had been determined to end her marriage, decided after a week to give it another chance. A girl that was about to be fired from he job was given a reprieve, never to discover just how close she had come. A wedding was missed, and somebody who was loved, died without their family nearby.

This is just the twisting and turning of life, I know, but for whatever reason this particular circumstance seemed to throw into stark relief just how interconnected things are, and how we’re subject to destinies we never could have predicted. There’s an implicit potential in all things, and one action, no matter how small or mundane we might imagine it, can drift out into the world and change everything.

www.youtube.com/watch

The above video is of the Sigur Ros song Glosoli and it is beautiful.

However, all of this changed a few years ago when suddenly, now in her mid 70’s, she embraced profanity.

My family had been invited over to her and her (second) husband’s home for dinner, and as was their custom, they fought and bickered over absolutely everything. This went on and on, escalating to a pitch of near madness when they started to battle over what the proper knife was to use when carving the turkey. And suddenly, out of nowhere, in her unflinching Scottish brogue, Daisy shouted,

“ EDGAR, WHY DON’T YOU JUST GO SIT ON A FUCK!!”

And then her face flushed, she stormed off to her sewing room. Edgar pretended that nothing had happened, began a long recitation of each of the cars he had ever owned in his life, while from the sewing room, where Daisy remained for the rest of the night, we heard the angry efforts of her Singer sewing machine.

This was a revolution, and it was clear that it emancipated my Great Aunt in many ways. She felt good about it, empowered, and from that point forward, as if to show the world that she was no longer going to take it, she began to swear. But the thing was that she really didn’t have a clue how to swear. She’s never had children, nor had she ever had friends who might swear, and over the course of her life had immediately blocked out any culture that might contain profanity. Although she knew that FUCK was a bad word, she didn’t really know how it should be used, or what it exactly, it’s multiple meanings were. In her mind, the word was bad, and it could be used in any context, appropriately expressing her intensity of feeling.

These are a few of my favourite applications that Daisy had for the word FUCK.

1. After her husband Edgar had roughly tossed their cat out of his chair, Daisy yelled at him, “Yeah, you’re a real big man, Edgar, why don’t you just go out and cut down a FUCK tree!”

2. One day I made an inappropriate joke about people with mental disabilities, forgetting their Daisy’s half-sister, who had passed away a few years earlier, had Down Syndrome. This upset Daisy, who turned to me and said, “Oh, aren’t you a funny man, a real FUCK clown, you are!”

3. One night while watching American Idol with Daisy on the sofa after dinner, Simon Cowell gave a lacerating critique of David Archuleta, her favourite contestant, to which Daisy said, “Oh, well I guess Simon got up on the wrong side of the FUCK this morning!”

Not welcomed, confronted.

Seeing us in casual conversation, as if standing at a bus stop, he sternly told us that we had entered into a House of God and must behave accordingly. He laid down the law, and treating us like wayward children, continued to scold us throughout the rehearsal for things like bad posture, using slang or laughing.

He was an imposing man. About 50 years old and without any evident sense of humour, he was built like a refrigerator and looked as if he could take a dozen bullets in the chest and then still strangle his enemy to death with his left hand. Behind his back, I derisively referred to him as Father Fear and Father Happiness, thinking myself pretty clever.

At the wedding reception Ukrainian dancers exploded onto the dance floor like fireworks. It was a startling and wonderful display, one that was brimming with an immense and encompassing pride that contained everybody present.

The bride and groom, tears in their eyes, watched.

Later, the dancers returned to the party, but this time in their street clothes. They were all young, barely teenagers, and the girls had tarted themselves up, trying to look older, while the boys, open collared and strutting, were trying to look confident, like they belonged in the adult world of alcohol and taxi cabs.

After a spell, they formed a big circle with the rest of the party on the dance floor, and as the polka band played, each person took to the center and performed some improvised dance. The boys were astonishing in their athleticism-- leaping and kicking they were as alive in their bodies as any creature could possibly be. Beaming, the girls, spun across the dance floor, their pigtails flying in an almost impossible symmetry—their bodies practically glowing with health and optimism.

The older people, the Father amongst them, sat at their tables watching from afar, while the rest of us clapped and stomped our encouragements. Earlier in the night I had been told the Father had been a member of the Soviet Special Forces, served for years as a prison chaplain and done extensive work with child prostitutes in Russia. His adjustment to Canada had been difficult and he often found himself struggling with the life God had chosen for him and pined for home. Sitting at his table, he seemed to be looking through all the rejoicing dancers, as if focused on something else, his face expressionless and impenetrable.

With this in mind, I have decided to come forward and confirm what has long been rumoured. Yes, Oprah and I had a brief May-December romance in the 1980’s. I was a young and impressionable student studying at McGill University in Montreal when I happened to attend a guest lecture that Oprah was presenting—Everyday Can Be Friday-- on campus.

I challenged her during the Q & A session, asserting that Tuesday could not be Friday, no matter how hard you tried. An immediate spark was lit, and we passionately debated the matter long into the night, discovering that Oprah and I had a stunning intellectual compatibility and both loved the colour blue.

For almost a year after that, Oprah would fly in from Chicago about once a month, staying with me at my crooked apartment on St. Dennis, or sometimes treating us to a nice hotel room (hot water!) at the Ritz-Carlton. Ours was primarily an intellectual and spiritual union, and as Oprah was significantly older than I was, she was very careful not to pressure me into doing anything I was not ready to do. Of course, I was insanely curious and aflame with passion, wanting nothing more than to devour her, but Oprah would always calm me down, saying in a voice as soft as chocolate and wise as time itself, “hush now child, there’ll be plenty o’ time for that in the future.”

Montreal in the 1980’s was a magical place, and I think in it Oprah found a liberty that was not available to her in America. In Montreal, nobody thought twice about a mixed-race couple, and Oprah and I could walk down the street smoking and holding hands, without a second thought.

The photograph you see of Oprah was taken during our last weekend together. In this picture, which has tremendous sentimental value for me, O is wearing a sweater that I had given to her.*1 She seemed particularly emotional when she put it on, putting her hand on my cheek and calling me her “sweet, little paisley swirl.”

After that, Oprah stopped visiting me in Montreal. We exchanged Christmas cards for a number of years, but eventually those stopped, too, and now all I have are my beautiful memories.

I always suspected that she was gay.

*1. I had bought the sweater at The Bay as a birthday gift for my mother, but it proved to be too large for her, so I gave it to Oprah.

As I was on my way to a session of paintball domination, I was in what I call the RED ZONE. In this precinct (which can be dangerous for civilians), I block out the external world and focus Ninja-like on the tactical preparations I need to maximize my kill count for the coming combat. As such, the driver did not exist to me, but the word KNIFE served as a trigger and brought me back to the soft underbelly of everyday life.

With my heightened senses, I was able to quickly discern that the driver was left-handed, thus vulnerable to an attack from the right, and had been listening to a CBC radio story about a sailor that had been pulled into the water by a rope that coiled around his leg.

“That sailor was weak. It was his time.” I said.

“You are a sailor?” the driver asked.

“I am many things, but today I am the long, black veil.”

“You say you want me take you to Sgt Splatters Paintball place, yeah? Where kids run around with pretend guns and play make-believe, yeah?”

“You have your instructions.”

“I fought in Afghanistan back in 1980’s. Killed many people. Most with bayonet. Mujahideen climb in tank to attack, and we no can shoot inside, bullet bounce about in ricochet, so must use knife from weapon to defend.”

“ Not very finessed. I’m a sniper.”

“Really? You sniper? Funny, you look too nervous to be sniper, always shaking like cold and moving like bugs on body. You good shot?”

“The never see it coming when the long, black veil is pulled down.”

“ And funny, you cough and sniffle many times, and clear throat—Aheck, Aheck—all time. Think you give away position if sniper.”

“I can throw my voice so that my enemies believe I am somewhere I am not.”

“Ah yes, I see now you have the bear claw in your soul. Very fierce. Good luck with kids’ game. You owe $58.00.”

And then he turned up the radio.

Yesterday, Heidi chose to do her business in front of a house on Bolton Street. As I stood there hoping for things to resolve quickly, I happened to look in the front window of the home and saw an ancient Asian woman staring out at us. The room from which she was peering was completely dark, and she had a sour and disapproving look on her face. I imagined her eyeing us, and the entire world unfolding beyond her window, with hostility and resentment. Our gazes caught and as I wasn’t sure exactly what to do, I decided to just smile and wave. I expected the old woman to scowl and turn away, or perhaps wave her arms about in an attempt to shoo us away, but she broke into the biggest, happiest grin and began to wave right back—an unexpected treasure to carry home.

Yesterday, I found out something new about myself.

I am a Paintball God.

I had always suspected my greatness, but now after yesterday’s visit to Paintball City, where I absolutely dominated, I now know it.

I am a Paintball God.

A few weeks ago Rachelle came across one of my journals, and after reading through it thought that Paintball might be a good way for me to exorcise some of the “rage and frustration induced violent fantasies” that I obsessively scribbled throughout the notebook. Speaking slowly and carefully, Rachelle described Paintball as a kind of “Spa day for emotionally distressed and angry men.” And so, she organized a Paintball afternoon for me through a group that her sister was affiliated with.

As I was putting on the serial killer coveralls that Paintball City provides for their customers, I felt like I was slipping on a second skin. Although it was my first time, I immediately felt at home and instinctively knew exactly what to do and when to do it. Neatly tucked away in one of the sniper towers in the facility, I was able to amass a total of 143 kills, which is completely awesome.

However, the day was not without some controversy. One of the enemy combatants took off her protective mask-- which she was to wear at all times while on the war grid--and when I saw this vulnerability, I took advantage of it and fired, hitting her in the mouth—and then twice in the throat.

Perfect shooting.

As always, after a kill, I raised my weapon over my head and shouted, “I AM YOUR LORD!!”

Cindy, the enemy girl I had eliminated, began to cry. Apparently, my shot had knocked a tooth out, and that, in combination with the yellow paint that seemed to be bleeding out of her mouth and face, caused many of the other children in William’s (Rachelle’s sister’s son) grade three class to burst out screaming and crying. Honestly, I don’t know what the big deal was as it was only a baby tooth, and it was Cindy’s own fault. She should NOT have taken off her mask!

At any rate, it turns out that the little babies in Mrs. Atkinson’s grade three class-- who were allegedly at Paintball City on a field trip merely to observe-- were not ready for the marksmanship of Michael Murray. As greatness is always feared, I have been banned from chaperoning any further field trips, or stepping on the school property, and asked to stop sending text messages to William, informing him of which student is next on my Paintball hit list, or legal action will be pursued, blah, blah, blah....

Self-consciously arty, the ad is shot in a somber black and white that offers such little visual contrast as to appear almost sepia. Woods, looking weary and mortal, stares blankly into the camera. There’s a Warholian emptiness to Woods, as if he’s receptacle that’s just waiting to be filled up with the myriad projections of his audience. As we watch Woods, who does nothing more than blink a few times, a disembodied voice emerges.

The voice belongs to Earl Woods, Tiger’s dead father.

There’s an evidently paternal quality to the voice. Open, patient and lacking any edge of judgment, the voice, as if coming from inside of Tiger himself, asks the simple questions that any golf fan watching might want answered.

What were you thinking?

What are you feeling?

Did you learn anything?

But Tiger just stares back. Little more than a ghost, Woods betrays not a hint of expression or feeling in his face, and the audience is implicitly entreated to stay the course and continue to follow the career of Tiger Woods, hoping to discover the answers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLxOs3tMqhM

It’s a fascinating and complex ad, but for the most part the responses have been visceral, negative in the extreme. People are repelled and confused. That Woods would allow his father’s voice to be posthumously edited and rearranged in order to help rehabilitate his own career is a stunning act of self-interest.

I don’t think that I know anybody who would do such a thing.

Tiger Woods is clearly a smart man, but on his own, without a mentor to focus his laser-like concentration, Woods seems little more than a boy flapping wildly in the wind of his impulses. How a man like Woods, with all that he has at his disposal, could go on a serial sex binge like he did without realizing he’s was going to be caught and thrown in the stocks by the public is beyond imagination.

It’s deluded.

From the time that Woods was a boy, his father micromanaged his life, consciously creating a sporting messiah, of whom he himself said, “Tiger will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity.”

Earl Woods wasn’t trying to help shape his son into an evolved adult, he was in the business of creating a myth. There was no man, only the projection of a man. And as we listen to him speak from beyond the grave, it becomes easy to understand why his son would think it was OK to use his voice in this manner, for surely the questions he was being asked were not meant to be understood in a moral framework, but as a part of a business strategy. In the Woods cosmos, there’s no meaningful interior, just an impenetrable exterior. There’s just no there, there, and what the Nike ad shows us is the narcissistic melancholy of the sociopath, dressed up to appear as something much more elusive and meaningful.

As many of you will have no doubt heard, I’m going to be teaching a class in Fire Pit Construction at the Ralph Thronton Community Centre over the summer. Obviously, I’m very excited to be sharing my passion and expertise in Fire Pit Construction with the public.* I want this course—which I am calling Fire in the Whole—to be about more than just flames, I want it to be about art and self-expression. Ultimately, I want to pass on to my students the knowledge and passion for Fire Pits that will allow them to incorporate creative and sometimes flirty, structural themes in their own, uniquely individual Fire Pits.

I will start the semester by introducing my students to some elementary Fire Pit Construction techniques such as starting fires in garbage cans and in dumpsters. With the aid of some local experts—T-Wolf and his lady Glitter—we will go on field trips where we apply some of the techniques we’ve learned throughout the neighbourhood.

(The above location could make for an excellent site for a Fire Pit!)

After these basics have been mastered, we will explore utilizing found objects into the design of our fire pits. For instance, a bicycle or a shopping cart could be used as part of the pit’s retaining wall, and your neigbhour’s mail might make for excellent kindling in order to start up your blaze. Again, we will take to the field, with T-Wolf and Glitter (pending availability) to scavenge throughout the city.

Fire in the Whole will run once a week, from July trough to September 1st, so that my student’s might be able to apply their newly acquired skills in the Autumn dry season. The class will conclude with a pageant in which I judge all of the submitted Fire Pits (to be covered by City TV news), culminating in a magical Fire Pit Flotilla Parade down Queen Street East. (Pending municipal approval)

It’s my goal to teach my students that Fire Pits can have a meaningful and culturally relevant role in densely packed urban communities. They’re not just warm spots around which people drink, make drug transactions and have sex, but are the conduits to our souls, a place where stories are traded and character is forged.

*Unfortunately, as my class is scheduled to take place on the same night that Lost airs on TV, nobody has yet signed-up for my course. To ease any concerns that prospective students might have about missing Lost, I want everybody to know that I will have three TV’s set-up and on Lost during my class so that nobody has to miss one second.

He had massive, swollen hands that were speckled with scars, and beneath a baseball hat that said Toronto Police on it, he had long salt and pepper hair that was pulled into a haphazard ponytail. He wore a black leather bomber jacket, emblazoned with some sort of Asian script, oversized sunglasses, and a large set of 1970’s style headphones covering his ears. His chin protruded abnormally, and as I watched him petting my dog-- his hand pretty much the same size as her--I felt some anxiety, so I went outside.

I stood beside him and said hello. He gave me a vague look, almost irritated, but said nothing. His attention focused, he kept patting the dog, who didn’t seem to mind. After a minute or two, I said hello again, and the man looked up at me and shouted, "DO I KNOW YOU? DO I KNOW YOU?"

Calmly, I told him that Heidi was my dog, and this softened him. Slowly, and in a child-like manner, he told me that he liked dogs and wanted to know why she was tied up. As I explained this, he continued to pet Heidi, telling me that she was fine and that I shouldn’t worry. I, also petting the dog, told him that I wasn’t worried, but the truth is that I was.

I went back inside the diner to check on my sandwich, all the while looking out the window, the dog looking back at me. When my back was turned I heard her barking and quickly went outside. The man had been shouting at her " WHO"S THAT? WHO'S THAT?" when he saw me watching through the window, and this startled Heidi and caused her to bark. I told him that probably frightened her, but he just told me that he liked dogs and was good with them.

Reluctantly, I went back in the diner one more time to see if my sandwich was ready, and almost immediately I heard an explosion of barking and some yelling. I ran outside to see another large man, who also looked mildly impaired, standing at distance from Heidi and the other man. The crouching man told me that this other guy had scared Heidi, although he didn't say how, and then he began to yell at him, " DON'T YOU BE SCARING HER, YOU HEAR WHAT I'M SAYING?! YOU HEAR WHAT I'M SAYING?!" a trembling rage rising in his voice. People at the bus stop were looking uncomfortable, holding their purses just a little bit tighter, and so I took Heidi and thanked the man for looking after her and left.

It was an awkward circumstance. This man, a little bit like Frankenstein’s Creature, clearly wanted nothing more than to quietly pet my dog, but his emotional responses to the world were so intense and unmediated, that a current of danger ran just beneath the surface. Walking away, I wondered what was listening to on his headphones, and if he always needed something to block out the confusing sounds of the city around him.

At the Eaton’s Centre on Saturday, I sat on a bench beside a young woman and her dog. The dog was a young Golden Lab, and he sat happily on the floor, smiling in his dog way at everybody who passed. Not surprisingly, the animal was attracting huge amounts of attention.

A woman with precise grey hair and a confident manner approached the young girl. Theatrically, and with great formality, she asked, “ Would it be alright if I spoke with your friend for a moment?” Looking confused and a little nervous, the girl just nodded her head, not saying a word.

The older woman then leaned in and began to nuzzle the dog with her face. “Oh, honeybee, you have a most felicitous expression on your face. You are a dandy fellow, you are! “ And then she began to speak to the girl, all the while flopping the dogs ears about, “ Yes, we’ve had three Golden Labs. The first one was named Dante, after the great Italian author of The Divine Comedy, and then there was Callas, named after the great opera star….” The girl sat there quietly, her eyes just a little bit frightened. The woman, speaking with her hands as if in a drama class, continued on, interrupting herself again and again with new digressions, each one designed to suggest a life rich with culture and adventure.

A few moments later a frail man in a tracksuit and baseball cap slowly approached the girl. His manner was tentative, like he’d bee thinking about it for sometime now, and you could see in his gaunt face a difficult life. Speaking very softly and with very little confidence, he asked if he could pet the dog. The girl said, “Okay,” and the man slowly reached out and touched the dog’s head. When he saw that nothing bad happened, he began to slowly stroke his head, before melting into a smile. “ I used to have a dog when I was a boy. We called him Stetson and he lived to be 18.” And then he paused for a few seconds before adding, “It’s been so long since I’ve petted a dog. Thank you, thank you so much,” and then he wandered off.

Our dog, like many, is entirely singular in her focus. She exhibits virtually no interest in other animals, wanting to do nothing more than play fetch. And so, as Rachelle sat and basked in the glow of animal love, I played fetch with our dog.

Soon enough, I noticed some dude sitting on the floor beside Rachelle. I went over to see what was going on.

Me: “Hey.”

Rachelle: (Blushing) “Oh, hi.”

Handsome guy: (Calling to his dog) “Venido aquí, Colin Firth!”

Me: (To Rachelle) “ Is that guy speaking German?”

Handsome guy: (To me) “ I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to be rude, I was just calling to my dog--Colin Firth-- in Spanish.”

Rachelle: “ Michael, this is Javier, he’s from Madrid—it’s in Spain, Michael-- and he was just signed to play for the Toronto FC soccer team. He’s a striker.”

Me: “I used to play soccer in high school.”

Handsome guy: “Yes, I bet you tried very hard, but it is a very different game now than in the 50’s. ( To Rachelle, in a musical kind of whisper) Usted tiene el pelo rubio más hermoso. Quisiera hacer-amor a usted en un tejado.”

Rachelle: (giggling) I don’t know what you just said!! (Blushing and giggling more)

Me: “ I didn’t play soccer in the 1950’s, it was the 80’s and I was a natural goal scorer.”

Handsome asshole: (now bouncing the ball I had been using with Heidi to play fetch, off his foot, knee and stupid head, as a small crowd of people gathered round to watch.)

Me: “I think Colin Firth is a stupid name for a dog.”

Rachelle: “He’s called Colin Firth because the dog was a gift from Colin Firth. Javier was his stunt double in a soccer movie and they became good friends. Don’t you think Javier and Colin Firth look alike?! Only Javier is younger. And more athletic.”

Me: “The name Javier is a cliché.”

Rachelle: “ Javier doesn’t know anybody in Toronto, so I said we’d have him over for dinner on Friday. Oh, shoot! That’s when your Fantasy Baseball draft is, isn’t it? I guess you won’t be able to make it! That’s too bad!”

Handsome asshole: “ I am so looking forward to dinner! We can take our dogs for a run on the beach, and then I will make for you my famous Paella!”

Me: “ Spain didn’t go very good in the Winter Olympics.”

Handsome Asshole: “ You’re grammar is funny, sir! Perhaps I need sub-titles to understand you? Rachelle told me that you are still unemployed, maybe you would like to help with the water for one of our games?”

At this point I picked up a ball that was lying on the floor and threw it at Javier. Unfortunately, I missed, and hit a woman that was sitting on a mobility scooter. She made a bit of a production of this, and as I was scrambling to get away from the women who had gathered around to watch Javier show off his “foot-magic,” and their dogs, I slipped on some poo and hit the floor pretty hard.

I don’t remember much after that point.

The other day, an acquaintance that was considering playing floor hockey on our Recreational league team, wrote to tell us that she was having seconds thoughts. This person, a Christian, thought that our team name-- The Jesus Cobras-- was potentially insulting and offensive, and needed some time to figure out if she wanted to play beneath that banner.

This is the sort of thing that drives me bananas.

I certainly understand that a person might be uncomfortable-- for whatever reason-- with the name of the team. What bothers me is the implicit tut-tut moralizing in the note we received. If the person thought it was wrong to play for The Jesus Cobras, why not just say, “I’m sorry, as it turns out, I can’t play.” But no, this person chose to assume a higher moral ground, hoping, perhaps, to enlighten us so that we might change the name of the team to something more appealing to her sensibilities.

It made me think of the behaviour of an only child, and when Rachelle wrote back to say “well, let us know what you’ve decided,” we found out almost immediately that she decided not to play with us.

I suppose I’ve been taking this situation a little bit personally because I know everybody on the Jesus Cobras, and I know just how surprising, diverse and entirely excellent (if not particularly good at floor hockey) each one of them are, and for somebody to foreclose on their potential based on the name of the team seems, well, tragically small minded. If this woman had been able to apply Christian principles and reserved judgment on us until she’d had some experience with the team, or simply assumed the best, rather than worst, well, I’d have a lot more respect for her position.

Whatever the divine actually turns out to be, we can pretty safely assume that the religions that celebrate it are man-made constructs, subject to mortal flaws. Too often, the applications of these religions serve to inhibit rather than liberate, reducing the world to a clearly felt sense of what is right and what is wrong. As a result some people, with an obdurate and unblinking certainty, use their religious beliefs to propel them through the world, rather than into it, and that, in the end, is a very sad and lonely way to live.

The woman was a firecracker, full of nervous, twitchy energy. Small and wiry, she had crazy red hair that looked as coarse as steel wool, and the weathered complexion of somebody who spent a lot of time outdoors. She was literally jumping up and down with excitement at the discovery of our empties. But as she was celebrating, a look of panic seized her face. She didn’t have her shopping cart. She’d have to go get it, and when she did, somebody else would surely take all the bottles.

She tried to drag the bottles into the corner store, but the owner wouldn’t let her, assuring her that he’d make sure nobody else took them. Still, she was anxious, pushing the bottles up against the wall of a building, hoping to conceal them behind a sign. If there were leaves available, I have no doubt that she would have used them to try to cover the bags. And then, breathless, she ran off down the street to get her cart, “I’ll be back in a sec, don’t let anyone take them!” she shouted at us.

The next day was mild and beautiful, and at about eleven at night I took the dog for a walk. With the warm weather of spring, a few beggars have begun to take root on the streets. Camped out in front of a discount clothing store, a man held out his hat to me. I shrugged and mumbled an apology. He nodded softly at me, telling me not to apologize before wishing me a good night. And as I looked at him, through the broken teeth and sunken cheeks, I could see in his warm eyes an unexpected beauty and abundance.

In Jimmy Simpson Park, two Asian boys in tracksuits played tennis beneath the lights. Whenever one of them hit the ball into the chain link net, a metallic shiver rose into the night.

In front of the Roy Pub a fancy looking man in a pinstripe suit smoked a cigarette while his cab idled on the street beside him. Speaking in the overly concentrated and articulate manner of somebody who was aware they were a bit tipsy, he asked me if my Miniature Dachshund was friendly. Before I answered he leaned down to touch her, talking about Danke, the pet Dachshund he grew up, the spent ash from his cigarette falling onto Heidi’s black coat.

On the way home I bumped into the woman who had collected our bottles the previous day. She recognized me immediately and thanked me for the gift, telling me that she got nearly $20 out of the haul. “Sir, you don’t know what that did for me! It was a real lifesaver, it was! You have no idea!”

And no, I really don’t have any idea.

Not a clue.

Four-eyed-two-legged treat giver very, very old dog! Can no longer chase ball but just watch, look on his old dog face suggest he in past, remembering day when he used to chase ball. Now when he sleep I hear him scream and cry. Ball nightmares, I think. I know ball nightmare. Ball become big and instead of chase ball, ball chase you and can no run away! Bad dream, very bad dream!! One day I take four-eyed-two-legged treat giver to park and he no come back, just give up and go to bushes, I think.

On weekend they throw big house party for his coming death.

All sorts of two-legger come with drink bottle. The hold drink bottle all night, drink, drink, drink, like thirsty from eating hot dog! Then they get wobbly and jump about, like trying to stomp on mouse, but no mouse there! Then try to lick one another in mouth like hiding food, but not hiding food! No understand.

Death party no fun for Heidi! No dog for Heidi, just two-leggers that try to grab Heidi’s ears! All night long, Bang, Bang, Bang go stupid music! Stomp, Stomp, Stomp go stupid two-legger feet. All have cat brain! Death ritual for four-eyed-two-legged treat giver stupid! Make Heidi head hurt!

When no meat cake with fire come Heidi watch old dog. He look like sad, gray dog. I jump up on lap and make old dog feel good. He blow out fire and Heidi make wish for big meat bone and driver’s license so can drive over downstairs cat and dumb dog that won’t return my barks!

Rachelle also returned to her childhood, remembering excursions she would take to wooded areas in the small town where she grew up. Here, she would go on little archeological digs, returning home with her pockets full of pinecones, baby turtles and fragments of robin’s eggs.

Both people expressed a joy in discovery and creation, relishing the unhurried independence that sometimes shines into childhood.

I think that I felt at peace in movement. The day my training wheels came of my bicycle, and how with ease and confidence, I was able to rush down the streets of my neighbourhood. Or cross-country skiing, my mind quieted by the repetitive movements of my body, my lungs full of the perfectly cold air. Later, with moonlight cutting through the trees, we would ski down the hills that we had ascended just a few hours earlier, spaghetti sauce waiting at home.

And later, playing hockey, my body liberated by velocity and control. Skating so fast, stopping on a dime, spinning and shooting, my body now, on ice, the perfect extension of a boy’s optimism and imagination.

Two girls near 20 play tennis at the courts in Jimmy Simpson Park. It’s probably the first time they’ve done this in five years and they’ve dressed for the event. They’re as hip as they imagine Queen East demands, trying a little too hard to be perfect Fashion Do's for Vice Magazine. Wearing knee-high argyle socks, Converse sneakers and fly girl hats at a slant, they’re performing for an imagined audience of people. As they swing their racquets and bend down to pick-up balls, they think about the curiosities they might spark in these people, who watching, would just have to know all about their tattoos, Blogs and favourite books.

I am so terribly sorry.

I beg you, in all of your beauty, glory and infinite compassion, to please forgive me.

I was feeling old and vulnerable on my birthday, and I guess a little bit angry, too. I am ashamed to admit that I took to the drink, and it was in this state-- drunk and childish-- that I lashed out at you, implying that you might be ugly and gay.

Oh, numinous father, I am so sorry.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

You are beautiful and straight and omnipotent.

I felt particularly hideous yesterday, but figured it was probably only a hangover, but when I stepped out the front door and a dead pigeon fell on me from the sky, well, I knew that something was up.

There was the scent of divine retribution in the air.

And then, in front of the corner store where a lot of the high school kids hang out, Tim and Darlene, who normally only make me buy them Red Bull and smokes, were particularly aggressive. My Lord, they taunted me quite ruthlessly, and made me buy them each lotto tickets( $10 ones!!) on top of their normal shakedown haul.

Moments later, I got my finger stuck in the mailbox, which made me very vulnerable to Tim and Darlene, who threw pennies at me from across the street. And Lord, I couldn’t help but notice that the year on one of the pennies, the one that hit me in the ear, was the same year that I was born.

Lord, I knew then that you were speaking to me.

It was clear that my letter had hit a raw nerve with you, and I felt immediate and profound regret for my writing it. God, you know what you’re doing. You’re clearly at the top of your game and I bow down before your majesty. I am grateful to you for the life you’ve given me and for baseball, and I am so sorry for my letter. It was Satan speaking, God, the Devil climbed inside of me and made me write out those awful things.

I have sent a $20 cheque to the Korean Baptist Church on the corner, and am hopeful that will help clear up any misunderstanding that lingers between us.

God, you are the man and I love you very much!

Your servant,

Michael Murray

PS: By the way, it was an excellent touch on your part to get Rachelle to make me “Tofu Supreme Surprise” for dinner last night instead of Porterhouse steak, as I was hoping for. Well played, God, well played.

Dear God:

I can’t figure you out.

I don’t know if you think you’re a really big deal or something, but you should really just get over yourself and come clean.

What’s up with all this aging crap?

Everybody seems to think I’m 15 years older than I am, and everybody, and I mean everybody now calls me “Sir.” This sucks.

The other day on the subway, a young woman, whom I thought was checking me out, asked if I’d like her seat. I was so embarrassed and freaked-out that I shouted, “NO WAY!! WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID IN THE HEAD?! I CAN DO PUSH-UPS!!!” And then I hit the floor to demonstrate. God, I think I put my hand is something bad when I did that, and it would seem that my scream from being grossed-out was misinterpreted by the passengers on the train as being a heart-attack scream. God, it was an entirely demoralizing and humiliating experience.

But you know all that, right? I mean, you’re God. This was, after all, your Grand Design.

Look, I just want you to know that I think it’s a really stupid Grand Design you have going, and if you think it’s “cool” or “funny” to make me throw-up after every floor hockey shift, well, you don’t have a clue what funny or cool is.

You suck as a deity.

Big time.

I would take Zeus over you in a second.

You’re probably ugly, too, which I bet is why you only want people to look at you through a glass, darkly, or whatever the hell it is you decreed.

Yeah. I said it.

You heard me.

You’re single, aren’t you, God?

Never hear about Mrs. God.

Interesting, that.

Maybe God doesn’t like girls?

Whatever, God, you can swing any way you want. I don’t’ care. I’m not judgmental, like certain deities, and just want everybody to be happy, healthy and in love, and so, if you wouldn’t mind backing off a bit and stopping with the degradations of age stuff, well, all would be forgiven.

Michael Murray

PS: Why did you have to go and make Jessica Simpson fat? You had a pretty good thing going there, you know.

Chatroulette, as most people probably know by now, is a website that pairs random strangers for webcam-based conversations that include both video and text. At any point during the interaction, either participant can leave, springing off to a more promising one, by hitting a button that initiates another random connection.

The idea is brilliant, I think. The world, rendered condense and immediate, is just waiting for you, opening up the promise of all sorts of surreal, unexpected and possibly even tender, human exchanges.

These are the first fifteen encounters that I had on Chatroulette:

1. A guy jerking-off.

2. A shirtless man lying on his back, his head resting on a frilly pillow, his hands out of view.

3. A teenage boy running his hand through his hair.

4. 3 puppies running around on a living room floor while opera blared.

5. A couple of 13 year-old girls, looking excited on a Friday night, as if they were doing something taboo their parents knew nothing about.

6. A guy jerking-off

7. A guy with his shirt off, showcasing his six pack as he unzipped his jeans.

8. A girl in bra and panties, dancing about, teasing.

9. Two stoned teens in Rasta caps giggling.

10. A confused looking Asian man in a cubicle.

11. Two college-aged guys with sheets over their heads.

12. A man jerking-off.

13. An obese man with his shirt off lying on a sofa.

14. A guy in a black toque yawning.

15. A handmade sign that said Boobs 93 Dicks 6.

Attention spans being what they are, and this being a visual medium, people click off most connections almost immediately, hoping to find somebody more desirable and receptive waiting just around the corner. In short order, people find themselves in a fruitless loop of pursuit, chasing after some fantasy encounter that probably only exists in the adolescent core of our brains.

And so, most people you encounter have a disappointed, kind of bored look to their faces. You are not the person they were hoping to meet, and neither was the person who preceded you, and in all likelihood, the person who follows you will also fall short.

And so you stare at your monitor, waiting for 30 seconds to be connected to a person, and then when you are, that person will likely just click away, and so it goes. I was certain that the experience was going to be fascinating and addictive, but it turned out to be repetitive and numbing.

It was depressing rather than fun, like playing a slot machine.

Again and again, I saw listless, empty spaces on Chatroulette. Each person an unexpected portrait of alienation and want, who under the protective aegis of anonymity became either a voyeur or exhibitionist, somebody hoping to quickly capitalize on the sexual mobility the Internet offers, and little more.

“If you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it’s probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we’re here for is to learn how to do it. I know that sounds a little pious.”

When I read this, I thought of all the people I know who are too hard on themselves. People, who for whatever reason, always feel like they’re letting others down, or not doing enough, and at the end of each day they judge themselves, always finding their effort wanting.

Obviously, it’s not unusual to feel this way. Honestly, my head simply spins when I consider the lives of parents—mother’s in particular—who have to look after children, perhaps tend to a job, manage a complicated relationship with their partner, run errands, and still try, in some capacity, to exert a creative and positive influence on the world at large. It must sometimes feel like living in the middle of a tornado, a place where oxygen, time and space, is just sucked away.

When any of us begin to struggle beneath that weight, I think we’d do well to recall the words above, which were written by American author David Foster Wallace. Sadly, Wallace, a brilliant and deeply sincere writer, committed suicide in 2008. The weight of his depression crushed him, and the world lost his singular light, but still, we have his words, which may yet help the rest of us to apply the same forgiveness, generosity of spirit, patience, and love to ourselves, that we often do to others.

Dear Answer Man:

Yesterday treat, today no treat.

Why today no treat?

Rusty

Rusty:

You ask an excellent question.

Many “masters” operate on a reward system, and will only give out treats if their dog displays some sort of obedience or subservience to them. I know that it’s humiliating and unfair, but if you want that treat, you’re going to have to just lie back and think of Lassie.

***************************************************

Dear Answer Man:

Cats evil.

Why cats in world?

Banjo

Banjo:

Oh, Banjo, cats are here in the world to remind us of what we could have been.

*****************************************

Dear Answer Man:

No understand.

Dig all the time.

Go in yard and dig, dig, dig.

Can’t stop myself.

Not know why.

Why dig? What it all about? Where Kiko going?

Kiko

Kiko:

It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. Don’t you worry, just keep digging, you’ll find what you’re looking for!!

****************************************************

Dear Answer Man:

When dinner!!??

Scooter

Scooter:

Unfortunately, dinner is dependent on your masters, and they will serve it when it’s convenient to them, which is usually around 7:00 pm.

****************************************************

Dear Answer Man:

What drink go best with chicken treat and what drink go best with meat treat? I think water go good with both, but poodle dog in park say must drink dirty water with meat treat, as it bring out earthy textures.

Dennis

Dennis:

The poodle is wrong and likely just trying to look more important and educated than it really is. Water is an ideal beverage for either meal.

********************************************************

Dear Answer Man:

Why my fart face master so stupid?

He couldn’t find ball if he were ball.

Think he smart, tell Heidi what to do, but dumb!!

Heidi

Heidi:

I think that your master is actually entirely brilliant and kind. If you were a smart dog, you never would have left your real name and photo, so that he can see that you’re a disloyal and disobedient animal who should have her fetch suspended and not receive any treats for a two-week period!

Bad dog, bad dog!!

It’s an utterly mesmerizing film, and I’m pretty sure it’s my favourite movie of all time.

Made in 1998 by Terrence Malick, the movie charts the fortunes of a US army platoon as they attempt to wrest control of Guadalcanal from the Japanese, but really it’s a three- hour poem.

Ten years ago when I was in hospital getting a stem cell transplant for Hodgkin’s Disease, I used to repeatedly watch scenes from The Thin Red Line on my laptop. Inconceivably small and defeated, I was little more than a pale, gray shadow in a hospital gown, and teetering so precariously between life and death, most people thought it strange that I should choose to watch an epic war film.

But I found the movie majestic, holy, even.

The world that Malick depicted was cruel and indifferent-- a place where pitiless acts of savagery, unbidden and unexplained, could erupt at any time. But still, nature remained beautiful and eternal. The world itself was a cathedral and paradise was implicit. In The Thin Red Line I felt like I could feel and see the animating light that sparks each person, and from my hospital bed, that was something that I cherished, something that filled me with gratitude, hope and awe.

A city worker in blue coveralls stood on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. He was staring at Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund. “ I tell ya,” he began, “ for the life of me I can’t understand how somebody could be cruel to an animal. Just look at her.” And he shook his head, smiling. As he walked away he bent down to pick something up off the street. He held it up for me. “A lucky penny. 1971.”

A car with two young men in baseball hats drove by. The windows were all unrolled, allowing Frank Sinatra singing Bad, Bad Leroy Brown to blare improbably into the street. It was an unexpected moment, and as I watched the car drive away I spotted a bumper sticker that read “Tell Your Boobs To Stop Staring At My Eyes” on the back of their Honda.

At the Leslieville Cheese Market they were giving out tasting samples of cheese, and it didn’t feel like they were hoping to sell you anything, but like they just wanted to share.

In front of the K & S restaurant an old man in a wheelchair sat contemplating the day. He took a deep drag off his cigarette, and then after looking from side to side, he let out a mighty hork that traveled three quarters of the way across Queen Street—his virile affirmation of life. Yes, he could still do it.

Two gay men maneuvered a massive stroller that contained two obviously adopted babies through the doorway of a restaurant. Happy and talkative, they started to chat with me. “Oh, getting this thing around is like driving a tractor!” on said. The other man began to laugh, and then, as if in confidence, he leaned in toward me, “ we had to call all our friends in Europe to make sure we could get this thing through their doorways!”

A man sat lonely on a bench in Jimmy Simpson Park. He had a massive suitcase in front of him, like maybe his life had just changed. A woman with red hair-- a firecracker-- came and joined him, and shortly they were walking down the street. Speaking with her hands, she was telling a variety of stories. “It’s not like Gino to give any compliments, but he says to me that I didn’t need to do nothing, that I looked great, and I tell ya, I just started bawling my face off!” And then both the red head and the man with the suitcase smiled at one another.

Boisterous on a Friday, men stood on ladders, working happily to open new businesses along the strip. They painted and smoked, lifting things off the backs of trucks and into places like macFab Fabrics and Lynn Crawford’s new restaurant, Ruby Watch Company, overjoyed to be creating something new, beautiful and optimistic in the spring.

*********************************************************************

Corner Store on Queen East

It was Tuesday night and you were in the Green Grocer corner store. You were wearing pink hot pants and a parka, and you were distracting the cashier by telling him a story about how you weren’t going to pay for his stale licorice. As you were doing this, you shoplifted three chocolate bars and some batteries. I was standing in the line behind you and saw that you had excellent technique. I’d like to see you again so I could show you my excellent technique.

*********************************

Queen East and Broadview

You were wearing a bright red Don Jail prison jumpsuit and were yelling at a TTC driver for not letting you on the streetcar. You called him a “Paki fart hole.” I laughed so hard I spit out my dental plate! I’d love to get together some time to trade some stories!

************************************

TD Bank at the corner of Logan and Queen

It was about 1:00 in the afternoon and there was a really long line-up waiting for the tellers, which was frustrating to everybody. You, with your long Fabio-like hair, became our Alpha fox and immediately took control of the situation and began to yell, demanding to see the manager and calling the tellers, “lazy, fat job stealing immigrant thieves.” And then you started to poke the security guard in the chest. I was the chick who began to clap, and please don’t worry about my cough, as it’s nothing too serious.

**************************************

Beneath the Go-Train overpass on Queen East

It was daylight, and I think it might have been Friday. You had pretty decent teeth, were sporting a big, bushy beard, wearing three toques and talking to yourself. I wanted to know what you were saying, but was too shy to ask. We should meet in the park sometime.

**************************************

Queen East in front of the The Value Village

I saw you on Tuesday afternoon getting busted by some undercover Cop. You looked defiant and proud as he pushed you up against the wall, and I thought it was cool the way you made it look like you wanted to get busted. I really wished I had been the one frisking you.

By the way, I really dig short guys.

*************************************

Jimmy Simpson Park

Tuesday at around 9:00 pm I was doing my thing in the park when I heard screaming coming from the rink. I went over and saw you fighting with some kid in a Montreal Canadians jersey. You were just pounding him and blood was gushing out from his mouth like it was a movie or something. I banged on the boards and yelled, “Fucken-A, Montreal sucks, Montreal sucks!” I’d like to think that maybe I inspired you a bit, for when the city workers were dragging you off the ice, you made direct eye contact with me and thrust your fist in the air.

I swear, I almost creamed my jeans.

Call me.

We went out to the balcony, which is one floor above the street, and saw a teenaged boy lying unconscious on the curb directly across the street. He was not moving, not even a little. A few people attended to him, but it was clear that they had no idea what to do. An alarm from the public library began to sound and people, in a panic, were running in crazy, pointless directions, as if their circuitry had been broken. Young women covered their faces and wept, while young men with clenched fists, screaming with rage, searched for an enemy.

WHO DID THIS?!

WHO THE FUCK DID THIS?!

And then one of them would take a swing at somebody.

There were perhaps 20 teens on the street, all of them presumably having just left the Lotus concert at The Opera House a block away, and the ungovernable energy that was springing out of their bodies was both awesome and frightening.

Almost instantly the police arrived and began to mediate things. Older, larger and wiser, they intimidated the teens into some semblance of order. With a scowl on his face, a Cop who must have been about 55, pushed a boy up against the wall. And as he did this, and the boy’s spirit just vanished, you could see just how young the boy was. Over his shoulder, the Cop yelled at another boy, “ TAKE FIVE STEPS BACK!! AND NOW, TAKE ANOTHER TWO BACK!! And the teens obeyed, relieved to have found an authority figure to seize control of the terrifying situation.

Streetcars passed slowly by, some passengers staring at the scene, while others, unaware, flipped through the newspaper or sent text messages to friends. Rachelle and I in our housecoats, stood above it, as if in a box in a theatre, where under streetlamps, something utterly crucial and immediate was unfolding.

Rachelle squeezed my arm.

“I can’t stop thinking about that poor boy’s mother. She’s going to get a phone call in an hour or two telling her that her son won’t be coming home.”

And we just stood there, watching until the boy, the last one to leave the scene, was placed in the back of the ambulance and taken away.

I have to admit, when I saw the photographs of the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team celebrating their gold medal victory, I felt a twinge of disapproval. I wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something that seemed, well, off.

After a bit of reflection, I’ve decided it was the presence of cigars.

In our culture, smoking is seen as a type of evil. It’s the visual antithesis of purity, and obviously, whatever image the Olympics are hoping to project out into the world, we know that’s not it. I honestly can’t recall the last time I saw an Olympic athlete light up after winning gold, so really, it should come as no surprise that there’s been some censorious chatter about the on-ice celebration that included beer guzzling and cigar smoking.

I have no doubt that the fact that it’s women and not men being criticized for this is an essential subtext to the story, but I don’t think it’s the story. Clearly, cigars are obnoxiously masculine, but more than that they’re plutocratic. Cigars are potent symbols of professional entitlement and a visual declaration of Alpha status.

Think of a man, leaning back and confidently lighting his cigar. Think of how much you instinctively hate him.

He’s an asshole, that guy. Emitting a cloud of toxic smoke, he’s only too delighted to seize control of an environment and subjugate those around him to the fallout of his privileges. In fact, that’s probably the point. The cigar says, “ I DON’T CARE IF YOU THINK I’M A DICK. SUCK IT.”

In the context of the warrior culture of sports, a cigar is just as much—if not more—a celebration of your opponent’s loss, as it is your own victory. It’s money and power and sex, the sort of thing a star jock lights with a $100 bill, and it suggests a celebration of the individual rather than the accomplishment.

It’s obnoxious, in short.

What I expect upset some people when they saw the photographs was not so much that the women were “behaving like men,” but that in their celebration they were emulating the spirit of professional athletes rather than amateur ones.

************************************************

Leedle Bug Man:

Is Goran, master bookie and DJ of all of Greater Toronto Area, including Mississauga, bitches!

We know that you no good in betting against Goran. You lose and lose and lose, like leedle Canadian bug! You lose so much money you have to move from house on nice street with classy cars, to east side district where old men get around on crappy kid bikes!

Eediot!

But as Goran have good heart, I offer you one time only deal. Pigeon man, if you have the sufficient manhood between your leedle lady legs to bet on Canada to beat Mother Russia in hockey, I give you crazy odds! I give you 100 to 1!!

100 to 1!!

You understand what that means?

Eet means if world explode and somehow girl Canada beat Russia in hockey, you make all money you lose to Goran over years back! You be rich leedle bug and maybe can buy a few friends and gold toothes!

But ees still stupid bet, for Ovechkin will eat face of your babies and play chess with your teeth! He score on ice and off, party like God of rock! Eess man, you people are coward girl babies! Russia skate all over your maple leaf and take your women home to strip and feed the dog! You people should stick to knitting for national sport, eh?

I own the podium, bitch, and it made of first class solid gold metal!

Goran.

I knew nothing about them, as I’ve paid scant attention to the Olympics. The coverage has been driving me bananas, like I was being force fed some sort of Athletic Telethon packaged to resemble Entertainment Tonight. Honestly, the only way I’ve been able to stomach it is to turn off the volume on the TV, and that makes me feel like some crabby and eccentric shut-in, and so I’ve just been skipping it.

But on Monday night I decided to go to a local pub and see if I could catch the Olympic spirit by sharing the experience of watching with other people. The bar I was in was sparsely populated, and the few staff and customers that were present seemed kind of bored and tired, like they were serving a detention. The volume on the TV was off and nobody was paying any attention to the games that were unfolding on the big screen.

Now, I don’t like figure skating very much, and was frankly kind of embarrassed to find myself alone in a bar, drinking a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and watching Ice Dancing, but there you have it. One of the very funny things about the Winter Olympics is how quickly I feel like I’ve become an expert on whatever featured sport is being broadcast. Within 10 minutes of watching, I imagine myself as expert as a judge. “Oh, she’s losing her form!!” I’ll shout while watching speed skating, as if I actually speed skated or something. And so, as the Ice Dancing was taking place, I began running a little commentary, first to myself, and then, as I noticed people starting to pay attention, out loud.

Even though the sound was off, and the accompanying bar music was Jethro Tull, we could see that they skated a great, even romantic program. It was ridiculous, but we all started to get excited, shouting things like “They nailed it!” And they did, they did nail it.

Breathless and happy, they stood on the podium singing the National Anthem, and they could not have been more innocent or beautiful. They looked as perfect as a couple of kids who had just graduated from high school, who now, flush with confidence and hope, were ready to take on the world. It was, I guess, exactly what those of us sitting in empty bars need the Olympics to project back to us.

Probably everything that you really need to understand about the Tiger Woods press conference/apology can likely be gleaned from the timing of the event.

It was on a Friday, a day of optimism and relief, a day when people are generally felling just a little bit looser and forgiving of the world around them. Just before lunch, just before the Olympic Games began to broadcast from the West to the East, people had not yet taken off from work, and were just hanging around, likely looking for some pop culture fodder to fuel water cooler chat.

But even more germane is that it took place right in the middle of the Winter Olympics, when there was a huge and eager audience of sports fans. It’s entirely probable that the American audience watching, having grown somewhat weary of the eccentric, niche sports of the North, were ready for some REAL sports news, and so, opportunistically, Tiger Woods stepped into the breech.

Presumably, this was not the moment that he felt most compelled, spiritually and personally, to make a declaration to the world, but the time that Team Tiger, as assemblage of the most skilled PR people on the planet, decided would have the greatest impact. It was like one of those military strikes that had been carefully calibrated to have maximum impact.

The speech, which lasted for about 13 minutes, was expertly written, and the whole thing felt oddly Presidential. He pretty much said all the things that we needed him to say, and in he did so in such a way as to conjure a skilled actor in a big budget movie. When he finished his piece, he hugged his mother for a long time and then exited without taking questions, his heart, presumably unburdened.

As with most everything Tiger Woodsy, this prepared speech felt robotic and micromanaged to me. I would love to see a man such as Woods think on his feet, allowing a little bit of sloppy, inarticulate humanity and improvisation to break through, but Woods seems to be the absolute opposite of improvisation. Everything he does, from his golf stroke to his press conference to the crease in his Khaki’s seemed ironed and pressed to the point of mechanical purity. And in this case, as he stood there reading words written and massaged by a team of experts, you saw nothing of his soul, only a reflection of the culture of therapy he now inhabits and the political machinations of an ever-perfecting and ever-reaching business machine.

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Audrey Hepburn girl in The Leslieville Cheesemarket

You were buying Cambozola and wearing a pair of Hunter rain boots. I was pretending to be inspecting a variety of Goat Cheese, but really I was inspecting you.

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In front of Jimmy's Diner

You were driving a mobility scooter with a Hamilton Tiger Cats flag on the back and I was having a butt in front of Jimmy’s diner. I accidentally spit on the sidewalk in front of you, and you called me a whore, but still, there was something tender in your voice.

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Beautiful blonde getting on the Queen Streetcar at Broadview

As I was getting off the back of the streetcar, you were boarding at the front. I just caught a glimpse of you bending down to ruffle the neck of a friendly dog that was standing nearby. You were utterly stunning. I’m not sure why, but I pointed at you. It was all I could think to do. You smiled and shrugged, and then got on the streetcar—your eyes the most beautiful blue.

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Australian Guy

You slammed the cab door and told the driver to go fuck himself. I was watching, impressed.

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Queen East near the park

You were on a bicycle and stopped to pick up some spare change you found on the street. I was near the dumpster, for a second our eyes caught, and then you shoved the coins in your pocket and furiously pedaled off.

I’d love to scavenge with you sometime.

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Cutie who bought a scratch n’ win on impulse at the cash

On Saturday morning on January the 16th, I helped you find some stuff in the drugstore. You said your luggage had been lost on the flight back from Vancouver. You bought a toothbrush, some dental floss, vitamins and hair gel. Although I’ve been out of the dating world for years, I thought you might have been flirting with me. I wish I had done better, and I’d love to chat on-line, if you’d give me a second chance.

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ATM on Logan

The line-up was long and an old person was taking forever to do their transaction. When she finally left, and we were the last two people, you began to act like an elderly person, asking me in a shaky voice if I knew where the penny slot was. You made my day! I’d love to see you again!

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In front of Jilley’s

It was about one in the morning on Sunday, and you were beating the shit out of some Chinese guy on the sidewalk. You had your shirt off and there was a big tattoo of a bull on your chest. It was hot! I’d love to hook-up with you!

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Once again Heidi get nothing for Valentine’s Day!

Not know what going on with that!

My coat shiny, my breath bad, why no other dog like me?!

Must be stupid pink camouflage collar two-leggers make me wear! So 2006! Make me look like some Jersey Shore slut-face! Hate stupid collar and want to rip to shreds!

Three dogs in park I hoped would send me something, but nothing!

Is Mahjong. He not very smart, always smelling wrong thing and losing fetch ball. He’s just mutt, too, but I don’t care! He super cute! Go all the way with Mahjong if he play cards right, but stupid-chicken dog too scared to make first move!

Jupiter big, beautiful Doberman! So strong and confident and wild!! Turn Heidi on to watch him dig in park! When he bark angels fall from heaven. Go all the way with Jupiter in second!

Like Hanzel, too. Most beautiful sexy coat that change colour with the sunlight! Hanzel nice, too, and good at fetch! Once see him chase stupid cat into street and then cat get hit by two-legger on bike machine! Stupid cat! Hanzel make me wag tail. Would marry Hanzel and have big litter, then have affair with Jupiter and Mahjong in secret park dates in bushes near swings!

But none of dogs remember Heidi on Valentine’s!

Bad dogs, bad, bad dogs!!

Think Valentine stupid commercial day meant to make single dog feel bad! So what if not in committed relationship? Big deal! Don’t mean Heidi crazysad dog that play fetch alone and live with cats!

Not true!!

It’s difficult to know what to say.

Some things simply can’t be ignored.

--Fiddlers and tap dancers, all dressed like it was 1988 and they worked in a Scottish themed punk bar in Montreal, tap-synched and fiddle-synched, as if in an Off-Broadway production of Lord of the Dance.

--A W.O. Mitchell inspired aerial phantasm of a young girl growing up on the prairies, featured a young man pretending to be a girl, floating about the stadium to the Joni Mitchell classic Both Sides Now, as sung by somebody who might not have been Joni Mitchell.

--Hockey star Haley Wickenheiser, alongside the Chief Referee of Short Track Speed Skating, who apparently has been accorded significant cultural status, swore an oath in opposition to blood doping.

--Games organizer John Furlong made a speech in which he spoke of “the magic of television” beaming the games into our homes, while many watched online and Twittered away to one another.

--A Slam poet from the Northwest Territories, in performing a kind of Joe Canada rant, rapped that “Canada is the what in what’s new.”

----Conjuring Spinal Tap, the five Stonehenge hydraulic things that were to house the Olympic flame, would not ascend on cue. People stood around looking scared. Eventually, after they had lit most of them, Wayne Gretzky was dispatched, via the back of a pick-up truck—after having to wait in an air lock-- through the rainy streets of Vancouver, to ignite the external cauldron.

Watching, I found myself becoming increasingly preoccupied with the winter gear that everybody was wearing and the fake snow that lined the floor of BC Place. Later, when they were struggling to light the Olympic flame and the emotional sweep was supposed to be at it’s greatest height, fake snow began to fall in the domed stadium as music that sounded like it was lifted from a Steven Spielberg film, swirled about the climate controlled stadium.

It seems a first principle to me that the Winter Olympics are born from circumstance. An individual masters skiing or speed skating largely because they live in a Northern climate, and when life gives you lemons, well, you better learn to make lemonade, right? I mean, that’s an important lesson right there. But Vancouver chose to remove the very essence—--the natural climate and native landscape—of the Winter Olympics from the opening ceremonies, and so the spark that originally ignited the games was extinguished, and for expediency and convenience, winter was merely simulated for a global audience, as if this was just another glitzy Las Vegas show, Disney theme park, or a big-budget Christopher Guest movie.

The other day I took our dog for a stroll up to Old Chinatown. Along the way, on the sidewalk near the Chinese Baptist Church, I found a set of keys. This discovery was both exciting and mysterious.

The keys, they could unlock anything!!

A time machine.

A medicine factory.

A treasure chest.

I felt like I had been invested with a great responsibility and that unknowable eyes were watching, waiting to see how I responded. I decided that the keys likely had some connection to the church, and that I would go in there and hand them over to whatever authority figure was present. Although I could hear organ music, the place seemed to be entirely locked up, and so I left the keys, and all the potential they represented on the church steps, just like a newborn baby.

On Gerrard, the dog kept her nose to the ground and never once bothered to use her eyes, but just inhaled the scent of every new twist and turn the day presented.

Ginger root!

Lost sneaker in a puddle!

Lobster shell!

Blue plastic bag with a tiny footprint on it!

Chicken bone!

Through sad looking Asian women and indifferent men, we turned onto Broadview. We paused and looked in a hair salon that contained just one customer--a 160 year-old Asian woman with a big frown on her face and a roller coaster of curlers in her hair.

Directly beside this place was a closed barbershop with a big sign in the window: “After 48 years of cutting hair in this neigbourhood, I am now retiring. I just want to thank all of my customers over the years, in particular the second and third generation ones."

The beauty and sadness in this distillate nearly broke my heart.

An angry looking woman with an unnaturally tanned face and platinum blonde hair walked toward us. I expected to see a weathered, slightly bitter face, evidence of a reckless life of fun and sun, but no, she looked utterly polished. When she saw Heidi, who was digging by a tree, the faintest twitch of pleasure began to animate her face. Seeing this I smiled, but when she saw me looking at her, her face once again became hardened and defensive. She looked quickly away, and swinging her ass, stomped away, a tattoo peeking out from the gap between her sweat pants and the Canada Goose Expedition parka she so proudly wore.

$260.

I visit this shirt every once in awhile, holding out the slim hope that somebody in the store will screw-up and they’ll sell it to me for $26, but so far that’s yet to happen. And so, I just go in and look at the shirt.

Like it was a puppy.

Sometimes I touch it.

Yesterday some man followed me into the store. He was wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt over his jean jacket and he had been standing in front of the store with a guy who was playing Won’t Get Fooled Again on a battered acoustic guitar. On the ground, beside a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball hat with a little bit of change in it, sat a sign that said, “I would rather beg than steal.”

The man in the Hawaiian shirt followed me about the store. Happily invading my space, he chatted away, telling me that the store was very expensive and that he’s had excellent luck finding stuff in the trash, citing a perfectly good pair of sneakers he found last week.

The girl standing behind the cash was talking into her phone. Her hair, pulled severely back, shone perfectly, and she had a look of utter indifference to the world around her, as if the only beauty she apprehended was her own. When she saw the man who had attached himself to me, a look washed over her face.

“Hey, hey!” she shouted at him, “can I HELP you?”

The word “help” sarcastic.

At this point, knowing what was coming next, the guy in the Hawaiian shirt quickly introduced himself to me—Peter. And then he added, “it’s a beautiful day out there, all blue and warm.” And then he scurried out of the store.

The cashier, now back on her cell, looked over at me, “I’m sorry about that, sometimes they come in from the street,” and then she continued with her phone conversation.

Every community event, even one taking place in as beautiful a venue as the Wychwood Barns, has something of a Christopher Guest movie to it. Saturday was Wychwood's annual fundraising trivia night, in which the organizers hoped to raise money for a variety of community projects.

When we* walked in the space was full of about 500 people who would comprise the 40 competing trivia teams, and two musicians. A 50 year-old man in a hat and a woman with the long hair of somebody who might have spent her 30th, 35th and 40th birthday at Medieval Times, performed an unfashionable brand of Celtic music, the type that was popular back in 1992.

A disorganized and genial clump of people stood in the foyer trying to figure out which of the five line-ups they were supposed to be standing in. At the end of each line, where you could perhaps buy a drink ticket, but not a food ticket, there was an abundance of volunteers, each one singularly focused on the one task placed in front of them.

When they ran out of white wine-- about 45 minutes after the doors opened-- the eyes of the woman pouring the drinks became massive and frightened, as if she was about to be overwhelmed. She began to shout out instructions, dispatching people to the local LCBO, but the truth was that nobody really cared.

No white wine?
No problem!
I’ll have a coke!

It was that kind of crowd.

About half way through the trivia competition, a perky young woman took the microphone and tried to inspire the crowd to do some calisthenics. Everyone but the elderly, who gave it all they got, as if to prove their vigor to the world, and one or two cougars who took this as an opportunity to show off their bodies, seemed kind of embarrassed by this and just sat quietly.

It was at this point that the tone of the evening began to subtly shift. The categories, which had been typically trivial, began to focus on Canada and Toronto, and then specifically on the Wychwood community and their avowed interests. They wanted us to have fun, but the wanted us to learn, too! The night was now no longer about trivia with friends, but had morphed into the sort of “public service” you’d expect from the CBC--fusty and pretentious instruction from people who saw themselves as keepers of the light.

As if in some subconscious rebellion to this schoomarmish turn of events, our team—The Terrible Squirrels—who had been languishing near last place all night, lost interest and like delinquent students, began to amuse ourselves by doodling pornographic cartoons on our answer sheet.

Classy.

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* Unfortunately, our assemblage was too large for one team, and so Heather Spratt—who organized the night out and almost qualified to be on Jeopardy once—broke us down into two smaller units. I couldn’t help but notice that Heather appropriated to her team the doctoral candidate, the guy who went to Cambridge, the two Mensa club members and three Asians. The team I was assigned to, (presumably to make the B Squad stronger) was full of people who like to watch hockey fights on YouTube.

Heather’s team finished in the top ten, while The Terrible Squirrels finished 34th in a field of 39.

Rachelle said that when I first started to do it, she tried to wake me up, but that proved unsuccessful. Since then, she’s just listened, with occasional attempts to enter into conversation with me (which really freaks me out). She has been keeping a list of some of the more memorable things I’ve said on a notepad on her bedside table.

1. Look, I know I look good in corduroy, but (indistinguishable mumbling) and if it’s not God’s will, then it’s not God’s will. (And then, growing agitated) No! I won’t hear another word about it!

2. The mouse spirit is very strong in here. We should leave!

3. Me: Miss Scarlet Johansen! And so we meet again!

Rachelle (pretending to be Scarlet Johansen and attempting to engage me in conversation): I’m a dirty, no talent whore who smells like a cat.

Me: Oh! Hey there, Miss Natalie Portman, glad you could make it to my party, too!

Rachelle (pretending to be Natalie Portman): I have a canker the size of a peanut in my mouth.

Me: You’re very pretty, Nat.

Rachelle (pretending to be Natalie Portman): You’re very lucky to be with a woman as beautiful and kind and patient as Rachelle.

Me: Yeah, sure I’ll lift that chair, Natalie, but first I better take off my shirt.

Rachelle: WAKE UP!! MICHAEL, WAKE UP, YOU’RE MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF!!

4. You’re very sadly mistaken, because I only fall down when I mean to.

5. ¡Y entonces el día vendrá cuando tengo mi venganza sobre los hombres de dios, y una oscuridad terrible descenderá como un capote!

6. I could throw the ball further if I wanted to, but I’m not a showboat.

7. No, I’m not a turtle, I’m a man, but I do have some turtle skills.

8. I fly fast.

Located at the base of the Toronto Dominion Tower in the financial district, the Bymark is headed by celebrity chef Mark McEwan and is conspicuously expensive. The point of a restaurant like the Bymark, I think, is not to achieve culinary excellence, but to create an impressive ambience of elitism. To eat their predictably good, but not great food, you need money, and really, that’s all your business associates need to see. You have money, and you care enough about them, to spend it.

Like a characterless restaurant you might see in a movie or lifted from the pages of a luxury magazine, the Bymark projects an inoffensive modernity. It’s the sort of place that conceals character rather than reveals it, if that makes any sense.

At the table next to us sat a group of thick-necked businessmen. Their meal complete, they stabbed away on their Blackberry’s as they sipped their postprandial scotch. Discussing the Dion Phaneuf trade, they used the first names of the architects of the deal in such a way as to make you think that they belonged to the same golf club, which was likely the point.

Across from them sat three young women who were conspicuously overdressed. Looking nervous, as if this was their first night in Manhattan and they were hoping to see some celebrities, they kept their heads down, concentrating on their iPhones.

I’m not sure what I was expecting out of my dining experience, but as always, I was hoping for a leisurely and decadent evening that would see us charm the staff and receive free drinks. Well, nothing of the sort happened. We were seated without much warmth or competence, and then rocketed through our meal at such a reckless velocity that our appetizers appeared on the table before our wine and cutlery.

The food was good, but far from memorable. The plates felt like they’d been made to get the job done rather than wow the diner. Expedient and loveless, the whole experience was kind of disappointing, even vaguely humiliating.

I felt manipulated, like I’d been strapped onto a conveyor belt and then processed by some Winterlicious machine that couldn’t have cared less about my experience, but had an eye on the bottom line, just as you might imagine things would feel in the heart of the financial district.

A couple of years ago Rachelle and I went to New York City for the weekend. It was only the second time I’d been to the city, and I was feeling a pretty typical combination of excitement and intimidation.

We were staying at the Roosevelt Hotel at the corner of 45th and Madison, and although this is right in the middle of the swirling heart of Manhattan, it still proved next to impossible to get a cab. And so, along with everybody else from the hotel also looking for a cab, we would all clump together under the awning in the entranceway waiting for the doorman to get us all taxis.

I always felt kind of frustrated and humiliated by this. It just added to my insecurity about being a rube in the big city, making me feel like I was part of some micromanaged bus tour from a prairie church group.

On the second day I broke from the pack and ventured off to hail us a cab while Rachelle waited in the queue back at the hotel, in case I had no luck.

Manhattan is immense and throbbing. Each block-- each half-block really-- feels entirely unique to the previous one. The towering skyscrapers each fall away, replaced by different ones, and the constant flow of people and traffic serves as a current, giving you the sensation of movement and velocity even if you’re just standing still.

It’s exciting and a little bit disorienting, and when I was just a half block away from Rachelle, I felt like I was maybe a million miles away.

It was raining lightly and it was insanely competitive getting a cab, but I persevered, and like a native New Yorker (I thought), I ignored all pretenses to civility and order, and snagged a cab in short order.

However, due to a variety of one-way streets and traffic complications, the cab couldn’t drive the half block to pick Rachelle up at the hotel. And so I stood there on the sidewalk, holding the door of the cab open while I screamed Rachelle’s name, hoping to get her attention. I could see her, but she couldn’t see me, and my voice, thin and raspy, was instantly lost in the sounds of the city. And of course, as I was yelling and yelling, other people, like jackals, began to descend on my cab. I kept yelling Rachelle’s name, but it was no use. The cab driver was restless, and there were at least three other people trying to take-over the ride.

As this sad spectacle was unfolding a man with a ruddy face and a protuberant belly was walking by.

“What’s her name?” he asked.

Demoralized, I sighed, “Rachelle.”

He turned and faced down the street, and putting his hands up to his mouth shouted, “ RACHELLE!!!!!”

It was like he had fired a cannonball into the city.

Rachelle turned and looked up the street, saw me, and started to trot happily toward the cab. The man who had shouted her name, marched away, swallowed up into the city in less than five seconds.

A New York moment.

Recently, one of my hobbies has been reading the stars. I would now like to share with you my astrological forecasts for all the signs for the upcoming week.

Aries March 21-April 19

Dear goat, you can’t allow your stubborn streak to get the best of you this
month. You must be gentle and receptive, understanding that there are two
sides to every coin, sometimes three. Wear yellow.

Taurus April 20-May 20

Dear bull, my friend, you work too hard. If you continue at this pace, I
fear an automobile accident may happen or you might have a quarrel with a
loved on in which you say something you can never take back. The stars say
so, they say that you should take it easy for awhile, maybe catch a movie
and avoid the highway for a spell.

Gemini May 21-June 21

Dear twin, the prettiest in the zodiac. The stars say that this is an
excellent month for romance. Wear that little, black party dress, update
your MySpace web site, have one more glass of wine and party like it’s 1999!
Lucky number, 14.

Cancer June 22-July 22

Dear crab, my little, misunderstood pet of the zodiac. This is a good month
for you to come out of your shell. Ha-ha, get it? Come out of your shell?
Crab, the stars are telling me that you need to see the humour in life, not
everything is grim, you’re not actually named after a horrible disease or
have to live your life blindly crawling along the bottom of a cold and deep
ocean. Lighten up! Have a drink! Avoid hobos!

Leo July 23-August 22

Dear lion, just because someone in your life is feeling very judgmental and
pious, it doesn’t mean you have to stand there and take it. Not this month.
Leo, I ask you to roar, you tell that person to step down to get off their
high horse, or you’ll take the horse down yourself.

Virgo August 23-September 22

Dear virgin, the pure heart of the zodiac. This month, I ask for you to
recognize that creativity emerges from conflict and opposition. What you
think is problem right now is actually a golden opportunity!

Libra September 23-October 22

Dear libra, the sign of my ex. This month will be more of the same. As
usual, you will say that you are going to do something, and then you won’t.
You will continue to have trouble communicating, you won’t respond to the
e-mails people send you and you won’t start to get into shape. There you
have it. It is written in the stars.

Scorpio October 23 - November 21

Dear scorpion, you should look at this month as if it were the start of a
new school year. Ask your mother what you should wear, suck up to those in
authority and seek out those you think are cool, betraying those you suspect
are not. Trust me, this strategy will work.

Sagittarius November 22-December 21

Dear centaur, did you know that Oprah Winfrey is also a Sagittarius? She is.
This month, you should try to be more like her and less like Doctor Phil.

Capricorn December 22-January 19

Dear combination goat-fish, normally you’re as articulate as Bill Clinton,
but lately you’ve been feeling more like a combination of Stockwell Day and
Dan Quayle. Capricorn, this is a good month to keep a low profile.

Aquarius January 20-February 18

Dear aquarius, sweet mermaid, you watch too much television, especially that
reality stuff. Read a book.

Pisces February 19-March 20

Dear piseces, the very fastest swimmer in the zodiac, this is an excellent
month for you. You must attend every party you’re invited to, even those you
haven’t been invited to! You’re as handsome as James Bond and as sexy as a
Marvin Gaye song! Oh, it’s going to be like frosh week! Let it ride this
month, bet it all on red! Stay away from cats, the stars say you might be
developing allergies.

Tall and imposing, he was slightly unsteady on his feet. His bottom lip protruded, giving him a disapproving air, and he had the flat, broad nose and meaty jowls of a spent fighter. He gave my dog and I a hard look. As he was heading for the door he decided to stop and light the cigarette that he had dangling from his mouth. As he was engaged in this casual and pointless act of defiance, Heidi, my Miniature Dachshund, began to bark at him. I shushed her and apologized, but the man brushed unhappily past us, sarcastically sneering “nice dog” as he stepped out onto the sidewalk. I turned and looked at him, and he, smoking on the sidewalk, glared right back at me.

I threw my clothes in the dryer and left, aware that he was still staring at me as I walked down the street home.

An unsettling feeling, that.

An hour later, when I returned to pick up my clothes, the man wasn’t there and I have to admit that I felt kind of relieved. Relaxing a little bit, I began to dig my clothes out of the dryer only to realize that my laundry bag was gone.

I shook my head, imaging this guy finishing his smoke and then returning to the Laundromat. As people looked at the floor and read their newspapers, he would have grabbed my bag and walked out with it, stuffing it in some garbage can around the corner, just to prove to me that it’s a loveless dog-eat-dog world out there.

The application itself is long and involved, and requires a surprising number of rather risqué photographs of myself, so I’ve decided to just excerpt a few portions of it here.

PLEASE DESCRIBE 3 COOKING HORROR STORIES THAT YOU’VE EXPERIENCED.

1. I once made a creamy hamburger soup (with croutons that I made myself from Wonder Bread) that I took to a dinner party as an appetizer. All of the guests thought that it was a joke. Fearless in the Kitchen, it was not a joke. However, as I am cagey and quick on my feet, I pretended it was a joke, too, but I burned, Fearless in the Kitchen, I burned, vowing that one day I would have my revenge.

2. Rachelle, my lady who is all fancy in the kitchen, gave me the responsibility of preparing dinner once a week. It was to be called “Monday’s with Mike.” I made “breakfast for dinner” the first time, serving up some scrambled eggs, beans and Triscuits. Rachelle, after eating a few bites, claimed to have a particularly sore mouth canker and said she was unable to finish the meal, however, I saw her eating leftover chicken about an hour later. The next week I cooked a pot roast, enriching the broth with dried onion soup mix and Grand Marnier. “Monday’s with Mike” was consequently canceled and replaced with “Take-out Tuesday.”

3. As I am a very creative and charitable person, I bounced back after the humiliation of “Monday’s with Mike” and decided to embark on a program of making a new soup each week, which I would then give out to homeless people in the downtown area. As it turns out, many of the homeless have very bad taste in food. Sister Abagail, who works at the nearby mission, came to our door one night and asked me very politely to stop giving the homeless soup as it was giving them intestinal issues. She said “Although it is very sweet of you to want to help, it is clear that God has other plans for you than to be a soup chef.” Fearless in the Kitchen, I burned, once again, I burned.

This was a very unpleasant experience.

Clearly, we’re using far too much electricity and must take some cost cutting measures so that I’m not overcome with waves of intense and debilitating nausea every time we get our monthly bill.

1. Our apartment has very few windows and thus has very poor air circulation. In order to combat this I created a network of 21 constantly rotating fans that always keep the air circulating in an orderly clockwise manner. I’m afraid that the expense of maintaining this fan network (which I named The Michair Machine) is now prohibitive and the system will have to be mothballed. In lieu of The Michair Machine, I have broken a pane of glass in our bedroom window to facilitate air circulation, and have drilled approximately 30 little holes in both our front and back door.

2. I have forbidden Rachelle from using her blow dryer in the apartment, and now insist that she ONLY use it at work.

3. I have sold off some of the jewelry that Rachelle never wears on Craig’s List to help pay for the massive bill.

4. I have bought an extension cord, and am now using the electrical outlet in the hallway—that the building pays for-- for our refrigerator and microwave. Unfortunately, this now means that both our refrigerator and microwave in the hallway, but some sacrifices have to be made.

5. I have bought a kit so that I might learn how to generate electricity from a potato.

6. I am now insisting that whenever Rachelle needs to power up her laptop
computer, that she does this from work. As I work from home, I am exempt from
this requirement.

7. Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund, is no longer allowed her customary 3 hours a
day of Animal Planet.

8. I have replaced the Venetian Blinds that covered our front bedroom windows with a network of cleverly arranged mirrors, so that the lights from the traffic on Queen Street might be reflected into our room so that we don’t need to turn on any lights at night.

9. I have thrown out Rachelle’s electric toothbrush.

10. Using a network of coat hangers, I have constructed a sort of “lightning rod.” (Dubbed the Mightning Rod). Using the Mightning Rod, I plan on tapping into the cables that power the streetcars, and transferring that energy into a receptacle so that I might always have lightning in a bottle.

Last Friday we had a little party to help celebrate a friend’s birthday.

One of the results of this is that we now have a bunch of balloons in the apartment. Like some alien tribe of jellyfish, they’re clustered together in the living room, as if feeding off of some nutrient on the ceiling. When you walk through the room it’s like you’re cutting through brush, having to move the tail-like strings that fall into your path out of the way. It’s fun, this, and it never fails to make me feel like I’m participating in some sort of adventure.

Slowly, over the course of the week, the balloon’s numbers have began to dwindle-- some to domestic accidents, others to age. As the helium escapes and the balloon slowly sinks to the floor, our Miniature Dachshund will immediately set upon it, as if it was some predator invading her den. And so, the remaining balloons have the appearance of survivors, of creatures clinging to life.

Yesterday, while I was sitting in the bedroom doing some work, a purple balloon floated in through the door. This was the first time such a thing had happened, and I was a little bit startled. The balloon bobbed up and down by the ceiling, as if a ghost watching me at the desk.

A friend once told me about an experience he had in which he was convinced that a spirit of a recently deceased friend was contained within a balloon that drifted into his room. The balloon went to my friend and lingered there, and then after five minutes, the balloon expired and drifted to the floor.

An old friend of mine is dying right now, and I had this story in mind as I watched the balloon enter into my bedroom.

After a spell, this balloon drifted toward the center of the room where a rotating fan spun from the ceiling. Its’ string got caught on one of the blades of the fan and the balloon was being violently bounced against the ceiling in a jarring cycle. I immediately leapt up, and freed the balloon from the fan, taking it out onto our semi-enclosed balcony above Queen Street and leaving it there.

As silly as it sounds, I didn’t want to part with the balloon. If it drifted away into the city, fine, but if it stayed, well, that would please me even more. After about ten minutes had passed I heard a scream from out on the street. I went out onto the balcony and saw a street sign lying on the pavement and a few excited pedestrians talking to a police officer.

A moment of drama that had just eluded me.

It was at this point that I remembered the balloon. I looked all over for it, but it was gone. I spent the rest of the day trying to shake a settling sadness, waiting for a phone call that never came.

Today the Blog has been given over to Heidi, Rachelle and Michael's Miniature Daschund

***************************************

Very confusing time for Heidi with all late night talk show controversy.

No know what to think.

Red Conan good dog who could run with Heidi pack any time. He make funny wag tail bark out loud joke! And Andy Richter is good dog, like fat Golden Lab!

But Jay been Alpha for so long! It bad to go against Alpha!

Alpha take food and cast out! And then you have to wander in rain and eat bug, fight big animal! Bad times, bad times when cast out of pack!! Alpha Jay have powerful jaws to rip and tear, too!

But Jay is old dog now, use same jokes for years. Not funny! Not even cat or mice laugh at dumb joke. He rip off Letterman and Red Dog for years! BAD DOG, BAD, BAD DOG!!

Maybe time Alpha go into woods alone.

Don’t know.

Glad I not network exec.

One of the primary leaders of the Christian right, he’s taken mighty swings at all the usual suspects, including homosexuality, feminism, abortion, pornography and liberal professors. He advocates something called Christian Dominionism—that society should be governed by the word of God (Bible)-- worked for a spell as a faith healer, tried to become President of the United States back in 1988 and each year shares with the world some prophetic truths that God had revealed to him, such as the end of the world back in 1982.

A wealthy and powerful man, Robertson often makes his proclamations from his TV show The 700 club. It was from this platform, that when discussing the tragic earthquake in Haiti, he posited that the disaster could be the consequence of a pact with the devil that the people of the island made in the 18th century in order to secure their liberty from French slave owners.

This is the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5nraknWoes

Pat Robertson is a very easy target. Morally and culturally imperious, he projects an indoctrinated view of Christianity out into the world, one that seems to champion intolerance rather than acceptance. It’s kind of scary, and liberal secular humanists just about go bananas whenever he opens his mouth. And his comments on Haiti, of course, were no exception.

When I watched the clip-- which must have been posted by a dozen different people on my Facebook page-- I saw somebody’s aging grandfather. Nearly 80, Robertson seemed like somebody who had some very old-fashioned beliefs, and some very old-fashioned ways of expressing those beliefs. He didn’t seem evil to me, just lost in time and culture. He was trying to make sense of a natural catastrophe in the only way (biblical) that made any sense to his antiquated worldview.

And yes, of course it seems absurd and insulting to those living in the modern world, but he wasn’t waving his arms about telling people not to help Haiti, that this was their just deserts. No, he was imploring his constituents to donate money to the nation. He was actually doing more—in some very simple and very complicated ways-- to help the people in Haiti, than you or I likely ever will.

And so, even those who fear and loath Pat Robertson, have to concede that yes, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

An old man in a Toronto Maple Leafs toque picks up a burning cigarette from Queen Street and places it in his mouth. Blinking his eyes, he crosses the sidewalk into Jimmy Simpson Park. His eyes trained on the ground, he slowly wanders around, hoping for miracles.

At the rink young children learn to play hockey while their parents skate along beside them. A 6 year-old boy wearing a Tim Horton’s jersey puts all of his effort into taking a wrist shot.

“Mom, did you see that?! I raised it!! I raised it!!”

In the tennis courts, two middle-aged men play a variant of soccer. While maintaining an easy conversational flow of Portuguese, they pass the ball back and forth to one another over the net, never using their hands or letting the ball hit the pavement.

Beyond the courts, about a half dozen dogs run riot through the muddy field. Balls everywhere! The owners, like proud parents, stand in a cluster chatting, leashes hanging from their pockets.

A tall thin man in a jean jacket goes from person to person. He’s asking for cigarettes, but nobody seems to have any. Frustrated, he stomps about, occasionally checking the ground, just like the much older man at the other end of the park. Leaving the dog owners, he goes over to the hockey rink, but the parents, protective of their children, turn away from him.

He then goes directly to the tennis court, and through the chain link fence, he asks the men playing soccer if they have any smokes. They wave their hands, shouting “No, no!” and continue to play. He then shakes the fence, giving it a good kick before stalking away.

Now standing in front of a line of sweet and well-maintained homes, he pulls a huge can of beer out of his pocket. Looking back at all the people in the park, he takes three or four good swigs. Crushing the empty with his hand, he throws it into the front yard of the nearest home. And then, as if furious at the world and culture that had rejected him, he stares angrily back at the park, holding the gaze for nearly ten minutes before vanishing down a side street.

I’ve been blessed in my life with an unusually large intellect, one that helped me achieve acceptance from one of the six universities I applied to, and to score a 103 in the CBC Test The Nation IQ test. I’m pretty smart, and everybody knows it.

As such, I get an awful lot of requests to help people out with brainwork. One such request from Heather Spratt (who has been making great strides) came across my desk just the other day. Heather wondered if I might captain and lead a team that she had been organizing to compete in the Wychwood trivia night in February. It’s not very much time to whip a team into shape, but as I like a challenge and have many charitable interests, I have decided to help.

The team, which I am naming THE JESUS COBRAS: TEAM CHARISMA is comprised of 10 people. I am assigning specific topics for which each person on the team will be responsible for complete expertise. This way, I hope to cover all the typical categories that tend to dominate Trivia competitions. I will now provide you with THE JESUS COBRAS: TEAM CHARISMA roster, as well as each individual’s intellectual responsibilities.

Michael Murray:

The obligations of the Alpha pack leader, the music of Hall and Oates, Bigfoot, sharks and UFO’s.

Rachelle Maynard:

Famous zit videos, kitchen accidents and biblical prophecy.

Julia Barylak:

The Ukraine, vitamins and Star Trek.

Mark Farrant:

The movies of Jessica Alba, gold and the NHL.

Douglas Mason:

Chicken coop construction and dill.

Meghan Henry:

Daniel Craig, Clive Owen and ghosts.

Dan Elliott:

Iron Man, The Venerable Bede and cars.

Chris Parsons:

Animated porn from the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1950’s.

Faith Bachlow:

Paintball and dream interpretation.

Heather Spratt:

Family Feud and the solar system.

There are presently two alternates on the team. It will be there responsibility to step-in in case there is an injury, or if I decide that any member of THE JESUS COBRAS: TEAM CHARISMA is just too stupid to compete.

Alternates:

Stephen Denning;

Peppermills and demons.

Jen Carparu:

Theatre stars of Rwanda and hacky sac.

Team drills, both physical and mental, begin next week, and the uniforms I am designing should be ready for our first dress rehearsal one week before the competition.

Like everybody else, I’d heard that it was the next great leap forward in movie making, and that the director had successfully created an intricate and nuanced world that existed wholly unto itself.

Everybody I spoke to seemed to have been gobsmacked by the experience.

Well, I can’t say that I much liked Avatar.

A number of criticisms of the movie are well known by now. For instance, the story is straightforward to the point of being simple-minded. Avatar is little more than a mash-up of Braveheart, Dance With Wolves, Lord of the Rings, Aliens etcetera etcetera…And of course, that ultimately this was once again a story about how white people rescued an indigenous population from colonial predation. (This is typical of Hollywood “message” movies, in which the self-satisfied and paternal voice of white liberalism delivers a stirring sermon on harmony and morality, when the reality is the closest they’ve come to penetrating an alien culture is their yoga class.)

But honestly, I don’t think that these criticisms are all that interesting, and surely, with Avatar, the medium is the message, right?

Yes, when they hand you special glasses to wear for a movie, you know it’s going to be a spectacle, or at the very least they’ve successfully predisposed you to the idea of spectacle, and let me tell you, I was a world of excited and keen.

However, I have to say that never once while watching Avatar did I have the sense that I was seeing something brand new. I could see the antecedents of the film in the 2005 remake of King Kong, and I just didn’t experience the great leap forward Avatar had promised. It was more of the same, just delivered with a little more attention and polish, and was really nothing new. For me, the animated Japanese classic Spirited Away (2000) was far more successful at constructing an evocative and utterly transfixing world. Avatar just sat there, and never once did I find myself slipping out of the theatre and into the landscape of the movie.

Essentially, Avatar is a filmic interpretation of a comic book. It’s flat and one-dimensional, with campy dialogue delivered without a trace of irony, and a belligerent and manipulative soundtrack (either mystic, Enya-like warbling, or the overwrought hysterics of Spielberg orchestration), to position the audience in whatever emotional stance we were supposed to assume. It lacks subtlety, allowing no room for ambiguity or complexity. We were told what to feel, and then commanded to feel it.

In the end, Avatar felt like a video game-- like watching a video game-- only in order to be taken seriously, Cameron removed all sense of fun and replaced it with a “message.” It made me wish I saw Piranha, the 3-D movie that was advertised in a string of trailers before Avatar began, in which “unstoppable killing machines acting blindly out of primeval impulse, hunt down anything that moves and strips it to the raw, bleeding bone,” instead.

When you put on 3-D glasses, you’re supposed to have fun.

Behind sunglasses, a man wearing a do rag head wrap sits up front near the driver. He has a tattoo of a lion on one arm and a shark on the other. He relates to the predators. Look out! Don’t mess with him! Sit somewhere else!

Three girls giggle with one another as they ride the bus. The girl wearing a skull and bones bracelet cannot stop moving. She’s dancing, telling the others that the number 18 is a lame route, “it’s retarded, it, like, takes forever to get anywhere!” The other girls excitedly agree, they’re going to a party, and they want to get there quickly.

On Donald, a woman in a baseball hat has three bottles of water pinched between her colourless thighs. She looks around at all the other passengers with suspicion, and then pulls out a little bottle of antibacterial sanitizer and washes her hands. Thoroughly.

On Frances, the bus travels past brick homes that look like they might be city housing. Two police cars sit in front of Lola’s confectionary. The cops talk to distinguished looking woman who has an expression on her face that suggests she’s sick of the neighbourhood punks.

Wearing gold shoes, two bosomy black girls in hot pants get on. Sitting in different seats, they chew gum and look out the window. Bored, they project an air of self-assurance, like they don’t care what you think.

At St. Laurent and Tremblay an older East Indian man with impressive tufts of hair protruding from his ears sits down and starts to read an old Robert Ludlum paperback. He’s wearing a grey fedora that he’s probably owned for fifty years.

A young woman dressed in sportswear that matches her baby blue LuLu Lemon bag appears confident of her beauty, like she’s used to turning down dates. Each day she must practice Yoga and watch what she eats. She flips through a copy of People magazine, lingering over a photo spread of Cameron Diaz. As she scans the pictures, she looks like she’s taking mental notes for her future, when she, too, will be a star.

At the St. Laurent shopping center, a man calls his wife to find out what’s for dinner. He seems pleased to find out that it’s Polish sausages.

At the Overbrook community center, a few guys shoot hoops while a group of flirty girls stand nearby. In shorts and tank tops, the girls stretch, as if their muscles might be sore, hoping to catch the eye of one of the shirtless players.

A fit woman in Lycra gets on with a pair of rollerblades slung over her shoulder. After her workout, she treats herself to a sundae that she pulls out of her knapsack. She eats carefully, saving the Raspberries for the very end.

A sad looking woman removes a greeting card from her purse. When she opens it and reads what’s inside, she raises two fingers to her lips, as if something has just touched her heart.

In this spirit, I decided to get Rachelle, who just loves animals, a pet chicken for our apartment. She has long thought that Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund, should have an animal companion, and I thought the surprise of a chicken would be a welcome delight for both of them, and so, on Tuesday, I went up to Chinatown to see if I couldn’t find the new addition to our home.

FYI, It turns out most of the chickens you find in Chinatown are not sold as pets.

No matter, outside of Champions Off-Track Wagering on Gerrard Street, I watched as a man threw a live chicken out into the alley.

It was fate.

The man, who was very angry, told me that the chicken (“Screaming Joe”) was “bad fighter who run away yelling all the time!” and that “you lose lots of money if you bet on this coward bird!” And so, I rescued Screaming Joe from a desperate life of violence and degradation, and took him home to make him a part of our family.

Well, it turned out that neither Rachelle nor Heidi were as keen on my spontaneous gift as I’d hoped they’d be. Heidi tried to kill the bird, and Rachelle complained that he was filthy, destructive and quite possibly mentally retarded. They ostracized Screaming Joe, forcing him to live on the semi-enclosed front balcony.

It was here, from his perch on the railing, where he had to endure the icy stares of hatred and bigotry from Rachelle and the ceaseless threat of Heidi’s violent barking. Pigeons, perhaps jealous of Screaming Joe’s majestic plumage, swooped in and taunted him, reveling in the liberty of the flight my chicken could never quite achieve.

And so, on Wednesday morning, Screaming Joe, with one final Cock-A-Doodle-Doo—as if to thank me for all I tried to do for him—stepped off our balcony and into the path of a streetcar, and just like that, his beautiful light was extinguished.

Screaming Joe, you were a beautiful and glorious bird, and I hope that now, in death, you will find the peace that eluded you in life, and finally take flight, living amongst the angels.

Truly, the acoustics of hockey are a thing of beauty.

Free from the hysterics of sports for spectacle, there’s a quiet rhythm to the game. Gently muffled by the surrounding snow, you hear the sound of skates cutting into ice. There’s movement and breathing, a spray of ice chips as somebody stops or changes direction, the flat slap of a stick against the ice, and the cold, solid thud of the puck hitting a goaltender’s pads. Occasionally punctuating this narrative, young men in toques and sweaters call out to one another from the ice. Conserving their breath, their words are spare.

“ Behind You!”

“Man!”

“Back, Back!”

Five guys get out of a car. With their skates and sticks slung over their shoulders, they walk like gunfighters toward the rink. Coming from Leslieville, they were going to show those Riverside boys what for.

Game on!

At ten o’clock the city workers came and took the nets away, and quickly, the game just vanished. The players departed, and all that was left was the bright white rink, the snow and the sky.

And then it was completely silent, as if at that moment the entire city had settled in for the night.

I kept throwing the ball for Heidi.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a big dog, his leash dragging along behind him, bounded upon us. A teenage girl with raccoon eyes chased after him, desperately shouting his name. When she caught up she was breathless, a lit cigarette in her bare hand. Seeming a little bit messed-up, she assured us that he was friendly and that we shouldn’t worry. However, the girl had the appearance of somebody who didn’t really have much control over herself, let alone the massive dog that was her charge.

Behind her slunk a boy in an oversized jacket with a ball cap twisted onto his head gangster style. Hands in his pockets, he just watched as she tried to corral her dog, waiting to capitalize on whatever opportunity the night presented, a look that wondered if he was going to get away with it on his face.

The bus goes down Crichton Street and turns onto Sussex. A guy in a zippy is talking passionately into his phone. The subject is bigotry and the mainstream media and he has a lot to say on the matter. The conversation swings back and forth. In a burst, he will speak for three minutes, and then, for the next three minutes, he’s quiet, listening.

On Dalhousie, a young man wearing a huge knapsack on his back walks down the aisle. When he turns around, the bag knocks a woman in the side of the head. Not too hard, but hard enough. The woman doesn’t say anything, but looks to other passengers for their support and commiseration. For the rest of the trip, she shoots the oblivious teen sour looks. She hates him and his stupid bag. You can just tell. You can see it in her eyes.

Near the World Exchange Plaza, a cocky looking twenty-something gets on the bus. Chewing gum, he seems pleased with himself for having a job that requires he wear a suit to work each day, while the rest of his buddies still live with their parents and work in restaurants. There is a skull and bones logo on his laptop case. The suit says, pro, but the bag says, party.

A man who was sitting near the front of the bus gives up his seat and retreats to the rear. He’d probably been feeling guilty about sitting there from the moment he first sat down. A pretty woman looks around at the other passengers, waiting for somebody to move. She smiles and shrugs, and then happily sits in the vacant seat.

On Preston Street, in front of the Prescott, a man takes a deep haul on his cigarette before flicking it away and boarding the bus. He’s about sixty and looks like he imagines himself to be the life of the party. He stands up front, talking to the driver about his cottage, “opening it each season is a real bitch, but boy, is it worth it!”

Near the War Museum, a sign for The Good Companions social center for seniors promotes a fashion show. I bet it will be sweet—Grandmothers smelling of Lavender soap, their little dogs dressed in Argyle sweaters.

A man with devilish facial hair gets on. There’s a pronounced and suspicious streak of silver splitting the goatee on his chin. He has menacing eyes and hairy hands. Listening to music, he chews his gum like he’s killing something. I imagine he’s listening to something powerful and haunting, perhaps the Carmina Burana. Later, before he gets off in Nepean, his iPod reveals that it was Rick Wakefield.

A young women with Down’s Syndrome dozes in her seat. She looks so sweet, so vulnerable with the bus pass pinned to her jacket and her mouth open. Although she might not notice, there’s graffiti waiting for her when she wakes up. On the back of the seat directly in front of her, are the words You Are Beautiful, a reminder that somebody has taken the care to leave for the rest of us.

I live the way of The Warrior.

The very next day, while I was taking the train back to Toronto from Ottawa, a nearly duplicate situation presented itself.

I was sitting in first class on Via Rail, enjoying my fourth complimentary Screwdriver, when the Porter approached me and asked what I would like for my lunch.

There were three choices.

1) Pork Tenderloin
2) Crap
3) Shit

Naturally, I wanted the Pork Tenderloin, but was told in a very fancy French accent that they were out of the Pork Tenderloin. I was sitting on the first car on the train and I was the third person whose order had been taken.

Firmly, in the way of The Warrior, I asked, “ HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU BE OUT OF PORK TENDERLOIN?! I’M JUST THE THIRD PERSON YOU’VE TAKEN AN ORDER FROM! I’M IN FIRST CLASS HERE, FIRST CLASS! ISN’T THAT WORTH SOMETHING? YES, YES IT IS, IT’S WORTH SOME FUCKING PORK TENDERLOIN!”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah,” the porter responded.

“YOU’RE FAT AND I THINK YOU’RE GAY! YOUR WEDDING RING ISN’T FOOLING ANYBODY! I WANT MY PORK!!” I added.

“Yaddah, yaddah, yaddah, we thank you for your cooperation,” the fat, gay porter said.

“ I’M NOT FUCKING COOPERATING, I’M BEING SUBJECT TO A GREAT INJUSTICE, AND I AM GOING TO FIGHT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT, AS I AM A WARRIOR!”

I then struck my martial arts stance.

As The Warrior’s way is never easy, some disruptive college kids-- that for some reason were in first class-- began to throw peanuts at me ( It is very interesting that Via Rail had an abundance of peanuts to give to college kids to throw at me, but no Pork Tenderloin.) and make some insensitive remarks about my hairline and the sweater I was wearing.

To make a long story short, I was overwhelmed by the fat, gay porter and several passengers, and forced off the train at Gananoque. But The Warrior does not sulk, and I spent the day at the Casino, where I enjoyed a performance of Nearly Neil--a Neil Diamond impersonator—and played some Texas Hold ‘Em, where I had some bad luck. However, The Lord watches over Warriors, and I was able to take the bus home to Toronto shortly after I found several buckets of change near an elderly woman who had fallen asleep at a Slots machine.

I have to admit, I went there with a kind of ghoulish intent. I was interested in seeing how the presence of dead people would make me feel, thinking that the exhibit might be some combination of art installation and haunted house. But the show was taking place at the child-friendly Science Center and it was stubbornly educational rather than artistic.

I had been expecting an uncomfortably intimate experience, but the bodies on display seemed unreal and remote to me. Skinless and struck in a series of Olympic poses, they had been denuded of any personality. In death, they had been reduced to anatomical studies, and the personal details I had hoped for, which would make me feel truly connected to them, were absent.

All the same, the show did reveal just how much the same, we, as human beings, are. We all have the same engine, yet in spite of this, somehow, each one of us remains so very different.

In the close and crowded museum space, a 12 year-old girl and her younger brother were looking at a collection of animal hearts. “ If your brain were on this table,” she began, “it would be the size of a nut.”

An Asian man wore a massive Fisherman’s sweater tucked primly into his corduroy pants. Suddenly, as if the idea had just occurred to him, he would swiftly bend to look at the items on display. With his hands on his hips, he had the appearance of a man doing calisthenics.

A mother and her adult daughter toured through the exhibit. Both blonde and dressed in black, they carried themselves in exactly the same manner. With their arms crossed over their chests, they would look at the items on display with unimpressed, slightly sour expressions. But freed of her mother’s company and put in the proximity of a young man she thought was cute, the daughter became animated and chatty, suddenly enlivened by the exhibit around her.

Mostly though, the children present were young.

A mother of an 8 year-old boy was encouraging her child in his curiosity. She spoke slowly and patiently to him, employing a certain tone to her voice that was clearly reserved for him alone. It was pride, I think, and listening to her, it became obvious that she was throwing her voice just a little more than she really needed to.

Without incident, I was able to instruct these people on proper five-pin bowling footwork for a couple of hours before the place shut down for the night. As my friends are kind of stupid and unaccustomed to the culture of bowling, they all packed up and left, heading off to their cars, while I, armed with a tray of beer, sat about waiting to field questions from my pupils.

The details of what follows are unimportant.

What is important is that I stood up for justice, and when the three stooges who worked there told me that I had to leave, I refused.

Elizabeth Tevlin, sensing that some trouble was brewing, came in from the parking lot to see what was going on, and what she saw was me-- Michael Murray-- fighting for freedom. The evil-doers who worked there, having taken all my beer away, were now trying to get me to wait outside for the cab they’d called for me, so that they could take off to Torpedo Johnny’s Sports Bar for last call. As it was -30 out, I refused. Thinking that I now had Elizabeth’s support, I began to chant:

THE PEOPLE, UNITED,
WILL NOT BE SO BLIGHTED!

But Elizabeth was cowardly and did not join in with the chant. Instead, she shared a smoke with the thugs, before turning to me and saying, “Jesus, Michael, “and then leaving.

After the morons who worked there found out I cancelled the cab that they called for me because it didn’t have a GPS, things got pretty heated. The three boys, now nearly men, formed a triangle and began to move toward me.

Time slowed as I assumed my Martial Arts stance.

The one boy who looked like he was trying to grow a mustache, rushed toward me from behind, and using the Zen philosophy I learned from my good friend action star Steven Seagal, I allowed him to twist my arm behind my back so that he thought he was in control of the situation. I then employed my Freedom Cry, in which I emitted a high-pitched scream that tends to disorient and alarm my enemies, and pretended to fall down.

Just as I was about to unleash the “Fury of the Pigeon” and decimate my opponents, it would seem that my leadership inspired one of my bowling students. Elizabeth came in from the cold, and after sighing, said, “ Listen, I’ll drive him home, okay? Let’s just end this pitiful spectacle, alright?”

And of course, getting a drive home was my plan all along.

The Master imparts yet another lesson to his pupils.

Sometimes, I think I can feel their residue.

Gerald Sparrow is a large, bald, egg-like man. Once, when I woke up in the middle of the night, I saw his silhouette writing at a desk near the fireplace.

Major Donald Neville-Willing, a diminutive, dapper figure sporting a red carnation, appeared briefly one day in the reflection of a mirror in the living room. Just for a split second, and then the image was gone, but we can still tell when he’s present by the scent of pipe tobacco and tweed.

Sylvie Gagnon is little more than five feet tall and looks to be about 16. She likes music, appearing on two separate occasions, both times when the song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen was playing.

Heidi barks at the first two ghosts, but not at Sylvie.

***********************************************

This year for Christmas Heidi want Guillotine death factory for mouse.

Also want kit to build bomb to kill mouse that try to steal her food.

For many nights, mouse live in den with Heidi pack. Heidi no invite mouse to be part of pack.

This BAD MOUSE, BAD, BAD MOUSE!!

I big and strong, mouse frail and weak! If I want, could kill mouse using just tail! But can no find scared mouse. Mouse no fight Heidi for meat prize like noble dog, but scurry and hide, live behind cold, food box like coward! No-size-ugly-whisker- face only come out when Heidi sleep, and then try to steal food like pirate mouse.

When Heidi hear mouse go click-click thieving on floor, I go to chase and kill. I want to tear mouse guts out!! I bark and bark and bark and run and run and run, try to dig through floor and move cold food box with head! Sometimes I get so so mad and excited I pee on floor. And then four-eyed-two-legged food giver yell in raspy voice, call me bad dog, when it bad mouse who cause all trouble!!

So frustrating!

Hate fucking mouse!!

So for Christmas Heid want instruments of war so can kill squeak brain mouse. Kill mouse dead and bloody! Little bits of mouse and dead mouse smell everywhere! But instead, for Christmas get stupid bone that no smell of meat, and Hannah Montana outfit that make Heidi look fat.

It crappiest Christmas ever!

In the hallway of the Park Hyatt Hotel, a tall and obese man with narrow, sloping shoulders walks toward the elevator. Slightly out of breath, he stands heavily by the doors, a crucifix hanging from his neck. A woman comes along after him, her socks matching her red sweater. As soon as she gets to the elevators, she begins to speak, as if she’d been having an internal conversation with herself all the way down the corridor.

“And what makes it even more complicated is that he’s in the process of reinventing himself.”

The man has his arms folded across his chest, one hand stroking his beard. He doesn’t speak immediately, but thinks about what she’s just said, before adding,

“That’s an awful lot of work.”

She nods her head. With great sadness and concern in her voice, she says, “ John, I’m so worried about him. “

Her eyes lost to the idea of this other person.

As I stepped out onto Queen Street from my apartment, a little girl who was alone in a parked car spotted me and immediately locked her door. She smiled and waved, letting me know-- in her way-- that she was just following her parent’s instructions and not to take it personally.

On the streetcar rumbling up Broadview, the driver stops the vehicle and lets on a man carrying two coffees. With a big smile on his face, he hands one to the driver. Familiar and animated, the two men act like this moment was absolutely the best part of their day.

A large, slightly scary looking man with a severe expression on his face sits by the window. I can’t help myself, and for whatever reason, keep stealing glances over at him. When we make eye contact, he quickly looks down and away, as if ashamed.

On the subway platform at Broadview, two boys with hockey sticks pass a crushed Pepsi can back and forth while waiting for the train.

At the corner of Bloor and Bathurst, shoppers comb through a table of bootlegged DVD’s. An old Asian man, shifting his weight from leg to leg, presides over the table. A man in his mid 30’s has a slight mental impairment, and he’s excitedly relating a long, rather wandering story to the Asian man, who responds by smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding. The customer wants him to save a copy of the Star Trek movie for him, but first he has to go home and ask his mother if it’s okay for him to spend the money.

“You will do this for me because I am a very good customer, right?” he asks.

The Asian man smiles and nods, smiles and nods.

Happy, the man heads toward home to speak with his mother. He turns around, yelling from the sidewalk, “ I will be back in 40 minutes to buy the Star Trek movie, okay?” and then he starts to jog.

In Yorkville, an expensively attired couple, sit across from one another sipping coffee. They’re both focused, busy on their iPhones, never making eye contact.

The woman’s phone goes off, and in a trilling, luxurious voice answers, “ Hello my baby, how are you?!”

“How was the show?”

“Glad to hear it!”

“Yes, we’re at the café at Holt Renfrew!”

The man, still on his iPhone, has yet to look up or change his expression.

In front of the Bay Subway station beggars, in a drunken call to joy, shout Christmas carols at the passing pedestrians.

My
Wish
List

By Jennifer

Jennifer had printed each letter with a different coloured magic marker, and had dotted her I’s with stars, a graphical flourish that I still employ. He title page was encircled by a bunch of swirly lines—also of different colours—and a series of unevenly spaced dots.

As beautiful and sweet a piece of folk art as you’re likely to find.

Inside, with far less visual flair, was a no-nonsense list of 13 items she wanted for Christmas, that she had printed—very carefully—in pencil. Some of the items, like Justin Bieber stuff, came with spray of exclamation points.

At the top of her list were a laptop and a cell phone, but these had both been crossed out, as her parents had likely told her that those gifts were out of the question. The other things she wanted were pretty standard fare for an 11 year-old girl, I think. She wanted money and clothes, jewelry and purse, a DVD of the movie New Moon, Wii Rock Star, anything related to Justin Bieber, and a variety of Hannah Montana stuff.

When I was a kid I LOVED making my Christmas list. I would flip through the massive Sears Christmas catalogue, which was as heavy as the telephone book, and start madly circling things, like I was on The Price is Right and I only had 90 seconds to go through the entire catalogue. Sometimes I did this so enthusiastically that the pen would tear through the page.

Rachelle’s nephews, aged 7 and 5, do the same thing for their parents. We were at their house last week and were flipping through the catalogue, looking at the things they wanted. Anything related to Pirates or Star Wars seemed to be gold, but there was also a whole host of unpredictable and eccentric items that had been selected.

As I flipped through the catalogue I saw that they had not confined themselves to toys, but had circled things like an angel candelabra, a crossbow, a crystal locket in the shape of a heart, and a weird looking humidifier, that for some reason had caught one of their eyes.

I guess you never know what’s going to make somebody happy, and for that we’re probably all very lucky.

At any rate, I hope that Jennifer, and William and Sammy (Rachelle’s nephews), get most of what they asked for, and a few surprising and wonderful things that they never even imagined, and I hope that you do, too.

You know, if you asked me that question a couple of years ago, I would have said no, but now that I have a disloyal and ungrateful dog, I believe that the answer to that question is yes.

Last week, Rachelle’s sister Sommer stayed with us while she was visiting Toronto. Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund, very nearly went insane with joy. She swooned about Sommer, complimenting her on her perfume and shiny hair. She made her little smoothies and helped her off with her boots, always sleeping on her bed, like it was just the greatest place on the planet.

It was disgusting to watch.

Whenever I called Heidi, or asked her to do something, she just gave me a sarcastic “AS IF” look. And of course, the more I persisted, the worse it became.

She would only respond to Sommer

After six glasses of wine on Friday night, I decided that I had enough of this disrespect and decided to assert my Alpha status in the household. I cleared the women folk (human) from the apartment, and then commenced my display of dominance by shrieking at the dog for 20 minutes, telling her everything about her that I’ve been disappointed in over the years. I let her know in no uncertain terms that she was a horrible bug hunter, couldn’t dig worth a shit, and was an unmitigated disaster when it came to Fetch.

It was a pretty awesome and thunderous display, which was likely enhanced by my tears. However, instead of receiving contrition and submission from the animal, I got attitude. She turned her head away, as if she wasn’t listening, and then just started to yip away in a sarcastic bark. It was at this point that the neighbours complained about the noise, and a silent staring battle between myself and the dog began.

This proved inconclusive.

Now furious and frustrated, I ripped off my shirt and challenged Heidi. We fought for nearly 20 minutes, and thankfully, using my superior intellect, I was able to pin her and establish my dominant status after frightening her by turning on the vacuum cleaner.

The next day, everything seemed to have returned to normal. However, while I was walking her, she began to pull very violently against the leash. I commanded her to stop, but she continued, yanking me onto an icy patch. I Immediately slipped and tumbled down a little slope. When I opened my eyes and figured out what had happened, Heidi came walking slowly over to me. She put one paw on my throat and placed her snout right up to my nose and just looked at me with black, burning eyes. And then very slowly, she exerted a just a little bit more pressure on my throat with her paw. Near panic, I was just about to hit her with a Pizza Pizza box I had rolled onto by the curb, but at that moment she saw a cat and began to bark madly, and the chilling spell was broken.

Sadly, I did not hear back from Mr. Baldwin before Shelagh’s trip, and so they never got to meet. However, today I was lucky enough to receive a response to my letter from Mr. Baldwin.

Dear Mister Murray:

I want to thank you very much for the letter you sent on your friend Shelagh’s behalf. She sounds like a very special and brave person. However, as I am a big star with many sexual opportunities, I am a very busy man, and rarely have time for non-publicized charity activities.

I do want to take a moment to express just how impressed I was by the letter you wrote. Michael, it was persuasive and sincere, expressing a great depth of feeling without being sentimental. As an actor, I want you to know that I would have been honored to get to speak those words. I also read your Blog, and it is one of the most remarkable documents I have ever come across in my life. Michael, it is brilliant and moving, funny and penetrating, and I want you to know that I need your agile mind to become a part of Team Baldwin.

I am presently working on a project to be called The Tiger Woods Story: A Life in the Sand Trap. I am to play Tiger Woods, in what I hope will be a career-defining role. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m planning on playing Tiger Woods in black face.

I am also working with Susan Boyle (from the British American Idol) on a musical comedy, where she plays a frumpy, middle-aged spinster, who is encouraged to follow her dreams and become a singer by the spirit of her deceased grandfather, a Vaudeville performer named Red O’ Boyle, played by myself, Alec Baldwin.

Michael, I would be over the moon if you could help me flesh out these ideas. Together, I think we could make some of the best art this century has ever seen. Please come to New York so that we can have a meeting.

I will send a jet for you at your convenience, and I can promise you many sexual opportunities.
Oscar nominated actor,

Alec Baldwin

PS: I want you to know that I might be interested in developing the story of The Jesus Cobras, and the gripping story of the abduction of Mr. Peanut, into stop-motion animation feature films.

The movie, portrayed by critics as relentlessly bleak, is actually beautiful to look at. Spare and gray, the landscape is a looming, awesome portent, one that suggests, rather than contains eternity. It was mesmerizing to look at, reminding me of the visual experience of watching the Jim Jarmusch masterpiece Dead Man—alien and omnipresent.

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis provide a soundtrack that’s lyrical and melancholy. Listening to it as the movie unfolded, I was infused with a kind of romanticism, be it for the want of a love lost or for one that may yet be achieved. It was actually hard to feel pessimism and gloom in the face of such visual and aural beauty. From Armageddon, art was born, and art is nothing if not hope.

The movie, though, felt incomplete. For reasons that make sense to Hollywood rather than an audience, Charlize Theron was cast as the man’s wife. We see her in flashbacks throughout the movie, providing a star-accented subtext for the narrative that actually propels the film. We all have pasts of imagined beauty, and one hardly needs to put the face of Charlize Theron on that past, in order to make it vivid.

This diversion is pointless, serving to dilute the tension and weight of the work—how do we respond in the face of our inescapable and merciless extinction—rather than amplify it.

The movie was a weird, aesthetic experience, one that was formal rather than felt, and rather than staying with me for a long time, as did No Country For Old Men, this movie just sort of fell away as soon as I left the theatre.

Walking east along Queen Street they lean into one another. His hands are in his pockets. She, with her head down, smiles, her hands encircling his arm. They look like the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. In fact, it’s entirely possible that they’re so self-consciously in love that they’re trying to conjure that image in the minds of people passing by. She looks up at him, her eyes just a little uncertain, vulnerable, “ you weren’t chipper the other night, normally you’re chipper. Is everything alright?”

Coming west on the street are two teenaged boys, both tricked out gangster style. Low riding jeans, tilted ball caps and oversized NFL jackets, they swing their shoulders from side to side when they walk, as if hoping to bump into somebody and start a fight.

The taller of the two boys is speaking, “Yeah, and so I finally heard back from eHarmony, and apparently there’s no fucking match for me. They say this happens to about 5% of their customers and that it has nothing to do with me—just a freak thing. They’re going to give me my money back, and keep my file in the system, but man, I don’t know.”

The other guy, far from laughing as I expected, nodded his head, “that’s a drag, dude, but I’m sure the right one will turn up. You’re a great guy, you just hang in there,” and then with a look of sincere concern on his face, he gently punched his friend in the arm.

Sunny sun clean blue wind day.

Four-eye-two-legged food giver take me out to chase little roll balls that no smell of life. It fun! I run and run and kill ball!

I also roll in bones of chicken, so that other dog think I kill the chicken, but I no kill the chicken! I just find parts of dead chicken and trick other dog! Ha! Silly dogs believe whatever Heidi smell like. Like Heidi smell, Heidi do! But make no mistake, Heidi easy kill chicken if cluck-head dumb enough to say hi!

I very fast dog and can run for nights and days no problem! But four-eye-two-legged food giver no run. He slow. Plod, plod, plod. When he take me up stairs he sigh and make very bad words to his Gods. So when we go out, I give him the exercise so he not stop life and no give me the food and treat. Instead of bringing roll ball to him, I leave it so he must pick up. I do this all time and he no figure it out!! He walk and walk and walk, thinking I play fetch, but really he is fetch monkey! Ha!

Heidi smart dog.

Four-eyed-two-legged treat giver nice, but he no smart dog.

Normally, my fantasy sports team-- A Fury of Pigeons-- finishes in the money, but for the last little while my teams have been underachieving, and the revenues I had hoped to be pulling in from merchandizing has not been realized. Typically, I’d offset these loses by wagering on TV shows like Jeopardy, The Apprentice and America’s Next Top Model, but for a variety of reasons, Goran, my bookie, has stopped taking bets on TV shows and will only accept wagers on either the Russian Soccer League, or the Russian Hockey League, and so far I’ve had positively tragic luck in this regard. (Vasiliy Berezutsky has been inexplicably missing an awful lot of penalty kicks!)

Further, the research that I’ve been putting in at Jilly’s Gentleman’s Club, for my work-in-progress graphic novel—Strippers and Swans—has been much more expensive than initially anticipated. To make a long story short, this unexpected downturn in the market has been casting a bit of a pall over Christmas.

As it would crush me to disappoint Rachelle, I have been working on the side to make a little bit more money to replenish our portfolio. Twice a week, I set up a stand between the St. John’s Mission and a primary school located near Queen and Broadview. At this table, I sell a variety of goods that Rachelle doesn’t seem to use anymore.

I take Heidi—our miniature Dachshund-- with me whenever I open up my stand. She looks adorable as she sits there shivering with her sad eyes, and really increases the amount of pedestrian traffic I receive. ( I sold Rachelle’s hair dryer to a stripper-- who said she needed it for her routine--the other day after she spotted Heidi! ) I have also started to charge the children at the school fifty cents each to pet the dog, and two dollars to dress her up.

At any rate, while Heidi was chasing down one of the children, a man came out of the strip club to have a smoke. He watched the whole scene, and then told me that I had a really fast animal, and that maybe I’d like to run her in a race or two. As I think this would be good exercise for Heidi, and a really great way for her to meet and socialize with other dogs, I said yes, and so, Ricky and I and Heidi will being training next week, hopeful that a Christmas miracle is about to reveal itself to us.

There’s a type of arrogance—both implicit and explicit-- in calling attention to your lack of interest in that which the vast majority of people are drawn toward. At the very least, this impulse lacks generosity, and it seems very conventional in thinking, to me, like a prude trying to fob of their lack of imagination as strength of character.

It’s obvious, but the inescapable reason that the Tiger Woods story is important is because people care about the saga, and what people care about matters.

To make a display of disengaging oneself from one of the dominant narratives of our culture is to disengage oneself from people. It’s like declaring to your elderly neighoubour that you’re no longer going to listen to her talk about the weather.

The marketing machinery that was Tiger Woods created a global empire. This was predicated not just upon his transcendent golf game, but also on his ability to cross boundaries of race and class, all the while maintaining a corporate gleam that suggested he was the very embodiment of rectitude, dignity and fidelity.

Team Tiger built monuments to his glory, and whatever was secret and good about him, was amplified and made public, while whatever was secret and bad, was buried. Tiger Woods is entirely responsible for the ridiculously heroic persona that was foisted upon the public.

We didn’t impose this belief on him, he imposed it on us.

And so now we find out that he is, in fact, an asshole.

There’s no way around this.

There are no excuses.

He traveled around the world fucking whomever he pleased, and for purely self-gratifying reasons, he lied to his wife, his family and his public. That the world at large is now thirsty to have the depths of this deception made public is neither surprising nor wrong.

What does strike me as wrong is the censorious tone of the people who imply an intellectual laziness in those of us who turn on TMZ for the latest on Tiger Woods, while they—who would give up their TV but for The Daily Show—live lives of authenticity.

In the end, I’m not sure that it matters which tribe you identify with, and which stories that tribe holds dear, but that you have the capacity to share in the pleasure of communicating with the people around you, through those stories.

On Saturday, for the first time in my life, I played the Wii game Rock Band.

Rachelle and I were over at some friends for coffee, and after an hour or so, our hosts decided that it might be kind of fun to play this game. In another era they might have broken out Yahtzee or Trivial Pursuit, but now, it’s the Wii.

For those of you who live remote lives of biting purity, Rock Band is a music video game in which the players use a guitar-shaped controller, a microphone, and a drum kit, to simulate playing famous rock songs. It’s like Karaoke, only with instruments, and somehow, everybody’s performance is scored so that there are winner and losers.

And as most of you probably know, I’m a winner.

I cannot contain my winningness.

It radiates out of me like beautiful but deadly pulses of light.

The first song we competed to was “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi. I was on vocals and I fucking killed it. Unfortunately, Vanessa and Paul keep a very cluttered home, and while I was performing my routine, a very stupidly placed aquarium broke, as did one light and a Christmas decoration.

I was on guitar for the next song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who. At this point, after my dominant performance on “Wanted Dead or Alive,” I think I had crushed the spirit of my opponents, as Vanessa was crying (something about her mother having given her the stupidly placed Christmas ornament that broke), and Paul was pretending to be busy trying to clean up the aquarium spill. I think Rachelle was consoling Vanessa, but I’m not sure, as I was pretty focused.

As my opponents did not play and defaulted on round two, I won it easily.

The third and final song in our competition was by The Strokes, and I was on drums, which is the most challenging and physical of the three components of Rock Band. I had my shirt off and had just begun to bang my drum sticks together to signal the start of the song, when Rachelle—who simply hates losing—grabbed me by my ear and yanked me off the sofa, hissing, “ WE. HAVE. TO. LEAVE. NOW!!”

As everybody defaulted on round three, my substantial lead was enough to carry me to an easy victory.

My Rock Band record now stands at a perfect 1-0.

On Old St. Patrick Road, in front of De La Salle High School, a girl in a green hoodie gives the finger to some students who just got on the bus. She’s jumping about on the sidewalk, happy and defiant. She yells something at them before spinning away and walking off like the diva she knows herself to be.

A young woman in a camouflage baseball hat and tight jeans sits up front. In the traffic directly beside her is a black jeep that’s headed to Quebec. Trying to make good-time eye contact with her is the driver of the car. Acting repulsed, she quickly turns away, but smiles to herself when nobody is looking.

In front of the Rideau Center, a muscular man carrying a cooler gets on the bus. He’s wearing a black ball cap that says “Outta my mind, back in five minutes.” Somebody saw that hat and thought, “Oh yeah, he’d love that, it’d be perfect!”

On Bank Street, a pretty street kid hangs out in front of the grocery store. She looks happy and free today, unlike her tall and skinny friend, the one with the protruding Adam’s apple. He looks hungry, like he’s run out of ideas and stopped having fun a long time ago.

In the Glebe, a clean-cut teen flips through a copy of Head, the magazine for dope enthusiasts. He’s reading about the legacy of Bob Marley. Nearby, stealing glances at him, sits a sweet girl in a pink top. At Bank and Cameron, without a second glance, they both disembark and silently head off in opposite directions. The fools, love was right there!

Boarding at Billings Bridge is a girl in a denim jacket. There are about twenty different depictions of cats embroidered on this jacket. Wearing Earphones, she delicately chews her fingernails and tugs at the sleeves of her jacket, making sure they hang at the right length. She looks nervous, like she’s not used to being around people. The bus lurches and some skin cream falls out of her bag. She doesn’t notice, but a heavy woman sitting at the back does. Pointing, she shouts this news at the girl, who looks startled and ashamed by the exposure.

A man with a ruddy face holds a red, plastic bag. Tattooed on each knuckle of his right hand is a letter that spells out the name Bill. He looks sad and tired, like he really hates job.

On Hunt Club, an elderly man wearing a Hockey Canada baseball hat picks up a copy of a tabloid newspaper. Absently humming, Oh Christmas Tree, his eyes linger on the photograph of a bikini-clad model, finding out that this green-eyes single gal is 20, and her kinda guy is outgoing and fun!

God had let me down, I felt, and so I turned to Juiced, slugger Jose Cansceo’s autobiography, for the inspiration and guidance the bible had failed to provide.

Let me tell you, never have a received such a volume of hate mail.

I will provide you with a small sample of some of the email I received.

“Michael Murray, you are a heathen and God will eat your face!”

“Michael, I am very disappointed in you. Abandoning Jesus Christ-- our Lord and Saviour-- for Jose Canseco is a loser move, like trading draft picks for Phil Kessel. Michael, you are to Christianity what the Toronto Maple Leafs are to hockey.“

“And that no individual buys or he sells, right that the mark, or the name of beast, or his number of name. Here it is the prudence. You leave him that hath understanding you measure the number of beast: because he is the number of individual and his number are six hundred threescore and six.”

“You are lame, Mister Murray, very, very lame.”

“You think you’re funny, but you’re just sad, lonely and starved for attention and you are turning away from the one source where you might actually find solace and love. Michael, truly, I weep for you.”

“We used to be friends, but now I don’t even think I know you.”

There were another 50 or so letters, all along the same lines. However, there was one letter that struck a chord in me, one I will reprint in its entirety:

“Mr. Murray:

Sorry about your hero. However, in your bible dip, I think you'd have to admit that you've been given your "lucky numbers" and should start buying lottery tickets with 23, 35, 400, etc. in them.

I know you overlooked this because you are in deep mourning, but people often don't see that God has answered their prayers because He doesn't actually "strike them down with lightning." That's a party trick He retired long ago at a junior high dance when He was busy turning all the water into wine, and some of the guys were asking if he could turn it into "Hard Lemonade" instead, which is what their girlfriends preferred. It got ugly, there were a lot of lightning strikes and the smelled of singed hair was nauseating, apparently.

Nowadays, your messages from God are a lot more subtle: like when a safe falling from an upper level window narrowly misses you. Same with an anvil. Anyway, just be on your lookout for other signs and if you win a bundle on a lottery ticket, maybe you should give thanks by buying Jose Canseco a fast car or woman.”

I have no idea who sent me that letter, but believe it might be the voice of an angel.

And so, if I win the lottery using God’s picks, my faith in the bible will be restored, and I will honour it as the valuable gambling aid it is, but if not, back to Canseco.

I thought he was THE MAN, and now I know that he is just a man.

I have taken down two of my Tiger Woods posters, (the third one, located in the kitchen, looks too good to remove, I think. Dude, looks awesome in red!!) and am seriously considering dropping out of his fan club and turning in my Tiger Cub badge.

Rachelle has been having a very hard time watching me mope so sadly about, and has been suggesting that maybe I get some counseling to deal with my hero’s fall from grace. However, as it’s the holiday season, most of my therapists are fully booked, and so Rachelle has suggested that I do a “Bible Dip” instead.

A Bible Dip is a Christian practice in which a person opens the bible, and randomly places their finger on a page. Whatever passage they happen upon, is their message for the day, a piece of holy wisdom that is to help guide them on their journey. You know, astrology for people who don’t wan to spend eternity in hellfire.

Well, even though I lead a pretty secular life, I thought I’d give it a try, and this is what God said to me:

“The tribe of Benjamin will be next. The leader of the people of Benjamin is Abidan son of Gideoni. 23 His division numbers 35,400.

All the men assigned to the camp of Ephraim, according to their divisions, number 108,100. They will set out third.

On the north will be the divisions of the camp of Dan, under their standard. The leader of the people of Dan is Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai. 26 His division numbers 62,700.”

This was of no help.

It struck me that perhaps I needed a more modern source for inspiration, and turned to Juiced: The Autobiography of Jose Canseco. Let me tell you, I relate more to Jose Canseco than Jesus Christ, and so I began to do Canseco dips.

Each day, until I have fully absorbed the word of Jose, and am able to deal with the truth that Tiger Woods, my great sports hero is in fact a philandering dong, I will randomly select a passage from Canseco’s autobiography to guide me through my day.

Day One:

“As long as I can remember, I’ve always loved cars—especially fast cars. So many baseball players drive sports utility vehicles now, rather than sports cars, but I don’t really understand it. If I had two weaknesses in my life, they would have to be fast cars and women.”

It’s now dark at this time, but the lights at the tennis courts come on at 6:30, and this, combined with the ambient light of the neighbourhood, is usually enough to partially illuminate a portion of the park.

There’s usually quite a bit going on. Some people are taking their dogs for walks or kicking the soccer ball around, while others are shooting hoops or messing around in the tennis courts. Heidi and I often hangout in the hockey rink, where I shoot balls about and the dog, like an inky, black rocket, explodes down the rink in mad pursuit.

However, last night the lights didn’t’ come on. It was the first day of December, and the powers that be have likely decided that tennis is now officially out of season, and so that’s that for lighting the tennis courts at night. But still, as it was a full moon, there was a hint of brightness, and those of us that were expecting the lights to be on, stubbornly stayed, pretending that things were the same as ever.

Over at the basketball hoops, three young men prepared to play. They took off their shirts, becoming purple silhouettes set against the night, and then changed into their gear. They then arrayed a bunch of sneakers out on the court and proceeded to do drills.

As I played with the dog, I could hear them. The concentrated and controlled sound of dribbling, the sneakers upon the pavement and the quiet instructions they breathed to one another. It was a beautiful and rhythmic soundscape, and I found myself mesmerized by them.

Two of the boys, who looked to be near College-aged, were exceptional players who moved with fluid ease, while the third, slightly younger, was kind of awkward, as if brand new to the game. The older guys coached him, demonstrating a drill, and then running him through it. They did so without a hint of attitude or condescension, never showing off or putting themselves before their student.

It was protective and beautiful to watch, all of it so quiet and giving and gracious. For the most part, when I see young athletes playing sports, I think of the ease in which their bodies fall into the game, but this modest tableau reminded me of the intelligence and hard work that informed that beauty. There they were, beneath the moonlight on the first day of December, slowly and with great consideration, working in order to become better versions of themselves.

It was nothing short of inspirational.

Dear Rachelle Maynard:

As Captain of the Jesus Cobras, it is our obligation to report any complaints we have received about your team to you.

Like last season, we’ve once again received a number of complaints concerning the sportsmanship of the Jesus Cobras, with many teams reporting that it’s “stressful” and “not fun” to play against your squad.

One player on your team appears to have generated the most concern. Although his name was not mentioned in any of the complaints, he was described as being “old, awkward, clearly lonely, and not very good at floor hockey.”

Does this sound familiar?

We have received upwards of 20 complaints in regards about this individual, of which I am providing a sample.

“ After I scored a goal, this jerk-off threw his Coke in my face, claiming that it was because he had a spasm caused by a bad reaction to his H1N1 inoculation.”
--Tammy Whiten (The Mashers--November 12, 2009)

“ This thin guy with glasses, who wore a matching head and wrist bands, coughed in the face of any player that tried to take the ball from him.”
--Brendan Ho (The Maple Syrups—November 19, 2009)

“ This prick, who seemed completely drunk, kept yelling racist taunts at us.”
--Alex Teaghen ( The pylons—October 23, 2009)

“ I don’t even like to think about it, but half way through the game he took his shirt off. We all asked him to put it back on, but he refused. It was fucking gross.”
--Amanda Rockingham ( The Black Betty’s—October 12, 2009)

“ When one of our players was on a break-away, this skinny, little gray man threw his hockey stick at her from across the court. He threw it like a javelin, claiming that it must have slipped from his hand. When I complained, he took off his glasses, and said in a raspy voice that I will never forget, that I was “just another fat whiner without a husband, who wished she was a thin winner. “
--Jalena Trylowski ( The Icbots—Novermber 6, 2009

As the Jesus Cobras are enrolled in a beginner level Co-Ed Rec league that is NOT competitive, we are obliged to suspend the player in question for one game, and according to our constitution, if we receive any more complaints about him, we will be forced to default the remaining Cobra games for the season.

I’m very sorry to impose this one you, and trust that you can handle the matter appropriately, as all we want is for people to have fun!

Kevin Garner
TSSC ombudsman

On Friday, Rachelle and I had a new gas stove delivered.

The guys who hooked it up were probably around 30 years old, and speaking with their West-Indian accents, they struck me as effortlessly cool. Immediately, I wanted them to like me.

Of course, I’m worse than incompetent when it comes to any mechanical matter, and always keep to the periphery when repairs or deliveries are being made. However, these guys had a number of questions, and so I made myself available, sitting in the living room with my laptop while they worked in the kitchen.

I decided to put on some music, and immediately found myself wondering what they guys in the kitchen would like to hear. Not only that, I also found myself wanting them to think that whatever I put on was “cool.” This, of course, paralyzed me with self-doubt.

I could not have been more middle-aged, emasculated or white. Sitting there in my living room, I debated whether I would be trying too hard if I put on Nick Cave, or if Sigur Ros was too dreary or Radiohead a cliche.

Worse, I argued with myself about whether putting on BLACK music was racist, and if they’d think I was an irredeemable moron if I put on K-os for their benefit.

In the end I went with The Flaming Lips-- a band that’s part of my cultural norm-- but I did so in the most cringingly self-conscious way imaginable.

One woman in my Facebook network, is always on the lookout for evidence of racism in North American society. She posts links offering evidence of various transgressions on an almost daily basis, and although I’m not in a position to say if the preponderance of these items are racist or not, it’s clear that reasonable people could disagree, and that she’s doing a valuable, if unpleasant job.

It is a burden to look for offense, I think, to see the darkness in people before the light.

There’s no doubt that there was a racial component to my consideration of what music the workmen would like, and obviously, it would be exhausting and insulting for these men, if every home they went into, were to play Hip-Hop or Reggae. But really, was my impulse to accommodation and my want for the workmen to accept me as cool, evidence of a debilitating racism, or was it merely a native, if clumsy, want for connection?

In front of the Leslieville Cheese Market on Queen East, hipster dads wearing sneakers stand waiting for their wives. Each man is in charge of a baby stroller and the family dog. Feeling a kind of silly camaraderie, the men trade pleasantries about the day while their wives shop for expensive Cambonzola.

Directly beside the Cheese Market is the K & S Family Restaurant. It’s essentially a diner, but what they seem to sell more than anything is beer. You can pass by the place on any given day, at any time, and through the window you’ll see lost looking people staring back at you, each one with a bottle of beer and a shooter in front of them.

Three women with ruddy faces stand smoking in front of the restaurant.

One of them is angry, telling a story.

“So I opened the door and said What The Fuck Do You Want? “

The other women nodded, wanting to know that the fuck she wanted.

“I hate it when the teachers come to your house,” she chipped in.

“Yeah, so she tells me some shit about what Kevin is doing in school, and I said, I Know That, He’s My Son, For Fuck’s Sake!”

A couple of minutes later, two slightly drunk 50-something men emerge from the restaurant. Playfully, one of them picks up the chalkboard that sits on the sidewalk advertising the specials. He begins to hit the other man with it, gently at first, but as they get a little more rambunctious, they actually start trying to hurt one another, all the while pretending it was just in good fun.

Recently, I have been playing against a person who goes by the name of Gillian W.

This is a record of our last 15 matches:

53831637 -. Won by Gillian W on 27-Nov-09.
53746775 -. Won by Gillian W on 26-Nov-09.
53717195 - Won by Gillian W 25-Nov-09.
53703915 -. Won by Michael M on 25-Nov-09.
53625244 - Won by Gillian W on 23-Nov-09.
53555302 -. Won by Gillian W on 23-Nov-09.
53484502 -. Won by Gillian W on 21-Nov-09.
53448925 -. Won by Gillian W on 20-Nov-09.
53393157 -. Won by Gillian W on 18-Nov-09.
53302495 -. Won by Gillian W on 17-Nov-09.
53266635 -. Won by Gillian W on 16-Nov-09.
53134985 -. Won by Gillian W on 14-Nov-09.
53080804 -. Won by Michael M on 13-Nov-09.
52999827 - Won by Gillian W on 10-Nov-09.
52952373 - Won by Gillian W on 09-Nov-09.

As you can see, I’ve had quite a bit of trouble competing against her.

What follows is the actual transcript of our dialogue from our most recent game:

Michael M: That last game was well played, Gillian! My Lord, I’m learning an awful lot from you! You’re a really strong player! You should be on the Olympic team or something! ☺

Gillian W: You’re a very weak opponent.

Michael M: Well, I’m doing my best.

Gillian W: You’re a product of the public school system, aren’t you?

Michael M: Ha! Cotton for 26!! Take that! That ought to hush you up for a minute!!

Gillian W: INSOLENT BOY!! YOU SHALL BE PUNISHED FOR YOUR IMPUDENCE!!!

Michael M: ????

Michael M: “ Haplolaly.” Hmm. I haven’t come across that word before! Well, nicely played, Gillian, that 170 points you just scored with that word sure increases your lead! Guess I better just try harder!! ☺

Gillian W: It’s very hard for me to believe that you’re actually a “writer,” as your ability with the English language is abysmal. By the way, have you found a real job yet? I figured that with all your spare time you might have improved a little bit in Scrabble, but I guess not, eh?

Gillian W: That word I just spelled? Cadaver for 58 points? Michael, that means a human body that has no life in it. I will use it in a sentence: Michael looks like a cadaver.

Michael M: I don’t’ look like a cadavour, I just have a cold is all.

Gillian W: Cadaver, Michael, not Cadavour.

Michael M: Did your house get egged again at Halloween?

Gillian W: I am mighty like America, and you are small and weak like Tuvalu! It’s a sparsely populated island nation in Polynesia and they don’t have a hockey team, Michael, so you probably haven’t heard of them.

Michael M: You think you’re smart but you aren’t! You’re just a word bully who hates angles! ☹

Gillian W: Angles? I hate angles?

Michael M: Angels.

Gillian W: Honestly, Michael.

Gillian W: Alright, you’re now losing by 223 points. Do you really want to continue this?

Boarding the number two at Rideau and Nelson, the bus driver warns me not to swallow the two quarters I have pinched between my lips. Adding cheerfully, “you’ll get sick to your stomach and then I’ll have a mess to clean up!”

At the Rideau Center, a woman dressed in generic work clothes she probably doesn’t like very much, is reading The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. She’s only on page eight, and judging from the look on her face, she’s not enjoying it very much. Occasionally, she looks up from the book and checks her Blackberry. She sighs as she does this, as if disappointed that somebody forgot her birthday, again.

Turning down O’Connor, two professional looking women talk about the virtues of CBC radio and NPR. The one who’s doing most of the talking looks like she votes NDP and proudly frequents nude beaches. While speaking, she deftly integrates her affection for foreign films, The Economist and the Sandinistas into one sentence. The woman standing next to her nods her head, a tight smile on her lips.

On the Somerset portion of the route, there are lots of haunted looking men. They look lonely, like the have demons. Day after day, they return home to empty apartments, their hours stretched thin, they dump overflowing ashtrays into the toilet.

In Hintonburg, a man carrying a pack of Peter Jackson cigarettes and a Coke gets on the bus. He has a shock of white hair and a soul patch on his chin. He walks with a limp and wears mismatched clothes that almost look cool. He tells the person he sits beside about a horse that came in on Sunday night that paid out $75. He speaks slowly, as if it’s difficult for him to locate the words he wants to use.

Pimped out kids loiter in front of the Community Center. They look dangerous, like you wouldn’t’ want to watch them play street hockey, frightened to see how they might use their sticks.

Passing through the fashionable Westboro district of the city, the #2 emerges onto Richmond, where the demographics change. Here, on the bus, there are only women. Sitting quietly, they all stare straight, holding their bags carefully on their laps they look like they’re on important missions.

At Bayshore, a large woman in a hijab reads a tiny chapbook about half the size of a baseball card. Her thumb obscures the entire page of Arabic text on the opposite page to the one she’s reading. Her lips move slowly as her finger traces the words on the page.

Two girls share an iPod. One listens attentively, like a studious music geek, while the other girl bops about playing air guitar and snapping her fingers. Eating from a bag of Hickory Sticks, she shouts, “I have to pee so frigging badly!”

Plump and happy, a man wearing a Dave Matthews concert t-shirt decorated with the buttons of all sorts of not-so-cool rock bands gets on. He looks like he collects action figures and has an informed opinion about which Star Trek franchise is superior, like he’s dying to talk to somebody, to anybody.

A woman, who has made a point of carrying all of her groceries in cloth rather than plastic bags, answers her phone. At first, her “hello” is neutral, a question. When she finds out who’s calling, she relaxes, “oh, hi,” she says, warmth now infusing her voice.

It’s raining now, and as the 2 returns downtown an Asian man runs like the wind to catch the bus. He flashes by The Plant Bath, where, through an illuminated window, you can see dozens of children in karate outfits doing jumping jacks.

From behind the bar, with the same amount of pride that a person from a previous generation might have reserved for a proclamation of home ownership, the bartender announced that she was a vegetarian.

It’s Tuesday night around 10:00, and there are only a handful of people in The Comrade. A quiet girl, still with a little bit of baby fat in her face, sits with her head down, staring at her drink. She’s a friend of the bartender, and she’s waiting for her shift to end so that they can go somewhere else, hopeful that there, something good might happen to her.

The person doing all the talking in the bar is a young man who wants to know what the bartender’s favourite “Veg” restaurants are in town. Instead of listening to her, he takes this opportunity to list all of his favourite vegetarian restaurants, speaking in long, ornate sentences that sounded like they were culled from a luxury magazine,

He feels like he’s full of charm and knowledge, filling the blank pages of a Tuesday night. Each time he orders a drink, he describes it, bestowing upon it some sort of personal narrative that usually included a foreign country. His face was open, almost pleading, and he had the manner of somebody who was used to telling other people why they should like him. He described his apartment, his Blog, and his philosophy on cellaring wine.

It was at this point that I began to look for a sports section to read.

The Comrade is a beautiful looking place, but one that’s had it’s aesthetic so finely shaved that it feels more like an elegant furniture store than a bar. You will not find a stray newspaper there. There are a few artfully placed books, but they’re merely Gatsbian props. It all feels kind of inauthentic, as if the people present are more concerned with what strangers might think of them rather than the people who actually know them. Looking about in this upwardly mobile landscape, you see people posing, hoping to be noticed for who they might be, and not who they are.

The girls who were working there that night were all young, still trying to figure out who they were, with each one likely harboring hopes that they’d be somebody very different in five years.

The man sitting at the bar was only too happy to try to guide them into their future. He asked questions, offering advice that would render them more like him. He was on a roll. Even the quiet girl, now on her second beer, began to speak. With a captive audience, he spoke with hands, until a much better looking man sat down beside him, and the spell was broken. Now distracted, the girls paid less attention to him, and soon enough he fell silent, quietly doodling on a napkin, before paying his bill and getting up to leave.

It’s not unpleasant, just slightly damp, but for Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund, it’s a world of dramatic misery.

If there’s even the hint of rain in the air, she’ll begin to shiver and moan and write bad poetry. It’s embarrassing, particularly because if I take her a walk on a day such as this, judgmental pedestrians will stare at me as if I was some sort of sadist.

“Hey!” A man said without charm or warmth, “ I don’t think your dog likes being out in this weather.” And then he just stared at me, waiting for me to respond to his challenge.

Near a bus shelter, I tied up my dog and ran into a 7-11 in order to get some change. When I returned to the sidewalk, three people were circled around my dog—one taking a photograph of her—while she shivered. I explained, apologetically, that I had only left her there for two minutes. They all looked at me, like they were going to let it go this one time, but never again.

In front of the Dark Horse Espresso Bar, I tied Heidi up (in a sheltered area), while I went in to get a drink to go. A white woman with a nest of hair that she undoubtedly thought of as “ethnic” wagged her finger at me. She was aggressively pointing in the direction of Heidi, while the crappy jewelry she had likely made as part of a therapy project, jangled off of her wrist.

“Yes, yes it is a beautiful day out!” I countered.
“No!” She said forcefully, “ “You shouldn’t leave your dog out a like that! She’s a living creature and she’s suffering!”
“And how is your daughter, Nicaragua Bumblebee Nirvana, is she still getting mercilessly teased because her mother makes her wear clogs to school everyday? I mean, she’s a living creature and she’s suffering!”

Unfortunately, a physical altercation commenced when she threw her no-fat-soy-what-the-fuck drink on me. Luckily, Gretchen, an enormous TTC employee who is a regular at the coffee shop, saw the whole thing unfold, and was able to haul the kicking and clawing hippy woman off of me as I lay curled in my defensive ball.

I have commenced a work-out program so that I might more properly defend myself in the future.

My court appearance is expected to be in late January.

SOME SUPER-POWERS THAT WOULD REALLY MAKE MY LIFE EASIER

1. The ability to encircle myself with a repellent Dodge Ball force field.

2. The ability to instantly know exactly what to have for lunch everyday.

3. The ability to do my winter boots up lightning quick, even if the laces are frozen or sopping wet.

4. The ability to turn into a Unicorn at will.

5. The ability to swiftly complete the Sudoku puzzle in front of people I feel intellectually threatened by.

6. Invisibility.

7. The ability to telekinetically take my dog for a walk.

8. The ability to shoot black energy bolts from my palms.

9. The alchemical ability to transform phlegm into legal tender.

10. The ability to shape-shift into a destructive Great Ape in the presence of my landlord.

11. The ability to raise the ball when playing floor hockey.

12. Spelling.

13. Pigeon mind control.

Hola!

As most of you folks know, Rachelle and I moved into a new apartment at the start of October. Since then we've been working like slave dogs trying to get the place semi-respectable. Recently, we felt that we accomplished this goal, and so, with great pride, I decided to make a little "video tour" of our apartment, hoping to share it with you all. And this, I'm afraid, is the entirely sincere product of my effort:

www.youtube.com/watch

PS: I am a moron.

At this point in day the neighbourhood takes on a different texture. Some of the aggression seems to slip away, and a weary contentment settles over the area. On the streetcars, people return home from work, having survived the daily battles. With half-smiles on their faces they look out the streaked windows, thinking about what they’ll have for dinner or what story their boy might return home from school with.

Such a mild rain makes us feel safe, like we’ve been out in a potentially adversarial world, but one that was merely a trifle inconvenient and not at all predatory. It makes the idea of returning home just a little bit more attractive, and the unspoken gratitude we share for our lives is written in our eyes.

At this time in the day, you can see the interior of things.

All the stores and homes that lined Queen Street were lit from the inside. Glowing like Japanese lanterns, the lives that inhabited them became visible.

At Pulp Kitchen, through the condensation on the window, a woman listened on a phone. She nodded her head twice, and then the biggest, most spontaneous grin broke out on her face.

In an upstairs apartment, a partial glimpse of a woman in a t-shirt stirring something on a stove.

A man steps out of his apartment. His dog, tail wagging, is so happy to see his master, to go for a walk, even in the rain. “Come on, Fergus, let’s go play some fetch!” And the two of them bound down the sidewalk toward the park.

On the second floor, through fogged windows, shadows moving in tandem. Dance classes.

A woman practices piano, three candles burning in her window.

Life restoring itself after the demands of the day.

I play fetch with four-eye two-leg food giver, and as I chase ball it turn into hot dog and I eat it. Good fetch!!

My legs grow long and I get tall tall tall and I stomp city.

In dream I falling and falling in air and then I see cheese and eat.

I chase bug. Bug buzz and buzz and I chase and chase. I jump and snap and still bug buzz away. So frustrated. I want to kill bug and bug family.

It nighttime and cat I am kind of curious about come into my room and begin to talk to me in dog. He purr and bark at same time and my tail wag but I no want it to wag. I feel funny hot and then bowl full of meat appear on floor and I eat.

I drive in car but car like little tree dog with bushy tail, not man car. It dart about and go upstairs in sky and I pee and get yelled at by four-eye two-leg food giver.

Monkey come from tree and scratch behind my ear. Tail wagging so fast I embarrassed.

I just a puppy dog and the moon silver in the sky. Run fast with other dogs, soft feet quick on the ground.

Pull, pull, pull against leash! Try to get to ice cream on sidewalk, but no use. I bark and cry and make very sad eyes, but ice cream melt away.

Catch smell of fat mouse with slow legs and give chase! But each room I go to, smell seem further away, like in different room. And then I chase tail.

Big bowl of meat spilled on floor. I eat and eat and then I poop—happen real quick-- and then I eat and eat again. So much meat!!

In dream, Heidi see Jesus. He come to me like radiant light that smell of meat bone, and he say, “ Such a good dog, yes, such a good doggie! Who’s a good doggie? Heidi! Heidi, such a good doggie!! Such a pretty girl!!”

Still, although we don’t always communicate directly, I feel like I know them all.

Over time, through my random encounters with their status updates, their lives take on a coherent form, one that has an actual presence in my life. In a very passive way-- not entirely unlike absorbing the ambient gossip at the local corner store-- I find out who is going through a tough time or training for a race, or who might be falling in love or looking forward to a walk in the sun.

However, more important that the particulars of a life, is the general point of view, the general disposition toward the world, that each person unwittingly reveals. Although you don’t find out how people interact with the world, you do find out how they interpret the world around them. In a weirdly sincere and poetic way, you discover character.

Some people are habitually angry, always pissed off at the government or the forces that caused the hot water heater to break. Other people reveal themselves frustrated and tired, exhausted by the demands of their children, while others, the vast majority, express gratitude and optimism for the small pleasures of the day.

Sam thanks everybody for the generous birthday wishes.
Lucy thinks life is pretty sweet when you can sit outside in the sun drinking coffee with a friend.
Benedict is wondering what it means when a small dog stashes all her kibble in a slipper.
Christine is enjoying CBC radio and the smell of soup on the stove while she does some administrative paperwork—all is good.

I’ve always taken great solace in these people, and have grown very fond of their quiet and benevolent presence. When I see their avatar pop up, I feel like they’re quietly sitting in the room with me, and I get the same comfort from them that I would get from seeing a familiar neighbour out, once again, raking the leaves.

Heidi (our minature Daschund) and I were walking through the school the other day when we came upon a kindly old man and a little dog named Dodger. I took Heidi off the leash, and let her run around with Dodger for a bit, but she lost interest after about two minutes, and so I decided to put her back on the leash and continue on our way. However, Dodger still wanted to play, and kept leaping on Heidi's back. The old man was trying to get Dodger to stop, without much luck, and then suddenly, he started to shout “No, Dodger, no!” and then began to hit the dog with the leash. It was a dramatic transformation, one in which you could see an elderly man's frustration with a world he could no longer control, suddenly turn to rage.

Further along, we watched as a mother walked her boy back from lunch. She was giving him instructions, saying things like, "Always brush your teeth, and never, ever forget to wash your hands!" Stuff like that. They were late, with the line of kids entering into the school dwindling down, and the boy began to run. He ran childishly at first, more side-to-side than A-to-B, and then, as he was being encouraged by the teacher ushering all the kids in, he began to sprint like a champion. The mother, with her son’s tiny knapsack on her back, was falling far behind now, and she began to shriek, "Hold the door, hold the door!!" Walking quickly, and with increasing anxiety and desperation in her voice, she kept yelling, offering more and more instructions to her boy, as he became smaller and smaller, a figure far in the distance, moving away from her and into a world beyond her protection.

I’ve always had a way with birds, pigeons in particular.

Whenever Rachelle sees me on video, she says that the nervous way I twitch my head and jerk my body around reminds her of a pigeon, and wonders if I might have been one in a previous life.

Maybe, I don’t know.

However, it is true that pigeons have always been attracted to me, and that we seem, on some level, be able to communicate. Our new apartment on Queen Street East has a kind of enclosed veranda. The pigeons like this area, and have created a small “pigeon village” there. I’ve become quite friendly with them, discovering that they love to be fed corn chips.

At any rate, I’ve named three of them—Excalibur, Beverly and Dennis—who sometimes follow me about when I take Heidi for a walk.

Seriously, I feel like they’re my aerial protectors.

As most of you know, Rachelle and I have been missing an integral part of our family for the last two weeks. His name is Mr. Peanut, and he is a taxidermied squirrel who was abducted by our “friend’ (NOT) Jillian on Halloween. She has refused to return him to us, claming that he prefers spending time with her.

The police and RCMP have been uncooperative at this point, and so, as much as I hate vigilantism, I have decided to take matters into my own hands. I believe that I can get my pigeon friends—Excalibur, Beverly and Dennis—to take up residence on Jillian’s back deck, which is her stupid pride and joy. I mean, she is constantly running around cleaning the stupid thing, and then bragging about it, and then cleaning it again, and if I threaten her with a pigeon infestation, I am sure she will break and return Mr. Peanut to me.

This is the letter I sent to her:

Dear Bitch:

If you do not return Mr. Peanut to me immediately, I am going to order a pigeon infestation on your precious deck.

I have the power to do such a thing.

The pigeons will be everywhere, and I will order them to use your deck as a lavatory, and to invite all their friends over for a big pigeon party—maybe even start a pigeon frat house. You can avoid the pain of Squab Storm, if you simply return Mr. Peanut to his rightful home.

Also, it was very low-rent of you to ask me out to lunch at Noodle King, and then not show up.

Not classy.

You are a bitch, and your nose runs all the time.

Michael Murray

And this is her response:

Michael:

You’re a Noodle King!

Lunch was to be at King’s Noodle House on Spadina, as I told you, and not Noodle King on Queen. It was at King’s Noodle House, where I waited for an hour, that I had planned on giving you Mr. Peanut.

Honestly, Michael, I had no idea you were so high-strung. I thought all of this was just a joke, something you were doing for fun for your blog, and I just thought I’d play along. I had no idea you had such serious mental issues, ( although Rachelle has hinted at it). Michael, I do like you, and I urge you, as a friend, to seek out some help.

Jillian

You might notice that in her note, she said nothing about returning Mr. Peanut.

Well, Mr. Peanut is still missing.

If we had any inkling of the darkness that lurks inside of Jillian, we never would have consented to let her incorporate him into her Halloween costume. She took our precious taxidermied squirrel, and has held him captive in her home for two weeks now, claiming that Mr. Peanut is happier with her.

Bullshit.

In response to my posts about the abduction, and the Lost Taxidermied Squirrel Posters I handed out on her street, and the emails I’ve been sending her friends and family, she had the audacity to write this:

“These squirrel posts don’t really inflict any real emotion*1 in me. I read them to Mr. Chippy*2 (Mr. Peanut wasn’t working for us) as well, and he doesn’t seem to care much either*3. He’s pretty content to just hang out with me watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia*4. Lord knows you never gave him that pleasure. No sign of him wanting to live anywhere but here.”

I am going to address a few things here.

Footnote #1: The fact that Jillian didn’t feel any real emotion while reading my heartbreaking posts, is ample evidence of her Sociopathic, perhaps even Psychotic nature. She is DANGEROUS!!

Footnote #2: Mr. Chippy is a slave name, and I will not use it. Jillian has tried to steal not just Mr. Peanut, but also his identity, but I happen to know that he is a strong squirrel who knows exactly who he is, and where he came from, and his loyalty will never waver!!

Footnote #3: It’s clear that the only reason Mr. Peanut wouldn’t care about my pleas, is that she has drugged him. She probably has a little, black hood over his head right now, and is subjecting him to all sorts of mental and physical torture.

Footnote #4: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an over-rated and lame show. It’s like Friends, only for people who like to yell. Mr. Peanut would hate it, as he has refined tastes, enjoying Masterpiece Theatre and House.

During the kidnapping, Jillian has been leaving ominous messages with Rachelle, asking if she could borrow our electric drill and a hammer. Obviously, Mr. Peanut is not safe, and Jillian has either been constructing a cage for him, or has even more diabolical plans.

With the handlebars turned inside out, a man with a big, bushy biker beard wobbles down the street with a mysterious, half-full garbage bag slung over his shoulder. At the lights, he stops, picks something up off the street, stuffs it in his pocket, and then cycles off, his eyes darting from side to side as he looks for witnesses.

An old man on a Value Village bicycle rides slow and indifferent down the sidewalk. There’s about an inch of ash hanging from the cigarette that’s clenched between his teeth, and it doesn’t look like he has any plans to get out of the way of any pedestrians.

The bikes these men ride have the appearance of found objects. Stripped of colour, with the tape peeling haphazardly off the handlebars, the bikes are all at least 25 years out of fashion. Never encumbered by locks or helmets, it’s easy to imagine that they’re abandoned whenever the rider gets to his destination, and that there, the bike just waits for the next man to pick it up and cycle off wherever he’s going.

Beneath a baseball hat, a man in his 60’s rides down Queen Street. Suddenly, he swerves across the road, as if he was trying to avoid some creature that only he could see. Behind him a car honks angrily, but he just waves them off, turning his body to give them the finger. “Shut yer hole!” he shouts.

A man’s thin legs are pedaling furiously. The bike, an old-fashioned ten-speed, is far too small for him, and his knees keep rising up past the handlebars. Both tires look to be pretty low, and he’s chugging along in first gear. He’s not getting very far, and it’s pretty clear that his effort is more trouble than it’s worth, the sort of thing that one might even take for a metaphor.

At any rate, it’s been a very, very trying time for us, as Mr. Peanut is a valued and loved part of our family, and losing him would be a trauma from which we might not recover. Does Jillian care about this?

No.

No, she does not.

At any rate, she has not been responding to any of my phone calls, text messages or shouts from the street, and I fear that Mr. Peanut might be involved in a hostage situation. At this point, the police are unwilling to get involved, and so, with limited options, I have taken to papering the streets with LOST TAXIDERMIED SQUIRREL posters.

LOST TAXIDERMIED SQUIRREL!!

Have you seen me?

My name is Mr. Peanut and I am lost and scared!

On Halloween, I followed a very bad person named Jillian, whom I mistakenly trusted, and am now in great peril and missing my excellent family, including Heidi, my dog sister,

Paul, my Impala brother,

Hazel, my bird Aunt,

and Rachelle, my human mother who makes me peanut piazza.

If you see me—taped to the handlebars of a bicycle, in a window, glued to the hood of a car, or on top of a hat—please don’t hesitate to intercede on my behalf, as I am powerless to fight my captors!! All that is needed for evil to prevail in this world is for a few good people to stand by and watch. Please, don’t be all big city about this, help me in my time of need, and return me to my loving family!

BIG REWARD!!!

--7 Mr. Big chocolate bars from Halloween
--2 cans of Heineken
--a selection of excellent stickers
--a globe ( many of the nations on the globe no longer in existence)
--a box of unopened Fisherman’s Friends for the upcoming Flu season
--a used Neti-Pot
( some items subject to negotiation)

Please Call 416-***-**** or email Michael at fromagreatheight@hotmail.com

Like all good horror films, the real fear is generated in the dreadful tension that’s building, rather than the release of that tension. You know, it’s scarier to watch the serial killer stalk somebody than it is to watch him kill that person.

The most excruciating scenes in Paranormal Activity take place when the video of the sleeping couple is being replayed. In grainy, night-vision style, we watch as if ourselves some omnipotent presence from above. As the vulnerable couple sleep, a clock scrolls by at the bottom of the frame marking the passage of time, as the audience waist for an invisible evil to make itself present.

It was scary, man.

Like listening to the shark music in Jaws.

As such, I was grateful for the moments in which this tension was cut. At the Rainbow Theatre, where we saw the movie, there was a couple sitting in the back row. They weren’t particularly disruptive, but they were unable to contain their observations. When something occurred to one of them, they simply couldn’t help but say it out loud. “ He shouldn’t do that!” the man would yell, to which his lady would respond, in an equally innocent manner, “ He is asking for trouble!”

It was pretty clear to us that the couple, who were probably in their 50’s, might have had a mild, developmental impairment, and the truth is that their spontaneous exclamations were kind of sweet and charming. And anyway, I was grateful to step outside of the movie for a second or two and shoot Rachelle a knowing, if still nervous, smile.

However, this want on for the entire duration of the film, and as the tension in the movie built, and the audience’s investment in what was taking place on the screen increased, people were getting edgy.

Eventually, a man, in a thin and breaking voice, shouted out, “would you please keep your comments to yourself!”

He sounded scared, this guy, like a nervous 14 year-old, which was pretty much the way everybody in the theatre was feeling, I suppose. However, I have no doubt that in the retelling of this story, he will portray himself as a lion, a man who seized control of the situation, and not somebody who began to lose his composure while watching a ghost story.

At Fort Hood, a massive military base in Texas, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim Army psychiatrist stationed there, is alleged to have entered the Soldier Readiness Center and opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others. He was vehemently opposed to the war in Iraq, and was about to be deployed to the Middle East just before he committed the shootings.

The very next day, 40 year-old Jason Rodriguez opened fire in the offices of an engineering firm where he was fired two years ago. He killed one person and injured five others. When asked why he did it, he replied, “because they left me to rot.”

These events seem particularly American, encapsulating complex themes that have come to dominate the news over the last couple of years. Was Hasan a terrorist, or a man driven insane by an unjust war and the attendant prejudices associated with his Islamic faith? Was Jason Rodriguez just a very vivid example of the despair and misery caused by the current economic meltdown?

Another story that I read about earlier in the week, and which will now be practically obliterated from the news, was that of the Cleveland Rapist. A convicted sex offender living in a derelict, primarily black area in Cleveland, Anthony Sowell has been charged with five counts of murder after the bodies of 11 women were discovered at his home.

His victims, primarily African-American drug addicts and prostitutes, were haphazardly concealed around his home and property, and apparently the stench of rotting flesh was overwhelming. However, even though everybody in the neighbourhood could smell it, they all attributed to Ray’s Sausage, and thought of Sowell as just another sketchy character who liked to sit out on his front steps and drink King Cobra Malt Liquor. Although the police regularly visited, and a naked woman was once reported to have been seen falling from the second floor, nobody thought that anything was seriously amiss at Sowell’s home.

The subtext to this story is quite a bit more horrible than the first two, I think. In a depressed and over-looked area, one populated by people living on the margins, life is cheap. Presumably, in this part of Cleveland, you just don’t ask too many questions, and even if a house smells of rotting flesh, well, that’s just the way people in these parts live. And so, people turn a blind eye, indifferent to the continual, and steady miseries that are systemically inhibiting and destroying the people who live in such communities, choosing instead to focus on the more sensational events that speak more directly and immediately to the lives in the mainstream.

Beneath harsh, practical lighting that cast a kind of green pall over everything, I wandered around looking for an antacid. The place is open, with no aisles, and it has an almost vacant feeling to it. The pharmaceutical counter is pushed to the back of the store, and the walls are lined with dusty, old-fashioned display counters with illuminated signs above them, reading things like, “Cold Medication” or “First Aid.” The place has a weird, kind of accidentally retro feel to it, and it carried with it an antique sense of institutional pride that made me think of the 1950’s.

I wandered in circles for a bit, trying to find what I was looking for, before the woman working behind the front cash, asked if she could help me. She was probably about 60, and had long, colourless hair and the stained, boney fingers of a smoker.

And so I ambled about with her for a stretch, as we looked in all the obvious spots, before she found out from the preoccupied pharmacist’s-- who clearly didn’t want to be disturbed-- the secret location of the antacid. I was extremely grateful, and as she handed me the medication, she piped up in the spirited, instructional tone of a parent, “ See now, you should always speak up and ask for what you need!” She looked extremely pleased with herself to be so much help, and I couldn’t help but worry that was a feeling she didn’t get nearly enough of in her life.

One Sunday while at the St. Lawrence Antique Market, Rachelle and I decided to give one another $20, and with that money, find a gift for one another. When I saw Mr. Peanut, I knew that he was the perfect gift for Rachelle, my Petal.

Mr. Peanut is a taxidermied squirrel.

I bought him for Rachelle, and when I gave him to her later in the day, it was love at first sight. She immediately gave him the name Mr. Peanut, and has been dressing him up for holidays and dinner parties ever since.

Good times.

This year at Halloween, our “friend” Jillian decided to dress up as the weather, and so she glued a bunch of leaves to herself, and maybe a twig or two, as well.

Lame.

At any rate, because we didn’t want her to embarrass herself, we spruced up her costume, adding Mr. Peanut to her costume as a sort of wrist-corsage. Jillian really ripped it up at the party that night, and we lost track of her and Mr. Peanut around midnight.

What follows is the letter we received from her late on Sunday, when her hangover had presumably started to abate.

“Mr. Peanut and I have been having a blast. But I think he might be happier with me so he is feeling a bit confused.

I've attached some pictures of the first Sunday Mr. Peanut and I spent together. He really is adapting nicely. But he might even want to leave me soon, for the great wilds.

One step at a time.”

As you might imagine, this is a very difficult time for Rachelle and I. We are presently looking into our hearts, and our legal options, to see what the best course of action might be. Your thoughts and prayers would be very much appreciated as we try to process, and work through all of this.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=546111396&ref=profile#/note.php?note_id=172433126335&ref=mf

--asking for my help in securing a date with Alec Baldwin for her. As I am generous and joyful of spirit, I have complied, and what follows is the letter I wrote:

Dear Alec Baldwin:

I read in some magazine somewhere (or maybe it was a web site?) that you were depressed.

Let me tell you, I have been there and done that.

It might sound pretty small to you, as you’re a huge star who has slept with many ladies, but I was utterly devastated when my curling rink kicked me off the squad. I know that my coughing (it’s a nervous habit that emerges whenever I’m under pressure) made it hard for them to concentrate, but I couldn’t help but take it personally! Alec, the next three years of my life were dark and difficult ones, and if it wasn’t for my discovery of a Fantasy Curling League, I’m not sure that I would have made it.

Anyway, I don’t talk about myself.

Why are you depressed?

I know that you’re in your 60’s now, and I guess you are kind of, well, meaty in the body, and yes, your brothers are morons who are always making fun of you behind your back, and yes, your daughter Ireland (Ireland? Did you name her when you were drunk?) hates you, and that you’ve never had that one great role that will define your career, and sure, you’re alone now and stuff, but you’re probably still rich, and that counts for a lot in America. (Oh. I guess you lost a lot of money in your divorce settlement with Kim Basinger. She was once considered the world’s sexiest woman. I bet you miss her, I mean, I know I would. )

At any rate, even if you lost all your money, you’re still a celebrity, and shallow women love celebrities. Alec, I think I know the perfect shallow woman to pull you out of your depression. Her name is Shelagh and she’s younger than you. I figure that you’d like her because she has a smart mouth like that Tina Fey person.

Shelagh is physically fit and has been vaccinated against the H1N1 flu. Sometimes, she puts up some pretty clever Twitter posts. She is a big fan of your work, and is able to quote entire passages from Pulp Fiction, which she thinks was your best movie. For Halloween she dressed up a sad ghost, with one lonely tear running out of the eye she drew on her sheet. It was a little spooky actually, as she didn’t go to a party or anything, but just stood on the corner—rocking a little bit—while watching all the families trick-or-treating.

Anyhow, she’s pulled all sorts of guys up and out of the blues, and I bet she could do the same for you, too! She’s going to be in Manhattan (well, New Jersey) next week, and I can arrange for you two go see Spamalot and then meet for a drink(s!!). No problem!

Alec, don’t thank me, as I’m just “paying it forward.” I can see the potential in you, and I ask that you see it in yourself, too, and that you take this opportunity and say yes to life, and say yes to Shelagh!

Sincerely,

Michael Murray

PS: Shelagh has 7 dogs—Stella, Heinken, Miller, Bud, Pabst, Pabst II and Whiskey Baby—that she travels with, so if you don’t like dogs….

PPS: Shelagh is a talented graphic artist, and is responsible for the lovely painting, which hangs in her kitchen, that you see below.

I’m doing it.

Right this second I’m watching the movie The Amityville Horror.

And I’m alone, in my new apartment, which is situated in a one hundred year-old building that used to be a hotel.

I’m fearless.

Fucking fearless.

You should know that I read the book back when I was kid in 1977. Honestly, I do believe that reading that book was just about the most horrifying thing I have ever done in my life. It was the “true-life” story of a family that moved into a huge Colonial home that just a year before, had been the place where the previous tenant has shot and killed six members of his own family. The people who moved into the home said they were terrorized by paranormal phenomena, with the father claming to have been feeling escalating urges to murder his family and commit suicide.

(In the movie, the father always woke up at 3:15 AM, the time of the murders.)

Set against an inky black, the house on the cover of the book was bathed in a thin and bloody red. The windows looked like the all-seeing eyes of Satan, and the pointed tail of a demon curled out of the H in the word Horror. I came to believe that the book itself, the physical presence of it, was evil, and threw it in a trashcan way out at the St. Laurent Shopping Mall.

Later, in 1979, the movie The Amityville Horror came out.

This was not a good experience for me, and was without a doubt that last horror film that I saw in a theatre for at least 20 years. The movie, which was probably all sorts of crappy, used the most chilling music to link scenes.

There would be a shot of the creepy house, in this kind of red-black x-ray, and while we’re staring into the eyes of this structure, the disembodied, joyless voices of children sang this creepy and hypnotic kind of reel. Whenever this happened, which was about every 15 minutes, I became so overwhelmed with terror that I had to flee to the lobby. It was there where I would try to compose myself for the next 15 minutes by figuring out whether Nibs or Glosette’s would be more calming. ( I went with the Glosette’s because the Nibs were red, the colour of blood.)

I think I spent at least half of the movie in the lobby.

At any rate, it’s a staggering act of bravery for me to be watching the 2005 remake of the movie right now.

There are letter magnets on the fridge in the movie.

They just spelled out the words “Ketch ‘em and Kill ‘em.”

Think I might just take the dog for a walk right now, maybe buy me some Glossette’s.

Now, this isn’t the sort of movie that anybody is likely to seek out, but still, it’s something of a classic in my mind. Made in 1980, it features Jamie Lee Curtis, who was the undisputed Scream Queen of the era, having established her slasher cred in Halloween, Prom Night and The Fog.

Terror Train revolves around six college kids who years earlier were guilty of some sort of prank that went wrong. Now, as they celebrate New Year’s and their graduation at a lame-o costume party aboard a train, they’re stalked by an unknown serial killer who is seeking revenge.

For me, the most striking thing about the movie is the presence of magician David Copperfield. I don’t know, I suppose at the time, he was imagined to be the next great superstar of the entertainment world, and so, he was pointlessly thrown on the Terror Train as the mysterious magician. He’s handsome, I suppose, but also extremely weird looking. His thick black hair looks like a woven helmet that’s been affixed to his head, and his bee-stung lips and rosy cheeks give him a kind of androgynous look. To make matters yet odder, he has these huge dark eyes that makes him look like one of those black velvet paintings of a sad girl.

No matter, he gets a sword in the head.

Of course, the reason to watch Terror Train is not just to see David Copperfield receive his just desserts, but to see Jamie Lee Curtis. Like Copperfield, but also very unlike Copperfield, Jamie Lee Curtis is also kind of odd and androgynous looking. She has a long, narrow face and the slim body of a teenaged boy. She’s not gorgeous in an overtly feminine way, but looks more like a tomboy, the girl you grew up next door to, but never actually noticed.

But then, POW!!!

Suddenly, she’d developed this body that simply would not quit! (There is an entire generation of boys who have the scene in Trading Places when she takes off her top, burned brilliantly into their imagination).

Horror films are really all about the messy passage through puberty to sexual maturity. Jamie Lee Curtis, who we initially hardly even notice, fights off monsters and gets covered in blood, before emerging, sadder and wiser, as a full-fledged woman who has once and for all, left childish things, and her innocence behind.

Outside the window, just beyond of our balcony, soap bubbles drifting by.

On the street below a poet stood on the curb. He took a last, tender drag on his cigarette and then threw it into the street, as if disgusted with the habit he was right that very second quitting. He paused for just a minute, and then walked into a convenience store and bought a new package, which he unwrapped immediately.

At the corner, in the light, drizzling rain, a man was having an animated conversation with a crossing guard, “ Oh, it’s not like I’m without fault, but she was making a point of pushing my buttons!”

In the middle of the sidewalk, a little dog squats and goes to the bathroom. As the owner bends down to pick it up, a stranger tries to pet the dog. Startled, the animal snarls and barks, and the stranger recoils, an awkward and apologetic grin on his face. From across the street, a woman with crazy eyes begins to yell, in a kind of musical tone, “ he’s going to bite, he’s going to bite, he’s going to bite ya’ hard!!!”

Standing between two parked cars on Queen Street East, I have my hand out trying to hail a cab. A cyclist rides toward me, and seeing my outstretched hand, gives me a high five, before wordlessly sailing by, soap bubbles trailing him like phosphorescence.

You should know that I wasn’t “invited” to become a part of this league, but was randomly assigned to it when I signed-up to participate in a Yahoo league. I think that the reason I never get invited back to leagues to defend my crown (I always win), is because people hate winners. Sure, people have cited my “racist taunts” as inappropriate behaviour for the league, or my groundbreaking strategy of sending viruses to opponent’s computers, as “unsportsmanlike,” but that’s obviously just a smoke screen. All of my previous opponents, whom I have crushed without mercy, are a bunch of losers who live in loserville, and sick of losing, exclude me from their leagues.

What. Fucking. Ever.

Anyway, this year I was assigned to a 12-team league called The Orangeville/Kiruna Project. As usual, I’ve been intimidating and demoralizing my opponents with my spirited trash talking and am once again in first place.

However, this morning I received a letter from a Miss Watson, who claims to be a third grade teacher at a school in Orangeville. She claims that her class is involved in a joint project with another grade three class, this one located in the town of Kiruna, Sweden. According to her, the kids from both classes are operating this pool together as a sort of project, in which, acting as pen pals, they get to learn about each countries “unique culture, via our shared love of hockey,” and that my addition to the league was a mistake. She goes on and on and on, but to make a long story short, she wants me to drop out of the league!

As if!

Just because they’re a bunch of kids—soft kids—that doesn’t mean that I should take the foot off the gas pedal! These kids need to learn some tough lesson about life, and one of those lessons is that there will always be winners and losers in this world, and the sooner they understand that, the better. Miss Watson wrote that Mr. Ljungberg—the Swedish grade three teacher—told her that little Halvard (who only has players whose names begin with “H” on his team) has been having nightmares and has been wetting his bed, ever since he started to read my posts on the league message board. Well, if Halvard can’t stand the heat, then he should get out of kjitchen, or however the stupid Swedes spell that.

Look, I skipped grade three, and now that I’ve been given the gift to return there and dominate, like I so clearly would have in the past, I’m sure as hell not going to give it up.

Game, on, bitches!

Innocuous jazz music, the sort of stuff you’re not supposed to notice, played, while the one television set behind the bar was set to CNN. The carpet was a paisley that suggested a kind of decorum, without the interference of taste or personality. The shelves were adorned with the sort of homey props you might see in a Waspy retirement home, and the staff all had a professionally cheerful manner that was simultaneously comforting and alienating.

It reminded me of a different era, this place, and as I sat there I thought of driving across America with my family as a boy. We usually stopped at motel restaurants to eat—places called The Bulldog or The Beefeater-- and they all had a similar feeling of middle-class safety. You’d find familiar food there, nothing weirdly regional or spicy. And so, beneath an array of Anglophile decorations, we would sit in red booths, picking flagged-toothpicks out of club sandwiches and sipping fountain Cokes.

They were kind of surreal places, stages constructed to house an idea of our grandparent’s world. A kind of a ghost world, and even though it was just a weird shadow of home, these places, and The Roy, too, at least try to suggest home, and sometimes, I guess that’s all you need.

A day without character, it was cold and gray, an unwelcome waiting station between seasons. As I coughed joylessly through errands, all I could think about doing was escaping into a movie theatre.

Yes, when things aren’t going my way, I like to vanish into someone else’s life for a couple of hours. In this mood, I prefer going to matinees, when there's usually only a handful of other people present. I don’t think I’ve ever bumped into anybody I know in such a circumstance, and anyway, the spacious darkness provides a comforting anonymity. You’re not there to fall in love or make a friend, you’re there to zone out, to have all of the complications of your life be dwarfed before you, and then obliterated by the movie unfolding on the screen.

Back when I was at University, when I didn't have the faintest idea how to manage a happy life, I’d just show up at a theatre and see whatever movie happened to be playing at the time of my arrival. This was my escape from whatever life I'd fashioned for myself. The process was utterly random, unsullied by expectation, reviews or star power. I just needed to be in a tranquil and controlled environment for a stretch, and whatever was taking place in the movie was pretty much irrelevant.

I saw so many movies that way:

The Name of the Rose
Die Hard
Pump Up the Volume
Dead Calm
Witness
Quigley Down Under
Dead Ringers
Midnight Run
Against All Odds
Talk Radio
Something Wild
Raising Arizona
Robocop
Swimming to Cambodia
Alice
Edward Scissorhands
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Angel Heart
Joe Versus the Volcano

Tonight, I think I’m going to go see Where The Wild Things Are, and if I’m lucky, into the darkness some light, and I’ll leave anew. It’s a wonderful thing, that, to receive such a transfer of energy, and feeling inspired and confident, like you just got an excellent new haircut, you’re ready to meet whatever November you’re facing head-on.

On Wednesday, The Jesus Cobras--my Coed Rec league floor hockey team-- took on our rivals Fat 'N Lazy.

In spite of the fact that only one of their players weighs less than 250 pounds ( a defender named Shawnika, who has to be at least 230), they're a formidable crew. They're hard to move from the front of the net, surprisingly nimble, and they always, always have a full roster. Sadly, last night, The Jesus Cobras were only able to field five players, meaning that everybody on our team had to play the full hour of the game without the benefit of a single substitution.

As I have 16 hernias, I had to assume the role of coach and lead our team from the sidelines.

Sitting down and sipping cappuccino, I shrieked at our team, pointing out everything they were doing wrong and that I could do better. For instance, many of the Cobras shots were ending up nowhere near Fat ‘N Lazy’s net, but smashing through my “coaching zone.”

No matter, knowing that we were going to have to conserve as much energy as possible against the faster, more skilled and better conditioned Fat ‘N Lazy, I implemented a rigid defensive system in which we “froze” the puck as often as possible. And so, the Cobras fell on the puck and smothered it all the time, thus killing as much time as possible. This proved to be very successful, and with only three minutes left in the game, we were tied at a score of 1-1.

At this point I called a time out, and with the team assembled around me, I made the dramatic move of implementing the rarely used “Judas Play.” And so, I took to the floor. Naturally, our opponents were intimidated, and when the puck was dropped, I immediately took off at a dead run. In mid stride, I let out a beastly scream and fell to the ground clutching my head. While flipping about on the floor, I yelled, “ Fire in my head! Fire in my head!!” When everybody rushed over to see what was going on, one of our players took the puck and shot it into the abandoned Fat ‘N Lazy net.

Jesus Cobras 2- Fat N’ Lazy 1.

At this point, Fat N’ Lazy, knowing they were defeated, left the court, saying some stuff about filing a protest, and how we didn’t “understand the spirit behind the game.”

Whatever.

Without any children, I felt that Rachelle and I would stick out like sore thumbs, and I, working from home as a childless, essentially jobless “writer,” would have nothing to talk about with anybody. I just felt that the neighbourhood was too upper middle class, too white, too much, I guess, like the area I was raised in Ottawa. I needed some diversity, I said. I needed to live somewhere where there were all sorts of different people from all sorts of different backgrounds, and so, after a rather circuitous route, we’ve ended up in Riverside.

While picking up some lunch the other day, I found myself standing next to a family, also waiting for their pick-up, on the sidewalk. The man, who had a long, gray ponytail and a beard that was convenient rather than fashionable, wore a baseball hat that said KEEP THE DICE ROLLING. He was with a quiet woman and their two young children.

One of the kids, a boy of about five, immediately came over to Heidi and I, while the younger boy, surrounded by three adults smoking like chimneys, stayed in his stroller. The man was excited about something and his voice was rising, “They weren’t even Wrangler or Lee! I couldn’t fucking believe how fucking much they cost! Had some stupid, offbeat Wop name on them, too!” It was at this point that I noticed the boy in the stroller was drinking chocolate milk from his bottle.

The man continued on about the Swine Flu, asserting his opposition to vaccinations, “they can just fucking try it, man. If they put a needle in me, I will stick it in their fucking eye!” He then yelled at his boy, the one who was playing with my dog, “WE JUST GOT THAT DAMNED JACKET CLEANED!! If you don’t watch out, you’ll be dressing up for Halloween as a bad boy, with my foot up your ass!” The mother stood limply by, her eyes glassy.

Later, Rachelle and I went out to The Beaches to look after her sister’s boys while she played volleyball. As we turned off Queen, we saw the dream of the middle class. Lovely houses, all decorated for Halloween, shone beneath the sun. A smiling woman, playing hide-and-seek with her son, hid behind a mailbox while healthy dogs played in the nearby schoolyard. I swear, everybody we saw seemed to radiate good health and good cheer.

I wanted to live there. I wanted to live amid that, whatever that actually was.

It was humbling, in that being forced to confront my prejudices-- which say way more about me than anybody else-- what I really wanted was to return to an area like the one I grew up in, and live amongst people who I felt were just like me.

Although Rachelle and I don’t have any children, we do have a dog, a miniature Dachshund named Heidi, and she’s way cuter than the Heene’s stupidly named son Falcon. The media would not be able to resist a cute dog in peril story.

With that in mind, I got one of our empty moving boxes and attached several helium balloons to it, which I affixed with masking tape. I placed Heidi in the box, with her squeak toy, and held her out from our first story balcony. By my calculations, with a the wind blowing west, Heidi should have floated gently down Queen Street to the City TV studios in about an hour. Timed at rush hour, this would have created a mad house of attention—much like the OJ car chase, and garnered me all sorts of excellent publicity for my Blog.

The first thing that I did, before releasing Heidi, was call City TV to report the incident.

ME: ( weeping and hysterical) Oh Lord, Lord, Lord!!!

City TV: Calm down.

ME: I’m a Blogger and I’ve lost my dog!!

City TV: You’re a logger who has lost his job?

ME: Yes!! WWWDOTMICHAELMURRAYDOTCABACKSLASBLOGBACKSLASH

City TV: Who is it you’d like to speak with?

ME: Heidi!! Heidi!! She’s so cute the cameras will love her!! And she’s in her Halloween costume—a hot dog!! She’s flying!! She’s a flying dog now and I’m so sorry I took her squeak toy away!

At this point the phone connection went dead, but I was confident that they would scramble their helicopters, and so, holding the Heidi box out over the railing, I released her. Slowly, she descended onto the awning of the Korean convenience store beneath us. In short order, the dog began to bark, which alerted Hyang-Soon, who got a stepladder from the back room and climbed up and took the Heidi box down. Looking up at me, Hyang-Soon said, “Michael, I have your dog here. It looks like she somehow managed to get out onto my awning. In a box with balloons attached to it.” And then he paused for a moment. “Is Rachelle away again?”

It turns out we were in the entranceway to Champions Off-Track wagering. Looking down the stairwell, I could see a dilapidated basement room equipped with a few chairs and television sets. There was a sign posted outside the room-- in both Chinese and English-- that warned against swearing, arguing and unnecessary provocation.

A few of the patrons looked up at us, watching as Heidi shivered and I tried to look preoccupied by the weather. A couple of tiny, old Asian men came up to have a look. They stood quietly beside us, smoking and watching the rain, before returning back to their basement gambling den.

About five minutes later, a shambly black man in a green bomber jacket with stuffing coming out a hole near the shoulder, ascended the stairs. He looked at us and laughed. Shaking his head, he stepped out onto the sidewalk, and then, after a second, turned and put a finger to his lips, “ don’t you be telling the wife where I’ve been now, okay?”

And then he walked away, passing by a bunch of now sopping wet t-shirts—8 for $10—that were hanging lifeless from their display rack.

In front of a discount store, sketchy looking men with pale, sunken faces sit on benches--each one holding a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee, which somehow gives them the appearance of waiting for their AA meeting. A few yards away, hipsters sit at the communal table at The Dark Horse Espresso Bar. Typing away on their Apple Laptops with stern, concentrated faces, they give the appearance of being self-contained, anti-social even, in spite of the fact that they’ve chosen to be amongst people.

Two men, each with a lit cigarette clutched in their teeth, drive by the window on their mobility scooters, little Toronto Maple Leaf flags waving from each. At Jimmy Simpson Park, men sit on benches, watching traffic, while Asian boys play pick-up basketball—always passing, never shooting. Up at Jim’s Restaurant, we sit on the patio-- some silver chairs in the parking lot of Ming’s Auto-- waiting for the take-out I ordered. A toothless old man in a Scarborough Sabers jacket coughs from the chair beside me. Thick and gurgling, he looks at me with his red eyes, "I hate that," he says.

Men appear out of nowhere here. Off the sidewalk, a man wanders over, combing through the unguarded ashtrays on the table. Suddenly, there’s a guy in overalls. With a simple expression on his face, he stares at the dog like he’s never seen such a creature in his life, “Where you from?” he asks bluntly. Frail, with bristly stubble, an old man with a cane wobbles out of the diner. He’s taken with Heidi, and sticks his face right up to her snout. A bad decision, but one he was not punished for. "They can tell if you're a threat or not," he says, sharing the wisdom of the ages. The worn looking waitress comes out and gives me my Souvlaki Platter. She bends down and ruffles Heidi’s ears, kissing her head, before yelling at the dishwasher-- who was on a smoke break-- for forgetting to make a salad.

As I gave the back of his head the stink-eye, I noticed that he was sobbing. His face was flushed red and tears were streaming down his cheeks. I was utterly shocked to see this, and immediately asked him if he was OK and if there was anything I could do for him. He waved me off, “Yo, yo, it’s all good,” he said, before turning quickly away. After a minute had passed he turned around and with great sincerity, said, “Thanks a lot, man, I really appreciate that,” and then composed, he walked like a gangster to the clerk waiting at the desk.

I guess I kind of feel like I have to apologize today.

Last night I was drinking heavily, and when I got home I logged onto Facebook only to see—what I thought—was a very provocative status update in my news feed.

Christian Wichman had posted a photograph of himself wearing a Unicorn crown, under which he had proclaimed himself RULER OF THE UNICORNS.

Needless to say, this pissed me off, as he is not Ruler of the Unicorns. Unicorns, a proud and independent creature, would never subjugate themselves to a ruler, let alone a ruler like Christian Wichman.

At any rate, as you might be gathering, I take Unicorns pretty seriously. I have an extensive collection of Unicorn figurines (37), and unfortunately, several were damaged and destroyed during our recent move. (Milkthistle, Supertramp and Chaos are no more, and Mulder and Fox both had their horns broken off.)

Anyway, this has made me kind of sensitive, I guess. This emotional fragility, coupled with the 11 Mike’s Hard Lemonades I drank last night, made me lash out, writing a series of comments and letters to Christian. I would like to publicly apologize for calling Christian a “loser face,” “scumbag,” “anti-unicorn,” and “puss bucket.”

I realize now that Christian has some mental problems and is just soft in the head, and it really wasn’t his fault that he blasphemed Unicorns. He’s just a retard, and I should have done the adult thing and just let it go by, and so, I just want to say to everybody that I am sorry.

And just for the record, there is NO Ruler of the Unicorns.

I don’t fly very often, and am far from a sophisticated traveler, so I was all sorts of excited. Let me first say that flying out of Toronto to Ottawa, you get to take a boat to a plane.

How cool is that?

That is way cool.

I swear, it was kind of like going to the Ex, only cheaper and less scary.

On the ferry, I spoke with a flight attendant. Wearing her pillbox hat, she looked like somebody stepping out of the 50’s or 60’s. She was heading to Montreal for the weekend. I don’t know, it sounded provocative, that, swinging, even.

A couple that was heading to New York for the weekend, were standing next to me. They had tickets for the Yankee/Twins game later that afternoon and they couldn’t stop smiling. They were the envy of the airport, I think. The man leaned over to me, “AJ Burnett is pitching today. I hate him. I hate his guts. Turncoat!” And then he just beamed.

Waiting to pass through security--which felt more like getting into a nightclub than passing through an airport-- three people grumbled behind me. They complained into cell phones and to each other. It was raining. They were running late. Work sucked. I’m hungry. It was clear from being exposed to them for only a few minutes, that they fed off of one another’s negative energy, and that each day they lived ended up being a disappointment.

At the gate, two women dressed conspicuously in red, talked loudly of their trip to New York. The young one, who was probably in her early 20’s, was tall and thin. Dressed expensively rather than imaginatively, she had arching red fingernails and immaculately maintained eyebrows. She wanted people to think she was a model heading home to the Big Apple, and not a Forest Hill girl who was disliked at her high school.

Across from me, a man in a black leather jacket watched hockey fights on his laptop. He was slightly embarrassed, concerned that the sound might be a little loud. The woman sitting next to him didn't seem to mind, stealing occasional glances while she did her knitting.

Beside me on the plane sat a nervous young woman. As soon as we took off, she put down her novel-- R is for Ricochet-- and began to feed herself candy, which she did all the way to Ottawa.

As we slowly, very slowly unpack all the boxes that clutter our new apartment, we keep making all sorts of unexpected discoveries.

We have 12 Tiki torches!

3 Pinatas!

Easter decorations!

5 hockey sticks and one net!

7 (?!) winter tires!

Another thing I found out is that I have an abundance of vitamins. My mother, bless her heart, likes to send us care packages that consist of tiny packages of Kleenex, obituary clippings, dog treats and a multitude of bottles of vitamins. These come at a rate of about once a month, and although I’m utterly delighted to receive them, I simply cannot ingest that many vitamins. And so, I’ve been placing the bottles in a drawer, figuring I’d get to them when I needed them.

Well, I just unpacked the box that housed the vitamins and found out that there were 29 bottles.

I am considering pouring them all into a big jar, like jelly beans, and offering them up to guests. Or, could give them out at Halloween, or use them to throw at the Pigeons that assemble on the railing by our window. However, Rachelle, who is smart like a kitchen knife, is trying to convince me to sell them on Craig’s List.

This is my ad:

TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!

Feeling sluggish?

Dragging yourself out of bed each morning, unsure if you have the strength to get through the day?

Can’t seem to shake that cold or those persistent dreams of predatory mice that scratch, scratch, scratch at your eyes?

Well, if you answered yes to any of these questions, then you’re probably vitamin deficient. Fortunately, having just moved apartments, I’ve discovered that I have an excessive inventory of vitamins that I am willing to sell!!

I have 29 bottles, about half of which are unopened. Mostly, they are Cod Liver Oil, but there is some Vitamin C in there, Magnesium and Vitamin B, too. And let me tell you, these vitamins are like magic! Having been on a vitamin regime for nearly two years, I can tell you that I can now raise my slapshot while playing floor hockey and only have to stop twice (sometimes just once!) when ascending the staircase to my apartment! My skin has cleared up a bit, too.

I am willing to sell the whole lot for $50.

Interesting trades will be considered.

PS: If you like, I can place all of the vitamins in a Pinata, and include a hockey stick as a baton. This would provide excellent entertainment and fun at any retirement home or hospital wing, and this special vitamin kit can be had for only $75.

Only serious inquires.

* Location: Toronto
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 1459563819

It was a strange piece of theatre in that the audience wasn’t entirely sure if it was a sincere confession, or merely another comedic bit. Obviously, when people are expecting to laugh, they do, regardless of whether what they’re hearing actually warrants it. And so it was with the audience at the Late Show.

As Letterman repeated the word “creepy” in describing his own behaviour, establishing it as a motif throughout his monologue, people in the audience laughed and applauded. In doing this, Letterman, being rather manipulative of a good will that was just waiting to be realized, was playing both sides of the fence. This is understandable, considering the circumstance. It’s natural that he’d use the expectation of humour as a protective shield in the midst of such a crisis.

In spite of the fact that Letterman was quite obviously, and quite consciously, seducing the audience over to his side, I was impressed. He was even-handed and adult, managing to appear as a victim, while still fully accepting responsibility for what had happened. Not surprisingly, the overwhelming response to his mea culpa was positive.

Riding this wave of this goodwill, Letterman used the scandal as the cornerstone of his monologue the next night, before launching into another apology, this one issued to the female members of his staff, who were now being hounded by the media, and his wife, Regina. Once again, he did not skirt responsibility, nor did he come across as somebody who was whiny or seeking pity, but still, it didn’t feel quite right.

It felt self-gratifying, I think.

Whip-smart, funny and self-aware, Letterman is a tremendously persuasive man, one who can likely bend people to his will.

He does it with huge audiences every night.

Imagine being married to that.

And now, in the midst of one of the greatest personal crises that you’ve ever faced, he’s feeding off of the accolades he’s been receiving for his bravery and maturity in confronting the hurt that he’s caused you. This compulsion to seduce, unfolding before millions of people, would make me nervous, as he makes it easy to imagine some point in the future, when once again, receiving the admiring looks and open receptivity of an audience—be it a young staff member or a TV camera-- that he simply would not be able to stop himself from once again, turning on the charm.

On Thursday, just before dawn, Rachelle and I began to move from our wonderful apartment in The Annex, to a work-in-progress place on Queen Street East. We absolutely loved our home on Madison, and our time there, and it’s been with some ambivalence that we decided to leave.

Allowing melancholy to wash over me, I sat on a folding chair in our living room, looking at the now bare walls and the piles of boxes that lay stacked around me, as I waited for the movers to arrive. In short order, Errol Mercury and his man appeared and began to transport all of our belongings into a white, graffiti-streaked van.

It was a simultaneously awesome and demoralizing thing to witness. Swiftly and without a trace of sentiment, they condensed the material proof our lives into the neat cube waiting out on the street.

Somehow, this seemed insufficient.

I wanted our lives to be more than that. I wanted those dull, brown boxes to rip open and sprout flowers. I wanted sound and light, I wanted astonished movers to smile, tenderly asking me to describe each item that they were moving.

But this didn’t happen.

We were exactly like the thousands and thousands of other people also moving that day, all filled with mixed emotions, all wondering what life would be like tomorrow.

What Rachelle, and several of my therapists have pointed out, is that I always describe the way that I’m feeling, by saying that somebody else is feeling that way.

Hypothetically, if I don’t like somebody, I might talk about how somebody else doesn’t like that person, or, according to Rachelle, if I like somebody, I might talk about much a friend of ours “thinks that Jennifer has a great rack! I bet he hopes she wears that tight Mickey Mouse t-shirt out tonight!” or something.

Whatever.

Apparently, according to the blamers, I do this most often with our dog, Heidi. For instance, when Rachelle, Heidi and I are out walking on a humid summer day, whenever I start to get tired, I begin to talk to our miniature Dachshund, saying things like, “Poor Heidi looks tired! Rachelle, I think our little dog needs a break, and maybe a drink! Heidi, you’re such a brave dog to go on such a long, idiotic walk when we could have easily taken a car like I suggested!”

Yesterday, when we moved from our gorgeous apartment on Madison to a “more realistic” place on the wrong side of the tracks, I was apparently "projecting" throughout the day. According to Rachelle, who ACTUALLY took notes, I said the following:

1. Heidi doesn’t want to move!!
2. Heidi thinks the new apartment is stupid and probably has ghosts!
3. Heidi’s scared of street people, you know.
4. Heidi is going to really miss the backyard!
5. Oh, I saw Heidi knock over the lamp while moving.
6. Heidi’s cold and wet and needs her bowl!
7. I think Heidi’s scared of the streetcar. Does it really run 24 hours a day?
8. Heidi’s cold and wet and needs her bowl!
9. Oh, yeah, you mean that photograph of us where I look like a retarded turtle? Heidi broke it. She was acting out because you haven’t been spending enough time with her and she jumped up on the ledge and knocked it on the floor. I’m not sure she really wants to move.
10. Rachelle, I’m telling you, Heidi is refusing to come out of the apartment!

There are some cabs in this city that house furious drivers. There’s one guy who has even affixed a sign to his dashboard that says "I am an angry cabbie." He just seethes, explosive hatred radiating from him like some poisonous cloud. I am sufficiently intimidated by him that when he asks me where I want to go, I simply say "hey, wherever is convenient for you would be just great!" And the he peels off into the night, his dispatcher crackling on the radio as he zips in and out of traffic, honking his horn like his team had just won the World Cup. No. More like he'd just killed the team that challenged his for the World Cup.

There was the cab driver with the accent I could not place—an accent that deserved a century, rather than a nation. It seemed like he belonged three hundred years ago. It was his first night and he spoke to his wife on his cell phone. He was excited, happy. While he drove me home, he kept telling her what he was doing, where he was going, "My pumpkin, I am now turning off of Main Street.”

"My cabbage, I should be home by two. I am kind of nervous, but everything seems to be going well."

When he let me off, he had no money with which to give me my change. I was a little bit exasperated, but I told him not to worry about it. It was only four dollars or so. He fell over himself with apologies, promising that he would pay me back. I didn't pay much attention to him. The next day when I got up, there was an envelope taped to my front door with the name Michael scratched on it. Inside the envelope there was four dollars in change.

My favourite cab contains rabbits. The driver allows two rabbits to run loose in his car. He says that it helps to calm his customers down.

Imagine stepping into that cab.

Maybe the night hadn’t gone that well, and a little bit drunk, you’re thinking that maybe true love will always elude you. You sit heavily in the back seat and sigh, and then looking down, suddenly notice two, little rabbits—whiskers twitching and sides heaving—staring up at you.

It would feel like some kind of miracle.

Clement, who is all bee-stung lips and self-effacing mannerisms, sits in a roadhouse restaurant that doesn’t really look all that, well, nice. With a plate of functional looking food in front of him, and speaking in a fake Australian accent, he slides into a slightly surreal digression that charmingly, always ends up off topic.

www.youtube.com/watch

As always, Clement perfectly captures the Beta-Male character. In spite of his obvious good looks and accidental charm, he’s a passive observer in his own life, steamrolled by the more aggressive forces around him. A New Zealander, his cultural relationship to Australia, where the Outback Steak House originates, is similar to Canada’s relationship to the United States. In this, Clement, and the creators of the ad, manage to walk a fine line. What I get when watching it, and Flight of the Conchords in general, is the perfect marriage of a sensibility that’s simultaneously perplexed by the culture around him, and envious of it, very much wanting to join in, but still remain himself, and I guess, in the end, that’s what we all want.

Or something like that.

A college kid who might have been drunk, tried to walk on his hands.

A tall woman wore an ugly hat.

A cyclist yelled at a car.

Two nuns stopped to get a hot dog.

A large, meaty man with a ponytail stood in the middle of the street. Thinking that he was getting out of car, I allowed my eye to pass over him. When my gaze returned, I could see that both his arms were in the driver’s side window. For some reason, I thought that his arms must have been caught, but then I noticed him repeatedly punching down onto the driver.

I didn’t know what to do.

A car with two men in it noticed this happening and yelled “HEY!” The guy in the middle of the street turned to them and yelled, with one fist cocked, “ MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS!!” and even though those these two guys did not look like the types to mind their own business, they did, and they drove away. The man delivered one or two more blows, and then stalked off to the sidewalk where a thin and greasy looking man stood grinning. The man who had been assaulted, sped his car off through the intersection, while the assailant and his buddy, disappeared around a corner.

The entire incident, from the mysterious assault to the disappearance of all the participants, probably took about 30 seconds. I expected there to be some sort of response--pedestrians with cell phones shouting, people running out of restaurants, the car pulled over, people hustling to attend to the driver, but there was nothing. There was no residue that something horrible, something potentially tragic had just happened. All the people who had seen it had moved on, instantly replaced by a brand new flow of urban traffic.

It was an utterly startling event, and I sat there shocked and ashamed, desperate for some sort of closure, but none was offered.

Unfortunately, The Omen was on TV late last night.

Rachelle, you should know, has been away this weekend. Every month she has a weekend out of town with Stefano, her Brazilian kickboxing instructor, for some special training, and when this happens I’m left to fend for myself. Normally it’s not a problem as Rachelle blocks out all the TV stations that might broadcast scary movies, but she was in a giddy rush this time, and forgot to do that, so last night, at one in the morning, I started to watch The Omen.

Now, I have to preface this by saying that I’ve been sick with a crippling sinus cold, and have been on all sorts of medications that have made me, well, vulnerable.

Right about the time that the father, searching for the mark of the beast on his evil son’s head, clips the boy’s hair, I noticed the dog staring at me. It was not a nice look. It was an evil, superior look. Tranquil and unsettling. I started to yell at her, but she just kept staring at me.

Staring at me.

Staring at me.

I began to drink, as I find being drunk very comforting.

At any rate, the rest is kind of blurry, but I became convinced that Heidi, our miniature Daschund, was the Anti-Christ, and in an effort to find the mark of the beast, shaved her fur off. Thankfully, there was no sign of the devil, or at least none that I could see this morning.

I am not sure what to tell Rachelle about our dog’s missing fur, but I think I’m going with “ she had an allergic reaction after eating half a package of Sinutab.”

Through the University of Toronto Campus, the cab drives slowly up St. George. The driver is happy, his window open, he’s looking at all the pretty girls walking by. I Wanna Dance With Somebody, by Whitney Houston comes on the radio and he turns it up a little bit. Softly, in an East European accent, he begins to sing:

“Oh! I wanna dance with somebody.
I wanna feel the heat with somebody.
Yeah! I wanna dance with somebody.
With somebody who loves me.”

He can see me smiling in his rear view mirror, and he turns the music up a little bit more.

At a red light, he turns the music up yet a little more, and sticking his head out the open window, he sings, strongly now:

“Don’t you wanna dance? With me baby!
Say you wanna dance!
Don’t you wanna dance? With me baby!”

He’s not really singing at anybody in particular, but as he’s yelling this out a girl is crossing the street. She stops for a second, does a quick go-go move, and then hurries across the street to her friends, now doubled over in laughter, waiting for her on the curb.

The cab driver howled, honked his horn twice and then drove off.

It’s not gross, humiliating or embarrassing at all.

I don’t know if it actually works or not, but at least, when you’re in the throes of sinus misery, as both Rachelle and I are right now, it does some psychological good. At least I’m doing something, and the slimy mess that it always produces is an excellent excuse to have a hot shower, which has to be good for a sinus cold, too, right?

At any rate, I’ve recently started to administer a Neti Pot to myself around midnight, right about the time the wracking coughing fits come on. Honestly, choking on a bunch of water that’s oozing out of my mouth and nose is just about the last thing I feel like doing at times like this, and so recently, when I say I’m having a Neti Pot, all I do is fill the thing up with about eight ounces of whiskey, and then slowly sip it while watching TV. This does wonders to relax my aching stomach muscles (from all the coughing), and always sends me straight to sleep.

However, whenever I’m drunk, I usually end up writing a fan letter to a celebrity, and when I got up this morning I found this letter in my Out Box.

Sexy Lady Jennifer Aniston!!

Did you know that I went to high school with Matthew Perry?

It’s true.

You remember him, right?

Chandler on Friends?

You were a MASSIVE star back then!! I mean, everybody wanted to be Ross. You remember when you kissed him in the rain, with One by U2 playing? Jesus. That was hot!

Anyway, that was a long time ago now. I bet you miss those days, because although you’re still famous today, it’s mostly just for being single and childless. It’s not like you’re a movie star or on TV or anything. That must get depressing sometimes. But cheer up, Jennifer! You’re still prettyish and you don’t have a sinus cold!!

By the way, how do stars irrigate their sinuses?

You’re Greek, right?

I wonder if the Ancient Greeks cured Sinusitis? It wouldn’t surprise me, as they were pretty on top of things.

You should know that the Greeks are my favourite ancient civilization, even though they didn’t build any pyramids.

These are my favourite ancient civilizations. ( In order)

1. Greeks
2. Egyptians
3. Druids who built Stonehenge
4. Cavemen
5. Romans

What’s your list of favourite ancient civilizations?

Michael Murray

As I was taking the dog for a walk earlier in the day, I came across a poster taped to a mailbox.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF MISSING CAT POSTER

Did you find a black male cat in this neighbourhood back in the fall of 2002?!

Yes, I know this sounds weird, WHY am I looking now? Well, when my beloved Brando first went missing from my house on Huron St. ( he was an indoor cat and managed to escape the balcony), I did a total search for him at the time with no luck. Just recently however, I came across a record of his ear tattoo number that I didn’t think I had! It has haunted me for years not knowing what happened to my Brando and with this new information, I had to give it one more shot.

If by any chance he is still alive, I don’t want to take him away from his “now home”…it would just ease my heart so much to know he had found another home (even if he is no longer around now) and something terrible hadn’t happened to him after he went missing from me.

DISTINGUISHING MARKINGS/ TRAITS

-Male black cat, neutered and declawed (I was young and stupid about how awful declawing was). He would be 12 years old now.

-Left Ear Tattoo—number: HBE 028

-Weird tail—it arched up over his back

-Little tuft of white on front of neck

-He could get pretty vicious when he felt at all threatened and often hissed when it came to strangers ( but I still loved him!!)

IF ANY OF THIS RINGS A BELL FOR YOU, I WOULD BE FOREVER GRATEFUL TO HEAR FROM YOU.

416. XXX. XXXX

I imagine her now a few years out of university. Watching all the college kids washing through the neighbourhood, she might regret the person she was back in school, back when she was just trying to figure it all out. Thinking of all the moments lost and the people she misses now, she hopes for happy endings, and wonders whatever became of her old cat, her faithful companion through those years.

I went over and asked them how the autograph hunting had been going. They just shrugged, giving me a look that suggested I was a crazy stranger and that I should just leave them alone. For some reason, this startled, even offended me, and I pushed on. The dominant girl of the two, the shorter one, told me in a flat, economical voice that they had seen “Matt Damon, George Clooney, Nicolas Cage and Keanu Reeves.” She said this like it was no big deal.

I, however, was terribly impressed, and trying to be winning, like a cool uncle, asked them of the group, which star was the most handsome. The dominant girl screwed up her face and looked away, scowling, “ I don’t know!” I looked over at the other girl who was smiling nervously, “what about you, who did you think was the best looking?” Her eyes went blank, like she had just been asked a very difficult math question, and then blurted out, “ I don’t know, Nicolas Cage?”

It was at this point that I realized I was a creep, just some freaky stranger asking them questions about which star—who must have all seemed just as ancient as a great-grandparent to them—was cute.

Out of touch and gross.

This little epiphany, in the fading light of one of the last days of summer, was the sort of thing that might just depress a man.

This is one of the things that I love about the place.

On Saturday, as I waited for Rachelle in front of Winners, a big, flatbed truck with a Jesus in the City banner on it, turned off of Avenue and onto Bloor. There were about a dozen black people on the truck, each one performing gospel, and behind them marched hundreds of people and yet more trucks. They were all jamming on Jesus is my Rock, which they'd probably been improvising on for an hour, and it was absolutely incredible. It was joyous and authentic, and immediately, immediately you started to move, wanting desperately to join in and become a part of their congregation.

As far as expressions of religiosity goes, it was the complete opposite of the somber, disapproving brand of Anglican culture that I inhabited growing up. As I was watching the celebration, I imagined a loving and forgiving God, an entity that in spite of all your blunders and weaknesses still embraced you instead of my omnipotent deity who was always watching, waiting for you to slip-up and then send you to Hell for eternity. For me, church had been a rigid and joyless experience. You behaved properly and you followed rules, repressing much of whom you might become in order to, well, conform to the dogma that was being set out before you.

But no matter, it was a sunny day, and the next ethnic wave coming down the street were comprised of Asians. Hopelessly square, they played electric guitar and beat on tambourines in the black and white polyester combos of Sunday school teachers. One truck had the words SALT AND LIGHT written on it, with a Bas-Relief of the skyline of Toronto beneath it, upon which a saltshaker, I guess, was shaking salt and light upon the city. About six young girls, dressed in white t-shirts and grey sweatpants, were performing kittenish choreographed dance routines, while a a handsome guy who dreamed of boy band glory, belted it out. The drummer, a heavy girl beneath yet heavier frames, stared straight ahead beneath her mop of her hair, while all around her pamphlets were being tossed to the crowd.

The last ethnic group to celebrate their Christianity in this parade were the whites--my people. Predictably, they did not play any instruments, but instead had a tape deck playing the sort of middle of the road stuff that reminds you of retirement homes. Instead of singing or dancing, they waved happily from their trucks, while behind them marched their army, which included several dogs wearing t-shirts for Christ.

It was all incredibly sweet and touching, the perfect counterpoint to the slick machinery of the Film Festival, which was just then, leaving town.

However, I have to say that this point of view is pretty rare. Everybody else there looks like they’re killing time in the waiting room at the dentist. In short, they look like they’re at work.

The cameramen who line the back of the room, appear to be thinking about hockey pools and chicken wings, and the rest of the press, all nattily attired and typing away on their phones, are making party plans for later in the night. Didn’t they know that Jack White was going to be in the room? Jack White! One of the three coolest people on the planet! (The other two in this group are Nick Cave and Tom Waits)

There was a murmur of interest rippling through the room when a very attractive woman walked it. Beautiful, but in a modest way, it was clear that she was “somebody.” On her arm was a pinched, 50 year-old woman, who spoke animatedly, trying to draw as much attention as possible to her connection to the beauty, ( who turned out to be Jack White’s wife, the model Karen Elson—who smiled at me. Big time.) However, once she sat down, the press returned to their indifferent posture, waiting for White to appear.

In a thin, almost raspy voice, Jack White spoke of his upcoming concert film The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights. With the pale, anemic face of a vampire, he smiled out at the assembled press like a mischievous, little boy. There was something entirely innocent about him, like it was Johnny Depp portraying Jack White rather than Jack White himself. Dressed all in black, he spoke thoughtfully and intelligently, with an appealing dose of natural humility. He was immediately likeable, an entirely genuine presence.

What I liked most about him was evident attentiveness to the world around him. He was a participant, and not some elite who had chosen to hover above it. He spoke with tenderness and sincerity about Meg White, his painfully shy band mate, and all the people he’d met on their cross Canada tour, and you could just see that he cared about things. He spoke of the myriad projects he was involved in—one being an album with a bunch of bus drivers in Tennessee—and it was evident that his creative energy was staggering. This was a man who wanted to do things, who needed to say yes and see what happens, realizing that inspiration and beauty spring from all sources.

Listening to him I was reminded of Dave Eggers, another artist for whom I have tremendous admiration. I am providing the link to an interview Eggers did with the Harvard Advocate, in which he talks of his philosophy of engagement with the world, of growing up, essentially, and I highly recommend it.

http://www.armchairnews.com/freelance/eggers.html

Yesterday, I was all excited to go to a press conference for the film Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. This had nothing to do with the movie, which may or may not be a work of genius, and everything to do with the fact that Natalie Portman was to be present answering questions.

I should tell you that ever since Rachelle (my lady) started writing fan letters to Clive Owen, after seeing the movie Closer, that I have retaliated by writing fan letters to Natalie Portman.

I think that I’ve written 16.

16 classy letters.

And about 10 postcards.

At any rate, even though Natalie hasn’t Skyped me as I pled, I have no doubt that we’ve established a bond, and I was looking forward to getting to meet her and ask her some questions.

I had prepared five.

1. You worked with Clive Owen, is it true that he smells like a basement?
2. What do you admire most about my writing?
3. Why do you think that Clive Owen holds racist opinions?
4. Have you seen Clive Owens Nickelback tribute band perform, and if so, did you throw up on the spot?
5. Would it be okay if I smelled your hair?

The press conference was scheduled for 3:00 PM, and although I’ve been to a few of these things, I was really nervous for this one. I mean, Natalie Portman! I wore my hipster gingham shirt with my retro narrow tie and applied some Hermes cologne to my pressure points, leaving Rachelle a note that said, “ Off with Nat, don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Sadly, as I am disorganized, I got the day wrong, missed the press conference, and ended up sitting in the lobby of the hotel with about two dozen senior citizens who were on a bus tour of Canada to see the fall colours.

I pretended that I was an important actor, but they didn’t believe me.

Beatrice, the fat one who probably bought her grandkids clothes for Christmas, snorted, “Yeah, right, if you’re an actor, then I’m Myrna Loy!”

The most surprising thing about this unexpected sighting was just how tiny Troyer was. He looked like little more than a pale, baldhead. His clothes seemed so loose, just the sleeve through which an animating arm might bring a hand puppet to life. Honestly, I though I could pick him up by the head in the same manner that I might palm a volleyball. He looked immensely vulnerable and fragile, and it was sad rather than cute.

Troyer, who is 40, stands 2 feet 8 inches tall, which is about the width of that doorframe in your hallway--you know, the one that’s too narrow to get your sofa through. He’s one of the smallest people on the planet, and because of this, he’s a celebrity.

Understandably, he wants to be thought of a star and not a freak, and so, throughout his career, he’s adopted this sort of gangster, ladies-man persona. You see pictures of him copping attitude in tinted sunglasses, groping some Playmate at one of Hefner’s booze-ups, and just generally trying to fob himself off as a regular, hard-partying, Maxim-reading dude--just another celeb with a drinking problem and a sex tape.

But that’s not what we see when we see him, we see Mini-Me, one of the smallest people on the planet.

On the second floor of the Sutton Place, there’s a Blackberry display that’s manned by three 20something salesmen. They’re likely waiting for a better job, just earning some summer beer money before heading back to school, but they probably like working the Festival, as every once in awhile they get to see a celebrity. Yesterday it was Mini-Me.

They talked excitedly about meeting him and getting his assistant to lift him up on the counter to pose with all the phones. Each one of them had their picture taken with him, and they all looked the same. The pale head of Verne Troyer-- with a frozen grin on his face-- beside a bent over Blackberry salesman. Almost Warholian.

For Troyer’s trouble, he was given a free Blackberry.

Later, over the course of a reckless and boozy night, the salesmen will show the pictures off to their buddies. They’ll all laugh and crack jokes before heading off to the next bar, living the perfectly normal masculine life that’s always eluded Troyer.

“He is very small man, very small, but real good guy.”
“Do you think he’d be small enough to fit in a teacup?” I asked.
“Yes, I think that Mister Stallone might fit almost in the tea.”

The Sutton Place Hotel is one of the locations in the city where press conferences for the Film Festival take place. I was there at the media office trying to get press credentials for some of the conferences, and of course, I had not followed procedure at all. It was a mildly humiliating experience, with the staff managing to be perfectly polite, but still entirely unfriendly.

In the lobby, a small guy with floppy, platinum hair sat playing the piano. Self-consciously jazzy, he tossed his hair, hoping to be discovered by some Hollywood hotshot.

Last year, Viggo Mortenson sat down and fooled around on the same piano while throngs of oblivious media milled about. This didn’t’ exactly surprise me, as the media-- always lost in the faux-urgency of their Blackberries-- are usually more focused on themselves, and how they appear to the world, than on what’s going on around them.

Walking up Bay to Bloor, people with TIFF passes swaying from around their necks, spoke into cell phones, begging for an audience:

“Yeah, well, I’m writing a feature now with one of the writers from Gossip Girl...”

“Look, I understand that it’s your project, I understand that it’s your baby. You developed it…”

“No, her agent is being very difficult, but honestly, her career has stalled and I think she pretty much has to accept what we’re offering…”

Up the street at the busiest intersection in the city, three women came walking out of the glare of the sun. All blonde and in their mid-forties, they looked like they could have been Playmate models in Romania twenty-five years ago. Sporting unnatural tans and designer sunglasses, they wore thousands of dollars worth of bad taste on their bodies. As they hit the corner, the tallest one, the one with the largest breasts, asked her two friends, “Do you want to get some Champagne?”

As she said this, she had to step around a man who was lying on the street corner. With a full head of white hair and a bright, red face, he lay beneath a blue blanket begging. Hat in hand, his arm was outstretched on the sidewalk, while the fingers on his other hand were pressed up against his lips, as if asking us to keep a secret. So dramatic, so floridly obvious was the contrast, that it seemed like it could have been performance art.

But it wasn’t.

At the lunch counter at Pusateri’s, a man in a pink shirt tries to pay for a muffin and a coffee. He has an effeminate, slightly incompetent manner. Befuddled, with his two hands cupped together, he holds out a pile of subway tokens and spare change from all sorts of different countries, “ I have no idea what a Canadian dime looks like, you take what you need,” he says to the girl working. He's theatrical, acting like he’s always had to rely on the kindness of strangers to get by in this world.

From the table behind him comes an irritated, sarcastic voice, “Roger, it looks like a quarter!” Also in a pink shirt and around his age, sits a woman who looks like she could be his sister. I imagine that she’s been looking after her brother since their mother died back in 1994, and that they’re notorious eccentrics who live in a big, old house full of accidental antiques and cats. The woman looks at me, “We’re not from around here, okay?”

As usual, I ask the girl behind the counter what celebrities she’s seen. There is some confusion about whether Oprah has been in or not, but she is certain that Megan Fox has been there. She’s too polite to tell me what she thinks of her, but the hesitation and reluctance in her eyes makes her feelings clear.

Behind her, a blonde girl who has been listening to our conversation, puts a cheesecake away. She looks over at me, “ Megan Fox has been coming in every day buying sandwiches.” The girl has a scowl on her face as she says this. She says that she's short and skinny, and then imitates her by slumping around. The East Indian girl, who earlier wouldn't say anything, stifles a giggle. The blonde adds that most of the budget for The Transformers must have been spent on fixing Megan Fox's bad skin. It's clear that the she doesn't think Fox pretty at all, and resents that she's the dream girl of boys she goes to high school with.

The Hazelton Hotel on Yorkville erects a thickly woven hedge around its patio during the Festival. This protects the privacy of the people in there, and creates an aura of mystery. Anybody could be there! Walking by, you hear muffled and slightly disembodied voices that every once in awhile, break into the inaccessible laughter of glamor.

An older man is packing up his Tarot Card table on the street corner adjacent to the hotel. I ask him if he’s read any celebrity fortunes recently, and he looks up at me, smiling brightly, “Oh, no! Hell, I haven’t even seen one!”

On Saturday, Rachelle and I took the dog on a stroll down to Yorkville. It was a beautiful day and the Toronto International Film Festival was in full swing, so the city, and everybody in it, was feeling kind of excited and world class.

Between his two children, a father walked down the sidewalk holding their hands. They all had the open, vulnerable smile of tourists looking for stars on their faces. Wearing Tilley hats that seemed to open up to the sun, they looked blossoming Daffodils.

Perhaps fifty people, all jostling one another hoping to catch a glimpse of celebrity, were assembled in front of the Intercontinental Hotel. As they were watching the entrance, a limo on the street behind them smacked into a cab, creating a huge crunch—the sound of power. The crowd all spun around at once, with one woman exclaiming, “ Oh. My. God!”

At Bloor and Avenue, Heidi and I waited outside a church as Rachelle ran an errand. Beside us on the sidewalk was a beggar wearing nothing but shorts and a cast on his arm. Aided by a walker and a nurse, a very pale and very elderly woman made her way slowly down the street. She stopped in front of the beggar and began to look through her change purse, and as she did so, he told her that he had cancer. “Oh, my,” she said, “I’m sorry. I’ve just been treated for cancer myself.” He asked her is it was gone. “Yes, I hope so,” she said, handing the man a quarter, “ I really hope so.”

As this was happening, a woman waited to cross the street. She was stunning. Draped in the expensive shopping bags of the district, she tossed her perfectly blonde hair and smiled back at the people watching her. She wore a mini skirt and a tight, loosely knit white sweater through which you could see her matching black bra. When the light changed she began to hurry across the street, heading to the Park Hyatt Hotel. Her four-inch heels clicked against the pavement, and everyone watched, trying to figure out who she was.

On the patio at Pusateri’s everybody was dressed up, trying to look like they belonged. They spoke loudly of the films they had seen and the parties attended, wanting to give up the appearance that it was all “work.”

I asked the cashier inside what celebrities she had seen.

George Clooney.

I tried to get her to say that he was actually tiny, but she would not. Beaming, her eyes alight at the memory, she said, “Oh Lord, he was so HANDESOME!”

A young woman joylessly bused the lunch counter. She didn’t look like she enjoyed her job very much, and gave every indication that she felt the same way about her life. I asked her what celebrities she had seen, and rather sourly, like the memory was unpleasant, she said, “Megan Fox.” She told me that she was little more than five feet tall and that she looked WAY better on TV than she did in person. She allowed a small smile to animate her face as she revealed this last piece of news.

I think that everybody I knew who saw District 9, loved it, and from what I could tell, the critical assessments in the media were also glowing, and so, it was with an open, optimistic and entirely excited heart that I went to see the movie.

I thought that the premise, the launching point for the movie, was absolutely brilliant. In this case, the mysterious arrival of aliens on the planet-- which is usually portrayed as either catastrophe or salvation in Sci Fi-- appears to be little more than a refugee dump. How would humanity deal with the unwanted class of an alien civilization?

However, after about the first five minutes, I watched in dismay, as District 9 became a very conventional, derivative and annoyingly commercial enterprise.

For reasons that are not clear to me, the lead character was modeled after Steve Carell’s portrayal of Michael Scott in The Office. It was a curious and awkward stab at humour, one that helped drain the movie of the complexity and nuance the premise deserved. Content to use a visual shorthand rather than constructing a style of it’s own, District 9 plundered a variety of sources in what seemed an aimless manner. There were symbolic references to ET, Aliens, X-Files, The Fly, and numerous others, including the documentary frame of The Office (now something of a horror-film cliché), which they sped away from whenever convenient.

The movie itself wasn’t exactly coherent, and to enjoy it as so many did, you have to live in the present, by which I mean allow yourself to propelled along by the visual dynamism, rather than sitting back and thinking about what was actually taking place.

After about half an hour, it struck me that the movie was in fact built to structurally resemble a video game, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it does mean that District 9 is an expression of chaotic, visual energy. It’s explicit and superficial, adhering to the philosophy that the more components it contains, the better it is. The narrative, such as it is, is all about problem solving-- the acquisition and mastery of specific tools in order to solve problems in a shifting landscape--rather than say, the maturation of a character. You don’t learn lessons in District 9, you move from level to level.

After about an hour, I just wanted the movie to end, having nothing invested in any of the characters on the screen. I simply could not shake the feeling that the movie was merely a trailer for the TV series/video game/sequel it was designed to precede and market, and I found myself wishing that the producers had an artistic goal rather than a commercial one, because the premise was so strong.

One of my therapists suggested that I should make a list of people who reminded me of myself. This sounded like a fun homework assignment, and so I did it straight away. This is the list that I came up with:

Martin Luther King—For our belief in equality for all people, oratorical skills and fondness for alcohol.
Aragon from Lord of the Rings—As played by Viggo Mortenson.
Ernest Hemingway—For some pretty obvious reasons and the fact that we both look good in Greek Fisherman’s sweater.
Captain Picard of the USS Starship Enterprise—Cool under pressure.
Lenny Kravitz—Fashion icon.
Roger Federer—I am good at tennis, and I think we are both class acts.
Marcel Proust—Writer who was a sickly child and who had close ties to his mother.
George Clooney—Salt and pepper hair.
Spiderman
Nick Cave
Maurice “The Rocket” Richard—We both share a certain fire in the belly.

I took my list into my therapist and we had a long and interesting talk about how I view myself in the world. Dr. Ellen said that she thought that now that we both had a clear idea of how I saw myself, that it would be a good idea to find out how other people viewed me in the world, and to see if the two matched up as it should “in healthy and balanced” people. And so, she told me to pick somebody who knows me very well, and to ask them to create a list of people who honestly reminded them of me, and so naturally, I asked Rachelle.

This is her list:

Woody Allen
Mister Burns (mostly just the body)
That guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
Benjamin Button (when he was an elderly little boy)
Peewee Herman
Larry David (most old people)
A pickle
Shaggy from Scooby-Doo
Youssarian, Flower’s troubled younger brother from the Whiskers clan on Meerkat Manor.
Tin-Tin

Meredith,

It was Salsa night on the street corner.

The girl was pretty and knew the fundamentals. She had three or four steps that she executed crisply, like Jennifer Lopez would in a movie, by which I mean she was intentionally drawing attention to her exaggerated movements. The boy looked embarrassed, like he'd been dragged out there. He didn't have a clue what he was doing and was not picking it up quickly. Like a rag doll, he lurched after the girl who was leading. Oh, he looked like he just had his braces removed ten minutes earlier. He was so awkward and perfect, dancing with the pretty girl he never even thought would even notice him, let alone hold his hand and push her body up close, right next to his, with all of Toronto watching, on this, the best night of his life.

I miss you.

P

The truth, of course, is that we’re just scared. We may say that it’s our pets that are frightened, but the truth is that it’s us, too. There’s something eerie and intimidating about jet airplanes screaming over a city. It’s an ominous portent, one that sparks in us some primal shudder of fear and awe, that later, seeps into our dreams.

On Monday, Rachelle and I went over to Centre Island to visit her aunt and uncle, who live on the sailboat they keep moored there in the summer. Given a little bit of distance, and the comforting expanse of Lake Ontario, the Air Show took on a different character. Instead of looking up and catching a disorienting and threatening microsecond of a plane exploding past a building—in which you couldn’t help but think of disaster and war-- you saw the planes at a distance, in perspective.

Arcing across the sky in perfect synchronicity, the planes were still awesome and formidable—as they should be-- but they were also majestic. Set against a field of blue, with the beautiful skyline of Toronto behind them, they were actually inspiring in their ambition.

We came out of caves to build such cities and to fly such planes.

Just think about that.

Rachelle’s uncle, who is in his 70’s, but honestly looks and lives at least 20 years younger, sat watching. He used to fly jet airplanes when he was younger, and you could see a sort of melancholy in his eyes as he recalled those days, fifty years earlier, when he and his buddies were the ones dazzling the crowds thousands of feet below.

From the sailboat we sat there watching.

The end of a beautiful day, the summer once again having flown by too quickly.

What do you do when somebody you love becomes a moron?

Sadly, Rachelle—my most beautiful Petal—has taken to wearing moccasins all the time.

It started innocently enough. She had hurt her foot while kicking somebody at floor hockey practice, and found that shoes were a little constricting after the injury, and that she felt better wearing something looser. We happened to have an old pair moccasins lying around and she took to wearing those. At first, it was just around the apartment, but in due course she began wearing them out for little errands, and now she wears them all time.

It’s embarrassing.

The other day, while we were dining out in the Distillery District, Rachelle looked at me from across the table. Wearing her moccasins, and with one braid in her hair, she made a toast,

“May the Warm Winds of Heaven
Blow softly upon your house.
May the Great Spirit
Bless all who enter there.
May your Mocassins
Make happy tracks
in many snows,
and may the Rainbow
Always touch your shoulder.”

Normally, she’d say, “Cheers, big ears!”

So far, she’s made 16 dream catchers, which now hang from all of our light fixtures, a totem pole for the back yard ( a Daschund as the primary “spirit-guide”), and has taken to leaving those little piles of rocks outside of every new place we visit.

I don’t know, I suppose it’s a phase she’s passing through, just like after she saw Fargo and Lord of the Rings, but still, any advice would be greatly appreciated. I mean, I’m sick of having to call her “Walks with Wonder, Shoots with Force.”

Leslie Fulton of Ottawa, who has a curious mind, wonders how single shoes come to litter the streets of the city. She’s observed that there are all different types of shoes, and that it’s highly improbable that they’re simply work shoes slipping out the knapsacks of sneaker-wearing civil servants marching to and from work.

As I know an awful lot of things, I think I can help with this.

I cannot tell you just how many shoes I have lost to rage.

It happens all the time.

When something doesn’t go my way and I can feel the apoplexy start to radiate out of my eyes and fingers, then I always take off a shoe and whip it my target. Although this practice is relatively new to many North Americans, it’s been around for sometime. Remember Operation Iraqi Freedom? Remember how a bunch of guys took off their shoes and began slapping some fallen statue of Saddam Hussein with them? Remember later, when some guy took off his shoe and chucked it at George Bush?

Ever since the liberation of Iraq, we’ve been seeing more and more instances of shoe throwing on our shores, as it becomes a more common and accepted practice. I will now share with you a few of my recent shoe throwing episodes.

1) While eating a hotdog on the corner of Bloor and Spadina, a particularly aggressive pigeon-- one I had seen before-- kept advancing on me. I threw my shoe at it. Unfortunately, I missed, hitting a passing cyclist, who attacked me with the shoe until she was restrained by the hotdog vendor. Sadly, while this was taking place, I lost my hotdog to the pigeon predator, but was able to salvage my shoe.

2) I was splashed by a motorist during a rainstorm on Queen Street, and in a rage took off my shoe and threw it at the car. Unfortunately, I was unable to reclaim my shoe, as the traffic was intense. Size 8 ½ white Converse hightop. Left foot.

3) I was at the Roger’s Center for a baseball game, and Vernon Wells struck out three times in a row, the last time with the bases loaded. From the six hundred level, I threw my shoe at him. The shoe was not in the Lost and Found, as I had hoped, and I was unable to get it back. Size 8 ½ black leather Ben Sherman model. VERY EXPENSIVE. Left foot.

4) After I rented the movie Knowing (starring Nick Cage), Rachelle, sitting in car outside of the store, began to make fun of my pick, as she always does. I threw a shoe at her, just to scare her. The shoe landed in the middle of Bloor Street. I was unable to reclaim the shoe. Size 8 ½ white Converse high top. Right foot.

* If any of these shoes are found in reasonable condition, I would very much appreciate it if you could return them to me.

Darcy Allan Sheppard was killed on Monday night while riding his bicycle down Bloor Street in downtown Toronto. Michael Bryant, the former Ontario Attorney-General who was driving the expensive Saab that killed Sheppard, has been charged with criminal negligence causing death.

The story is now well known and has served as a bit of a lightning rob, providing further fuel for the eternal struggle between motorists and cyclists.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I had to go down to Yorkville to run an errand. As I was running late, I decided to cycle rather than walk, as I would normally do. You should know that I’m not a particularly confident or sturdy cyclist.

No.

Far from it.

Just over a decade ago I had one of my lungs removed, something that’s inhibited me psychologically more than physically. It was only recently, with the encouragement of Rachelle, that I’ve gotten back on the bike, and each outing, especially in the mad metropolis of Toronto, gets me kind of nervous and excited—like going on a ride at the Ex.

Anyway, since I was late, I just grabbed Rachelle’s bike, which was handy. It’s a little bit too big for me, and it’s a girl’s bike, one that has flowers painted on the frame and a big basket on the front. It’s a sweet ride, though, and strapping on her effeminate, bright purple helmet, I headed off on my wobbly journey into the city.

I suppose, if you watch me ride a bike you’re likely to think that I might be ill with Parkinson’s. I don’t seem to know where I’m going, veering uncertainly around the street, and I move slowly, but in a very jerky, almost accidental manner. Riding in this style, I waited to cross Avenue(right near where Sheppard was killed) to get into Yorkville. I was not at a light, but just stood at the edge of the street with my wheel sticking hopefully out. Almost immediately, the rush hour traffic, which is usually vicious and unforgiving, came to a halt, and I watched as driver’s, looking at me with tremendous warmth and sympathy, waved at me to cross the street, as if I was leading a line of baby ducks.

I realized that on this day, in the wake of the death of Darcy Allan Sheppard, there was a truce between drivers and cyclists.

After I had run my errand and was returning to my bike, I noticed a man leaving a fancy Yorkville hotel. Christ, he looked like a superstar. He was wearing a $5,000 suit and he was glowing with beauty and success. As he strode down the sidewalk, her brushed my bike and it fell to the ground. It was an accident, and I wasn’t angry in the least, telling him not to worry about it, but he was a world of apology. He rushed over to the bike, cradling it as if it was a baby that had fallen from the window, and castigated himself for his stupidity and carelessness, while I, in my unfashionably ripped jeans and special helmet, stood there watching. Honestly, I thought he was going to give me money.

Later, just down the street on Bloor, cyclists were assembling for a protest. I went down, and sitting on my bike, watched from the sidewalk. I was asked by a pedestrian what was going on, and I told him, only to be interrupted by a muscular, little man wearing sunglasses and an iPod. Speaking in a heavy Russian accent, he told me I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. He went on for several intimidating minutes, issuing several threats to anybody who would think to fuck with him. I nodded my head, wished him well, and pushed off into the street, heading home.

Through residential Yorkville, I rode slowly on the sidewalk, more of a nuisance, than a danger. I passed an elderly man standing at the end of a driveway. I rang my bell and waved at him, but he gave me a sour look, shouting, “What you’re doing is illegal you know, illegal!!”

At any rate, there are usually around a hundred people up for the party and it always feels kind of magical, like you’ve just alit upon Prospero’s Island. Wearing costumes and playing games, people from all over the world come to wine, dine and dance before departing, some having become best friends, others never to see one another again. Every year there are a million different stories, and each narrative thread serves to form a kind of tapestry, one that stretches back for over a century. There’s something humbling in this.

Like anybody, I suppose, when I look out over the lake, I see a landscape that has existed long before any of us, and one that will exist long after. It provides perspective, this, reminding me that we’re small things who pass through this world in an instant. In such circumstances, vanity tends to fall away.

I have tremendous gratitude to Douglas, and the Mason family, for so generously sharing this portal with us each year. In the unhurried, almost accidental way of cottages, I get to know new and wonderful people each year. I’ve always marveled at just how interesting everybody is, how rich and varied and complex each one of our lives are, and how at the core, each person is driven by a native decency.By chance, we find time together--washing dishes after dinner. Getting drunk on the dock. Smoking a hookah pipe while sipping tea. Playing cards on a rainy day. Or just standing in the sun, staring out at the water.

Last year I stood on the dock and watched as Johnny, a man I had never met at the time, stripped down and dove into the lake. Bald and muscular, he seemed to consume the waters with each stroke, circling the island twice. He was vividly alive, this man, and I looked forward to seeing him again this year, but he was seized by a virulent cancer and died just a few months before the party.

We never know what’s awaiting us. We might think that we do, but we don’t.

There are three generations of people visible at every party, and as I move through them, I know that there are many that I won’t see again, but I sincerely treasure the opportunity to share in their light, even if it is only for a day or two. Our lives go in crazy, unpredictable directions, and the most we can hope is to somehow stay present in the lives of those we love, and to generate light, rather than consume it.

After dinner, we sat around and told stories of the supernatural.

Each person spoke slowly, their eyes a little bit distant, as they carefully remembered a moment that still, after all these years, they could not explain or entirely believe.

“…And then the balloon deflated and fell to the floor, and we knew that he was gone.”

“…On the window, the silhouette of a dove in the frost, and I knew then that she would be alright.”

“…My knees were shaking as I got out of the car to take a picture of the lights, I mean, I had absolutely no idea what they might have been.”

“…I looked up and saw a figure standing in the window, and thinking it was Brian, I waved, but when I got to the house, I found out that there was actually no window in the room I had been waving at.”

The photographs were taken by the most excellently talented Chris Parson (http://www.chrisparsons.ca/) at Cliff Island in August 2009.

Last night, I went down to the Duke of York Pub to meet Rachelle and her teammates after their basketball game. I was a little bit early, so I had a seat at the bar and had a drink.

It was pretty busy, and the manager was pitching in to help the unhappy looking waitresses who were zooming about. A curious cross between George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino, he seemed to have a little bit too much charisma, a little too much confidence, to be working as a pub manager, even if it was a pub in Yorkville. He appeared to be good at his job, helping out by doing the things that needed to be done, rather than telling other staff to do them. In short order, as things slowed down a bit, he took a position behind the bar. Little Surfer Girl by The Beach Boys was playing, and now, after the storm, everybody was relaxing into smiles.

One waitress, the career one, had the puffy, worn face of a decade long hangover. She had bad decisions and bad luck written all over her, and it was clear that she was used to be disappointed. Her eyes were angry, and she told the same story to every staff member who passed by her. A customer had scammed her out of $5.34. Each person got a new variation of this tale, and with each telling other occasions when she had been ripped-off were brought up, until eventually it was just one long grievance of her crummy history as a waitress.

As she was fulminating to a bus boy, a line of elderly, grey-haired women leaving the patio walked by. Moving slowly, they were like a line of happy ducks crossing the street. The bus boy snapped to attention, “Good-night, ladies, good-night! Bye-Bye, now!” Practically blushing, the women smiled and waved, “Oh, you know we’ll be back, we always come back!” The waitress gives them a quick look, and barely breaking from her screed, said, “you take care, dears,” but she didn’t mean it, she didn’t mean it at all.

The older I get, the more I’m coming to believe that confidence is an over-rated quality.

When I was younger I thought that it was a positively magical element. If you had it, some process of alchemy would take place, and through sheer force of will, anything you touched would be yours. Thousands upon thousands of golden opportunities would unfold before you, and suddenly, you’d have the ability to pick-up beautiful women in the grocery store.

Tom Cruise of the 80’s and 90’s was emblematic of this. Back in the 80’s, when I saw him in the movie Risky Business, I hated him immediately. It was evident to me that there was no inner core in the man, and the confidence he projected out into the world was a mask. It was something he was selling, and it existed only as it related to the audience, having no home but in the imaginations of other people.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love people who are self-assured, but I consider that to be an implicit quality, whereas confidence is explicit. There’s a sort of evangelism to the abundantly confident. They walk into a room and immediately, and often intentionally, seize leadership. Offering unbidden solutions and direction, they confine the rest of the people to subordinate roles, who must either get out of the way, or dutifully follow the script that’s being sculpted. I don’t know, it’s the sort of thing that just seems so focused that it obliterates everything else around it. Confidence is rarely empathetic.

At any rate, Tom Cruise, now sliding toward 50, is widely seen as insane and desperate. Once you hit 40, I think, a virile excess of confidence seems kind of deluded and over compensatory, like dying your hair and wearing skinny jeans.

And when I see some 45 year-old guy, his eyes gleaming, still trying to convince me that he’s going to bend the world to his will, well, all I can think is that he hasn’t been paying attention—which may well have been the case. Whether we want it or not, life teaches us humility, be it through our failures or our successes. We’re small things in this world, frail and vulnerable in ways we don’t even understand. I prefer the company of those who look out and see beyond themselves, and apprehending something larger than their ambition, feel some uncertainty, and compassion for those who share in that uncertainty.

Earlier in the day Heidi and I went for a stroll down Spadina. A squirrel, carrying a hotdog bun that was a long as the animal itself, passed before us. This made Heidi crazy with jealousy, and she lunged at the squirrel, yanking me along behind her by the leash. The squirrel zipped up a tree while Heidi stood at the base, barking. I was looking up, trying to ascertain if the squirrel had managed to retain his hotdog bun (he had) when the door to the home the tree was on opened.

An elderly woman emerged. She was frail and she wore a big, floppy Tilley hat and a loose fitting shirt. I was getting ready to mumble some sort of apology to her, but when she looked over at the scene her face lit up and she began to giggle. “Oh my, “ she said, “such a very dramatic tableaux!”

Heidi and I continued on our walk down to Bloor, when about five minutes later we heard the persistent ringing of a bicycle bell. I looked behind me and saw the elderly woman, now riding a bike. I started to wave, figuring she was trying to say hello by ringing the bell, but she didn’t see us at all. There was a cube truck parked by the curb in front of us, and that’s what she was focused on. She kept ringing her bell, shouting, “Please don’t open your door, pleased don’t open your door, please don’t open!!” before sailing by safely.

First off, I want to say that I know I look like an aging turtle in the photograph I sent to you. I would have liked to have sent a different picture, but I’m afraid my lady put her foot down on the matter, claiming it was one of the few photographs we had in which there was no visible tooth paste on either my face or shirt. ( I do not think this is true.) At any rate, if you choose to accept our application, you will see that my resemblance to a turtle is only passing, and greatly reduced when I’m not wearing a turtleneck.

Let me tell you a little bit about us:

I have an extensive wardrobe and am excellent at Ping-Pong. I work as a writer, and as I am modest, I feel awkward about my genius, which I recently found does not translate in IQ tests. For the last three and a half years I’ve written a weekly column about watching TV for the Ottawa Citizen, and now write about Pop Culture for Slant Magazine and Pajiba.com, as well as participating in an impressive and sexy array of other arty projects and free lance endevors. I have appeared on TV a few times( CTV Newsnet) talking (nervously) about culture, and have a host of videos on Youtube( under the name Cormac40) that served as a complement to my columns. I also Blog like a superstar: http://www.michaelmurray.ca/blog/

My lady--Rachelle Maynard--is also a genius, although her genius doesn't translate into IQ tests either. I wonder what's up with that? Anyway, she's a quadruple threat-illustrator/graphic designer/artist/advertising titan. She is insanely talented. She is also the captain of our floor hockey team, The Jesus Cobras. You can see some of her work at www.rachellemaynard.com. She’s also very pretty. Loves animals. Talks with a bit of an accent. Very mysterious.

At any rate, we’ve been an item for 4 years now, and have been living in the Annex in Toronto for the last two. Our present apartment is utterly stunning. (We have an Impala head on the wall!).However, like many people who don’t really know what they’re doing, we think we should buy a house because interest rates are low. And so we searched, quickly finding ourselves to be overmatched in every regard. We are now retreating to our corner, having decided that what we need to do is downsize and save some money, and then try again to buy in a couple of years.

We presently pay about $2000 a month, and are looking to pay about $1400, all inclusive. We have tons of stuff, and a dog( a miniature Daschund named Heidi), so we need a big place. We are also scared of bugs( Indian Meal Moths, Fruit Flies and Earwigs in particular) and so we need a clean place. We realize that it’s unrealistic to find a big 2 bedroom place in The Annex at the price we’re looking to pay, so we’re primarily concentrating on Leslieville, but are open to any area centrally located area where it’s unusual to find a corpse. If you folks could help us find a new place, well, you would be heroes and we would invite you to all our parties. Good food at our parties, and fun games!

Michael Murray

1) The Pharoah’s Fury

This is the ride that has a big boat—that kind of looks like a banana-- that swings from side to side on a huge mechanical arm. I was kind of nervous about this one, as, well, I’m a nervous person and it had probably been 20 years since I’d been to an Ex. Rachelle wanted me to sit in the last row, where the sensation of falling out of the boat and to your death was most acute, but I refused, instead sitting with our friend Julia in one of the middle rows that are reserved for children and heart patients.

I tried to play it cool, like I wasn’t scared at all, but Rachelle informed me the entire ride, I had a fake smile on my face that was so intense, that it actually strained my neck so that she could see every tendon and muscle quivering.

2) The Polar Express

This takes place on a short, luge-like track where a string of cars zip around backwards while bad music blares. Our friend Mark, while waiting in line, pronounced that he was not going to get on the ride while Nickleback was playing. He did.

The ride was ancient and ratty looking, like it had been around for 30 years. About eight employees in red shirts kept the crowd moving as quickly as possible. I asked one of them, the guy who had hands the size of tennis racquets, what time the rides shut down. He told me, “When the lights go out.” He was not trying to be clever. I took some relief in the fact that it was his job to rip the tickets in half.

The ride took about 90 seconds, and although it was not really very exhilarating or terrifying, it did manage to make feel like throwing up. As we staggered out of our car, guys in red shirts descended on us, shouting, “Go, Go, Go!!” They pointed and waved their arms furiously at the exits, as if they were firemen directing us to safety, rather than greedy carnies trying to squeeze every last cent out of the huge line-up.

3) The Haunted House

This ride took place in what looked to be couple of moving vans that had been welded together. Our car jerked and heaved, before eventually squeaking into the not-too-dark interior. The timing seemed to be off in there, because just a second or two or after we’d pass through an area, some startling sound would take place behind us. After about two minutes of this, our car crashed through the exit gate and into the humid night, the scent of Funnel Cakes heavy in the air.

Yesterday, while sitting at my desk, I failed to notice that the skies had grown dark. There was a crash of thunder, then the sound of wind blowing torrents of rain horizontal. A couple screamed with delight as they ran for shelter.

The wind was immense, and I realized that the umbrella was still up on our patio table and that it would likely be doing cartwheels through Toronto in no time, so I ran to the backyard to close it. I, like the people shrieking from the street, was kind of delighted to be getting so quickly drenched. As I furled the umbrella, looking at all the trees towering around me, it struck me that I was in the midst of a field of lightning rods. I charged back inside, and once again sat at my desk, staring out the window. A tree, just to the north of us, had been pulled apart by the wind, and a massive trunk lay across the sidewalk, the force of the fall setting off car alarms along the block.

Now a little bit anxious, I stood outside on our front porch, looking for Rachelle, who was just returning from work. She was hustling up the street, her little, red umbrella blown inside out, her eyes as large as saucers. With a huge grin on her face, she exclaimed, “THIS STORM IS AMAZING! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!” We were both kind of giddy, happy to see one another, and to be feeling safe in the midst of this awesome storm. It was a kind of Christmas.

Next door, the couple I had earlier heard happily yelling on the street, were standing on the neighbour’s front steps. Utterly drenched, they stood there with looks of astonishment on their faces. We invited them into our apartment to wait out the storm, and they accepted, sitting politely on the sofa.

The man had just flown in from Italy and this was his first visit to Toronto. He was visiting a colleague, with whom he was presenting a paper at a medical conference. The woman, his colleague, was a geneticist who worked at Sick Kid’s, and the two of them had met while studying in Berlin. She spoke longingly of the place, like it was there where she felt most alive, and I asked her why she left. She looked down for a moment, and then out the window, thinking, “ My husband cheated on me, so I left.”

We all sat there quietly for a moment, listening to the storm.

Anyhow, without my leadership and playmaking abilities, her team is now 0 and 9, which serves them right. As fate would have it, last night, the final game of their loser season, happened to be the same night that my Anger Management Training class was canceled as Svetlana, our instructor, had a court date.

I decided to surprise Rachelle and her team, and show up at the game, where I would coach them to victory from the sidelines. They were playing against a team called The Happy Feet, who were comprised of a bunch of 6’5 dudes. Although they were physically strong, I could see that they were mentally weak, and so I decided to get into their heads by heckling them.

Their star player, a gay looking guy in red shorts, was tearing apart MAJDBTS with his outside game, and so I started to yell at him. “HEY, RED SHORTS, FAGGY RED SHORTS!! WHY DON’T YOU GO BREAK YOUR FUCKING ANKLE?! YEAH, AND THEN YOUR BOYFRIEND CAN BUILD A FLOAT FOR YOU OUT OF FLOWERS AND ROLL YOU ALL OVER TOWN! FAG!”

And I swear to God, about two minutes after I started up on this chant, Red Shorts twisted his ankle. It was awesome! Excited, I ran onto the court and started to shout, “IN YOUR FACE, IN YOUR FACE!! “ For whatever reason, the losers on MAJDBTS, did not see this as the golden opportunity it was to seize control of the game, and their pathetic little lives, but instead acted all concerned and apologetic, which was weak of them.

Like little kittens.

The game started up again, and just as I was getting into the head of another one of their players, I got a text message from Rachelle, telling me that CNN was reporting a UFO sighting out by the airport. I immediately left the loser basketball game, but when I got out to the airport, the UFO’s had already gone, which was a rip-off.

* If any information you provide helps in her apprehension by the authorities, you will be eligible for a reward--a choice of either a kind of loud fan that whines a bit when it oscillates, or a trio of CD's--Moondance by Van Morrison, Something Beautiful by Great Big Sea, and Cheap Trick Live at Budokan.

As I’m a born leader, and because I have some free time on account of not having a “job,” I decided that I’d provide security for the entire block, thus allowing all our neighbours to return to their normal lives. And so, three times a day, I go on a security patrol where I march up and down our side of Madison Avenue, making sure that the perimeter hasn’t been infiltrated.

In order to command respect, one must dress the part. When would-be-thieves see me, I want them to stop and think, “there’s a classy and intimidating man, a leader, I don’t want to get on his wrong side!” To help accomplish this, I’ve been dressing in a black, pinstripe suit. I always wear a Fedora, too, so that I suggest a tough-guy detective from the 40’s. Also, when I’m on patrol, I carry with me a 7-iron, that I use as a walking stick. Aware that a good catch phrase is essential when establishing an authoritative persona, I have come up with two:

1. While waving my golf club from side to side, like a disapproving finger, I say, “Not on my watch!”
2. While pointing my golf club like a sword, I say, “ That’s not cool, fool!”

*Any SERIOUS suggestions are welcome.

My first day of patrol was largely uneventful, but day II was a real shit storm. At around 1:30 in the afternoon, Heidi and I noticed an elderly Asian woman sneaking down the narrow laneway that separates two homes. Out on the sidewalk she had left a shopping cart, which was full of what appeared to be stolen property. I ran over and confronted her, (catch phrase #1) but she pretended to not understand me. When I threatened her with my golf club, she began to scream in whatever demon tongue she spoke, and started hitting me, first with her cane, and then when that broke on my shin, with an empty Pepsi bottle.

I was not going to give up my neighbourhood to thugs like her.

I twisted her arm behind her back, but just as I was about to make my Citizen’s Arrest, she somehow (Kung-Fu? Judo?) managed to flip me over her back. It was a very hot and humid day, and I must have been dehydrated, because the next thing I remember was waking up on the ground (WITHOUT MY HAT!) with Heidi licking my face.

I subsequently found out that all of the blue boxes on our street had been cleaned out. I strongly suspect that this woman, who might be part of a larger syndicate, is responsible. I have made a Wanted Poster for this thug, whom I have designated The Pepsi Dragon, and am going to post it all up and down the street. I strongly suspect that she is guilty of stealing my hat, too.

This is far from over.

I’ve been told that the owner of the Korean Village Restaurant on Bloor Street was a big soap opera star back home. She often serves as hostess, and always has a lot of make-up on her face, giving her a very pale appearance, as if she was some sort of Kabuki master. When she serves you your food, she always leans into your booth, her eyes bright, and points at the dish, exclaiming, “Yum-Yum!”

Whenever I see her, I imagine her image flickering away, contained within some old TV set, located in some Korean past. There she is in a rage, attacking a handsome man with a candlestick holder! Oh, she’s fallen into a coma after a spider bite, and her family and friends are weeping at her bedside! Now she’s an Olympic judge who has fallen in love with a rival nation’s star athlete, and they’re kissing passionately in the back of a car!

It’s a funny place, and on the walls leading into the restaurant there are hundreds of photographs. The ones that are featured most prominently are of her and various celebrities who have stopped into the restaurant.

Nelly Furtado.
Yun-Fat Chow.
Keifer Sutherland.
Mats Sundin.

The rest of the photographs are of various customers. Typically, everybody’s beaming after another excellent meal of Yum-Yum, and I always make a point of poring through these pictures. Last week, after Rachelle and I had finished our lunch, I stumbled across a wall photo that we were in.

In the picture there were five us-- three guys and two girls-- and we all stood arm in arm, smiling like we had just won the lottery.

I had completely forgotten about the evening. I was new to Toronto, and was entirely excited about this restaurant, which for me was a cavalcade of the fun, strange and exotic. Some of our friends indulged my enthusiasm, and joined Rachelle and I for dinner there. It was a nice and unremarkable evening, the sort of night that instantly falls from your mind, until suddenly, a few years later, you’re shown the visual evidence and the night comes flooding back.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, our friends-- who looked so happy and confident in that picture-- were each labouring beneath the complications of a heavy life. I had no idea their lives were in such flux, and I guess they didn’t know it either, but now, two years later we can all look back and see that photograph as a sort of unwitting starting point, one that’s led each of them through remarkable and brilliant events—every bit as dramatic as the soap operas the owner starred in-- that have led them to relationships and lives that they never could have conceived of just a short while ago.

I don't know, it sort of makes you sit down and think.

Yesterday, Rachelle and I went to look at a house in Leslieville.

It was on a street called Craven, which I had never been to before. It’s a narrow, well-shaded street that’s lined on the west side by a ramshackle wooden fence that slopes toward the road. The fence, which did not look like it was long for this world, kept some unknown green space at bay, as well as what appeared to be a universe of cats. Everywhere you looked along this fence, there were cats. Scrambling over, squeezing beneath, or sitting imperiously on the top, there were cats, cats, cats.

The houses that faced the fence were tiny and eccentric. Jammed beside one another, with postage stamp front yards, they tilted and crumbled, the idiosyncrasies of whomever was living there made manifest in the exterior. So different than every other street I was used to seeing in the city, it felt like I had just stepped foot in a completely different realm.

Most of the people who lived in the houses seemed to be out on their front stoops, many with some cat by their feet. Everybody watched as Rachelle and I walked up the street, and it was such an inescapably intimate environment that we fell into conversation with most of them.

A man in a baseball hat and two days worth of stubble on his face drank from a can of Molson Export. At his feet was a cat, BJ.

“Nope, now you don’t want to be touching BJ. He’s got a bit of a temper.”

A woman in her 50’s, who was watering a plant in the next yard, yelled over, “Now BJ, that’s a dirty name, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so,” said yet another neighbour, “ I had a boyfriend in high school named BJ, and he wasn’t dirty, although I wished he was!”

The cats on Craven are all feral. They come to the houses, claim territory and get fed, but they keep their distance, never entering into the homes. Street smart and wounded in appearance, they dart and leap, emerging from beneath cars and vanishing into hedges.

“That one’s Kit. She won’t let you touch her. I’ve been feeding her for years, and she won’t come into my home. Nope. I keep a little cathouse for her out here, and one out back, and she seems to like them just fine.”

A small woman with long hair, thin wrists and big, startled eyes answered the door of the home we were visiting. She wouldn’t’ make eye contact and spoke in a flat, unvarying whisper. She drifted about the home--practically a ghost, whispering more to herself than to us, as we poked about in the cramped and slanted shack. Eventually she led us out to the backyard, where another man with few teeth sat drinking a can of beer. There were about four cats there. “Oh, this is my oasis,” she breathed, “it’s where I come when I need everything to be alright.” The man sitting in the lawn chair gave us a hard, appraising look before naming off all the patchy cats sitting about, each one also giving us a hard, appraising look.

Hey there eight minute dating people:

I am writing to you in regards to the function you’re hosting at Vineyards in Ottawa later this month for 30somethings looking for love. The first question I have-- and I mean this very sincerely-- is whether this event is lame or not. When I get there will I want to shoot myself in the head? Will I want to flee in despair? I'm also worried about the complimentary cheese. Is it going to be little, blocks of cheddar with toothpicks, or fancy stuff from Montreal?

How many people will be there? Don't try and finesse me here, tell me how many people you honestly expect. Don't be sneaky. Give me the ratios. 42 men and 1 woman. 3 men and 4 women. Don't try and fool me.

Your web site says I will get to meet single professionals. Now what sort of guarantees can you give me that these people are actually "professionals?" I mean working as a cashier at the Giant Tiger is a profession, but so is being President of the United States. I guess what I'm not very subtly getting at is the white collar/blue collar thing. You know what I'm talking about.

Also, will I be smarter than everybody there? I would like that( my IQ according to an internet test I took while a little bit boozy, was 103), but I don't want to be WAY smarter than the other people in attendance. We should have seen the same movies, but only I should know all about the directors.

I have a couple of friends who want to participate in this event. Let me tell you a little bit about them.

Matt is 34 and looks like Roger Clemens. He works as a bartender and enjoys playing hockey and complaining about the government. He likes older women. He thinks that at an event such as this, the older women will be divorced and well preserved. Is this true or false?

Steve is 42 and he makes computers. He has an uncanny ability to pass out at the bar without spilling a single drop of his Wild Turkey. He also likes to complain about the government.

And then there's me, the 38 year-old star of the event. Most people will think that I'm out of their league because of my beauty, charm, wealth and dazzling wardrobe, however this is not true.

Do you think we'd have a good time? Do you think we'd have a shot? I know that Natalie Portman is under thirty, but I was wondering if you might make an exception or two and allow a few of the more eager twenty year old women into our pool?

By the way, I'm serious with these questions. Really.

Michael Murray

*********************************************

Dear Michael,

Wow, a lot of questions here. Let me try to answer all of them.

First of all my name is Autumn and I am working in the head office in Boston, MA. I am the one answering customers' questions for the events in Ottawa.

So about this event at Vineyards. As of now, we have 2 men signed up and 4 women. Events usually fill up at last minute. The great thing with 8minuteDating.com is that we only confirm an even number of men and women so that you always have a date! The event starts being confirmed once we hit 10 men and 10 women, and we then confirm people by pairs. Vineyards isn't actually that big, so the event will only hold 10 couples that night. So you'll definitely have your 8 dates! And remember if you don't meet someone you'd like to see again, the next event is on
us! I think that's a pretty good guarantee that you'll meet someone good for you!

To be honest, I have no idea if the event is going to be a blast or not. We never had events at Vineyards in the past! But all events I attended in Boston were great! It all depends on your set of mind. I mean, we do not discriminate anyone at the events. We don't actually screen anybody, not asking for age, profession or anything. 30-40 single professionals is just a general idea, basically. So I don't know who is going to be there.

All I know is that you are going to have 8 one-on-one conversations with 8 different women, and that if none of those interest you, you can attend a second event for free!

For your friends, that would be great if they could come too. Since we are still looking for more people for the event to be a success, if you help us get more people then that's terrific. Also, just in case you were wondering if it's ok for Steve to attend the event since he's over 40, no problem, but he should be expecting to date women between 30 and 40. And again, I don't know who is going to attend, but yeah, usually women are pretty hot. I mean, maybe not all of them, but you'll certainly find your type in the whole group! People attending these events are just
normal people like you and me, who are just sick of the bar scene, or shy, or very busy!

I hope I was able to answer all your questions. I took time to answer it, so I really hope so! Lol Anyways, I do think the event is going to be fun.

I hope you'll have fun and meet someone special to you.

Autumn Spencer-Boone
*******************************************

Autum Spencer-Boone:

I would like to tell you that you have the name of a superstar. Wow. It would be a pleasure to eight minute date you, I think.

First of all, what can you tell me about the two men who are signed up? Are they serious competition? I'm hoping that they are not. Maybe one of them has lost a limb and the other one has lost two limbs. Autumn, that would be encouraging news for me and my friends.

And the four women? It's not that I'm particular, but I'm hoping that they aren't sisters or something. I think that would be creepy. The Macdonald sisters. All four of them, aged 31, 34, 36 and 39. Warts and all. And really, you shouldn't judge, I think their coughs are clearing up just fine...

What about the cheese? You have avoided the cheese question.

Steve is not expecting to date anybody. He's expecting to get eight, eight minute windows of opportunity in which he might complain about the government. Age is irrelevant.

Autumn, I couldn't help but notice that you wrote that the people attending the event are "just like you are me." This is intriguing. I suspect you will not be in Ottawa for the function, but I certainly hope that you might be there--a little bit shy and vulnerable, unaware of just how beautiful you actually are, and then I would swoop in and for eight minutes dazzle you with my collection of knock-knock jokes.

Are you single?

Come on Autumn, come up to Ottawa. Let's fall in love! Let's move some product!

Michael Murray

PS: I have noticed an abundance of exclamation points in your letter. Does that me that you’re angry and yelling at me?

******************************

Dear Michael,

Don't worry, I would never yell at you. The exclamation marks are just to show my enthusiasm.

Anyways, about the cheese, I don't know exactly what cheeses will be provided. But I'm assuming it will be good cheeses that go along with good wines. Vineyards has been awarded for the quality of the wines and beers it offers!

Now for this event, as I told you before, I have no idea who is coming. I am based in Boston and I don't know the people who sign up. I think you should just give it a try. You'll meet the people once you are there. That's the whole point of those events, meeting new people without checking out their profile or picture before.

And as for me, unfortunately traveling is not part of my job, and anyway I am not single, but thanks for asking!

Autumn Spencer-Boone

At any rate, as I was standing out in the backyard with my 7 iron, an East Indian policeman emerged from one of the doors behind me, the one that leads down to the laundry room. Fearful of the barking dog, he had closed himself off into the stairwell, and seeing that I had come out and picked up the dog, felt confident enough to emerge from his hiding spot. He played it cool, like he wasn't scared at all, and was just following “Police Procedure,” but I knew the look in his eyes.

It was his job-- a low priority assignment-- to investigate the robbery of our neighbour. And so, moving slowly, he took photographs of the back door, all the while trying to finesse it so that he got to do this from the shade. It was a crazy humid day, and fully arrayed and done up in his uniform to the top button, the poor guy was practically dying. While holding our Daschund in one arm, and the golf club in my other hand, I offered him some water, but he suddenly got all stoic and professional, and told me that he was fine.

Later, as I was taking the dog out for her walk, the cop was coming down the stairs with one of the guys from the upstairs apartment. Heidi went crazy barking, and I apologized to them. The policeman, assuming a wise and experienced posture, said, “don’t worry, she’s just doing her job,” but once again, I could see a tremor of fear in his eyes.

We all left the building at about the same time, and I listened in on their conversation, expecting to hear them discussing the robbery, but no. They were talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs. Kind of excited, and with very impressive knowledge, they were parsing the Leafs defensive corps for the up coming year.

“ Luke Schenn is going to be amazing!”

“And don’t forget Finger, and that’s to say nothing of Kaberle!”

This conversation continued easily and happily all the way up the street to where the police cruiser was parked.

And as the policeman got into the car, he said, “ Look, I’m very optimistic about the Leafs chances of making the play-offs this year, but I have to tell you, I’m a little less optimistic about the recovery of your stolen property.”

This, a postcard of Toronto, taken on the hottest day in August.

Orkin Canada Home Office
5840 Falbourne Street
Mississauga, ON
L5R 4B5
August, 09. 2009

Orkin Pest Control:

Well, I’ve been doing some research on your web site, and it looks like I have fruit flies.

I have to ask you, is it common for them to disrespect you, or do I have a particularly aggressive, maybe even evil strain of them in my home?

Let me tell you what I’m dealing with.

A friend of mine told me that the natural enemy of the fruit fly was Vinegar. Personally, my natural enemies are peas (and bullets), and if somebody rubbed some sort of pea paste all over the place, I’d be on the next bus out of there. With that in mind, I scoured every surface in the kitchen and bathroom with Vinegar, fully expecting the fruit flies to drop like, well, flies.

But did the little fuckers die?

No, no they did not.

In fact, that very night, while I was sleeping, I was visited by a swarm of fruit flies. (An aside here, is it “a swarm of fruit flies,” or do they have a different designation like “a murder of fruit flies” or “a locomotion of fruit flies?”) Anyway, at first I thought that I might just be dreaming, but after I knocked over my glass of water while waving my arms about trying to shoo them away, I knew that it was real life, and not some horrible nightmare.

There must have been at least 200 of them and they were eerily silent. After waking me up by crawling all over my face, they hovered as a cloud in front of me. It was oddly beautiful to watch, as they assumed a variety of different shapes, and as I began to calm down and stop crying, I had the sense that they were trying to communicate with me. Slowly, the fruit fly cloud began to fly out of my bedroom and move into the kitchen. Mesmerized, I followed them, where once again they morphed into a variety of different shapes, before all descending on the jug of Vinegar I had been using to clean the apartment. They just sat there, 200 strong, as if taunting me, boasting that there was nothing I could do to defeat them.

I will never forget the terrible red glow emanating from their eyes.

Anyway, what do you think?

Can I get rid of these pests using conventional methods, or am I going to need some sort of exorcism? I’m tired of being intimidated, and am willing to try anything to get rid of these beasts.

Suggestions?

Expense is no concern.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Michael Murray

Found Facebook Poem

Michael is armed with pencils, apples and matches.

Michael is saying it for the last time--Billie Jean is not my lover.
Michael is a loose floorboard.
Michael is going to write a history of failed magic.

Michael is not frightened of The Great Pumpkin, as certain people have insinuated.
Michael is clumsy with chopsticks.
Michael is off to play some baseball.
Michael is concerned that Rachelle thinks he tripped and accidentally fell on the baseball, when he actually DOVE and SMOTHERED it--thus preventing a run from scoring.
Michael is making the rules here.

Michael is doing the Tennessee Waltz, in spite of the smog.
Michael is the meanest most beautiful dirty city you ever seen.
Michael is as clever as cold coffee and whiskey.
Michael is bad, like Jesse James.
Michael is putting on his cutoff jean shorts, cranking Bob Seeger and washing the convertible.

Michael is surefooted and bound for adventure.

Michael is once again, moving pencils using only his mind.
Michael is asking the black ghost to please stay away from his door.
Michael is a sweet chariot that’s swinging low.
Michael is brown paper packages tied up with string.
Michael is lucky, lucky.

Michael is una bici muy rapida!

Michael is watching Nuns stroll down the street.
Michael is thinking that shadows fall equally on the holy and the lost.
Michael is gathering up the wind in the hollow of his hands.

Michael is initiating security command code 1229A.

Michael is playing below his speed.
Michael is not the pack leader.
Michael is betting it all on red. Again.
Michael is feeling like a 26 day old baby panda.
Michael is a couple of fat people, uninhibited, kissing on the sidewalk of a busy street.
Michael is full of glory, as the heavens give way in all directions.
Michael is doing fine.

On Friday night I went down to the Roger’s Center with a friend to watch the Blue Jays play the Orioles. I think my favourite part of the game took place in the sixth or seventh inning. It was at this point of the game that it was announced that “The World’s Fastest Grounds Crew” was about to give the base paths a bit of a polish.

The crew, wearing their unifroms, stood by the outfield fence gearing up to charge into the infield when the music began. I noticed that one of them was a good head and shoulders shorter than the rest of the crew. He looked particularly wound-up, like he’d been listening to death metal in preparation for the big performance.

When the music began and everybody started to run toward the infield, he was the first one out of the gate. Holding a broom in one hand, and with his arms pumping furiously, he sprinted just as hard as he could, while all around him the taller guys loped easily past him. In no time at all, he was the very last in the pack. No matter, when he got to 2nd base, he began to maniacally, but uselessly, sweep at the dirt, almost like he was trying to stab it. This went on for maybe 15 seconds at the most, and then he looked from side to side,  bent down and gathered up three handfuls of dirt, which he put in his pockets, before sprinting off with the rest of the crew to their home beyond the outfield wall.

This, the story of how he collected infield dirt from a Blue Jays game, a story that will last generations in his family.

It’s almost always the periphery stuff that’s of most interest at ball games.

This game also commemorated the World Series winning Jays teams of the early 90’s. The lineups of both of those years were present, and trotted out on the field between innings, so that we might all reminisce.

The players, most only ten years out of playing in the major leagues, looked pretty much the same. Kelly Gruber still looked simple, Tom Henke still looked like a geek, and Joe Carter still looked like an affable ham. Roberto Alomar, perhaps the most talented Blue Jay to ever take the field, looked physically the same, but something within seemed to have shifted. His face, which projected an almost supernatural composure and calm when he played, had hardened into implacability.

He appeared guarded and suspicious, as if he didn’t trust the world around him and wanted the fans to know that he didn't care what they thought of him—even though he did. He stood apart from his old, grinning teammates, looking truly unhappy. In spite of doing something he was brilliant at for a career, and in spite of the almost unimaginable riches and fame that came to him as a result, he still did not like his life. Watching, it was easy to see that of the two, the boy from the grounds crew who took home the souvenir dirt, was by far the luckier of the two.

Celebrities such as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Starr Jones, Wendel Clark and Amy Winehouse have all reported seeing UFO’s, as have two members of my Friends of Flying Saucers Club( FFSC). The existence of Flying Saucers and Extraterrestrials can no longer be considered in doubt.

The FFSC, which I started in 2002, has been having bi-monthly meetings for nearly seven years now. Typically, we get together to discuss UFO related matters, but often we talk about cool action movies and how to deal with girls. Most of the members of the club are high school aged, and they see me as a father figure, occasionally asking me to buy them beer. I don’t’ mind.

However, it’s not just academic UFOlogy training that I tutor them in. It’s more of a mentorship, and sometimes I take them to a military base where we might picket, demanding that they release the captured ET’s. Other events include surveying the skies for unexplainable aerial activity, watching Shark Week, and the annual Christmas party( (where I buy them beer).

There are three members of the group beside myself.

Colin:

Aged 17

Nickname: C-Dog

His favourite movie is Braveheart, and if he could go anywhere in the world it would be Stonehenge. His favourite shark is the Mako, and he believes that aliens are benevolent. He hopes to audition for Canadian Idol next year and would like to go on a date with Rihanna.

Calum:

Nickname: Double C

Aged 17

Colin’s twin brother, Calum counts the second Transformers movie as his all time favourite. If he could go anywhere in the world, he would go to the Great Pyramids, which he believes were constructed with the aid of alien technology. His idea of the perfect girl is model Kelly Brook. When Calum was 15 he saw a UFO while his family was camping in Temagami. It was a fiery orb that changed colour and emitted a calming feeling. His favourite shark is the Hammerhead.

Parvinder:

Almost 16

Nickname: Vinnie

Parvindir likes any film starring Will Ferrell. If he could go anywhere in the world he would go to Canada’s Wonderland, because he loves the Behemoth roller coaster. If he could take anybody to go to the Prom with him it would be Megan Fox. Parvindir often dreams of Bigfoot, who comes to him as a sort of “spirit guide,” helping him to solve various life problems. Last month, Parvindir saw a UFO late at night while stealing golf balls from the local driving range. He said it was shaped like a cigar and that beamed a spotlight down upon him, causing him to drop his bucket of balls and flee. His favourite shark is the Great White.

All of the water pipes in our street are currently being replaced. This means there are construction workers everywhere, and so, when I took our dog out for her walk around noon, there were about a half a dozen of them arrayed on and around the end of our path leading to the sidewalk. Built wide rather than long, as if born to anchor the tug-of-war team, they were mostly in their mid 50’s. All dark and weathered from the sun, they spoke some sort of compromise language, incorporating English into whatever the dominant native tongue was of the group.

I imagined them, now probably 30 years out of their places of birth, returning each night to a home that was frozen in place and time. Here, there would be framed photographs of the family, mementoes of a life near the sea and the scent of spices drifting out from the kitchen. In the morning, the worker would take the lunch that his wife had made and then packed for him.

Dumplings.
Pasta.
Sardines.
Thermoses that look 40 years old.

Later, clustered together beneath the shade of a tree, the men eat. One man carves slices of apple using a knife that he keeps hanging from a belt loop. Another chews a thick pork sandwich that has had all of the crusts tenderly cut off. Putting out a cigarette, he later opens a Tupperware container and begins to eat olives, pieces of sausage—each bite a taste of home, a reminder of something.

For a whole variety of reasons, this summer has been shaping up to be a world of stress. Unfortunately, this has made increasingly irritable.

This is a rough glimpse of my weekend:

Irritant:

For nearly two hours, while eating brunch in a tiny, yet expensive restaurant, Rachelle and I sat next to a table of six. Of these six people, two were children who howled and screamed and threw toys all over the place. The adults, far from exhibiting shame or attempting to quiet them, brazenly indulged them, thus amplifying the ruckus.

Response:

I smiled thinly and tried to enjoy my meal, telling myself that it was not easy to be a parent and that they were likely doing the best that they could.

Popped two Advil.

Irritant:

Failure to win Lotto 6/49.

Response:

Told Rachelle that our investment portfolio was doing “surprisingly well,” and then went into the washroom and cut myself.

Had three glasses of wine with dinner.

Irritant:

Coinciding with construction workers tearing up my street, I noticed that due to striking garbage workers, city now smelled of vomit.

Response:

Closed all the windows in the apartment and went to the bedroom and watched “Far and Away” ( my favourite movie) three times in a row.

Drank a bottle and a half of wine.

Irritant:

Fruit fly infestation in the kitchen that was swarming around the remnants of the wine I had from my Far and Away-a-thon.

Response:

Yelled at the dog for 45 minutes for her failure to control the pest problem.

Irritant:

The humidity.

Response:

Told a panhandler to “ Go fuck yourself and your bad breath!” before throwing a box of Tic-Tacs at her.

Irritant:

While at the grocery store, the cashier, staring off in the distance, had her back turned to me while I was ready to checkout.

Response:

I threw my bottle of Ranch Salad Dressing on the floor, shattering it, and began to shout, “What does somebody have to do around here to get some attention?!!” Then, in an attempt to flee, ran into a shopping cart.

Irritant:

While at the hospital waiting to have my ankle X-Rayed after an accident at the grocery store, noticed that they had no current magazines in the waiting lounge.

Response:

Walked into the parking lot, got in an unattended ambulance, locked all the doors and turned on the siren and flashing lights, and refused to come out until they bought new People Magazines for the waiting room.

Made the eleven o’clock news.

Abagail Fitzpatrick

67 years old

In my dream I was trying to return a Burberry umbrella that didn’t work. The store wasn’t very busy and there were all sorts of staff present, most of them young women with too much make-up on. They were ignoring me and I was getting angry. I got the attention of one girl, who insisted that I open up the umbrella to prove that it didn’t work.

I was soaking wet and said to one girl, “just look at me, do you think I’d be drenched like this if the umbrella worked?” And then I started to cry, telling her that it wouldn’t open, that was the problem, and even if it did, it would bring terrible luck to do so indoors.

Magdelena Cicarelli

46 years old

It was snowing and I was driving down the street to get to a big sale at Holt’s. I had a gift card that my husband had given me for Christmas and I really wanted to get there and buy something I could wear to Jennifer’s for New Year’s dinner. My driver’s side window wouldn’t close properly and the cold air blowing in from the street was bothering me. I kept trying to bat it away, like it was a pesky fly. When I woke up, I heard the sound of a lawn mower outside, but because of the dream, I was sure it was a snow blower. I felt demoralized, certain that it was the dead of winter, even though it was late June.

Mary Webster

52 years old

This is pretty strange, but the last time I had a dream that involved Holt Renfrew was right after the Dawson’s College shooting. It was busy in the store and I was looking at a beautiful Cavalli Pashmina that smelled of cinnamon and pumpkin. I was going to buy it when three men dressed in bright orange hazmat suits walked in and opened fire. There was panic, the sound of gunfire and screaming. I hid under my Pashmina, feeling very safe, hoping that it wouldn’t get stained by any blood.

Rachelle Maynard

28 years old

In my dream the store was host to a great theatrical performance. People were seated in pews, mesmerized as it unfolded. It was very beautiful. There were racks and racks of gorgeous clothes all around us, soft, almost holy lighting and Rufus Wainwright singing at a Grand Piano. His voice oozes such luxury and excess, don’t you think?

Everybody looked like a movie star, and when they were on stage they exuded such grace and ease. Fluidly, they performed the most unusual and lovely dances. In the middle of it, I realized that I was also going to have to perform, but I couldn’t think of anything I could do that could possibly compete. I remembered that when I was a girl and studied Martial Arts, I could do a flying sidekick. I thought that maybe I could do that, and so I went outside and began to practice on the sidewalk in front of the store. My kicks were horrible and awkward, but I kept trying, hoping to improve so that I’d be good enough for the performance.

Amanda Beaumont

39 years old

I was in the store with Natalie, my 16-month-old daughter and was told by one of the girls who worked there that they no longer served women with children, and that I would have to leave. I was absolutely furious and started to yell at her. I told her that I had spent a fortune at that store and that it wasn’t fair of them to discriminate simply because I was a mother. Deep down, I knew that it was because I wasn’t pretty anymore, that I’d gained weight with the pregnancy and my boobs had fallen. I burst into tears and started to shout this at the girl, but by now there were about a half dozen staff members there. A gay man in a $3,000 suit was shaking his head, “you see, this just proves the point of the policy. Mothers are always so emotional, and we just can’t have scenes like this all the time.” And then they escorted me out of the store.

Rebecca Rankin

21 years old

It was near Christmas and I was standing outside of the store looking at the display windows. It was the most amazing and wonderful thing I had ever seen. Toy soldiers, dressed in the most vibrant clothes were marching about and little motorized cars were driving through an elaborate model of a great city.

There was also a Merry-go-round that had the most astounding creatures on it, but instead of the kind of crazy music you associate with a Merry-Go-Round, there was bird song. Flying about and perched on the animals were the most beautiful birds, all singing in unison. I was watching as it went around and around, and then I saw my Nana— who died last year-- on a swan. Holding on for dear life, she was beaming like a little girl. I waved at her, and she waved back, mouthing the words, “I love you, my little cup of sunshine, I love you.”

Rachelle seems to think that watching me fire up the barbeque is pretty much the height of entertainment. Oh, the hilarity! Sometimes, when I’m busy igniting the thing, I’ll look back and catch her face, beaming with delighted expectation, from the window.

A few years ago I had a little accident while lighting the barbeque, and I guess I’ve been a bit jittery around it ever since. I won’t go into the details of the incident except to say that it really sucked to lose my vintage Expo baseball hat to the flames, and that the barbeque may very well have been booby-trapped by the neighbours kids, as I have asserted from the very start.

At any rate, one of Rachelle’s favourite things to do—because she is so hilarious—is to perform an imitation of me igniting the barbeque. In this bit of theatre, she stands on one foot, and then leans toward the barbeque. Holding the lit igniter as far away from her body as possible, and with her other arm covering her face, she lunges at the barbeque in a mincing way, before leaping back and falling into a protective ball on the ground.

The other night, when our friends Stuart and Abdul were over for dinner, Rachelle asked me to go out and turn on the barbeque. Thinking nothing of it, I went out to perform the task. Just as I was completing my procedural practice routine and was about to commence the ignition process, I looked up and saw all three of them watching me from the window.

I guess I felt a little bit of performance anxiety, because I couldn’t get the igniter gun to light. As I started to shake it, a particularly grotesque squirrel leapt on to the barbeque, which caused me to shriek and instinctively assume a defensive posture. Curled into my protective ball, I kicked at where I thought the squirrel might be, accidentally knocking over the barbeque, thus spilling some propane, which managed to bleed into our neighbour’s pool. This really isn’t as big a deal as it might sound, as it was the kids of those neighbours, who I think booby-trapped the barbeque back a few years ago.

Justice, Michael Murray style.

Upstairs, between BMV Books and the Subway restaurant on Bloor Street, there’s psychic studio. There’s a little sandwich board in front of the place, festooned with exotic and colourful figures from the zodiac, and there’s a few things stenciled onto the door leading up the place, but there’s not much else to make you want to investigate.

You have to ring a bell in order to gain entrance, and from the street you can see absolutely no evidence of any life or business emanating from the place. It looks like any other stairway leading up to an apartment, but in this case, we’re led to believe that a psychic lived in that apartment.

For a few months, the psychic, whom I imagined as pale and Gothic, occasionally peering out from behind her incense saturated drapes, had hired a guy to hand out pamphlets on the street. He’s long gone now.

He was little more than five feet tall, had long white-guy dreads that hung down to his waist and an assortment of ill-advised facial piercings. One of his legs was about three inches shorter than the other, giving him a pronounced limp that made me think of the Middle Ages—a serf who scurried about beneath the castle tower doing his mistresses bidding.

He was actually a very sweet guy, and his face just lit up whenever he saw me walking our miniature Dashund down the street. However, whenever he bent down to pet her-- his hair swinging from side to side-- Heidi would recoil and snarl, and this always made his face fall with disappointment. I would apologize and he would cheerfully pull himself together, telling me not to worry, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right? It’s not her fault!” I would nod, “Sure!”

And then he would continue on with his job, hustling after the passing pedestrians, trying to give them a flier that entitled them to 15% off a psychic reading with the Amazing Vivianna!

I never saw anybody enter into the studio, but occasionally, I’d see somebody leaving.

One day, a woman in a pink-halter top. Chewing gum, she flicked her phone open. “Yep, yep, she said it’s true! Just like I thought!”

Another day, a man exited quickly, a mysterious cast on his right arm.

And most recently, an elderly man with sunken eyes, his cigarette lit before he hit the street.

Music Night was usually a modest event. For the most part, it consisted of a handful of volunteers leading a sing-a-long in the basement cafeteria of the lodge. The idea was to provide a little bit of distraction for the residents, who were people from out of town staying in Toronto while they received treatment for cancer.

Salvatore, who was a retired physician from South America, liked to dance. That was his thing. Fancying himself something of a Lothario, in spite of being very round and no more than five feet tall, he would salsa with all the women while the rest of us sang along to a tape of La Bamba. In short order, Salvatore kind of took over creative control of Music Night, rendering it a grab bag of unpredictable activities.

One night, claiming to have learned how to hypnotize people while working as a physician, he decided to put on a demonstration of his abilities. Choosing a pretty 16 year-old Music Night volunteer named Caitlin as his assistant, he attempted to weave his magic in front of the puzzled residents, who always had a hard time understanding him through his thick accent.

Caitlin was not even remotely affected by his efforts, although Salvatore very sincerely believed he had cast her into a trance. She stood there awkwardly before the crowd, pretending to be hypnotized, while every once in awhile breaking out in giggles behind Salvatore’s back.

Salvatore, completely unaware of this, slowly explained the complex mechanics of hypnosis to the crowd, before turning to Caitlin, and saying in his thick accent, “Now, you dance like Madonna.” Caitlin closed her eyes and fell into character, before starting a modest, little dance. Salvatore beamed brightly.

He then snapped his fingers so that the spell was broken. “ And now, you will be dog. You will bark like dog.” This seemed kind of perverse, like we were actually taking a journey into Salvatore’s subconscious and not Caitlin’s. No matter, Caitlin, now blushing, was a trooper, and putting her hands up before her face, like they were paws, let out a few puppy yips. Again, Salvatore beamed, and stretching out his arms to the crowd, he took a deep bow, as everybody in the cafeteria unleashed thunderous applause.

Patrick Watson and his band are an array of hairy, Montreal hipsters whose affable and relaxed attitude belied their self-conscious projection of “cool.” Seamus O’Regan, who hosted the show and conducted two “interview packs” with the band, although hardly cool, was also self-conscious about his presentation.

Dressed in an inappropriately formal black suit with a saucy, little handkerchief poking out of the pocket, O’Regan looked like he came out of the same CTV factory that proudly considers Ben Mulroney to be the gold standard. However, somewhere, buried deep within O’Regan, you could sense a trace of native intelligence hoping to break free, but the formula of the show wouldn’t allow such a thing. And even if it had, O’Regan’s vanity kept emerging and sabotaging him. Imaging himself to be the star of the Patrick Watson performance, O’Regan needlessly brought attention to himself, reminding the viewing audience in a hammy way, that he normally interviewed politicians and that he had to be up early in the morning to host his show, Canada AM. I think he might have been trying to pull of self-effacing, but the evident truth was that it was an instinctive lurch toward self-promotion, an impulse to which he seemingly had no control.

Patrick Watson strove to separate himself from the culture of TV he found himself lost in, and quickly made an enemy of the stage manager with his insoucience. In an effort to maintain his Indie cred, and let us know that for him, it was all about the music, he feigned confusion and mystification by the frustrating conventions of TV. This made the stage manager sigh, her job getting just a little bit harder, but she’d seen this sort of thing before, and wouldn’t let it get in the way of completing her assigned task. It was kind of like watching the interplay between a teacher and a spirited and precocious child.

The taping took about 2 and a half hours, and although the band played 7 or 8 wonderful songs, I felt trapped and manipulated. In short order, I found my attention flagging, and instead of watching the band, I was looking at everybody else in the crowd. Upstairs in the balcony, I noticed a tall and slender security guard. She moved along the back row, pretending to be rigorously checking the perimeter, but clearly she was just drinking in one of the few perks of her job. After making that display of herself, she would stand in the shadows by a pillar, a little smile on her face as the lights from the stage animated her shadow against the wall.

Yesterday, at the corner of Bloor and Brunswick, Heidi had one of these episodes. This is very familiar ground for the dog, as two or three times a week, I get take-out from Thai Basil, and while waiting for it, often sit on the side steps of the Brunswick Hotel. Heidi always sits there happily, thinking about treats, but yesterday, she was whimpering, shaking and pulling on the leash.

I put up with it for a few minutes, then picked-up my food and took the dog home. Heidi hustled all the way back, as if she’d left a tap running. Once we were home, everything was fine.

Later that night, a 23 year-old man was shot to death in the alley right behind the Brunswick, about ten yards from where were sitting. I have little doubt that with the garbage strike and all the rain, that my dog was merely smelling a bunch of nearby (yet invisible) rats that had emerged from the sewers and taken up residence in the adjacent alley, but still, still a part of me wonders if some part of her animal core could feel the energy of gathering violence behind us, and unable to name it, sought escape.

The city doesn’t smell right.

All day long it’s been raining with great intensity, but instead of redeeming the city by washing all the filth away, the rain has just provided it with some locomotion. Toronto is now in it’s fourth year of a garbage strike, and with the rain, the place has become a mucky soup with little pieces of hot dogs, dead Pigeons and bits of hair floating on top of it’s complex broth.

Rachelle and I were driving around in town running errands, thankful to be protected from the elements and the rising tide of disease that was filling the city. As we were waiting at the lights at Bathurst and Queen, one of our favourite songs—Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis—came on the radio. We both got kind of excited and turned it up really loud, and undid my window so that everybody could share in our cool music. As we drove toward the stoplights, we accidentally hit a massive puddle. This caused a wave to rise up, as if from a biblical passage and hit a man who was standing on the corner.

Now, I have to say, this man didn’t look quite “right.” I mean, he looked a little bit like he might have been outdoors during the rainstorm, because nobody would let him indoors.

At any rate, before I knew it, the guy had reached through the open window and grabbed my shirt. I noticed that he had a tattoo of a dog getting mauled by a bear on his wrist. Classy. I started to scream. When Rachelle looked over, she started to scream, too. And so, we were both screaming, Leona Lewis blaring, while a soaking wet Meth Freak was screaming demonic phrases at me while trying to punch me with his other hand. Heidi, our miniature Daschund, heroically leapt from the back seat and bit the guy on the wrist. He immediately let go of me, and Rachelle floored it, splashing at least two, perhaps four other people. As we sped away, I heard a kind of metallic clank against the car, later discovering a Chinese Throwing Star stuck in the trunk.

A friend of mine once worked on a fishing boat off the coast of British Columbia. One day, while passing through the galley, she noticed two fishermen sitting at the kitchen table. They had out an old copy of People or In Touch magazine in front of them and were flipping through it.

“Would you fuck Oprah?”

He paused for a moment, giving the photograph a little closer look.

“Sure. You?”

“Yeah, I’d fuck Oprah.”

And then he flipped the page.

My friend just stood there, quietly bearing witness to an unguarded moment in the lives of men.

As some of you may know, I suffered a home invasion by a warrior raccoon on Wednesday afternoon. The animal was particularly aggressive, and as Heidi and I were feeling a little under the weather, we were unable to fight, and were forced to take refuge in the front room. It was all a little bit embarrassing, but fortunately Rachelle was at work, and had to go directly to her league basketball game when work was over. I called her and told her that I was preparing a special post-birthday surprise for her, and that I needed the apartment to myself for the night, and asked her if she could stay at her sister’s for the night, which she seemed really happy to do.

Whatever.

Anyway, I was barricaded in the front room and feeling kind of anxious, so I started drinking whiskey. While I was doing this, the raccoon was happily in the kitchen eating my Triscuits and Heidi's bag of kibble, amongst other things. By around nine, using the elongated mirror I devised using a hockey stick, I noticed about four raccoons in the kitchen, that had clearly come in to take refuge from the rain.

Furious that these warrior raccoons were taken over my home, I crushed up a bunch of sleeping pills into a bottle of Cassis,which I poured into a bowl and left as an offering to the warrior raccoons. I then turned up the music loud and got drunk.

Some people speak in Australian accents when they get drunk, I write letters to celebrities.

This is the letter I found on my computer this morning, I mean afternoon, when I got up:

Dear Michelle Obama:

I think you have beautiful, strong arms.

I bet you could kill a warrior raccoon with those beautiful strong arms.

I would kill a raccoon for you, I think.

With a bomb. A bomb the size of a house.

Boom!

Hey! You’re married to the President of the United States! What’s that like? Does he put his pants on one leg at a time, or does he do it differently? I’ve always wondered about that. I don’t know why. I just do.

If I were President I would declare war on raccoons. I would bring our troops home and get them to kill all the raccoons. Screw Al Gore and his environment! He can kiss my ass! I bet he doesn’t have a pack of warrior raccoons living in his kitchen. I also bet he owns his house and doesn’t rent. I would like to own a house one day, but I guess that means going out and getting a job, and it’s pretty hard to do that when you’re held hostage by a bunch of raccoons. I’m trying to poison them to death with alcohol and sleeping pills right now.

Uh-oh.

A few of the raccoons have come up to my barricade, and they’re looking at my dog funny, like maybe they might want to marry her.

Do you know how to make a blowtorch using a barbeque igniter and a bottle of gin?

Anyway, I better go, but I want you to know that you’re doing a great job, and I really like that purse you took on that trip to Russia!

Michael Murray

Yesterday was my sweet Petal’s birthday. We had a lovely and romantic dinner out, but sadly, the flowers that I bought for her were kind of dismal. I purchased them on a whim, up on Dupont Street at the Green Times Happy Sauce Chinese and Canadian Cuisine Go-Out Restaurant. They had a little display on the street in which they were selling flowers, a chess set and a hamster cage. Although I was offered the “three for one, very special special,” I just bought the flowers, which looked beautiful, even if they did smell a bit like chicken.

Anyway, it turns out that when I got them home, they immediately fell apart, and when Rachelle returned from work all that was left of them were a few angry looking stems that were sticking out of the vase like they were giving her The Finger. As I felt horrible about the flowers and forgetting to bring my wallet when we went out for dinner last night, I’ve been making soup all day long in order to surprise my love. Using some leftover roast beef, I’ve been creating a symphony of gustatory delight. I took a break at 2:00 so that I could watch Cops. As I like to drink a few rums when I watch Cops, I drifted off to sleep for about an hour and woke up to some weird and intimidating sounds coming from the kitchen.

I often leave the back door open so that our dog may have free reign of the  yard, and have always worried that one of those people who pick through our blue boxes to collect bottles, might come in and rob us. Bravely, I yelled out, “I know Karate!” There was no response to this, just more sounds like somebody ransacking our kitchen. Using Heidi’s bed as a shield, and grabbing a golf club, I inched around into the hallway to have a look. In the middle of the kitchen, with the soup pot spilled on the floor, was a raccoon that was about the size of a Chinese gymnast.

Now, I always thought that raccoons were supposed to be nocturnal, but the garbage strike in Toronto has made them bold, and they no longer honour the hours we originally negotiated between the species. Sadly, my miniature Daschund, who is supposed to be a natural enemy of raccoons, was asleep under the covers with a bellyache, having earlier eaten a bag of jellybeans I left out by mistake. I yelled at the raccoon, but this did nothing. I banged the golf club on the floor, which did not alarm the raccoon at all, but got my downstairs neighbour to bang on his ceiling and yell, “ shut the fuck up, motherfucker!”

I threw some water at the raccoon, but this just seemed to piss it off, and it charged me, forcing me to make a strategic retreat to the front room, where I have erected a protective barrier of sofa cushions and some of Rachelle’s canvases. I am presently creating a plan of attack, where I am designing a tranquilizing system that I hope to unleash on the raccoon beast in the dead of night.

The first thing that he does is turtle. He turns himself upside down on the sofa and begins a low, steady whine. His father tries to coax him out of this behaviour by calling him “love.” But instead of speaking normally, he puts a British spin on it, “Luv.” The boy has bee-stung lips and a head of impossible hair that looks like it was spun out of light. In spite of his father’s efforts, he just lies there, upside down—2 ½ years old, hot and tired and far from home.

We bake him three cookies. He goes for the biggest one he can see, drinks Mango juice from a crazy straw and suddenly it’s Christmas. Wearing pajama bottoms with cars on it, he has his shirt off. He runs around and around and around in circles, around the yellow truck in the living room, around and around, again and again, his eyes crossing, his face covered in chocolate, oh, nothing could possibly go wrong, nothing, his heart beating steady and true, his father looking on.

In 1978, when I was in grade seven, I saw the movie Capricorn 1. Starring James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O. J. Simpson as astronauts being forced to fake a Nasa mission to Mars, the movie was a convoluted mess of conspiracy theories and bad acting. The astronauts, eventually learning that they were to be killed (“burned” through re-entry!), decided to escape from the desert TV studio where they had been imprisoned and forced to cooperate, and bring the truth to the world. James Brolin, hiding out in a cave while helicopters swirled overhead, killed and ate a rattlesnake. I thought the movie was absolutely awesome, and began to do all my school projects on how Nasa had actually faked the Lunar landing in 1968.

This led to me serving as captain of a debate team that argued the landing was a fake in front of the entire class. A voracious reader with absolutely no critical faculty, I was able to grab a bunch of headlines from all sorts of dubious sources, without the tiniest bit of understanding of what I was saying. This came out during the question period of the debate, when Mark Wingate, who was a noted troublemaker, asked me why America would go to all the bother of faking the landing. My response, which I delivered with dripping sarcasm, was “ I don’t know, Mark, why would they?” He would say that he didn’t have a clue, and then ask me again, to which I would issue the same response. This went on for at least five minutes.

Grade seven was a difficult year for me.

In short order, not only was the entire class against me, including the teacher Mrs. McCulloch-- who was a bit of a bitch-- but my entire debate team, too. When all the students were asked to raise their arms and vote for the team that they though won the debate, everybody in the class, including my own team, voted against me.

But I knew I was right.

At any rate, today, July 20th, 2009, marks the 40th anniversary of the “moon landing” and as a tribute, I would like to post two poems to commemorate the event.

The first poem, set to some angry drumming, is by Gil-Scot Heron, illustrating that not everybody was happy with the push to put a man on the moon.

Whitey on the Moon

A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell and Whitey's on the moon.
I can't pay no doctor bills but Whitey's on the moon.
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still while Whitey's on the moon.

The man just upped my rent last night cuz Whitey's on the moon.
No hot water, no toilets, no lights but Whitey's on the moon.
I wonder why he's uppin me. Cuz Whitey's on the moon?
I was already givin' him fifty a week but now Whitey's on the moon.

Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
The junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
And as if all that shit wasn't enough:

A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell but Whitey's on the moon.
Was all that money I made last year for Whitey on the moon?
How come there ain't no money here? Hmm! Whitey's on the moon.

Ya know, I just about had my fill of Whitey on the moon.
I think I'll send these doctor bills
airmail special....
to Whitey on the moon.

The second poem is by the late John Updike, and is an epistle to space travel.

An Open Letter to Voyager 2

By John Updike

Dear Voyager:

This is to thank you for
The last twelve years, and wishing you, what's more,
Well in your new career in vacant space.
When you next brush a star, the human race
May be a layer of old sediment,
A wrinkle of the primates, a misspent
Youth of some zoomorphs. But you, your frail
Insectoid form, will skim the sparkling vale
Of the void practically forever. As
The frictionless light-years and aeons pass,
The frozen points that from Earth's vantage held
Their mythic patterns firm will shift and melt;
No wide-dish radios will strain to hear
Your whispered news, nor poets call you dear.

Ere then, let me assure you, you've been grand ---
A little shaky at the outset, and
Arthritic in the swivel-joints, antique
In circuitry, virtually deaf, and weak
As a refrigerator bulb, you kept
Those picture postcards coming. Signals crept

To Pasadena, where they were enhanced
Until those planets clear as daylight danced.
The stripes and swirls of Jupiter's slow boil,
Its crazy moons, one cracked, one fried in oil,
One glazed with ice, and one too raw to eat,
Still cooking in the juice of inner heat,
Arrived on our astonished monitors.
Then, next, after a station break of years,
Fat Saturn rode your feeble beam, and lo! ---
Not corny as we feared, but art deco ---
The hard-edge, Technicolor rings, as thin
As cardboard, broader than Lake Michigan,
And casting flashlit shadows. Planet three
Was Uranus (accented solemnly
By anchormen on the first syllable,
Lest viewers think the "your" too personal):
A glassy globe of gas upon its side,
Its nine dark, close-knit rings at last descried,
Its corkscrew-shaped magnetic passions bared,
Its pocked attendants digitized and aired.
Last loomed, against the Oort cloud, blue Neptune,
Its counterrevolutionary moon,
Its wispy arcs of rings and whitish streaks

Of unpredicted tempests --- thermal freaks,
As if an unused backyard swimming pool,
Remote from stirring sunlight, dark and cool
(Sub-sub-sub-freezing), by itself would splash.
Displays of splendid waste, of rounded trash!
Your looping miles of guided drift brought home
How barren cosmic space would be to roam.
One awful ball succeeds another, none
Fit for a shred or breath of life. Our one
Delightful, verdant orb was primed to cede
The H2O and O and N we need.
Your survey, in its scrupulous depiction,
Purged from the solar system science fiction ---
No more Uranians or Io-ites,
Just Earthlings dreaming through their dewy nights.

You saw where we could not, and dared to go
Where we could scarcely dream; you showed
A kind of metal courage, and faithfulness.
Your cryptic, ciphered, graven messages
Are for ourselves, designed to boomerang
Back like a prayer from where the angels sang,
That shining ancient blank encirclement.

Your voyage now outsoars mundane intent
And joins matter's blind motion. Au revoir,
You rickety free-falling man-made star!
Machines, like songs, belong to all. A man
Aloft is Russian or American,
But you aloft were simply sent by Man
At large.
Sincerely yours,
A fan.

It’s one of the towns that the train always stops at as it journeys between Toronto and Ottawa. As such, I’ve probably passed through it around 100 times, and almost feel proprietary, like I know the place.

Every month or so, I move pass the back doors, catching a sort of posterior snapshot of some of the people who live near the train tracks in Smith Falls. Running parallel, the train moves slowly along Victoria Street. Out the window, I can see the squat, red brick apartments tracks the line the tracks. In some of the yards there are cars, half covered by tarps, in others, mismatched chairs and pieces of junk wait amidst weeds or snow, to one day be called back into the lives that rejected them.

Families sit in clusters on their back steps. They stare out at the passing trains, at the electrical wires and dormant lines of freight cars-- Yankee Cargo, Union Pacific Railroad, Tomahawk Railway LP-- that lie beyond. The names of the cars suggesting the broad world of possibility, mystery, and escape, that rumbles by so many times a day. But people seem indifferent to the suggestion. Young girls wearing shorts dribble basketballs on the street, and older boys drop their bikes one corner, like they’re suddenly too old for them and don’t want them anymore, before strutting off to look for trouble.

The town I see from the train seems kind of timeless, as if suspended in limbo. Nothing looks newly constructed, and the possibility of such a thing seems entirely improbable. The whole town, and all the people in it, give the appearance that they’ll never change, that they will remain the same, until they fall away and are forgotten.

Just as we’re about to pull away from the town, at the end of a long stretch of low, red brick structures, there is a green one. It’s a bar called Derailed. On the outside wall there are musical silhouettes—a guitar, a cowboy and a musical note. The sign hanging in the door always says open, but the lights are never on.

I always imagined that the place, located where it was on the wrong side of the tracks, suggested the boozy romance of departure and transition—the sort of unlikely place that Bob Dylan of Jack Kerouac might have stopped in somewhere down the line. They would have drunk with railroad men and flirted with local girls, later writing songs of their journeys that would propel the place forward into the world, so that those who stayed behind and watched the trains from their backs steps, would never be forgotten.

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Ottawa Super-fan Elizabeth Tevlin writes in to ask:

 Dear Michael,

 I have a question for you, as a TV reviewer. I know these are oldish news but still.

 Lisa Raitt( Conservative Member of Parliament) calls medical isotopes a "sexy" problem and doubts that other minister can handle "hot" issues. Creepily closer to home, Larry O'Brien(Ottawa Mayor) has a "big swinging dicks contest" with Terry Kilrea and could have just "ratfucked him," instead of giving the courtesy of criminally offering him a position in gov't. 

Why are our politicans talking like they're in The Sopranos? What could possibly be up with that?

Elizabeth:

 Let me first say that I think you’re a “sexy” problem and a “hot” issue.

I can see that you’re trying to impress me by being all Brainiac and showing off with your political knowledge. Well, I am flattered by the effort, but I have to correct you and let you know that Lisa Raitt is not a Conservative Member of Parliament, but a popular singer who has written songs like “Something to Talk About” and “ I Can’t Make You Love Me.” She is also gay. So, sorry, but I’m afraid you have all your facts mixed up, but it’s okay, because an awful lot of people get nervous when they write me.

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I once saw Larry O’Brien in an amateur Mixed Martial Arts fight staged at an Ottawa nightclub icalled Tactics. Actually, it was less of a fight, and more of an oily, wrestling match, one that was scored to this sort of Gregorian Disco chant music. Weird. Anyway, Mr. Clean-- the name he was oily wrestling under-- had his briefs ripped off, and I can assure you that he couldn’t get into a “big, swinging dick contest” if he got a “big, swinging dick” for Christmas. He was a creepy, hairless mess, and that smile on his face-- as his opponent twisted his nipples-- haunts me to this day. 

The expression “ratfuck” is  American slang for political sabotage or dirty tricks. It’s been around for an awfully long time, since Benedict Arnold “ratfucked” the American’s during the Revolutionary War. The expression went into remission for a long time, until the Bush administration came into power and it was once again foremost in the popular lexicon. Elizabeth, the expression has nothing to do with the American Idol spin-off show The Sopranos, as you have suggested, and may even have it's roots in Christianity, stemming from a disagreement between Jesus and Judas. 

Thanks for writing, Elizabeth!

 Michael Murray

Ten minutes later he returns, walking heavily up the stairs. He pours a shot of something into a glass, a liqueur that he needs for a sauce. He starts to walk away, and then pauses. He stills hates the people who ordered the food. He looks out into the bar, still thinking about them, still trying to burn holes through their bodies with his eyes. He downs the shot he poured for himself, and then gets another, before descending to the basement once again, still giving everybody in the place the stink eye, Ediath Piaf, who is on his side, singing defiantly from the jukebox.

On Saturday afternoon, Rachelle and I went down to Nathan Phillips Square to see the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. There must have been over one hundred display stalls, and the work, for the most part, was lovely and often astonishing. After about an hour, I noticed a really familiar woman who looked like somebody I knew back at McGill, about 20 years ago. Taking a chance, I shouted out her name, and sure enough she stopped and looked around. I immediately ran over and introduced myself, explaining the context in which we had known one another. Her eyes did not light up, and it was pretty clear that she didn’t remember me. I added a few more details, mentioning mutual friends and connections, encouraging her to remember me, or at least pretend to remember me, but this didn’t seem to work either.

She seemed entirely indifferent, bored even, and I began to feel badly for embarrassing both her and myself. In order to deflect the mounting awkwardness, I introduced myself to her two twin daughters who were standing by her side. They must have been about 8, and neither one of them was remotely interested in saying hello. In fact, one of the girls even let out a yelp when I bent down toward her, running behind her mother and hiding. It was at this point, after spending perhaps one minute trying to talk to this woman, that I realized that they wanted nothing to do with me. Apologizing for my intrusion, I wished them well and headed off.

I wouldn’t say that I was humiliated by the experience (well, maybe a little bit. I mean, the girl screamed and ran away), but I was surprised. I mean, I was sure that she would remember me, and even remember me fondly, but this was not the case. She exhibited not a trace of interest in hearing from a witness to her past, showing no warmth or interest in the surprise encounter. She simply didn’t care.

It’s probably a flaw of mine, but I think I’m just as interested in my past as I am in my future. I had a good time in high school and university, and often presume that on some level, everybody else did, too. This, of course, is far from the truth. For many people, the past is an immense trauma, something to bury, and they want nothing to do with a face --that had not been a part of their emotional landscape for 20 years-- that might conjure those embarrassing times.

I’m lucky in all sorts of regards, and I think I’m lucky to have crisp memories of the people who populated my past. These people are still with me. And so, it’s easy for me to look back 20 years and conjure Tanya Stephenson (not her real name), who was 6 foot 2 and had a shock of crazy, blonde hair that curled recklessly, almost drunkenly about her. She probably felt a little bit awkward, but she was smart and funny, and everybody liked her. However, each year she seemed to have a new best friend, a girl who was always stunningly beautiful. They would become inseparable, and whenever they went out on the town, Tanya would make herself available to the boys who missed out on her more striking friend.

That’s one of the things I remember, and probably something Tanya wishes never happened.

Whispering broke out along the shore. Apparently, once a year, one of the residents of the marina throws a little party for friends of his in the porn community. This man, who makes corporate videos for a living, was loved by everybody at the marina, and somewhat apologetically, would ask their permission for his one, somewhat scandalous, day of partying each year.

However, it was clear that everybody around the place was enjoying the spectacle. Wives playfully punched their husbands in the arm, and the husbands, in turn, pretended to watch the women with more interest than they likely had. The truth, as you might imagine, is that bottom-rung players in the porn industry are not radiant with beauty. When you looked at them, you saw tattoos and sadness, women who had run out of ideas a long time ago. The men seemed piggish and blunt, as if they were more interested in making other men jealous, than they were in spending time with these women. In short, they treated the women like property, and the women acted like they were property.

One woman, who was all fake tits and ass in her little bikini,  hollered and shouted from the deck in a hard partying whiskey voice. Her face was as deeply tanned as it was weathered, and she seemed just a shade older than she was supposed to be.

Somehow, she didn’t seem to belong to the clique of porn actresses, as much as she seemed to be trying to fit in. The other women stood by the picnic table, drinking and chatting, aloof, while she roamed about, trying to be the life of the party. Eventually, she staggered over to our area, asking if she could pet our dog. Of course, we let her, but we all sniggered, cruelly imitating her scratchy, slurry speech—Can I pet yer hamster? Ees so friggin’ cute!—behind her back.

When she returned to her party, we were told that she was not a part of the porn community, but was a woman who hung-out at marina cleaning boats. Men, usually single men, would hire her to scrub down their boats. And so, each week, or in some cases a couple of times a week, she would swab the decks of certain boats. She would then go below deck, and later, the men who had hired her, would arise with her, giving her wads of cash that she would stuff into the pockets of her cut-off jeans. A prostitute, not an adult film world actress.

In short order, everybody in the group, save this one woman, headed across to the beckoning light of the city, presumably to rip it up in clubland for the rest of the night. Alone, in the gathering dark, she began to diligently scrub down the boat after the afternoon party. It might have been one of the saddest, most lonely thing I have ever seen.

On Wednesday evening, our Anger Management Training teacher, Svetlana, took the class on a field trip. We were to go to a Kettlebell class that was taught by Svetlana’s cousin, Takei, who was apparently a big shot put deal back in the Soviet Union. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but after the mace incident with Cochise a month or so ago, I didn’t want to rock the boat, so I only wrote three letters of complaint to Svetlana’s superior.

At any rate, Cochise, who is another student in our class, showed up this week with a mysterious and unexplained cast on her right hand. As we walked down the Danforth, all wearing the Anger Management Trainee t-shirts that Svetlana forces us to sport in public, we bumped into a picket line full of striking City of Toronto garbage men. I’m not sure, but I think they were drunk. Waving placards, they were chanting:

Garbage, garbage piled high
Angry raccoons make you cry
Take our vacation days
You will die, die, die!

This made Cochise, who really likes yelling, very angry, and she stared to scream at them, “ I fart on you, I fart on you!” She then started to gather up some garbage from the street and began to throw it at the workers, who started to swing at the stuff with their placards, knocking it back toward our group. A chicken wing actually hit Svetlana in the eye, and as it turns out, she actually has quite a temper when threatened.

She called her cousin Takei, who showed up with his Kettlebell class, and I have to say, we absolutely SLAUGHTERED the city workers. It turns out it’s very easy to make Molotov Cocktails from the refuse lying about the street, and that City of Toronto garbage men will easily ignite if they have been drinking. Further, I was also intrigued to see that raccoons find the mixture of human blood and garbage to be utterly intoxicating, and that they will instinctively side with the more powerful side in combat. This was bad news for the striking workers.

At any rate, it was some excellent team building for the Anger Management All-Stars. We are thinking, as everybody had such a good and cathartic time, that we might actually join a sports league for the rest of the summer.

Immediately upon crossing the street, there was a smiling elderly woman, moving gingerly, oh, so gingerly down the sidewalk. Heidi loved her, in spite of never having met her before, and immediately began to run in delirious circles of joy. This made the woman beam. Oh, she was so happy, such an unexpectedly blessed moment in her day! She bent down with great difficulty and began to pet Heidi, run her fingers over her ears, our dog leaning toward her like a plant to the sun, and the woman just smiled, "so soft, oh, she’s so soft!"

After missing almost the entire spring season of Jesus Cobra athletic competition due to an excruciating hernia, I was really looking forward to leading my teammates to victory the summer. It was clear that without my stern yet fair coaching, and my gritty-take-no-prisoners style of play on the field, the Cobras just sort of fell apart.

As a tribute to Michael Jackson, I had designed a new uniform( red t-shirt, red shorts, pancake make-up on face, with Thriller-like scars, and one sequin glove for each player, with me sporting the MJ on my shirt to connote captaincy), and proposed a new name for the team—The Billie Jeaners. As we were to play basketball this season, I had been creating a series of creative and devastating plays—incorporating some of the King’s dance moves-- for us to execute, and was optimistic that we would, at the very least, make the play-offs.

However, according to Rachelle, there’s been a scheduling error this season that’s going to prohibit me from playing.. For whatever reason, she said that they could only enter into a league that had games on Wednesday night, the same night as I am legally obligated to attend Anger Management Training. As some of you may know, ever since the police were called to a Euchre game I was at a few months ago, I have been court ordered to attend AMT sessions.

Not only did Rachelle go out and sign-up the team, KNOWING I would not be able to play, but she changed the name of the team to Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard, whatever the means. (Who is Julio? Is he the new instructor at her kick boxing class?) Further, I have been replaced on the team by a “friend” of ours named Mark. Mark just happens to be black. Coincidence? I think not.

Even though I have a sterling reputation as a basketball player, serving as a bench warmer on the Lisgar Junior Boys championship basketball team, I still face bigotry and racism wherever I go. Just because Mark is black and considered “athletic”, people immediately assume that he is better than me, which completely ignores all of the intangibles that I bring to the team. For instance, even though I cannot jump and prefer to shoot in the elegant underhand fashion, I do not trim my fingernails during basketball season and am able to subtly scratch my opponents, an infraction that rarely gets called in the casual Rec leagues I dominate.

At any rate, I am very disappointed to be a victim of such blatant discrimination, and am taking the necessary steps to place charges against both the Toronto Recreational Sports League and Rachelle Maynard, for shutting me out of a game I love dearly.

Tonight, my old teammates with a new and stupid name, will play their first game of the season, while I, once again, will attend Anger Management Training. Tonight, led by our teacher Svetlana, we are going on a field trip where we get to participate in a Kettlbell class. Fun. Svetlana, by the way, makes us wear Anger Management Trainee t-shirts whenever we go on a field trip, which is very alienating, as when pedestrians see us they hide behind mailboxes, like they’ve just spotted a bunch of escaped convicts.

On Sunday, Rachelle and I drove back to Toronto from Ottawa. On the way we stopped at one of those service centers just before Gananoque. Whenever I see one of these places, which usually include a gas station and four fast food joints, I always think of a mother ship. They look a little bit like a flying saucer, and I’m always intrigued by all the disparate people, from all over the place, gobbling food and fuel, who pass through the place on any given day.

Serious-minded young children stepped out of minivans, and walking three steps in front of their parents, headed directly to Wendy’s. The father, pulling up his khakis, would hurry along behind them, a large Tim Horton’s coffee on his mind, while his wife took the dog for a brief walk on the thin strip of green near the highway. The Lab squated to do his business, the woman looking politely away in order to give the animal it's privacy.

Inside, a line of four 14 year-old girls worked the cash registers. They glistened beneath the heat, their cheeks full and rosy, their fingers plump from all the clandestinely devoured fries. Older teens, some aware of their beauty, others without a clue, slouched in the line-up, yawning, before ordering the boneless Asian chicken wings.

Outside in the sun, a van full of tricked out gangsters stood around their vehicle. Wearing ball hats at a slant and oversized Raptor’s jerseys, they struck menacing poses and blasted music that made little kids stare in wide-eyed amazement and parents hurry along, avoiding eye contact.

A small man with a bushy mustache walked quickly across the parking lot with his wife and two sons. The man was angry, and he was barking at one of his boys, “ YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU? I’LL TELL YOU! WHEN YOU GET TO HIGH SCHOOL YOU’RE GOING TO POP OFF LIKE THAT AND SOME KID IS JUST GOING TO DRIVE YOU! THAT’S WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN! YOU’LL SEE!!”

The boy was barely listening, his eyes fixed on a car around which three or four people had gathered. Attached to the grill of the car was a bird that had obviously been unwittingly hit while the vehicle was driving down the highway. The owners of the car, completely unaware, had gotten out and went into the service station, while the bird, half digested by the car, twitched and flapped about. The boy stood frozen in the parking lot, staring, while his father yelled back at him, imparting valuable lessons about the nature of the world.

On Saturday, while Rachelle and I were driving through Ottawa, we passed by an old friend of mine who was waiting on the corner to cross the street. He had an open, happy expression on his face, and when he began to cross the street, his gait, as always, was sturdy and confident, as if he was consciously presenting himself to the world.

A complicated and charismatic man, he’s been a fixture in the Ottawa scene for a couple of decades. He’s always been the guy you wanted a dinner party, as he was sure to charm, entertain and shock whomever was there. I used to work as a waiter with him and he was always, always the customer’s favourite server. Blessed with an exceptionally agile mind, he has a true blue streak of eccentricity and is as witty as somebody you’d seen on TV and wished was your friend.

I always thought that he preferred a solitary life, but the truth is that I have no idea. Although I’ve known him and liked him for years, I never really understood him, and I never had the sense that he actually even liked me. He was always at a certain remove, and although I always hoped to win his approval, I can’t say that I ever felt like I did.

Tragically, he’s now faced with a very grave illness. This unfolding sadness has been revealed to those of us who exist in his periphery circles, in dreadful segments. One of his dear friends has taken on the heavy, yet compassionate role, of being the bearer of bad news, giving us updates, first of his diagnosis, and later of his surgeries, treatment and worsening prognosis.

I’ve had some experience with cancer, and was hopeful that I might communicate with him and perhaps, in some way, help. But I was told that he did not want to communicate with anybody.

I suppose I understand this better than most. When I was sick with cancer and my future was an uncertain thing, all I wanted to do was separate from the herd. I won’t try to parse the psychology that informed this posture, but can say with certainty that it was a deeply felt and utterly authentic position. I let it be known, as my friend has now, that I did not want to see any visitors, I did not want any cards, I did not want any phone calls. At the time, I think that I, like my friend, preferred a solitary life.

Still, some people ignored my declarations and came to see me anyway. It turns out that it was these visits that meant the most to me. I had tremendous respect and admiration for the people-- who in spite of my wishes-- did what they needed to do. They needed to see me, to try and encourage and help me, and they were willing to risk my anger.

And so, when I saw my old friend through the window of our car, I had mixed feelings. I didn’t know if I should start screaming at him or honking the horn, or whether I should quietly respect his want for privacy. And so I just sat there, meekly waving from the passenger’s seat, hoping he might notice me. He did not see me, or if he did, he didn’t betray a glimmer of recognition. As we pulled away, I was acutely aware that this might be the last time I would see him, and for that, to see him happily being himself in an unguarded moment, I was truly grateful.

On Friday afternoon, Rachelle and I went to the Rideau Center to do some shopping. As I was sitting outside of Fancy Sox taking a break,  Randy Reid happened along. Randy and I, as some of you might know, went to the same high school together. It was here where Randy staggered about, breathing through his mouth, beating the crap out of anybody whenever he got the itch to do so. Unfortunately, I bumped into him and his son Razor earlier in the week, and was subject to all sorts of mean-spirited abuse, including the destruction of the glove I had been wearing to commemorate the passing of Michael Jackson, The King of Pop.

This is a loose transcript of my encounter with Randy from the Rideau Center:

Randy: ( Boisterous, like he’d just finished his fifth pint at the Elephant and Castle) Hey, loser! What’s the matter, the clerk’s restraining order keeping you from going into Fancy Sox?!

Fag.

Me: ( Icily) You owe me $15.00 for the glove you destroyed the other day.

Randy: ( In a sing-song little girl voice) Oh, my pretty, pretty glove got hurt. I think I’m going to cry! Wha-wha-wha!

At this point Rachelle came out of a store and came over to me, at which point and I introduced her to Randy.

Randy: Rachelle, it’s been a long time.

Rachelle: Yes, it has Randy.

Randy: You look good.

Rachelle: Thank you, you look good, too. Still lifting weights and running, I see.

Randy: I try to stay in shape. ( Gives me a look) I tried to find you, you know.

Rachelle: Oh, Randy, let’s not go there. That was ages ago, we were different people. It was Montreal, and nothing was ever the same after the fire.

Me: Do you two know each other?

Randy: I just had a lot of stuff to deal with after the accident.

Rachelle: I know, Randy, I know. It was a hard time for both of us. Look, I can’t talk about this.

Randy: You know, I finished that novel I was writing. It’s dedicated to you.

Me: What’s it about, Randy? Stealing gloves?

Rachelle: Michael, that’s not funny. Would you mind giving Randy some time? We have some stuff to discuss. I’ll be back in a few hours. I love you, Michael, please, whatever happens, don’t ever forget that.

The other day, my father took me out on the boat. I’ve never had much of an itch to be out on the water, but more and more I’ve found myself drawn to it. I find the experience kind of therapeutic, relaxing in an unconscious but very real way. Obviously, you have a different perspective when you’re on the water, and are forced to see the inhabited world from the point of view of an outsider. Ottawa, for instance, is a strikingly beautiful city. However, at the same time, I find it very easy to strip the landscape of all the buildings and imagine both a pre and post civilized world independent of mankind.

Water, of course, makes up 70% of the planet’s surface. This fact serves a reminder of just how small we really are on the planet, and how unknowable and mysterious the world around us is. I mean, the amount of the world that I’ve actually experienced is embarrassingly tiny. Really, as individuals, we know virtually nothing about the planet we live on, let alone the universe beyond us.

And so, whenever I’m out on a boat I feel appropriately small and vulnerable, and am inevitably given over to thoughts of divinity. I’ve never belonged to any church, and generally find organized religion to be pretty weird, and often self-serving, but it would never occur to me to doubt the existence of some ordering presence in the universe. All I need to do is think of the lobster.

I imagine some lobster living its’ lobster life in some marine abyss off the Northern coast of Alaska. This creature, which is about as physically dissimilar to a human as possible, could not possibly imagine ( if we could imbue the creature with sufficient consciousness to do so, and we cannot), that it inhabited the same planet as we do. And that in this world, there’s this huge overlord civilization that goes to movies and drive cars and fly airplanes. That we, in fact, manage lobster communities and harvest them for food. I mean, this would blow the lobster mind.

It seems clear to me that I’m a lobster, too. I go about my life with my head down, and I don’t have a clue what forces are truly influencing my life, and what realities exist just beyond my fields of perception. For me, this makes the posture of atheism to be an appalling failure of imagination. We know nothing, and really, all we need to do to be reminded of that is to just look out at the ocean, as eternal and dark as the sky above.

Ever since Michael Jackson died, I’ve been wearing one glove as a tribute to the man and his music. It’s a subtle and appropriate thing to do, I think, a gentle reminder of the beauty that he left in this world.

As I’m presently in Ottawa visiting my parents, I was wandering around the old neighbourhood when I bumped across Randy Reid, who went to the same high school that I did back in the 80’s. You should know that he came from a very wealthy family, drove a BMW, was about six foot four and that he was a notorious bully. This, roughly, is the conversation that took place between us on the street.

Randy: “Hey, fag! Murray Fag, you’ve gone grey!”

Me: “I’m not a fag.”

Randy: “Yes you are. Fag. Grey fag.”

Me: ( Pretending to check my cell phone even though it was dead on account of forgetting to bring my charger.)

Randy: “This is my boy, here. ( Gestures to hulking 13 year-old standing beside him listening to an iPod) His name is Randy Jr, but we call him Razor. He’s not a fag. Like you.”

Me: “Nice to meet you Razor.” (reaching out to shake his hand)

Razor: ( He nods and looks away, doesn’t respond to my outstretched hand.)

Randy: “Whoah, whoah, whoah! What the fuck do you have on your hand? Is that a glove? In June?  Are you still wearing one glove around in tribute to your hero, Michael Jackson?! Were you his lover?”

Me: “You shouldn’t make fun of The King.”( I immediately regretted saying this, and wished I had told him that I had burned my hand while fixing my motorcycle.)

Randy: ( Big, loud fake laughing while poking Razor and pointing at me.) “Razor, this specimen used to walk around school wearing one glove and a fake, red leather jacket in honour of his hero, Michael Jackson. Oh, Christ, the fun we used to have! I once glued his hand into his glove, and then his glove onto his locker! He was so unpopular and gay that he had to eat lunch with the boat people every day.”

Razor: “Is he what a nerd looks like when it gets old?”

Randy: “Yep. You remember this, Razor. Let this be a lesson to you, so you never, EVER, become a retard freak-show like this thing.”

And then Randy fake punched me in the head, and when I flinched, both he and Razor burst out laughing.

Razor: “Can I do it, too, dad?”

Randy: “Go for it! Just make sure you don’t get any nerd juice on you!”

And then Razor fake punched me in the head, and when I put up my hands to block the fake blow, Randy took my glove and threw it in front of a bus, giving his boy a high-five as they got into their Mercedes SUV.

Overhead fans are rotating at different speeds and a 65 year-old man, looking for friends, wanders from bar stool to stool. He’s holding a pint of beer and telling jokes that he memorized 40 years earlier. He puts a song on the jukebox and goes over a couple sitting at the bar.

They’re both in their mid-50’s, and have likely been driven indoors by the rain that’s plaguing the jazz festival. The old man puts his hands on their shoulders--a beneficent presence-- and begins to sing along to the jukebox—It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s a serenade, a gift to the lovers.

The woman wears a t-shirt the colour of jewelry, of perfume. The man drinks from a rock glass, the festival pass swinging from around his neck. They’re happy with themselves, that they were selected for a song, that they were cool and charitable enough to indulge the old man as he teetered around them. The old man slaps them on the back, releasing a smoker’s laugh, and moves on to the next person.

They both watch him as he leaves. The man puts down his rock glass and runs the back of his hand over her cheek, down the side of her neck, his fingernails lingering on the spot where skin meets shirt and her cleavage disappears into suggestion. She’s staring into him, exactly like she’s supposed to.

A younger couple, but not that much younger, come arm and arm into the bar. Dripping wet, they shoot tequila, swagger like cowboys back into the night, the sounds of jazz echoing through the parking garage across the street.

Later in her career, she tried to change this image and become a sex bomb, but it never really took. Her efforts made her seem desperate and weird(her Playboy apprearance at 50 where she slithered around in paint), in the style of an aging Hollywood celebrity with nowhere to go, and in short order, after her surreal appearance on Letterman, she was a laughing stock. This was sad, rather than actually funny, and what was clear from her performance, was just how desperately she craved and needed attention. Whether it was good or bad attention was completely immaterial. She was over 50, and never having had to cultivate an evolved sense of maturity or grace because of the immediate attention her looks had always demanded, found herself lost. Her native beauty having been corrupted, she was  then spit out by the cruelly indifferent machinations of celebrity.

In 1983, when I was in high school, Michael Jackson appeared on the 25th Anniversary Motown Special. I was over at a friend’s house with a whole bunch of kids getting ready to go out. None of us wanted to watch the show, but the father, who was having a good time, made us stay for one more song.

It was Michael Jackson. Looking like a glittering Prince of Persia, he performed Billie Jean, and it was, to say the least, electrifying. People in the audience were standing and waving their arms about, their spontaneous cheers punctuating the song in perfect rhythm. It was a long performance by TV standards, more than five minutes, and as it proceeded, a kind of tension built, and then suddenly, when he did his moonwalk, introducing it to the world for the first time, all of that tension was released in one graceful and entirely alien passage of movement. The audience in Motown, and all of us in my neighbour’s basement, went absolutely insane. It was magic.

It was a moment of cultural evolution. Suddenly, something nobody had seen before or even imagined, came into being in front of millions of people at the same time. The next day at school there was nothing else to talk about. There was nothing else to do but try to master the moonwalk. I swear, this went on for a year, and people of my age, will still try to moonwalk when drunk.

Feeling sentimental, I looked back even further than that seminal performance of Billie Jean, and came across the Jackson 5 performing on the Ed Sullivan show in 1969. Michael was 10 years old and beautiful. He was charming and so abundantly full of talent that the light practically radiated out of him, and I don’t think it’s overstating things to say that his presence was some sort of gift.

None of us can ever understand the forces that shape the arc of a life. How he was transformed from the pure, radiant genius of childhood to the sad and broken-down 50 year-old that he was at his death is ultimately unknowable. Forces our elected celebrities can’t imagine or possibly predict, bend and manipulate them, draining them of that which we initially loved, until there is nothing left, but their need to be loved.

It’s a principle of physics that nature knows no extinction, only the transference of energy. When I think of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, I think now of all that they poured out into the world, all the ideas, fantasies and images that helped fuel millions of lives that very likely turned out far happier than those of the stars themselves.

Last night, I watched a couple of the videos of Neda Soltan as she died in the streets of Tehran. They were very difficult to watch, and I found myself physically flinching as I tried to process the sights and sounds that were passing into me.

In the video, the 26 year-old student of philosophy, having just been fatally shot, lay in a growing puddle of blood.  Her eyes were open, and vivid in appearance, but they did not seem present in any way that I could comprehend. It was like nothing I had ever seen, and because of that it carried with it a brutal and unmistakable authenticity. The footage, shot from a cell phone, was a fury of sound and movement. The screams were visceral and unmediated, arising unbidden from the people around her.

Three or four people attended to Soltan, trying to staunch the wound and save her life, but it was no use. The bullet had struck her heart. Suddenly, blood, following an unnatural course, pours out of her nose and mouth and she is dead.

Her death was unsentimental and swift, and even as a person at a great remove, knowing exactly what he was about to see, I still found it shocking, even hyper-real.
For whatever reason, I expected the video, like a life, to have a context—a beginning, middle, and an end-- but all I saw was the end. A beautiful woman was killed—instantly-- and in watching her final moment, we learned nothing about her. She just vanished from the world, a mystery that defied closure. 

In a culture in which martyrdom carries great cultural resonance, Soltan has already been elevated to a mythic status, existing now as a potent and idealistic symbol of the opposition to the Iranian regime. She was beautiful and alive, and she was right there, on the streets, in the midst of a romantic storm of passion. She was the physical embodiment of an imagined, and perfectible, future.

As much as we might need her to have been at the forefront of a nascent revolution, her family said she was apolitical, and had merely stepped out of the car with her singing teacher to get some fresh air, that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In short, she was no more committed to her death than was the person who was struck by a car while absently crossing the street. But we need her to be more than that.

Nobody knows how or why she was shot, but some people are suggesting that she was targeted because she was using a mobile phone. Throughout the protests, the phone has proved an invaluable tool for organizing and disseminating information ( the video of Neda, herself, for instance)  for those opposed to the government, and so it’s not a stretch to imagine that the authorities would like to inhibit such transmissions.

Like most of you, I’ve been receiving instructions from friends, via Twitter and Facebook, to set my Twitter account to Tehran time in order to create more traffic, thus making it more difficult for the government to track the plans of the protesters. I’ve had some ambivalence about doing so, because I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d just be helping myself feel better about myself, or actually helping a cause, one that I really didn’t know very much about. This was further complicated by the fact that the requests I was receiving were not coming from the streets of Iran, but from people just like me. There was something presumptuous, almost imperial in the request, but the impulse comes from a true and sincere place, and so, feeling like high-tech minutemen fighting for a just cause, we comply.

We can’t even begin to imagine how things are connected in this world, but one very obvious, if brutal solution to the government’s problem regarding the protestors use of mobile communications, is to simply shoot the people they see using cell phones in crowds. This changes the nature and the intensity of the conflict at hand, escalating it to a point that perhaps the actual participants, those on the ground, would not welcome. And so we watch from afar, as the life bleeds out of an innocent young woman, and we’re astonished by how quickly death comes, and how indifferent it is to our best intentions.

On Sunday, Rachelle and I took the dog to Christie Pits to watch some baseball. Walking there, we passed by yard sales, church dances, lost dogs and millionaires.

The walk took about half an hour, and when we got there, the first thing we did was buy some popsicles. We then proceeded to seek out a shaded patch to call our own. An older man, spotting Rachelle and our Daschund, shouted out “Why do they call them Timex and Rolex?” We did not know what he was talking about. “Because they’re watch dogs!” He shouted, bursting into a big, silent laugh and then giving me a high-five as we passed.

The game was part of the semi pro Intercounty Baseball League, and it featured the Toronto Maple Leafs playing against the Mississauga Twins, who for some reason wore glittering gold batting helmets, which made them look a little bit like Martians. Both teams started off slowly, playing as if they had really bad hangovers. They dropped balls, missed cut-off men and just generally seemed to have their minds elsewhere.

No matter, everybody else was distracted, too. A father took his two year-old boy over to visit the third base coach, who was, perhaps, his grandfather. A man in his 70’s, the coach wore the uniform of the Maple Leafs and had the wise and weathered look of a farmer. He placed the boy, somewhat precariously, on top of a bicycle that was leaning against the fence, so he could get a better look at the game, at one of the Maple Leafs getting thrown out by five yards at second base.

A  family of four sat on a blanket beside us, their 12 year-old boy torturing his 8 year-old sister by tickling her back with the weeds he had picked from the ground. Just beneath us on the slope was a tiny dog that howled with desperation and sorrow, when her tattooed tough guy master trudged up the hill to get a drink, and she was left alone, tied to a tree, for two minutes. And past them there were four people playing Frisbee, one of them appearing to have never seen the marvel that was a Frisbee before. With a huge, child-like grin on his face, he kept striking at the Frisbee, like the game was to knock it out of the air.

And further beyond them there was the Latin American Festival.  Tinny music drifted over and through the ballpark, carrying with it the scent of barbeque, and eventually, in small groups, people got up from the baseball game and walked over. Becoming a part of something new, they joined the crowd of costumed people dancing, vendors selling plantains, religious icons and t-shirts and women basking in the sun, before returning, carrying plastic plates heavy with food, to see how the baseball game might end.

It was a beautiful day, and you could see the good in it. It was unambiguous. It was right there for you to look at, to touch and taste, if you wanted to.

However, this was an important matter, and it was clear that she could use my guidance, and so, for perhaps ten minutes, I spoke, explaining the psychological and economic relationships that governed her work environment, and how she should respond to these dynamics. I was extraordinarily articulate and almost preternaturally perceptive in my comments, and it was clear to me that Rachelle was grateful, because she just sat there watching me, her chin resting on her hands. When I was finished, she looked at me, and in the sweet voice that you might use when speaking to a child, said, “you have a corn nibblet on your face.”

And so now, whenever I say something that I think is smart, or even semi-serious, Rachelle now responds by saying something like “you have meat on your glasses,” or “ there’s some rice in your eyebrows.”

Not. Nice.

Even worse is that this sort of disrespectful and childish behaviour is spreading through our circle of friends, as Rachelle, class act that she is, has told everybody in the world about it. So now, whenever I’m coaching one of our Jesus Cobra games, my players will now point to my face, and then make a brushing motion, as if to suggest I have some food there. Sometimes, one of them will pipe up and say, “Good point, nibblet!” It’s disrespectful and rude, and I’m officially telling the world that I will no longer answer to Nibblet, so back off!!

Master is weak in the head.

He think he sick with bugs because he played card with coughy two-leg the other night, but he smell not sick. He smell of fear, like all time, but no smell bug sick. When we go for walk he now make sigh sound and move slow, not pick-up my business, but kick trash on top. Still easy to smell! He lie in bed now, watch card people play on TV, so I take his Blog to nose type about treat.

Treat good.

Among favourite treat are licorice, meat steak and frat barf.

Licorice red. Look like blood of wounded bird! Yum!

Meat steak come with fat.

Never know what you going to get with frat barf. It real grab bag, but great to find on street! Make walk fun!

Heidi

When I was at the Shouldice Clinic getting my hernia repaired, I didn’t just lie about moaning and begging for drugs. The doctors and nurses are a bunch of stingy hard-asses there, the type of morons who say crap like “pain is just your body’s way of telling you to use it!” Right. At any rate, I guess it was their “philosophical” posture not to dispense any drugs, which quite frankly made the whole experience a bit of a drag. At first I thought I might persuade them to medicate me by moaning from my bed, but this proved an ineffective strategy, as Orenthall, my roommate from Scarborough, limped over to me and very quietly, but with ringing authority, said, “Bitch, if you don’t shut your damn mouth, I’m going to sew it shut using a motherfucking coat hanger.”

Well, when life gives you lemons, you just have to make lemonade, and so instead of wasting time and getting my mouth sewn shut with a coat hanger, I limped off as quickly as I could and began to work on a pilot I’m writing for TV.

It’s called HERNIAMAGGEDON, and it’s about a charming writer—Michael Steele-- who goes to a prestigious hernia clinic in order to get a surgical repair. However, unknown to him, an important political leader is also at the clinic. As a result of this, terrorists have infiltrated the facility, looking to assassinate the political leader and detonate a dirty bomb full of the swine flu. Our writer, because he’s very perceptive, uncovers the plot, but none of the bitch nurses or stuck-up doctors will believe him because they think “he has addiction issues and is a little crazy” and so he is obliged to foil the plot and save the politician and city on his own. He does this with the help of his street smart black roommate, whose catch phrase is “I’ll sew him up with a coat hanger” and a vulnerable and sexy Russian doctor who works in the cafeteria because she isn’t certified to practice in North America.

Think Die Hard only with groin pain.

24 with a limp.

Brett Michaels from Rock of Love, has expressed some interest in starring in the project.

A scene from the pilot episode of HERNIAMAGGEDON will appear shortly.

On Saturday night, a friend took us to see our first Roller Derby match. It was out at the George Bell Arena, and it featured The Death Track Dolls against The Smoke City Betties. I was expecting a counter-culture fantasia, an ironic descent into 70’s kitsch and hipster irony fueled by some post-feminist rocket fuel.

The skaters, some in zombie makeup, boasted names like Sista Fista, Audrey Hellborn, Kung Fu Kitty and Bonky Kong. Arrayed on the track in their retro roller skates, they stretched suggestively before the match. The crowd of about 300 or 400 was a curious mixture of dykes, counter-culture hipsters, tattoo enthusiasts and people who wouldn’t have looked out of place at a bingo hall.

On the interior, just beyond the track, was an area for the family of the skaters. The gate for the Zamboni was open, allowing shafts of sunlight to pass into the arena. From the parking lot, husbands passed through the gate with their kids, bringing a country fair feeling to the event. They would shake out a blanket and lay it out on the concrete for the kids, and together they’d cheer on their mother as she skated around and around in vicious circles. It was actually entirely wholesome, like a modern reinterpretation of a Norman Rockwell painting.

I was shocked by how serious minded the match actually was. I mean, it really looked like everybody was trying, and after a little bit of time passed, I began to enjoy watching the strategy and athleticism of the spectacle more than the camp. It seemed clear that the participants, who were pretty good, wanted to do well and get better. They took it seriously.

A row in front of us sat an older woman of maybe 70, who sat beside a wiry heavy rock God who kept chugging down bottle after bottle of Gatorade. This woman lost herself to the match, and would stand shouting, punching her fists out and cheering on her favourite team. Above us, in the “bar” area, people sipped beer and waited for the draw at intermission.

When the match was over I went downstairs to the washroom, passing by the locker room of the Smoke City Betties. There stood Memphis Kitty, who had started off slow but ended up playing a great game. My friend had told me that last season, after drinking too much beer, Memphis Kitty had gained weight and had a bad season, but on this night, on her roller blades and in her tight spandex uniform, she looked like an Amazon warrior. Her cheeks flushed from exertion, she smiled, enthusiastically talking to an older couple that looked like her parents. 25 years ago they probably went to watch every one of their daughters T-Ball games, and now, just like then, they were still attending her passions, telling her after each game, just how proud they were of her.

Monday was a beautiful day.

Across the street, a construction worker with long and robust gray hair stood in front of a piece of heavy equipment. Wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses, he had his shirt off and his arms crossed over his chest. Pink Floyd was blasting from the cab of his truck, and he looked happy, exactly like he probably did 30 years ago in high school, standing outside at lunch, posing for all the girls in the parking lot.

A little further down, a slightly strange man in his 30’s, who lives with his parents in a big, beautiful house, played acoustic guitar on the front porch. He sang loudly and very well, a talent that his parents probably encouraged from a young age. I could imagine his mother, now near 70, listening happily from the kitchen as she watered a plant.

Walking up the street in a very tight suit that didn’t look like it got out very often, a man felt pretty good about things.  Singing to himself, he did a little shuffle as he crossed the street. Snapping his fingers, he turned into the drug and alcohol treatment center for men on the corner, ready to face the first day in the rest of his life.

And behind the Madison Pub, in a shaded spot by the parking lot, sat three homeless men. One of them had a guitar, which he strummed quickly while singing a bunch of indistinct words. The two other men bobbed their heads, keeping time with the music, until one of them spotted me and began to wave, "Hey, mister, hey! Can your dog sing!?" And then he started to howl-- and then the three of them, all leaning back and howling into the day.

On Saturday afternoon, we went down to Woofstock on King Street. For one day each year, they close off about three blocks of the street, giving it over to dogs and dog lovers. It’s billed as a festival for dogs, but really it’s a retail trade store targeting those of us who own dogs. No matter, it was a beautiful day and a great opportunity to see armies of both people and dogs.

As usual, there was an over representation of muscular gay men with hulking Great Danes, and older women in muumuu’s. Invariably, these women were heavy and driving one of those motorized scooters, most of them with a small costumed dog--also obese-- dog sticking its head out of a basket.

Instead of there being activities for the dogs, the streets are lined with kiosks selling dog-themed products. One enterprise was shilling sofas for dogs, for around $300 or $400, with the idea being that since you didn’t want the dog on your couch, you may as well buy him his own. I made a sarcastic crack to a man standing next to me about this being a “good” idea, and he just beamed. Nodding his head, without a trace of reciprocal sarcasm, he said, “ I bought one last year, they’re absolutely great!”

Another company called “Pawbearer” was selling urns, for around $700, with model names like “Dr. Bubbles” and “Bones” for your deceased pet. There was also a dog play area, which you paid for by the hour, like parking. It was essentially a gazebo/cage-- with a strip of Astroturf and a Seesaw inside it-- that was about the size of your bedroom. Inside, a few dogs ran around in frantic circles, searching for their masters who had likely gone into a bar to have a drink.

The festival was a huge boon to most of the surrounding businesses, and when I popped into Second Cup to get a coffee, the line-up stretched to the door. A heavy gay man was working the cash, and although he feigned a rather dramatic exasperation, it was clear that he was having the time of his life. He had a team of four African women making all the drinks and restocking the shelves, while he shouted out whatever order was placed. An elderly man says “ medium, green tea, please,” and then the cashier screamed it out at the women who were working around him. As ridiculous as this may sound, everybody was in a good mood and enjoying themselves. The cashier, feeling efficient and witty, kept the line moving, while “his girls,” trading secret smiles with one another, happily did all the heavy lifting, amused to be getting the job done on their own, in spite of their bosses more flamboyant efforts.

On Wednesday afternoon, I stumbled across a track and field meet that was taking place at Varsity Stadium. From what I could tell, the meet was for kids up to grade seven. The first thing that I watched was a high jump warm-up session for grade six boys. None of the kids had any technique, and it was easy to tell who was going to win the competition. He wore denim shorts and looked like he might be capable of leaping to the moon. The other boys, many of them still doing the next to useless scissor style jump, looked on in demoralized wonder, as this other kid, arching his back, soared over the bar time and time again.

The next event I watched was the 100-meter final for grade seven girls. All of the girls racing were black, and they exploded powerfully out of the starting blocks, tearing up the track in beautiful, muscular strides. Their concentration intense, you could hear their feet pounding the track, their chests rising and falling with their focused breathing.

I also watched the grade four girl’s 800-meter final. There were probably about ten of them competing, and they were all so young that I kind of expected them to be indifferent, running about in playful circles as if chasing butterflies. But no, they were pretty serious, and when the race started a girl in a yellow shirt took off into the lead. Running with an easy determination on her face, she looked like she could go on forever at that pace. Looking at her, you could just see that she was unbeatable, but all the same, I expected her to fade a bit toward the end, having opened up such a lead. However, when she got to about 75 meters from the finish line, she reached back and found another gear, sprinting through the finish line, her pigtails trailing behind her like streamers.

This is my first letter to him.

Dear Innocent62:

Do you know an inmate who goes by Mother Trucker? He has a big tattoo of a flaming eagle on his chest and serves as a bath mate to members of the Aryan Nation. If you know him, I advise you to stay the **** away as he is a very, very bad man!! If he tells you he’s going to do you a favour, he is lying and he will likely stick a shiv right in your throat.

Hey, what exactly is a shiv anyway? Are they easy to make and do you have to hide them up your, you know, private area?

Speaking of private areas, do you get porn in prison?

You do know that Jessica Simpson is single now, right? That football player dude she was dating dumped her because she got fat, but then she lost all the weight and she’s smoking hot, so who do you think is sorry now?

Have you seen the new Star Trek movie?

Oh.

Probably not.

Anyway, when you get out, you should rent it. It rocks!

Stay well, Innocent62, and keep that chin up!

Your friend,

Clooney

PS: And whatever you do, stay away from Mother Trucker!

A woman that was going for her daily run turned a corner and happened upon the corpse of a man hanging from a tree. I imagine that the woman was in a very relaxed zone when she was running. It was a beautiful day and she may have been sorting optimistically through the things she had to do that day, when suddenly, she ran directly into a suicide. According to Rachelle’s aunt, her scream was primal and unrestrained, emanating from a place that known of us have any control over.

I suppose that I’m still young enough that when I think of all of the people that I’ve known who have died, suicide is probably still the largest killer.

In high school, at an outdoors party, a young boy who had just been socially ostracized, tried to hang himself from a lamppost. He had used the strap from his knapsack as a noose, and it hung there eerily beneath the night. A police officer wondered aloud how they were going to get it down, and excited, I volunteered, shimmying up the pole and pulling it down. I remember how the cop shook his head and whistled, amazed at youth, how I could so easily scale a lamppost, and how the other boy, so easily, could try to take his own life.

Another guy I knew leapt from his apartment balcony after coming in second in a guitar competition. I hadn’t known him all that well, but had always thought of his as sweet and shy, having no idea the sadness that must have kept buried within.

A waiter who worked at a pub I was a regular at, killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning. He had a family, and seemed happy enough, if not entirely optimistic. He was sweet, too, and we always enjoyed seeing one another.

Another person I knew jumped in front of a Go Train. Growing up, I had always looked at this boy with envy. He lived in a huge house in Rockliffe Park in Ottawa, was the scion of a famous family, and had the natural good looks of a born leader. I always wished I could step into his skin and enjoy all the native advantages he had inherited. But no, he suffered crippling depressions that descended upon him, until finally, he just made a decision and stepped out in front of the oncoming train, all of his potential and light vanishing into the screams of the horrified people on the platform.

As I’m pretty unsophisticated, I’m always drawn to kitsch. Yesterday there were a variety of items in my price range—a handful of pins with 1980’s baseball stars on them, weird fake-retro porn postcards, an etching of a creepy dog and a Carry-All Fighting Knight Action Play Set.

This last item was buried beneath a box of cassettes, and when I lifted them off, the play set was instantly recognizable as the one my parents gave me for Christmas when I was about six years old. It was a thin metal box, with a handle, that was designed to look like a suitcase. When you opened it, it unfolded into the interior of castle, replete with cobbled floors. There were plastic turrets that you arrayed on the walls of the castle, a drawbridge that came down, and an army of plastic sliver knights and plastic green Vikings. The Vikings had a battering ram and a catapult, which actually launched little plastic pellets, while the knights had, well, the castle.

The set was full of chocking hazards, eye gauge threats and sharp, jagged edges that were guaranteed to slice open a six year-old boy and give him tetanus, but it was, without a doubt, the best gift ever. 

When I came across the set at the antique market I gasped, pointing at it while stammering, “I used to have this when I was a boy!!” at the entirely uninterested vendor, who just stood there with her hands in her pockets, repeating, as if autistic, “70 dollar, 70 dollar.” The set she was selling was entirely corroded and wouldn’t open or shut properly and when I looked inside, it was crappy, broken and entirely incomplete, far from the grandeur I remembered as a boy. No matter, stumbling upon it like that was truly a beautiful gift, allowing me, for a couple of minutes to travel in time so vividly, that I could even smell the Christmas dinner my parents were cooking.

My friend Gerry had a dog that was named Mickey. As old as his youngest daughter—about 15—Mickey was a celebrated and deeply loved component of the family.

The dog was hit by a car and killed, and the family was utterly devastated. They gathered together and had a ceremony, burying him in the backyard. Gerry, his wife and their two daughters all wept like children.

About a month later, Gerry was still astounded by his lingering grief. He looked at me from across the bar, “ I just can’t believe it. I was in a good mood earlier today, happily walking to work, when suddenly I remembered that Mickey was gone, and I tell you, I was down in the dumps for the rest of that day. It’s amazing what power the idea of that dog, has. He’s not even here, yet still, he transformed the day. Go figure.”

Sarah, his wife, is a gardener, responsible for an eccentric and beautiful blossoming in their front yards. Whenever she brushed their dog, she would take the fur that had been shed and scatter it in the garden, believing that not only did it help birds to build their nests, but that it kept the groundhogs away, too.

One summer day she sat out on her front porch and felt a pang, kind of like the one Gerry experienced walking to work. She reached down to the spot by her feet where Mickey would normally be, and felt nothing. Her need for some sort of tactile connection to the dog was such that she combed through her garden, hoping to find some of his fur, still tangled amidst the plants, but she found nothing. She returned to her chair and shortly dozed off, and when she awoke 20 minutes later, there was a big ball of Mickey’s fur right there beside her. An astounding and beautiful moment of connection, whether bidden or not.

Since starting this Blog, I’ve been accorded an incredible amount of respect and authority from the world at large. It’s not at all uncommon for me to receive dozens of letters daily, each one asking for my advice on some matter. I’m only too happy to help out, as I feel it’s my duty to share my gifts with the world. With that in mind, I’ve decided to do a sort of mailbag, in which I answer questions from my legions of fans. I’d like to start this off with a query from Mega-fan Elizabeth Tevlin from Ottawa, who wondered:

“Who the hell gets cruise control for their ride-on mower?"

Dear Elizabeth:

You sound like a hater.

A jealous, jealous hater.

And a bit of a loser. A bitter loser.

You might still be renting an apartment in a student ghetto, but not everybody else on the planet is. Some people have actually gone out into the world and made something of their lives. Some own property. You might have seen some pictures of people like this in magazines, you know, the people you draw little horns and fangs on, and then tape to your refrigerator door, the one that reveals only the stench of loneliness and a few soy sauce packets when you open it.

Cruise control for a ride-on mower is absolutely essential for those of us who have a lawn that needs to be cut regularly. Elizabeth, it’s the only way to ensure an even cut for the entire, expansive lawn, as shifting speeds tends to give given the property a “choppy” look. It’s not an indulgence, but a practical necessity, like a job.

Furthermore, it’s key to have heated seats on the mower, in case you have to cut the grass at night when it might be chilly, and have some sort of air conditioning available for the hot days. I also have an HDTV flip screen and a surround sound system that drowns out the unpleasant noise of my ride-on mower engine, which, I should add, is as powerful as a Corvette.

It’s the way of the winner, Elizabeth.

Anyway, I thank you for writing, and encourage you to keep buying your lottery tickets and betting on the dog races, because you never know, a person like you might just get lucky.

Keep chasing your dreams, Elizabeth!

Thanks for writing!

Michael Murray

R-Fed:

Listen.

I want you to know that I’m not gay or anything.

Not even close.

I’m a million fucking miles from gay-o land.

I couldn’t get there in a space ship. Not even one with Warp Speed. Not even through a wormhole.

Have you seen the new Star Trek movie?

I did. It rocked.

Like you.

You, sir, rock. You rock on. And on and on and on. You spin me right round like a record, baby, right round, right round.

Are your eyes blue?

I think mine are hazel, but you know what? I don’t really even know what hazel looks like. When I look into my own eyes, I see nothing. Is that creepy? I didn’t think so. I thought you’d understand. You’re the sort of guy who’s not afraid to cry, or let another man reach out and touch you in a completely hetro kind of way. If you were here right now, I’d give you a big, long hug!

You know, after a bit, you stop needing to mix rum with coke. Instead, you can put a scoop of French Vanilla ice cream in your rock glass of Captain Morgan. Pirates drink rum. I feel like a pirate! A Cuban pirate with a big cigar!

I like watching you play tennis. You look like a Greek God out there, all glistening with sweat, your hair tossed in the sun by the fluid movements of your lithe body. A tennis angel who has fallen to Earth.

Is Andy Roddick a fag? I bet he is. I think he might be overcompensating for something with that big serve of his! If he were on my pirate ship, I would make him walk the plank. I wonder what it would be like to be gay? It might be okay, I don’t know.

Anyway, as I was saying, I don’t have any latent homosexual stuff that comes out when I’ve been drinking. THAT’S BULLSHIT SHIT AND THE GUYS AT THE PUB SHOULDN’T BE SAYING THAT SORT OF CRAP!!

I just like the way you play tennis is all. A lot.

Michael Murray

PS: If you should lose in the French Open and are feeling sad, you can come stay with us, and when Rachelle is away at work all day we could take my dog, Heidi for a walk, and spend some time together.

As you may have heard, Susan Boyle lost in the final of Britain’s Got Talent to a dance troupe called Diversity.

Her story is well known. Embodying both the Cinderella and Ugly Duckling myth, she was plucked from solitude and obscurity, and rendered an inspirational lightning rod to legions of people who needed to believe. Her first performance on Britain’s Got Talent has received over 25 million hits.

The story of a 48 year-old spinster, who might still, against all odds and circumstance, ascend to great heights due to an undiscovered gift of talent, proved irresistible. The public, led by the cynical and manipulative governance of the media, made her what they needed her to be.

The stress of what she must have endured is truly inconceivable. Instantly, she was a global phenomenon, subject to withering criticism and hysterical praise. I know nothing about what sort of person the woman actually is, or what sort of life she truly led prior to her stratospheric rise to fame. However, it’s been reported that after her mother’s death, whom she cared for until she passed away in 2007, she would not come out of her house for three or four days at a time, choosing instead to keep the company of her cat, Pebbles. As a child she was diagnosed with a learning disability, having suffered oxygen deprivation at birth, and was bullied and nicknamed “Susie Simple.”

Taken from such a background and then transformed into a redemptive myth, she began to crack under the intense and disorienting pressure. I truly believe that celebrity is a curse, and to impose that curse on somebody like Boyle, who was so apparently ill-prepared to deal with it, seems cruel.

As the finale of the show approached, Boyle began to behave in an erratic fashion. There were reports that she was throwing tantrums and that in one instance, in a hotel, the police had to be called after she unleashed a profane tirade at two strangers who had been taunting her. After her loss, she wept for 24 hours and was later found in a daze, wandering about the lobby of her hotel room. It was at this point, after the ratings had poured in, that the producers called in the doctors. She asked the paramedics to call her home so that she could hear her cat purr, and then after a psychiatric assessment, was admitted to the Priory Clinic for treatment.

This is extraordinarily sad, and perhaps even tragic, but it’s not entirely surprising. We, the public, made a pet out of Susan Boyle, amplifying her talent and sculpting her narrative to suit our own optimistic construct. In the end, it wasn’t Boyle’s best interests we had at heart, but our own.

Yesterday, I returned home from the Shouldice Clinic after undergoing surgery for my hernia. As always, my beautiful Petal, Rachelle, was there to offer me love, support and encouragement.

She helped start my process of recovery by telling me about all the cool and fun things she did when I was gone. For instance, she has a new instructor at her Mixed Martial Arts class named Adalberto. Apparently, he comes from a wealthy family from Rio,  is an expert “grappler,” has been encouraging Rachelle to take her test for her orange belt, and has been staying late with her after class. He sounds like a nice guy.

At any rate, a particularly crusty nurse from the clinic, who sarcastically referred to me as “pretty boy,” said that she “could see the lazy” in me and that I was going to have to work hard if I ever wanted to get over the pain caused by my surgery. I made the mistake of telling Rachelle this, and she very enthusiastically volunteered to show some leadership and implement some tough love. So after I walked the dog up to Dupont in order to fill up the propane tank for the barbeque and returned home to reattach it and prepare dinner, Rachelle and I played a game of musical chairs, which Rachelle said would be good for me.

One of the things I love about Rachelle is that she really likes to succeed. It doesn’t matter what it is, but she is always driven to do just as well as she possibly can, and so it was with my rehabilitative round of musical chairs. As always, we wagered on the outcome. Unfortunately, after Rachelle hip-checked me to the ground in the second round, I blacked-out and don’t remember anything else. Apparently, it was a really close match, and when we were tied at 7 apiece, I suggested we play one final round for June rent. I got to choose the music, Magic Bus, by The Who, which is my theme song.

According to Rachelle, I lost this final round because I started singing the song and forgot to sit down in the chair when the music stopped. She says that I then lost my cool and started to hyperventilate (dehydrated?) and passed out again. She then showed a video of me lying on the floor, flat on my back, with the dog licking my teeth,  the song Magic Bus playing in the background as proof.

Feelin’ good today, though!

 
The Shouldice Clinic, where I’ve been having my inguinal hernia repaired, is the province of men. Mostly past middle-aged, we wear slippers and nametags. Feeling more lonely and vulnerable than we would like to admit, we express ourselves in uniquely masculine manners.

Cliff reclines in a lounge chair watching a Jays game. He has the tidy sliver mustache of a World War I flying ace, and wearing a track top that matches his track pants, he carries with him the aura of a particularly somnolent character from a Wes Anderson film. He looks over at me, “I hate it when they don’t run out the ground balls!”

A man who looks like a Mountie rides on a stationary bike. He has the perfect hair of a Ken Doll and he wears a Montrael Canadiens t-shirt. He’s been out of surgery for just four hours, and I’m staring at him with a stunned reverence. A guy who notices me doing this, gently elbows me in the ribs, whispering, “we call him THE HAIRPIECE.”

At dinner we eat cubes of Jello for dessert. We know nothing about one another, our culture and class obliterated by our shared malady.

A 17 year-old boy sits on the sofa with his legs up. He has a baseball cap on sideways that says Helvetica and he’s doing clandestine sketches of the various patients in their housecoats. A man in a Japanese Kimono borrows my laptop and we talk about his life outside of infirmity. He trains Martial Artists. He shows me some clips on YouTube, and then we begin to speak more broadly, first about the UFC, and then UFO’s and then finally, after 25 minutes, he confesses that he has a “gift” that allows him to see demons.

My roommate is a black guy from Scarborough who is covered in gangster tats. He has a defiant and unimpressed manner, and when I introduce myself and shake his hand, all he says is his name—Joe--before turning back to work on his jigsaw puzzle. Later, after we had both gone through surgery, he explained the meaning behind  his tattoos.

A man with crisp, Paul Newman eyes works at his laptop. He’s been out of surgery for a few hours, and unlike the vast majority of us, he’s dressed just as freshly as if he was stepping out of cab for a meeting. He tells me the Chief of Surgery did his hernia. The Best, he adds. He tells me he’s going to take the stairs up to his room, tossing his head over his shoulder toward the stairwell, inviting me to lead, follow or get out of the way.

Vassaly emigrated from Hungry in 1980. He now lives in London, Ontario. He asked to borrow my laptop so that he might look at photographs of birds. There’s the picture he took! He presses his big finger on the screen of my computer. “Is Robin I took in my backyard,” and then he scrolls down, “ Only two new comments.” He seemed very disappointed by this news.

A Portuguese man from Aurilla talks about the apartment buildings he owned back in Europe. Walter, wearing a Tilley hat, nods his head, and then holds up the front page of the Globe and Mail, “HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY LOSE TRACK OF 15 BILLION DOLLARS!!!”

In the dark, we all gather for the hockey game. As the hours pass, we drift off. One by one we limp to the nurse’s station, where we’re handed a little paper cup containing a sleeping pill,  “everything’s going to be just fine—you take this and have a good sleep now.” And she pats each one of us on the shoulder, soothing us with her voice, her touch.

On Thursday, at 10:30 in the morning, I underwent hernia surgery at the Shouldice clinic. Under the advice of a particularly hearty and vigorous looking patient, I decided to ask for the maximum allotment of drugs, as like him, I had no desire to lie there on the slab, anxiously trying to interpret whatever the operating physicians were saying to one another. The result of this was that I don’t remember one second of the surgery, which I was apparently conscious for, but I was also completely stoned out of my mind for the next couple hours, making all sorts of wild statements to people who both real and imagined. Rachelle came in for that tail end of my performance, and recorded the following gems:

1)    I am Jack The Ripper, and I predict that the Wings will win in six. Ignore me at your own peril, for I have mastered many medical instruments.

2)    Listen, when it rains you can sometimes hear thunder. QUIET!

3)    I made a table out of my suitcase, so that the nurses have someplace to sit and catch their breath if their hernia’s start to hurt.

4)     You’re not the cookie I asked for. Where’d the cookie go? You took it! I know you did! I’m buzzing the nurse!!!

5)     Sono lucifer e lo ordinerò di fare mio aspettare. Il servo del diavolo, mi va a prendere una focaccina!!

I was one of those guys who managed to make a lot of teams in high school, but was unable to star on any of them. What this means is I wasn’t a particularly good athlete, but was rather one of those “character” guys. A warm body that hopefully wouldn’t do too much damage if forced to play. It was relatively easy to be invisible in soccer or basketball—all you had to do was pass the ball rather than shoot it and play half decent defense—but tennis was a trickier matter.
 
I went to high school at Lisgar Collegiate Institute during the eighties. At the time, Lisgar had the reputation of being a school inhabited by students of wealthy parents, and of being a tennis powerhouse. These two things were connected. You see, tennis was considered to be one of those sports that only rich people played—like Polo or Yachting. You needed memberships at exclusive clubs, expensive rackets and dashing Lacoste outfits in order to succeed. Apparently, Lisgar had those things in abundance and at the time had never lost a city championship in tennis.
 
In tennis I couldn’t simply pass the ball to a superior player, but had to actually hit it myself. That wasn’t an ideal role for a player of my particular abilities. At the time I liked to think of myself as one hundred and twenty-five pounds of tennis fury. I was a power player, in spite of my size. I had a reckless philosophy to the game, a manly philosophy. I would hit my first serve as hard as I possibly could and then charge the net like my hair was on fire. If my serve went in, which happened about five times out of a hundred, I had a pretty good chance that my opponent wouldn’t be able to return it. If he did return the serve, the ball was more likely to strike me in the head than it was to be successfully volleyed. My game was deeply flawed. The only thing I knew how to do was hit the ball as hard as possible. I only made high risk, low percentage shots. To do anything else was to play like a girl.
 
Naturally enough, the try-outs for the tennis team took place at the  Rockliffe Tennis Club, of which I was not a member. Matthew Perry, star of Friends and few successful movies,  was a member. He went to Lisgar at the same time as I did, and at the time was short and funny. He carried with him the scent of celebrity and the reputation of being a bit of a tennis diva--the type of guy who had four or five different rackets, each one for a different surface or a different style of game. Mr. Glavine, the principal of the school, presided. As fate would have it, the last spot on the team was to be awarded to the winner of a set between Matthew and myself.
 
Matthew was a much better player than I was and he knew it. He was smug and kind of lippy, a little bit like his character on Friends. Intimidated by his dazzling array of tennis rackets and easy California charm, I panicked and changed my normal game. Instead of attempting to win points, I would try not to lose any. I wouldn’t try to clobber the ball at every opportunity, but would treat it like a delicate and precious creature. And so I moved daintily about the court, softly pushing the ball back over the net, toward the gathering menace that was Matthew Perry. Matthew, naturally, would attempt to pound these spongy invitations back down my throat. To play somebody who is making no attempt to win the match is immensely frustrating, and so Matthew became frustrated. He would slam shot after shot into the net or out of bounds. He would lose his temper. He would fling his racket. He would make lacerating remarks about me playing like a suck, but still, I resolutely bunted the ball back in his general direction.
 
I’ve been lying about  this for years, about how I beat Matthew Perry, but I never did beat him. After another one of Matthew’s tantrums on the court, Mr. Glavine halted our set tied at five a piece. He said that he thought he’d seen enough to make his decision, and awarded me the final spot on the tennis team. It was a mistake.
 
The rest is anti-climax. I was quickly dispatched in the city tournament by some guy with red hair who went to Glebe. He employed the same strategy I had used against Matthew, and to great effect, I might add. I should have known better and played my newly minted “safe” game, but Rebecca Gwyn was playing on the adjacent court and well, I guess I just lost my composure.

Earlier in the day, my dog tried to bite a woman who might have had a slight mental impairment. This woman saw us about twenty yards away, and as soon as she spotted Heidi her face began to melt from happiness. She was dressed all in purple, and had a collection of accessories that suggested she had been prepared for an urban journey: Sun hat, comfortable sneakers, fanny pack, water bottle, TTC map. She was very nice and politely asked if she could pet my dog, and as soon as she bent down to do so, Heidi, like a little torpedo of hate, snapped at her. Normally, Heidi is a dream with adoring women on the street, but not in this case.

The dog seems to exhibit some hostility toward unconventional people.  When the homeless men in front of Tim Horton’s reach out to touch her, she always snarls, and if somebody just seems, well, socially off, again, she’s hostile. I don’t know if this is some sort of instinct, or if she’s just reading a subconsciously defensive posture that I assume when I encounter somebody whom I figure might behave in an unpredictable nature, but there you have it.

I always feel sorry for these people. For whatever reason, they’re just out of synch with the mainstream and have difficulty interpreting the social cues that we all take for granted, and each time they reach out, they’re confronted with some sort of rebuke when all they were trying to offer was the sincerity of their affection.

Up on Dupont, a girl tried to sell Gelato from a storefront window. She rests her chin on her hand and gazes out onto the street, but really she's staring off somewhere else, perhaps the past or the wedding she hopes to plan one day. On the street in front of her are two workmen, both smoking and killing time. One of them is acting out a fight for the other one. To do this properly, he must use the word FUCK an awful lot. He’s executing slow-motion karate kicks and left hooks with a sincerity and attention to detail that makes it positively comical. Every once in awhile he looks over at the Gelato girl, convinced that she’s focusing on him, and not some far away point in her mind.

Last week I wrote to professional baseball players Lance Berkman and David Ortiz in order to motivate them, as their underachieving performances were having an adverse effect on my fantasy baseball team, A Fury of Pigeons. I wrote Lance Berkman under the guise of Timmy, a sick eight year-old boy, and I wrote David Ortiz an aggressive letter using adult language in which I asked him to start using steroids. These are the responses that I received from the players:

Timmy:

You’re a hero.

Like the troops.

You and the troops are heroes to me, Lance Berkman, all-star first baseman of the Huston Astros and soldier for Christ.

I have instructed Team Berkman to pray for you, as they prayed for me when I twisted my ankle against the San Francisco Giants in that game that should have been called because of the rain. Let me tell you, Satan was present in my ankle that day! But by the power of the Lord, Lance Berkman was restored, and the devil was cast out of his ankle, just as the Lord can cast the devil out of whatever primary organs he is occupying in your frail, 8 year-old body!

"And Jesus said unto them ... , "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to younder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you."

~Romans 1:17~

See you at The Rapture!

Team Berkman

PS: May the sword of Jesus smite the Iraqanians!

Estimado Imbécil de Michael que lleva vida del Imbécil de Michael:

¿Esteroides?

¡Ha!

¿Cuáles son usted, mil millones años? ¡Eso está ayer, hombre! ¡Usted toma hoy el HGH y le paquete de la sangre! Si usted apenas está tomando los esteroides, es como usted está llevando un pollo una lucha del cocodrilo. ¿Mi no casero funciona quizá tiene más a hacer con bajar de un ciclo y conseguir en más del golpear-asno ciclo nuevo y de la droga que hace con no tomar píldoras derechas, eh? Usted espera y ve. ¿De todas formas, usted es hombre muy grosero, y me pregunto cuánto dinero usted hace? ¿Usted está sin hacer nada y sueño de ganar la lotería? Gano millón de loterías del dólar cada mes. Dos veces al mes y yo tenga 20 coches. ¿Qué usted tiene una bici de tres velocidades, quizá un paso de los buss? ¡I cagó más dinero que usted!

Papi grande

* The translation of the David Ortiz letter, as executed by the web site BabelFish, can be found in the comments section.

Down the street, workmen sat on the grass, mostly in the shade, breathing easy after lunch. Cross-legged, they occupied the sidewalk and lawn like protesters. The expressions on their faces suggested that they did not want to be made to feel like they should shuffle over and free up the sidewalk, and they immediately softened when Heidi and I toured around them.

We ordered some curry for take-out at Thai Basil, and then sat on the steps at the side of the Brunswick House waiting for it to be prepared. Last week, from that vantage point, we watched as a young woman, who was sitting on a bench, wept into her hands. One moment she was sitting beside another woman, chatting happily, and then when I looked back a few minutes later, she was sobbing. The other woman remained there, but was now slightly distant in posture. With an expression on her face that suggested she did not want to be assuming this role, she rubbed her crying friend's back with one hand. She looked kind of responsible for what was happening, and I wondered if she had said something in particular to upset her, if she had, in fact, just broken her heart.

Nothing so dramatically poignant happened today. Instead, a guy who works in the Brunswick came out for a smoke. We've chatted before, and there's some quality, a charisma about him that I like. He's handsome, in a rough-I-work-in-a-tavern kind of way, and is probably in his late 20's. He has an easy, confident manner that's not at all pushy, but is in fact, accommodating. I asked him how he was doing, and blinking, squinting into the sun, he said, "Living the dream!" I imagined that he was, thinking that he moved to Toronto from some place with limited options, and is now making tons of cash at the Brunswick, saving up for his two-year trip around the world, where he would gather material for his first novel and fall in love with a girl from Indonesia. "Yep," he continued, "stuck in here doing paperwork on a gorgeous day," and then he flashed that smile which would make the Indonesian girl fall in love and follow him across the globe.

On the weekend, we visited the Albright-Knox gallery in Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo. It’s reputed to have one of the finest collections of Modern Art in the world, and I was pretty keen on seeing it. You see, I’d taken a course on Modern Art back in university, and having attended nearly 15% of the lectures, considered myself to be something of an expert. I mean, I still have the textbook.

As we passed through Upstate New York, driving past Larry’s Liquor, Cheryl’s Business School, a variety of tire graveyards and a dozen billboards for avenging lawyers, I blathered on about getting a chance to see one of my favourite paintings—Elegy to the Spanish Republic, by Robert Motherwell.

The gallery itself was a squat and formidable structure, resembling a bank, which it kind of is. It’s a small place, and it took no more than an hour to go though it, and while doing so I found myself moving quickly, as if I was in some sort of race. For whatever reason, nothing was really grabbing hold of me. Standing in one of the main rooms, my friend Chris pointed out the Motherwell painting that I had been talking about in the car. I hadn’t even noticed it, and wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t mentioned it to me. I hustled over and gave it a good look. It was smaller than I had thought, and less vivid, somehow. It just didn’t feel like the startling and iconic work I had imagined it would be. I looked at it for maybe 20 seconds, and then moved along

The ugly truth was that I was kind of bored by the gallery, and what I was most looking forward to was visiting the gift shop at the end. I bought a coffee mug and a bunch of postcards, thinking of them as a concrete testimony of my cultural virtue. The shameful reality was that I was more interested in the commercial representations of the art, and what they symbolically said about me, than I was about the experience of the art itself. We then spent the next six hours trolling through factory outlets, crossing back into Canada at midnight, with hundreds of other people, each one returning with little pieces of America.

When most people I know get drunk, familiar patterns of behaviour begin to emerge. For instance, Ian slides into an inexplicable Australian accent. Frank wants to wrestle people. Beatrice talks about what an unbelievable asshole her ex-boyfriend was and Tom always reminisces about his glory days in high school.

For the most part, I thought my behaviour remained pretty consistent. Sure, I’m more likely to gamble online, hug all my male friends a little bit too long and talk to hookers, but I thought that was about it. However, the other day I realized that whenever I get drunk I always end up writing a fan letter to some movie star.

The other afternoon, after taking the dog out for a walk, I returned home drunk. As usual, I switched on the TV and began to watch the movie Practical Magic. This inspired me to write a letter to one of the stars of the movie, Sandra Bullock. This is the letter, which quite honestly, I don’t remember writing:

                                                                                 May, 18, 2009

Sandy!!!!!!!!

Do you mind if I call you Sandy? I hope not, because if you did, that probably means you’re all stuck-up and stuff, and that would suck. You know who else sucks? Susan. Fucking. Keswick. Sucksville. She was in my grade eleven history class and she thought she was all of that but she was not even close to all of that. She wasn’t even some of that. She was a cowbitch who thought it was funny to make fun of me because I had to wear a dental headgear. I bet she’s fat. Unlike you.

You’re pretty, Sandra Bullock.

You’re America’s sweetheart.

Or is that Julia Roberts?

Whatever.

You’re my sweetheart, is what you are.

I’m watching Practical Magic right now, and I have to say, you have it all over that Nicole Kidman. She sucks. She also looks like a cat. You look like a babe. A hot, hot babe. I would give Nicole Kidman’s nose about a 6 out of 10, but your nose, which is REAL, is probably a high 7. Your body maybe a 6.

Are you a cougar yet? You must be getting close. Are you finding out that all the pretty roles are drying up?

I’m kind of hungry right now. Might have some cheese. What’s your favourite drinking snack? I like to eat some cheese with a nice single malt Scotch. Hmmmmm.

Well, Sandra, I just wanted to write to tell you you’re hot and a passable actress, and I think we’d get along great! Next time you’re in Toronto we should get together and explore this chemistry we’re now developing. My hernia should be better by the end of June, so Party Time!!!

Michael Murray

PS: I have attached a photograph of my hernia because it’s kind of a freak-out, and you might need to know what one looks like for your next role.

PPS: I have a dog named Heidi who smells like corn chips.

On Friday afternoon, I went and saw the Star Trek movie. About half way through the film, I realized that I had a big, sloppy grin sliding all over my face. And then, shortly after realizing that, something completely unanticipated happened, I began to feel emotional.

I certainly don’t consider myself a Trekkie, but I was born in 1966, the same year that the original Star Trek aired on TV. That cast have always, in one form or another, been present in my life, and in a weird way, they’re like old, friends of the family. Roughly the same age as my parents, they were an adult presence that was always around, and I guess I kind of felt like they were watching me grow up, just as I was watching them age.

Over the years, they’ve cycled in and out of favour, often being replaced by newer, cooler versions. The show became a bit of a camp classic, and it became positively embarrassing to watch the aging and portly actors running about in Federation uniforms that had been designed specifically to disguise their paunches.

This new Star Trek movie is a prequel that explicates the origins of the original crew of The Enterprise. To make this movie, they’ve completely recast the crew, so we don’t see a 78 year-old William Shatner trying to punch-out a Klingon, but a relatively unknown actor in his 20’s.

Seeing all the old actors I had grown up with  reconfigured as vigorous and ambitious  was what touched me, I think. We got to see a glimpse of them before they were defined, before they were set in our minds forever. For me, it was like watching my parents, before they became my parents, when they had lives and identities that were their very own.

The actors who played Scotty and Bones in the original have passed away, just as some of the old friends of the family have, too. The movie made me think of my parent’s and their generation of friends, of all the people who went through officer’s training and nursing school with them, and the kinship and camaraderie that they shared for decades after, as they watched over and protected one another’s children and grandchildren. The movie called them all back to me, and I saw my parent’s fallen friends—Buck Rogers, Bernie O’Neil, Norm Pascoe—written in the cast of the Star Trek crew, back before I knew them, when they were beautiful lions just setting out to try to realize their as yet unblemished fields of potential.

Last week, Rachelle and I took our dog to the Bathurst Dupont Animal Hospital in order to get her flea medication. It’s a utilitarian place, with humid and stale air hanging in a waiting room that’s modestly decorated by a couple of photographs of Meerkats. It stands in stark contrast to the nearby Yorkville clinics, where you might get served some green tea and sushi and feel very stylish, but which, of course, costs so much money you’ll throw up in the parking lot once you receive the bill.

Before we saw the vet-, who was a puffy-eyed and joyless East European woman, ( “your dog is leetle fat, but she look healthy.”)-- we sat in the waiting room with all the other animals and their owners. A woman who imagined herself quite fashionable, sat across from us with her trembling Chihuahua. She was an A-type, and immediately, in the familiar manner of somebody hoping to be disarming, began to tell us what she thought about all sorts of things. She spoke to us without eye contact, while sending a text message, interrupting herself to speak to her dog, who ignored her command, and continued to lick himself. At this moment, as she furiously texted and yanked on her dog’s leash, her life seemed very lonely.

On the other bench sat an elderly couple. Between them was a traveling crate that contained their cat, Charlie. The old man looked over at us, and our young dog, and smiled, “ “Charlie here hasn’t been feeling so good lately,” he said, and then he squeezed his wife’s hand. After exchanging tender looks with one another, they leaned down and peered into the cage, murmuring gently, lovingly, to the cat in a familiar east European tongue.

As times are tough and I have a lot of our savings invested in the success of my fantasy baseball team, I have taken the dramatic action of directly writing the two malingers on my roster, in the hopes of motivating them.

Dear Mr. Ortiz:

Take some fucking steroids, you dipshit!

Everybody else is doing it but you, and you’re just sitting there, getting older and fatter by the game! Come on! Man up!! Are you frightened of getting a little needle in your ass?! You stand up to 100 mile an hour fastballs, what’s a little needle? Nothing! It’s nothing! Now stop with your selfish, “oh-what-about-my-health-bullshit” and take some motherfucking drugs. You have ZERO home runs this year. ZERO. People are depending on you, you fat suck—get your shit together!

Bitch.

Sincerely,

Michael Murray

Dear Mr. Berkman:

My name is Timmy and I have a cough.

I am eight years old and my doctor says that I might not live to be ten. Sometimes, this makes me sad, but most of the time I am happy for the sun and my dog—Lance Barkman-- and my favourite baseball team The Houston Astros. When the machines are on to clean my insides, Daddy and I sit and watch the games, and it brings me such joy to see you, my favourite player, hit home runs.

The doctor people say that my chances are not good, but I am a fighter, and I know that if you can turn your season around and become the MVP, then I can turn my season around, too.

I feel the coughs coming on now( Mommy says it is God tickling my lungs) and must go, but please, I ask you to please turn it around and hit well, for me, your biggest and bravest fan, even though I am only 38 pounds.

Timmy

PS: My chair has wheels so I can go fast!

This morning, when I pulled the curtains back in the front room, I saw a man lying in the grass in front of a neighbouring building. He had shaggy hair and a beard, a look of distress on his face and was holding something up to his head. I was unsure if he had passed out from drinking, or if he was the product of something else. The fact that this mattered to me was embarrassing, as it was clear that he needed help, regardless, I gave him a long look through the window, hoping to find some excuse not to get involved.

This realization shamed me, and I charged out in my housecoat armed with my cell phone and the best intentions. He was a deliveryman, and a piece of wood that was part of his cargo had fallen on his head. He was fine, actually, and help was coming for him. He needed no assistance, but in talking to him, it was clear that he didn't want to be alone, that he wanted to talk and be distracted from his throbbing head. I stayed with him for ten minutes, and then apologizing and feeling like a cold Torontonian who had to hurry off to a meeting, hurried off to a meeting.

The cab driver took me past a small group of Tamils that had assembled in Queen’s Park, past a small group of primary aged children standing in a circle around their teacher. She held up a piece of construction paper and had their complete attention, each one looking up at her, perhaps learning, for the first time, how to write a poem. We passed Adelaide and Bay, where workmen sat in the sun. One of them picked his teeth after lunch, another ate grapes, one by one with a fork, lifting them delicately from a plastic container his wife had packed them in earlier in the day, and one other worker just sat there smiling, grateful for the sunny day.

On the subway back, four women in their mid 50’s laughed and talked about last night’s episode of 24. They looked like they might have had some wine with lunch. They hadn’t been to Toronto in 30 years, but got together to see a show and relive old times. One of the women said that it was the first time she’d been on a subway in 30 years. She giggled as she said this, glancing around at all the other passengers. One of her group gave her a cold smile, “ Well, I haven’t taken one for awhile, either, but we used to take it all the time. In Paris.” When they got off at the Bloor stop, the woman who had said this walked ahead, quickly and with false confidence, pretending she was just another Bay Street titan heading home, while her country mice friends tittered and tried to figure out how to get though the turnstile.

At the retirement home, each one of the resident’s names was posted on the wall beside the door to their room. Next to that there was a small display case with a couple of shelves in it, which was attached to the wall. In each case was a selection of items that presumably, either the resident or their family, had placed in there in order to spruce things up and add a little personality.

Ida Keswick:

A framed photograph of her daughter and grandchildren at Disney World. A small, framed quilt that read, “A Grandmother’s Love is Special.”

Bernice Folkes:

A wood carving of an Owl. Some potpourri in a clay bowl. A framed black and white photograph from her wedding day, arm in arm with a confident young man in uniform.

Phyllis Van Santen:

A figurine of a boy and girl fishing. A Teddy Bear. A candle holder. A bobble-head doll of a Mats Sundin.

The contents of all the displays cases were very similar, and it was very difficult to distinguish a distinctive personality from looking at them. In fact, it looked a little bit like the staff might have taken it upon themselves to do the assembly, so that those of us visiting had some visual distraction from the confined and diminishing lives of our loved ones.

It struck me as a depressing reduction, at first. The lives of the people who were living in the home, once so expansive, now distilled to a few generic items purchased at a gift shop. But soon enough, I began to see a kind of purity and connectivity to the displays. As we age, I think, vanity falls away. As we prepare to return from whence we came, a humility and honesty arises, and we find that we’re all so much more the same, than different.

As many of you will have heard, one of our Euchre nights went very badly a little while ago. The police became involved, and unfortunately, I am now legally obligated to attend Anger Management Training, even though I DO NOT have a problem controlling my temper.

The first session of the stupid-ass training took place on Saturday-- AT 8:00 IN THE MORNING--out at a library in North Toronto. There were about a dozen people there for the course, most of them looking like they had bad credit ratings and hangovers. A stocky woman with all sorts of attitude sat beside me. She looked like she might serve as the muscle on an ice hockey team and had COCHISE written on her nametag.

The instructor’s name was Svetlana, and she spoke to us like we were two years old, which was driving me crazy. After asking us to “center yourself by imaging a calm and warm zone for safety” Svetlana presented us with a hypothetical.

“Let us say that you are driving to work. It is busy on Parkway and you are running a little late, and then somebody cut you off. What you do?”

When she said this, Cochise’s eyes bugged right out. Noticing this, Svetlana pointed at her, “Cochise, how you handle situation?”

“I don’t let nobody disrespect me. That dude has some bad things coming to him. I’m going to fuck him up and break his windshield with his face!”

Svetlana nodded, “ Yes, any other ideas on how to deal with cut-off driver? Michael?’

“ I don’t drive,” I said.

“Imagine you do, “ Svetlana requested.

“ But I don’t drive. I mean, you want me to imagine God, too? “

Cochise, who doesn’t know how to mind her own business, got up and slapped me across the head, “ Bitch, you will imagine getting your ass cut off or I will slice you like a pie!”

I then pulled out the mace I keep on my key chain and sprayed Cochise in the eyes and mouth. Unfortunately, this didn’t sedate her, but agitated her further, and class was canceled for the day.

Usually my screensaver is a photograph of the four ghosts from the classic video game Pac-Man. However, when I’m playing music off my laptop, but am otherwise inattentive to it, something kind of spooky happens. For some reason, my computer opens up my library of photographs, and to whatever music is on, runs a slide show through all the pictures I have stored.

The first time this happened the music I was listening to was the Icelandic band Sigur Ros. There’s a positively alien quality to their music, something that suggests the presence of divinity in the universe. It was entirely dislocating to hear this music, which always carries me away from myself, scoring images culled from my life, photographs I hadn’t seen or thought about in ages.

The images came in random sequence, with each picture appearing for about five seconds. Not only had I abdicated control of the photographs I was looking at, but also the way in which I was looking at the pictures, as whatever program was operative, slowly zoomed in on an arbitrary detail in each photograph. There was my father, in his red sweater at Christmas, the image of his hand on my sister’s shoulder filling the screen…Rachelle in a Sumo suit at her 30th birthday, the camera moving in to study her smile…Heidi playing on a beach…A person whose name I can’t remember, drinking a beer on the dock of a friend’s cottage, the mechanics of the slide show focusing our concentration on the waters of the lake, just beyond her shoulder.

Accompanied by the music of Sigur Ros, there was a distinctly funereal quality to this experience, and it was as if something in my life had passed, and I was looking back on the life that was, rather than a life that was being lived. It was actually a very emotional experience, reminding me how very precious and precarious all our lives, and the people we have in them, are.

The other day, Rachelle and I took the dog for a walk down Bloor. As is often the case, there were a couple of people from Greenpeace on the sidewalk looking for donations. They’re kind of irritating and guilt inducing, of course, but not aggressively so. They’re always a pair of healthy, attractive looking college-aged kids and they never come on too strong. It’s almost like they were just hanging around, waiting for a Hacky-Sac game to start up, and until that time, well, maybe you’d like to chat about renewable energy resources? No? Well, that’s cool, you take it easy! And then they wave good-bye to you. There’s an appealing evangelism to them, and I swear to God, I always feel better about the future when I see them.

Of course, I never stop, choosing instead to smile and give them a hopeless shrug that suggests the world is out of my control. They say something nice about the dog and then pretend that their spirits, after receiving their 4, 000th rejection of the day, remain unbowed.

A fit looking man is moving quickly down the sidewalk, and the Greenpeace girl says, “it’s a nice day, eh?” The man, staring straight ahead, responds by saying, “it’s a day just like every other day.” The girl looked almost hurt by this response, probably because it carried such limited, expectations for the potential of the world. I felt badly and began to speak to her, telling her that he was Dick Cheney’s brother. At this point, Rachelle and Heidi came out of a corner store, and seeing us chatting, gave out a huge wave, shouting “Hey, Greenpeace, hey!!” It was a small and authentic moment of native cheerfulness, and it changed the energy, generating light, where before, in the wake of  the taciturn man, light was being consumed.

On Monday night, some sort of flying bug got loose in our apartment. This made me a little bit anxious, but as I wanted to show some leadership for Rachelle, I didn’t let on that it was scaring me. However, our dog completely lost her shit, spending the entire night hunting the thing. It was clear that a creature that was capable of flight had a great advantage in trying to evade a miniature Daschund, but our dog is, as they say, dogged, and so I decided to help her.

I will share with you some of the things that I learned while bug hunting.

1.    Do not concern yourself with maintaining a ninja silence, as bugs cannot hear.

2.    Do not bother trying to verbally intimidate the flying bug, as they cannot hear.

3.    Although it is very difficult to coordinate a bug ambush with a dog, it is worth the effort. However, when doing so it is essential that you and the dog establish which one is the Alpha pack leader.

4.    You will have better luck throwing pieces of chalk at the bug intruder than you will allergy sodden Kleenex. However, the chalk can chip the paint on the walls whereas the Kleenex merely makes a small mess, and there is the possibility that some bugs are attracted to human mucus.

5.    You cannot burn a bug to death using a magnifying glass if it is nighttime and you have to try to amplify your keychain flashlight instead of the sun.

6.     Do not bait any home made traps with jelly beans, as the dog will likely just eat them, and then collude with the flying bug so that more jelly beans are made available.

7.     Excessive drinking while bug hunting may result in a loss of balance, causing falls that may wake up both your partner and your neighbours.

8.     Opening all the windows and doors in the apartment in the hopes that the bug will go away while you sleep, may result in theft of computer equipment and is just as likely to increase bug population in the apartment as it is to decrease it.

On Sunday afternoon, Rachelle and I took the dog over to Huron Park School in order to play a little hockey. Essentially, we just shoot the ball around while Heidi-- our miniature Daschund-- charges after the ball like a maniac. The dog could not be happier. Her tail beats like a propeller and a huge dog grin animates her face.

Similarly, the school was packed with all sorts of people and animals, all playing in the sun. A father gently lobbed a ball to his four year-old, who took a mighty swing and knocked  it sharply into right field. The boy took off around the bases, leaping as he rounded first base, shouting, while dad trudged heavily after the ball, a big grin on his face as he retrieved it, thinking about his boy.

Several teens tossed a football around. One of them, a laid back and cool looking kid, was a beautiful athlete. He was able to time his leaps perfectly, rising easily into the air and catching whatever was thrown to him. He would land happily back on the ground, his hair bouncing, before fluidly throwing the ball back, as if in one, perfect motion. One of the other boys was a little bit of meathead, walking about in an over-muscled strut, even though he really wasn’t all that big. He made a point of overthrowing the ball in an attempt to exhibit all of his strength, habitually saying things like, “sorry, put a little too much mustard on that one,” as the ball sailed over everybody’s heads and crashed into a fence. A pretty blonde girl stood watching, and it wasn’t hard to see which one of the gang she was falling for.

A tiny girl who was probably little more than two, was being taught how to play tennis by her father. She held a racquet that was about the same size that she was, and her dad, pulling tennis balls from a huge knapsack, tossed them one by one to her, while gently offering instructions in Russian. For all we knew, we were witnessing the birth of the next great tennis goddess, but the truth was that on this sunny day, the girl was more interested in watching Heidi, happily yelling “doggie” whenever our dog stole one of her wayward tennis balls.

On Saturday afternoon we went to see a movie called Orgasm Inc. Rachelle told me that it was an “arty” and “provocative” movie starring Salma Hayek and a Sport’s Illustrated Swimsuit model that had been banned in several countries. Naturally, I was a world of keen to see this, but when we approached the Bloor Cinema, I noticed a lineup full of angry looking women. When we went in, instead of being handed the 3D glasses as I’d been led to believe we were to receive, we were given what looked like a portable flashlight on a key chain. It turns out that it wasn’t a flashlight at all, but was in fact a vibrator to be used for lady pleasure. I had been duped, and was at the Hot Docs Film Festival to see a documentary that takes “a powerful look inside the medical industry and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping our everyday lives around health, illness, desire -- and that ultimate moment: orgasm.”

This movie from Liz Canner was utterly captivating. Infused with a spirit of generosity and intelligence, Orgasm Inc is a perceptive, accessible and friendly work. I think I expected something angry, something more in line with the hectoring and mean-spirited sarcasms one associates with a Michael Moore film, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Orgasm Inc is even-handed, engaging and funny, and did not stoop to make fun of the people in the movie. I think I liked everybody in the documentary, and quite frankly found it to be positively moving, and would urge anybody who had the opportunity, to go and see it.

Last night, at one in the morning, three people were in the process of moving into one of the apartments in the house next to us. Trying not to be creepy, I watched them at their task from my desk at the front window.

It was raining out and they looked disorganized. Their cube truck couldn’t find parking and was sitting in the middle of the street, being forced to move every 15 minutes or so by oncoming traffic. When the driver wasn’t getting the truck out of the way, she was holding a crappy looking umbrella over the two student-aged guys who were doing the moving. It was sweet, but likely not very helpful.

No matter, in spite of the rain and the wet and dark alley they had to negotiate through to move all their junk—most of it plastic bags or still on coat hangers—they seemed to be having a great time. Their banter came in through my open window, and there was a happy lightness to their voices. They were looking forward to their new start, to their lives.

I was 18 when I made my first independent move, going from Ottawa to Montreal, where I was to study at McGill. I couldn’t have been happier. The first day in my new life I stood in my dorm room, surrounded by all of my treasures. I had the window open just as wide as it would go and was blasting the coolest music that I knew of out into the city, telling everybody that I was present and that I was ready to meet them.

It's because the earth continues to wobble on its axis 
that we continue to stumble down the streets of the heart. 
It's because of the loneliness of the first cell trying to swim 
through its primordial pool that we are filled with a kind of 
galactic fear. For example: one moment a rocket falls 
capriciously into a square. Another moment, a rogue wave 
turns over the fishing boat whose crew leaves their memories 
floating like an oil slick that never reaches shore. 
In this way we understand our dying loves scratching at the door. 
In this way, each love creates its own theory of pain. Each love 
gnaws the derelict hours to the bone. But because there are 
so many blank spaces in history we still have time 
to write our own story. Wittgenstein said our words have 
replaced our emotions. He never understood how 
we have to cleanse ourselves of these invisible parasites 
of doubt and fear. We might as well worry about 
the signals from dead worlds wandering around the universe 
forever. Think instead of how the trees prop up the sky. 
How the rain falls into the open eyes of the pond 
bringing a vision no one expected. Here's mine: this bee 
hovering over the pencil seems to bring a message from 
the deepest flowers you inhabit. Because I don't know 
where all this love has come from, because the clouds are 
covered with our footsteps that know no time, I am 
no longer surprised when each day comes from a new place, 
because in this way, I can imagine these words getting lost 
in your lungs, my fingers curling inside you as if I could 
gather you inside my own heart, or tracing the slope of your hip 
towards a whole other world. Don't worry. Like us the planet 
wobbles because of the shifting hot and cold zones, high 
and low pressures, the pull of tides. The stars that are 
these words are always closer than we think despite 
the theories of astronomers. In this way, I will always be there, 
a rain falling into the sea, the abandoned light opening your eyes 
despite the curtains of reason, the life you give each time 
you turn to me, because the stumbling breaths we borrow 
from each other are all we have to keep each other alive.

RICHARD JACKSON

As you probably know, the Jesus Cobras finished our floor hockey season in fourth place. This would have been pretty impressive if it had been out of a field of 1,000, but it was out of a field of eight, and one of the teams—Friends Helping Friends --was comprised primarily of people recovering from strokes. So really, in spite of my stellar play, our overall performance was not all that great—there is no “I” in team, you know.

No matter, The Jesus Cobras have signed up for the spring league, in which we will be playing a different sport each week. I thought that these would be conventional sports, like softball and soccer and volleyball, but they are not. They are weirdo sports.

Tonight, our first game is against our nemesis Friends Helping Friends, and we are playing European Handball, a game in which the players must leap into the air whenever they pass or shoot the ball. I am hoping that the ballet classes I took in Junior High School payoff for this portion. I am expecting quite a battle against Friends Helping Friends this evening, as Donna, their team captain, has practically recovered from her stroke and has regained almost 60% of her vision ( way to go, Donna!). I will let you know how we do.

The following week are to play something called Speed Woccer, a sport that is a combination of speed walking and soccer and is apparently very popular in Belgium. Next, we are to tackle the sport of Ultimong, which is just like Ultimate, only instead of using a Frisbee, we use a Ping Pong ball. I have some reservations about this as I have large and powerful hands, and am worried that I might crush the ball. We are then to compete at something called Kung Hockminton. This is part art, part athletics, in which the participants, employing theatrical moves from Kung Fu, which are scored by the referee, play a variation of hockey using Badminton racquets and a shuttlecock.

There is just one employee at the LCBO on Dupont who won’t let me bring our dog into the store. She’s in her 60’s, has a hairstyle from the 50’s and she calls everybody “honey.” She must be 30 years older than everybody else who works there, and I suspect that she’s been working at this particular location for decades. Everyday, she sits behind her cash-- never moving too quickly-- following procedure to a tee.

When I dash in to pick up a bottle of wine for dinner, I often try to sneak our miniature Daschund in under my arm. Everybody else who works there melts when they see her, but not this woman. She just starts shaking her head from side to side, and dropping the “honey” from her vocabulary, she says “SIR, DOGS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE STORE. YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE.” She makes no exceptions. I might be paying at the cash, but it doesn't matter, without exception, she points outisde and sends me out to the street. I know she’s just doing her job, and I’m actually the villain in the story, but still, I feel aggrieved and irritated every time I see her.

On Tuesday, I went to the People’s Food Restaurant, which is just a block away from the LCBO, for lunch. My anti-dog nemesis from the liquor store came in and sat at the booth beside me. She moved heavily, like her feet were killing her. She was a regular there, and everybody knew her. “May, honey, how you doing?  No soup today, but I make something special for you!” May, a name that would have been popular back in the 40’s or 50’s, but not one that you hear very often anymore.

She decided on the Banquet Burger with a side of Coleslaw for lunch. While waiting for her meal, she flipped through the jukebox, settling on Don’t Worry, Be Happy, by Bobby McFerrin. When she got her meal, she cut the burger in half, and quietly ate it while sipping her glass of water.

It was obvious just how happy and welcome she was there amongst all the confident, sturdy middle-aged women who worked there--women who also called everybody “honey.” It was a  peaceful hour carved out of her working day, where for a few moments she could be free of  the frustration of all he entitled and impatient Annex types,  peevish that the line-up was taking too long or that they had to tie their dog up outside.

On Saturday, after an excellent dinner at some friends, Rachelle and I and the couple who hosted us, decided to play some Euchre. As always, it was the guys against the girls, with Chris and I taking on Rachelle and Jillian. It wasn’t even close. We were a well-oiled Euchre death machine, and were crushing our feeble and weak-minded opponents.

Soon enough, about half way through our second victory, the whining began. Rachelle, who has a competition problem and thinks she’s smart but actually isn’t, accused us of table talk. Jillian, who is a follower and has never been able to think for herself, started yelling that all the points we were scoring with our excellent play, were actually tainted, the equivalent of Blood Diamonds. Hatefully, Rachelle spit out the words “Blood Points, that’s what they are.”

Tempers became enflamed and various things were said. After the tears subsided and my Euchre hat was returned to me, we started the game anew. However, in an effort to ensure that no table talk took place, Rachelle put an egg timer on the table that she made us hit whenever we wanted to pass, thus preventing any verbal communication. This threw off our concentration, causing us to start losing, and made the game stupid, so I broke the egg timer with a flashlight.

To make a long story short, the neighbours called the police, and I will now be legally obligated to begin Anger Management Training in May, where I expect to be the star student, because I am a winner!

Last night I had a dream that Susan Boyle died in a plane crash. This gave way to a state of global mourning that was utterly unprecedented, making the Lady Diana spectacle look like child's play. As I am usually very prophetic, and always looking for an angle, I have decided to copywrite a commemorative Susan Boyle song in anticipation of her death. My friend Shelagh is now working on the commemorative Susan Boyle pillowcase, which I hope to post later. For now, I would like to present you with a rough version of my song. Any suggestions would be gratefully accepted.

Fairy Dust Sparkles

(sung to the tune of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack)

The first time ever I heard your voice
I thought the angels had come to planet earth
To sing on TV, to sing on TV.
But the angels did not look, the way I thought they would look,
No they did not, no they did not.

The first time ever I saw your lips
And imagined the art you kept on your walls
I saw Star Trek commemorative plates,
I saw Star Trek commemorative plates.

 (chorus sung to the tune of Heroes)

I will be king
And you
You will be queen
Though nothing
Will drive them away
We can be Hairy Angels
Just for one day
We can be us
Just for one day

( to the tune of First Time Ever I Saw Your Face)

And the first time I heard of your fatal plane crash
I cried so hard I shook, I cried so hard I shook,
And then I needed my inhaler, my inhaler.
Oh, Hairy angel, who flies up above,
Now you are free of all this mortal weigh,
Now you are written in the stars,
Like a beautiful Broadway power-ballad.

 (chorus sung to the tune of Heroes)

I will be king
And you
You will be queen
Though nothing
Will drive them away
We can be Hairy Angels
Just for one day
We can be us
Just for one day

(Ends with a mournful three minute drum solo.)

On Friday afternoon, I went down to the passport office. I took the elevator up with two pimped out white boys wearing sunglasses. Plugged into their iPods and chewing gum, they were ready for action, making a display of their conversation for my benefit. “Yo, that bitch doesn’t know what she’s saying!” “Ho,” the other one agreed.

The office was full of about 50 people sitting around waiting to be processed. I sat near to a woman around 60. She had a big, black bag on the floor with her that she protected by clutching with her topsiders. She was wearing blue jeans and blue jean jacket, which hung loosely over her shoulders. She had a newspaper with her and was primly reading the front section. I leaned over and said, “excuse me.” She ignored me. I leaned yet closer and said “excuse me,” again. Frowning, she slowly turned her head toward me and raised an irritated eyebrow.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you’d mind terribly if I had a look at the sports section?” She sighed, “I haven’t read that section yet, thank you very much,” and then she turned away from me, ostentatiously straightening her paper to make a point about my presumptuous interruption. I do believe that she was getting her passport renewed so that she might travel to Egypt so she might blow-up the pyramids.

The white gangster boys were now at their wicket flaunting their contempt for authority. “Dude, you look like the missing child on a milk carton, “ the skinniest one said to his clerk. The other one, the slightly less skinny one, added, “Yeah, you look like you in Menudo, you know Menudo, dawg?” He stood up on his tiptoes to deliver this bit of news, and then banged fists with his buddy.

After about ten minutes, the guy sitting to my left suddenly got agitated and began to pace. He did this directly in front of me, causing the denim-clad woman to pick up her big, black bag and find another seat. After a minute or two, he began to mumble, and then his number came up. When this happened, he exploded into movement, quick and uncertain, he charged toward his wicket, like a blind man who had just been given the gift of sight.

Up on Dupont, there’s some sort of store that repairs and sells musical instruments. In front of the shop they often display a piano with a sign on it that says PLAY ME. As I was approaching the store, I saw an older man who must have been in his late 60’s approach it. He had a bit of a belly, had his dungarees pulled up high, and was wearing a John Deere cap. Honestly, he looked liked he just stepped off a tractor.

The piano caught his eye and he approached it. Giving it a slightly suspicious look, he began to play it with his right hand. The song was “Oh! Susanna.”

I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee,
I'm going to Louisiana, my true love for to see
It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry
The sun so hot I froze to death; Susanna, don't you cry.
Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me
I come from Alabama,
With my banjo on my knee.

The man was smiling, like he was pleased he remembered how to play the tune, and this made me smile, too, imagining him learning the song in some church basement 60 years earlier, forced by his mother to take some piano lessons he absolutely detested.

I went into a nearby grocery store where I began to unconsciously whistle the song. A few minutes later, the piano playing man came into the store, and he also was whistling the song, and then, yet a few minutes later, I heard one of the clerks humming the song. It had gone viral. You never know how the piano lessons you took as a boy are going to spread out into the future, into the world.

One of the things that I like about taking a cab is listening to the dispatcher communicating with all the drivers through the car radio. I don’t want to sound too precious about it, but I feel like I’m listening in on the city. All the people, from all over the city, heading off on different missions—to the hospital, a restaurant, a meeting, the airport—some incredibly happy and hopeful to be doing so, others irritated and sad.

Sometimes, the dispatcher finds a happy rhythm, and you can sense that he’s in a zone, competently juggling all sorts of balls at once, radiating good will out to all the drivers. But today, as I headed down Bloor to the dentist, the dispatcher I was listening to was a prick. He was short and condescending with the drivers, his frustration mounting with each call.

One driver asked him advice about whether he should start the meter while waiting for the customer, and the dispatcher treated him like a child, slowly responding in one-word sentences, before exploding into a humiliating screed.

My driver, a polite Jamaican guy shook his head and whistled. We talked about it a little bit, and the driver said that such treatment was common from the dispatcher. “He has no respect for us,” he said, “he just treats us like children. I mean, I have women, children in my cab, and they have to listen to this? It’s not right. And you know what? If we complain, he will not call us for a pick-up.”

A moment later, after being interrupted by a driver while answering a question, the dispatcher flipped out and he started to shriek obscenities. He caught himself after a moment, and in a whining voice, pleaded with the drivers not to interrupt him. He sounded weak at this moment, like an unpopular boy on the schoolyard. I imagined his life, and what little power he must have over it. After a day of abusing and controlling people who could not see him, he probably hit the bar, telling anybody who would listen how stupid all his drivers were, and how smart he was.

On Monday night, Rachelle and I babysat her nephews, William and Samuel, aged 5 and 7. We love these boys and endeavor to spoil them. Rachelle chooses to do this by giving them candy, whereas my preferred method is to give them Scratch N’ Win tickets. I think it’s wise to get children thinking about various investment strategies at a young age, plus they’re naturals!! These boys were born to gamble, and they took to Scratching N’ Winning like ducks to water!

As it’s a sin to waste God given talent, I have been cultivating their gifts. For about a year now, I’ve been looking after the boys for one afternoon a month, so that their parents might have a little break. On these field trips, I take the boys to pool halls, card and craps games and the racetrack, instead of the lame-o libraries, galleries and parks that his boring parents think we’re going to visit.

On these outings, I teach them the subtle arts of gambling. For instance, Samuel, the younger of the two, has a terrible tell when he plays poker. If he gets bad cards, he just starts crying. Of course, the only way to truly learn is through experience, and I think that ever since I won all the money his Nana gave him for his birthday off a bad bluff he made, he’s learned his lesson about crying when you have a weak hand.

At any rate, they’ve improved considerably over the last year and are now regularly winning at their recess poker games. The boys have paid their dues, I think, and it’s time for them to graduate to something a little more lucrative. Through my bookie Goran, I have arranged for the boys to work as attendants at the game that Goran runs in the basement of his cousin’s automotive shop on Dupont. The boys, who will work for tips, will clean out the ashtrays, fetch beer and do little drug runs for the prostitutes that come in for the high roller games. In short, they’re going to get invaluable gambling experience.

However, as their parents are unimaginative squares, we are going to have to do this in secret. And so, from now on, Wednesday night will be “violin lessons” with Uncle Mike. Whatever. No matter, I’m very excited about this new bonding opportunity, and am very keen to see what uses we might find for the chemistry set they got for getting good grades last year.

When it rains, my dog sighs. She swans about like Joni Mitchell and then burrows under the covers. Oh, the melancholy!

Normally, when I leave the house without her, she explodes into a desperate panic of barking, thinking that I’ve simply forgotten her. However, when it’s raining out, she doesn’t bark. She’s hopeful that she’s slipped my mind, and doesn’t want to do a thing to remind me of her presence. She’s in stealth mode, holding her breath as she listens to my squishy footsteps proceed down the street, waiting until she’s satisfied that I’m far enough away to resume normal activity.

The Jesus Cobras floor hockey season has came to a swift end on Wednesday. I won’t go into any details, but I will say that I don’t regret a single thing that I did and that I’m pretty sure that Korean girl on The Bomb Squad was faking her separated shoulder.

At any rate, although The Jesus Cobras will no longer be playing floor hockey, we are entering a spring league in which each week a different sport is played. This way, The Cobras will be better able to utilize both my coaching, and my athletic versatility.

I am now going to provide you with a frank scouting report of my abilities for each of the sports we will be engaged in.

1.    Basketball-- I am awesome, possessing the ability to leap up and touch the bottom of the net. In high school, where I played on the Junior Boys team, I earned the nickname The Enforcer, as I was the only player to get in a fight on the court.

2.    Bowling-- I am excellent, just so long as I get to use one of the pink lady balls. I look good in the shoes. My nickname is The Assassin, and I have the t-shirt to prove it.

3.    Volleyball--I am extraordinary. My serve is a mathematical marvel, like a Bumblebee’s mystifying ability to fly. My patented Bump-Spike has confounded opponents for decades. Nickname: Fingers.

4.    Dodgeball--I am gifted. I am as nimble as a mongoose, and although I throw a little bit like some girls, I am surprisingly accurate. The only downside is that I bruise easily. Nickname: Broken glasses.

5.    Softball—I am completely fucking incredible. I can do anything on the softball field. Nickname: The Natural.

6.    Soccer: Although I am not very good at heading the ball intentionally, I still have a scorer’s touch. Sometimes, I forget the rules about how you’re supposed to throw the ball in from the sidelines, so it’s best that we don’t play soccer directly after Dodgball. Nickname: The Chosen One.

7.     Water polo: This is my weakest sport, as I am not a strong swimmer. However, I am able to compensate for this with my excellent coaching skills and my willingness to grow my fingernails long so I can scratch my opponents. Nickname: The Fury.

8.    Ultimate—I consider this to be a game for hippies and dogs, and will be sick on the week this is scheduled. No nickname.

If any of you people would like to become a Jesus Cobra, just let me know as we still have a couple of roster spots to fill.

The other day, while walking Heidi down Bloor, the wind took my hat.

It was a Fedora that I’ve had since high school. I do believe that I bought it at a second hand store on Elgin Street in Ottawa called Johnny Upstairs. I probably wanted to look like a member of The Specials, tried the look out once, got teased mercilessly, and then forgot about the hat for a decade.

At any rate, the hat returned to my life when I was bald and undergoing chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s Disease. At the time, I thought it gave me a little bit of “edge” and that maybe by wearing it, I looked cool rather than sick. As most cancer patients will tell you, you acquire a sort of uniform when undergoing treatment. What you wear becomes a kind of armor, and it takes on a totemic value. And so, month after month, I wore my old Fedora, my companion through despair and hope.

That was a decade ago now, but I still wear my hat all the time and the other day the wind took it. I’d been waiting for this to happen for quite some time, and I always wondered how I’d feel when it happened.

The wind took it quickly and violently, and it immediately started doing cartwheels down the street. I started to run after it, but it was already nearly a block away and I knew I really didn’t have a chance. No matter, I sighed and plugged along, Heidi quickly surging ahead of me. Surprisingly, what I felt as I watched it move further and further away from me was relief, that maybe I could finally stop worrying about how I’d feel when I lost the hat, that maybe even, I could stop worrying about cancer. I thought to myself, “Yes, it’s time. Good-bye hat, you served me well,” and I stopped running.

However, a man had seen the whole scene unfold, and he stomped on the hat as it tumbled toward him. Our eyes caught just as he did this, and from 20 yards away he shouted “MINE!!” I thought for a moment about letting him keep it, but he hurried up to me with the hat, and smiling, returned to me a complex part of my history, one that he never could have imagined.

Standing in line before me at the Second Cup was a young woman. It looked to me like she had a crush on the guy who was working there. Her eyes were alert and alive and she had a big, beautiful smile on her face that she seemed to have absolutely no control over. When he handed her the coffee, she got all nervous. She wasn’t sure what to do. She took one step away, and then changed her mind and turned around, but she bumped into me and spilled a bit of her drink. This, of course, was a disaster, and she beat a hasty retreat out the front door, probably to write a long and involved email about her ineptitude to a friend.

I told the guy working the counter that I thought she liked him and he blushed. We had a little conversation about it, and he agreed that he thought maybe there was something there. I assured him that she would be back, and that he shouldn’t worry, but he wasn’t so sure, “I don’t know why I didn’t ask her out! I’m such an idiot! “ His face a mixture of happiness and regret.

Up the street on Madison there were about 25 college kids gathered in front of a sorority. Everybody was dressed up, as if for a big graduation party. The guys, some holding bottles of Grey Goose, all looked cocky, while all the girls looked, well, like they came from money. They stood and posed for photographs, pictures that they might show to astonished grandchildren in fifty years. Everybody seemed excited, eager to start the drinking and then, at midnight, make all the final declarations and confessions they’d been harboring all year.

Less than ten yards away, a guy who was the same age as the college kids, tarred a driveway. He wore a Dodgers ball cap and a lumber jacket. He was heavy, with the sort of facial hair you’d see on a professional wrestler, and he sweated heavily as the smoke and steam from the driveway clouded his eyes.

When somebody popped a bottle of Champagne, he looked over, but then he caught himself and looked away, pretending not to notice, just as they all pretended not to notice him.

Like most people, I’ve been receiving all sorts of video clips of, and opinions about, Susan Boyle’s appearance on Britain’s Got Talent. For those of you who don’t know, Boyle is a 47 year-old woman who wants to make it in the world as a professional singer.

Boyle, who is unemployed and lives with her cats, has an overdeveloped forehead, which renders her kind of Neanderthal in appearance. Her hair is like steel wool, her accent coarse, and she moves about with a graceless practicality. You could imagine that she grew up always being the first person hit in a dodge ball game.

At any rate, like Paul Potts before her, she was being set up on the show to be the next miracle. Potts, if you’ll recall, was a portly, insecure looking guy who sold cell phones, but when he took the stage and began to sing, well, angels fell from the sky, and he became an instant sensation.

Finding that the public liked an uplifting underdog story more than a public evisceration of mediocrity, the production team latched onto the formula, and so now, every season, we see a contestant who is sculpted to perform against expectations.

As Boyle takes the stage, we’re cued to gear up for nasty laughs. She states her age and Simon rolls his eyes. The audience mutters darkly to one another, “who does she thinks she is?!” Boyle says she wants to be a pro singer, and the camera cuts to a pretty teen in the audience who makes a cruel “AS IF!” face.

This, of course, is supposed to represent a sort of Coles Notes of her life. Unloved and unlovely, the world has been against her from day one and nobody has ever believed in her. Of course, we have no idea if this is true, but it’s the story we’re being aggressively sold.

Before Boyle even begins to sing, the producers have already put a soft focus lens on the camera. We see the blonde judge resting her arm on her head, reclined in a beatified position, her eyes glistening with joy. The entire audience is leaning forward, anticipating another Paul Potts. Boyle begins to sing a Broadway song from Les Mis, and when she strikes the first note, everyone cheers and rises. This had nothing to do with her actual singing, which was fine, if lacking in character and depth, and everything to do with, well, marketing.

The song finishes, and as the accolades are being delivered, the music continues in the background, forcing the audience to live in the moment that has just passed. Simon looks like the Grinch, after his heart has grown three sizes, and a jubilant Boyle does a masculine little dance, as if she had just scored a touchdown.

It’s an appealing vignette, as we all need to imagine that we can transcend our circumstance and the rigid, unyeilding opnions that help confine us to them, but it was also a terribly insincere and condescending one, too. Her singing was confidently in key, but if she looked any different, she would have received a terse “no thanks” from Simon. What’s remarkable is not that this Ugly Duckling myth exists, but that so many people need it to be true that they willingly suspend their disbelief in order to create a miracle from the mediocre.

The subway car smelled of Tim Horton’s coffee, and besides myself, there were only seven other people on it.  It was around noon on Friday, and each person there chose to sit just as far from another human as possible. Plugged into an iPod or scrolling away on a Blackberry, the commuters all fought to protect their disconnected island status.

A black woman in a vibrant blue coat got on. She was wearing a sun hat adorned with a flower, in spite of the fact that it was a grey, blustery, single-digit kind of day. She had a smile for everybody, and speaking in a clear and beautiful Caribbean accent, declared, “don’t you know that Jesus will be returning? Turn that frown upside down!” An impassive young man in sunglasses looked over his shoulder, hoping she was speaking to somebody else.

A man in a Baltimore Raven’s ballcap wears a rain poncho. He has a sad, sunken face, but intelligent eyes. He speaks quickly into his phone, “I should be there in twenty minutes. Don’t start without me.” He hangs up, having nothing more to add.

A 20 year-old girl with severe pigtails and sharp, black bangs reads a book called World Food 2009. She looks like she wants to look political. She glances around at the other passengers on the train, and then suspicious, puts on her oversized sunglasses. She continues reading, chewing her fingernails thoroughly, one by one.

At St. Clair, two mannish women in practical shoes get on. They both have short haircuts and peace pins attached to the lapels of their jackets. They’re talking about baiting mousetraps with peanut butter. One of them, the happier of the two, explains that the mice often don’t even weigh enough to trip the trap. She smiles, “that’s why you need to get yourself a pussy cat!” The other woman nods, thinking about it very seriously. Maybe she will, her face says, maybe she will.

Up on Cumberland, I saw Kenny Hotz, the sadistic and incorrigible star of Kenny Vs. Spenny. Unlike Brent Butt, he looked like he belonged, and as always, he had the smug look of somebody who had just been laid on his face.

We then stopped in at Whole Foods in order to pick-up a sandwich. While I waited at the counter, one of the employees shouted out “Jade Cloud!” Somewhat embarrassingly, this was the name of the tea I had just ordered, and I shouted back at her “That’s me!” A woman stood beside me, fiddling with the lid for her coffee. As I am charming and friendly and not at all creepy, I said to her, “That’s what all my friends call me.” She gave me a blank look, “what?” she asked. “Jade Cloud. That’s what all my friend’s call me,” I said. She nodded, “how very nice for you, " and then walked away, sarcastic, entirely uninterested in my babbling.

On our way to Trinity Bellwoods’ park yesterday, a car in the oncoming lane tried to turn left in front of us. It was impeded by traffic and sat there in the intersection, blocking us so we couldn’t proceed through our green light. We were no more than ten feet away from the other car, and Rachelle and Heidi and I just looked at them. The driver was a young dude, and pretending that he didn’t notice us, he stared straight ahead, his face implacable.

Beside him in the passenger seat was a young woman who was visibly uncomfortable. She was rolling her eyes and shaking her head, exasperated with the driver. When our light turned red and we had to back-up out of the intersection, I gave them a thumb’s up so that they knew it had been a job well done. When I did this, the man did nothing, but the woman was entirely mortified. She put her hands over face and collapsed in her seat, sinking below window level, as if, like so many other young women, she felt the eyes of the world burrowing right into her..

The first thing we saw when we got to the park was a huge, handcrafted sign hanging from the fence the enclosed the tennis courts. Ten feet high, facing out onto Queen Street were the words: I MISS YOU.

Inside the park, six boys under the age of ten were trying to figure out how to play a game of football. It was clear that they wanted it to be like it was on TV, but this was entirely beyond their capacity. The fat boy hiked it over the quarterback’s head and anarchy was let loose. Amidst squeals of delight, they threw the ball all over the place and chased after one another, the game immediately and instinctively devolving into Hog. A mother watched, smiling and laughing.

In the park, we played fetch with Heidi. After about ten minutes, another dog—a young Labrador named Monty—stole her ball and would not give it back. The owner of Monty had blonde hair and wore fashionable Hunter boots. She looked like she had money and knew how to get reservations at exclusive restaurants, but she could not get the ball back from Monty. Embarrassed, she kept apologizing to us and following her dog around, trying to retrieve the slimy ball. It was no use. No matter what she did, the dog prevailed, utterly indifferent to her social standing in the city of Toronto.

My back was turned to the game, and when I heard the name Adenhart mentioned a few times, I figured that the broadcasters were talking about Nick Adenhart, the young Angels pitcher who was killed in a car crash on Wednesday night. This took place just a few hours after he had pitched. Driving home with three friends after pitching a great game, he was rammed by a drunk driver who rocketed through a red light. Adenhart and two of his friends were killed, while the other passenger was gravely injured, and is still fighting for his life.

As I listened, it quickly became clear that what was on TV was actually a rebroadcast of Wednesday night’s game. This realization infused the game with a poignant and valedictory tension, and I put aside my work and watched.

The play-by-play guys were incredibly enthusiastic about Adenhart and his potential.  “Young Adenhart will probably face a lot of these situations over what it sure to be a long career,” one of them said. And there was the 22 year-old Adenhart on the mound. There was a little bit of scruff on his face, making him look just a tad older than his age, and he wore a red t-shirt, which he probably considered a lucky talisman from home, beneath his Angels jersey.

His teammates played great behind him. They made all the plays they were supposed to, and you could see in them, in the way that they pointed at the pitcher after he did something good, that Adenhart had won their respect.

After the shortstop throws out the batter to end the sixth inning—the pitcher’s last inning-Adenhart walks off the mound to the dugout. He looks beautiful and intelligent, and he moves easily. He has just gotten out of a little bit of jam, and he’s chewing gum like it was no big deal, like he’s done it a million times before, and would do it a million times again.

Wednesday night was the first playoff game for my coed floor hockey team The Jesus Cobras. Once again, Rachelle and my teammates decided it would be for the best if I rested this game and took care of my allergies, so that I might come back at full force for the next game. “You’re going to be our tiny, little secret weapon,” Rachelle told me.

And so, as usual, I inspired my teammates from the sidelines. Although I think I was at my heckling best, calling one guy who was wearing this hard rock bandanna thing on his head, Captain Fat Sparrow, we were still getting creamed, losing 10-1 with only a few minutes left to play. At this point, my teammates decided to unleash their secret weapon. Tapping me on the shoulder, our captain said, “Go on in, Mike, what harm can it do at his point?”

However, as I wasn’t expecting to play, I left my Jesus Cobra jersey at home, and decided to play without my shirt on. I was a dynamo on the floor, charging about like a buzz saw and infusing our listless team with some much needed energy. However, Captain Fat Sparrow, decided it would be funny to start calling me “Scurvy.” And so, he shouted out stuff like “Oh look, Scurvy lost his glasses again!” or “ Down goes, Scurvy, down goes Scurvy!” I yelled back at him, “Yeah, I remember my first beer, too!”

When we shook hands at the end of the game, I made sure to spit on my palm to make sure that Captain Fat Sparrow got a special gift.

At any rate, after the game we went to Brass Taps to have some beer and bitch about what an unsportsmanlike bunch of cheaters and dongs the other team was. As some of my own teammates lack originality, they also started to call me “Scurvy,” saying stuff like “ Hey, Scurvy, could you pass the ketchup?” or Scurvs, are you going to pick up the tab?”

Classy, Cobras, classy.

As some of you know, I’ve been corresponding with a prison inmate who goes by the name of “MotherTrucker.” With a tanking economy and my bookie—Goran-- assuming a very aggressive posture concerning the money I accidentally lost to him, I have been looking for a way to make some cash. I asked MotherTrucker if he could help me, and he suggested that I work as a Bounty Hunter. He has provided me with a list of fugitives, and their whereabouts, assuring me that it will be safe as they are all non-violent drug-users.

Target: Shawnika Lee
             38 years old
             African American
            

12:00 AM:

I am now conducting a stake-out in front of  GoodHandy’s Pansexual Playground on Church Street, where Shawnika is purported to work. It’s obviously a very popular place as the streets are very densely populated with men.

It’s cold and the bench I’m sitting on is sticky.

12:15 AM:

A man who looked like a very clean-cut biker just asked me if I would like to enter the club with him. I asked him if he knew of Shawnika, and he said, “Shawnika! Girlfriend, everybody knows Shawnika!”

12:45 AM:

Feeling kind of woozy, but also euphoric. Might be allergies or low blood sugar, or the tablets the man gave me at the bar when I ordered my Heineken. Not sure. Strangely, more men than women dancing at this club, many of them very athletic looking, not like guys I used to see in strip clubs back in Vanier.

12:55 AM:

Frankie Goes to Hollywood!!! Dance Party!!

1: 18 AM:

Notice some men hanging from ceiling by ribbons!! Look like figure skaters, only before they get in costumes!  Oh, George Michael playing!! FREEDOM, FREEDOM, YOU’VE GOT TO GIVE FOR WHAT YOU TAKE!!! BEST. SONG. EVER!

1:30 AM:

Sweet, affectionate man I came with tells me I can have private dance with Shawnika and he will watch. We go to special room with crusty pillows that smell of Lysol. Take some more candy pills from man with soft hands.

1:40 AM:

Shawnika comes out dressed in light!! So Beautiful, like an angel who walks very heavy and has deep voice, like the killer in Silence of the Lambs. Oh, room swims so gorgeously!  Shawnika tells me it will cost many loving dollars and tells me to give her wallet. I say “happy birthday!” and throw all my money in the air.

3:50 AM:

Wake up in  room that is being mopped by a cleaning lady. No money. No wallet. Wrong pants. Call Rachelle. She picks me up. Tells me I was in a part of Toronto called “Boy’s Town.” She says that maybe my friend “MotherTrucker” whom I “don’t actually know,” might not have my best interest at heart, and maybe he’s working with clean-cut biker and Shawnika, and not me. Whatever. Just not a very supportive woman, that Rachelle. Never has been.

As most of you know, it’s presently November in Toronto.

Late November.

Not much light is getting into this day. It’s grim and colourless, and the wind, which is whipping angry, little flecks of the city all over the place, is literally howling. They say it feels like minus ten out, but I think it feels a lot worse than that, it feels like, I don’t know, Tuberculosis, or something.

With that in mind, I’ve opted to stay indoors, and am now reclining on the bed with my dog and a heating pad, watching the White Sox and Royals. They’re not my favourite teams, but who cares? It’s sunny and green where they are, and that’s good enough for me.

As inconceivable as this is to most people who know me now, I was actually decent at sports when I was younger. I was good at baseball, and could catch anything. As a result of this, my coach used to maneuver the 11 year-old version of me around the field from batter to batter, positioning me wherever he thought the ball was going to be hit.

Michael Kirby, the other team’s slugger was at bat and my coach moved me out to left field. Kirby crushed the ball, and as soon as he hit it, I took off at a dead run. Just as the ball was about to fall into the gap and roll all the way up to Hemlock Road, I dove and caught it. This might have been my single greatest moment in sports.

At any rate, the most beautiful thing about it, as I rolled on the grass and popped up with the ball, was seeing all of the adults, leaping off the bench like exclamation points, cheering, just like in the movies. I felt like a hero, and still vividly recall that moment 30 years later.

Of course, they weren’t really applauding for me, but for all of us. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing to watch children play. They gather the world and then return it to the rest of us, amplified, and that is something worth standing up and applauding for.

On my way back from a lunch meeting, my cab took me past the Greyhound bus terminal at Bay and Dundas. It’s an unlovely structure, that terminal. Squat and colourless, it resembles nothing more than a Soviet era parking garage.

Everybody standing out there beneath the cement canopy, waiting to get on a bus that would take them to Thunder Bay or Detroit or Ottawa, looked miserable. Long, damp lineups of people wishing they were somewhere else, wishing possibly, that they were somebody else.

When I first started to see Rachelle, I took the bus from Ottawa to Toronto about twice a month, and I have to admit, I kind of liked it. I always found my trips on the bus interesting. The means of transportation imposed a certain sort of intimacy on the passengers that was kind of charming and eccentric in its candor.

At the terminal itself, I grew used to seeing one particular Greyhound employee. It was his job to help load and unload the luggage into the belly of the bus. Short and proudly muscular, he was always dressed in a Polyester uniform that was at least one size too small. His shirt was always undone, revealing a matt of curly, black hair and a crucifix that hung from his neck that was the size of a kitchen knife. Always chewing gum, he walked like a tough guy, swinging his shoulders from side to side.

He never said anything, instead just nodding whenever somebody spoke to him. With shocking agility, he would bend down and grab some luggage, and then just toss it into the trunk of the bus, as easily as if he was flicking cards into a hat. I would see him in winter or in summer, and regardless of the brutality of the weather, he would be there, amidst all the fumes from 10 idling buses, happily pitching luggage around as if somehow, the rules that governed the rest of us, did not apply to him.

On Friday night, Rachelle and I went over to a friend’s home for dinner. There were about ten guests, and after a brilliant meal of rack of lamb, we played games.

Naturally, we started off with the feats of strength. We were each required to attempt a chin-up before launching into the Knuckle-Hop competition. Knuckle-Hopping is a traditional Inuit sport that mimics the way seals shuffle across the ice. This means that we had to bounce forward on knuckles and toes, straight as a plank, until collapsing in agony.

Steve, the host, who for some reason thought it necessary to strip to his underwear in order to compete, began to whimper after his first hop, claiming that he inherited “SKS—Soft Knuckle Syndrome—from his father, and would have to retire from the competition. I was next, and managed to accomplish three hops before vomiting from pain. Even after the mess was cleaned up, people were reluctant to continue, and we had no other participants, save Rachelle, who is insanely competitive and would not let me be declared “the winner.” As she has unnaturally large knuckles and a high pain threshold, she was able to hop from the diner table to the sofa, and was awarded first prize, a Tea Party cassette.

The next game we played was less physical. Each person was required to write down something that you should not say on a first date, and then, after they were all read out, we had to guess which person said what. These were the responses:

1)    My favourite actress is Jessica Alba’s ass.
2)    Don’t worry, that’s just a little bit of pus.
3)    I was at the Lords of the Dance last night, and the weirdest thing happened.
4)    Jesus is my co-pilot.
5)    I hate your fucking face and want to punch you.
6)    I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen in concert 78 times.
7)    Who’s your favourite serial killer?
8)    If you were a character from the Chronicles of Narnia, which one would you be?
9)    I collect stamps.
10)    The doctor said that once I get the sleeping pills out my system, I should be fine.

The Tea Party cassette that Rachelle won for winning the Knuckle-Hopping competition will be awarded to whomever can correctly guess both my, and Rachelle’s response.

Yesterday, after a meeting at the bank, I sat out on the steps in front of the Manulife building. It was a beautiful, mild day and Yorkville was alive with people. At the intersection of Bay and Bloor, a woman in a car waiting for the lights to change, leaned out the window. With a cigarette hanging from her lip, she began to shout “ MOM! MOM! HEY, MOM!!”

A woman of about 55, who was walking on the sidewalk, stopped and looked over her shoulder. Recognizing her daughter, she burst into a huge grin and began to walk/run toward the car, waving in that excited manner that it seems only mothers can pull off. As she got closer the streetlight changed. The mother immediately began to furiously wave her arms, trying to get her daughter to drive on and not hold up traffic. It was sweet, as if the mother were saying, in her way, “save yourself, don’t worry about me, honey, save yourself!”

The daughter was dutiful and drove off, but not before yelling, “I love you!” The mother beamed back, watching the car drive away, mouthing “I love you, too,” words that although not heard, were most surely felt.

Surprisingly, the Cobras were able to win without my leadership on the floor that night, but it was obvious to me that if we were to get anywhere in the play-offs, they would need some of the “Murray Magic” they had grown so accustomed to.

As it turned out, Rachelle was concerned that I might get another nosebleed and didn’t think I should play. In fact, she said that the team had taken a vote last week and decided that it would be in the best interests of both me, and the Jesus Cobras, if I sat out this game in order to get my nosebleed situation under control, so that I might be in top form for the playoffs.

And so last night, as we took on The Enforcers, a team with a league wide reputation for being dirty, I served as coach. The game was fierce and chippy, and it was clear that the Cobras were missing my grit on the floor. One girl on their team-- who wore a Chris Chelios jersey-- was taking runs at everybody and generally trying to intimidate our players. Normally it would be my job to “take care” of such a situation on the court , but as I wasn’t playing, I could only scream at her, calling her “Slutty-O.” It seemed to throw her off her game. However, as Slutty-O is a bully with a weak character, and The Enforcers a bunch of hooligans, they got one of their players to steal my hat. NOT COOL.

During the switch over at half time, some guy who fancied himself a gangster knocked my hat off with his stick, and then he and Slutty-O played around with it like a puck, while I chased after it. Ha, ha, ha! After I got winded and gave up, I returned to my coaching station where I threw my Ginger Ale/Green Tea at them when they weren’t looking. This resulted in a big pushing match, that saw Keo, one of our defensemen, assume a martial arts fighting position. It was awesome!

Of course, it was my intention from the start to create a scenario where there would be some team bonding, uniting us as warriors for the upcoming playoffs, and I figured a brawl would be a great way to do it. At any rate, the game was canceled in a 5-5 tie, and it’s unclear at this point if both teams have been kicked out of the league, but if not, we’re playoff ready!

On a whim, I decided to play in a poker tournament at the Madison Pub on Tuesday. Although I’d watched poker ( Texas Hold ‘Em) on TV about a billion times, I’d never actually played the game, and in spite of the fact that there was no money involved in the tournament, I was still kind of nervous.

Sitting at the table with seven strangers, I apologized in advance for the clumsy game I was about to play, explaining that it was my first time and that I would probably need a little bit of baby-sitting. Some of them sighed when I announced this, while others rolled their eyes.

Our table was one of ten, with about 75 guys playing in total. Seamus was the guy who assumed the most authority at our table. He wore a poor boy’s cap upon which he had affixed a small pin of a Canadian flag. Somewhere in his 50’s, he looked like a man who knew an awful lot about military history and enjoyed the comfort of rules. He deliberated for a long time, stroking his gray goatee, before he made a decision, and seemed to relish the physical act of pushing all his neatly stacked chips into the pot. He was knocked-out early.

To my right sat a young, Latin guy with impressive biceps. He wouldn’t do much for half an hour, and then he would make a massive bet. When the cards were flipped over, he seemed to take great pleasure in saying--smiling from behind his sunglasses-- “I have you dominated.”

One guy drank Red Bull after Red Bull. He liked to stand up after each bet, and always, always, explained exactly what he thought was taking place at the table and why he played the cards the way that he did. He wanted our respect, I think.

Other players at the table included a fat guy in a Leaf’s hat, a 45 year-old man who was very vain about his rock star hair and a few guys who sat silently plugged into their iPods. There was nothing social about the night, and conversation was kept to a bare minimum. All that was to be revealed about each player was to be done so only through playing cards. When somebody was knocked out, they would leave the table wordlessly and without sentiment.

I played for about two and a half hours, and as I was lucky enough to get good cards, was able to survive until the last table, where I was very quickly eliminated.

A large East Indian man sat across from me, giving me a long study after I had made a reckless bet. Referencing the Fedora that I was wearing, he said “Well, we shall see if Mister Dick Tracy here has the cards or not, “ and then he called me, and I was done for the night.

Of course, the thing that stung wasn’t losing, but getting called Dick Tracy. I mean, really? Dick Tracy?

Poker. The truly frightening thing about the game is that it has nothing to do with how you see yourself, and everything to do with how other people see you.

Love Song
 
My father is dying, and my mother
has never been so in love. It's not
 
over death she's swooning;
it's the sweetness that has softened
 
him. She lotions and socks his feet, shaves
his cheeks so he's fresh for their evening
 
date in the dusk-quilted bed, the oxygen
tank murmuring in the background.
 
As she fine-tunes the tubes in his nostrils,
she smooths his wisps, sighs, "Oh, sweetheart."

Julie King

At any rate, the best part of the experience, as usual, was getting to ride in the town car they send to get me. I always feel like a gangster when I sit there behind the tinted windows with the city speeding by, and it turns out that I really enjoy that feeling.

The interview was scheduled to take place at 9:15 on Saturday night, at the studio out in Scarborough. The mood in the building was grim. Very recently, CTV, in an effort to consolidate their hemorrhaging enterprise, moved all of their employees from the Globe and Mail building downtown, out to Scarborough, which for media types is like being cast out to Siberia, I guess. The lighting was poor, and the skeleton crew that was present trudged about like zombies. Better things were happening in the city, and they knew it. They looked at me with some pity, like I, too, had been forced to come out there, or worse, that I had nothing better to do on a Saturday night than hike out to Siberia to appear on TV for two forgettable minutes.

The interview itself was speedy, perfunctory and completely devoid of any human interaction. I sat in a dark room, alone, and tried to answer a few questions asked of me through an earpiece, while staring at a camera that looked like a robot. Rachelle called to praise me, observing that, “you weren’t quite as twitchy as you normally are, and you only interrupted the interviewer twice!” In the context of my TV appearances, this was a victory.

The driver was chatty on the way home. He reminded me that it was Earth Hour, something I had forgotten. He had hoped that the city of Toronto would be shrouded in darkness, but it was exactly the same as it always was. He laughed ruefully,  “It’s the rich people, you know. It makes them feel better to turn off their lights for an hour, but still they drive the big cars and live in the big homes. Really, they think the poor people in Scarborough are going to sit in holy darkness for an hour on Saturday night to make them feel better? They work all week for their Saturday night, they’re not going to sit there humming earth songs on their party night!”

It’s constantly amazing to me just how much light an animal can generate in this world. When I take Heidi, our miniature Daschund, for a walk down Bloor Street, she’s a superstar.

A homeless man looks up from his milk crate, and through a broken-toothed grin he points, shouting, “Weiner!” A half-dozen Japanese girls emerge from a store, and in waves of perfume and giggles, they swarm about us, cooing. With their knees pressed together, they bend down in wonder, uttering mysterious words to my dog.

In front of the church by Walmer, Heidi caught the eye of a loose-limbed and boozy Rasta. In a generous impulse of affection, he lunged out to pet her, but she leaped back, snarling. He looked hurt, sad, even. “Your dog, she no nice, man.”

At the corner of Lippincott and Bloor, an elderly woman stopped us. She slowly bent down, stroking Heidi’s ears. “Oh, they’re velvet! She has velvet ears!” At her own pace, she told us that when she was growing up in Germany she had her very own Dashcund. Schatzie—little sweetheart. “Ah, Schatzie!”, she said, as if she hadn’t thought of the dog in many, many years.

On the way home up Madison a car pulled up beside us. I walked over and saw the driver smiling, pointing at Heidi. “They’re great dogs, aren’t they?!” she shouted. Beside her sat her ten year-old daughter, who, beaming, was holding their new Daschund puppy. The dogs wagged their tails and the people smiled. I thought that the young girl was lucky, not just to have a new pet—her very own Schatzie-- but to also have a mother who would stop the car on a Friday afternoon, just to share their happiness with the world amongst them.

On Thursday, I went to the dentist.

It was near the end of the day, and the hygienist who had the misfortune of working on my teeth, was trying hard to act like somebody who liked her job. She was asking me a series of questions that were designed to suggest interest, but it was clear that she just wasn’t into it.

The radio was playing a loop of hot adult contemporary singles and a huge five-foot tall red toothbrush leaned against the wall in the corner. The hygienist made a few comments about the weather, telling me it was a grey day and that she wished it would just hurry up and rain. She had sad eyes, and when I asked her to tell me a little bit about herself she sighed.

In a Polish accent, she said, “Oh, it’s pretty boring, just nine to five every day, you know, you come to work, you go home from work.” She was staring out the window as she said this, looking past all the activity on Bloor Street, focusing instead, I think, on some distant horizon that only she could see.

Yesterday, I was feeling a little under the weather. Because of this, I was unable to make our floor hockey game, and feared that without my grit and leadership, the Jesus Cobras would fall to defeat. After all, we were playing the first place team and were already low on men.

However, Rachelle didn’t seem concerned that I was going to miss the game. In fact, she seemed kind of happy. I figured that she was just putting on a brave face, as she didn’t want me to feel any worse than I already did.

When Rachelle came back she was glowing, like she’d just met Clive Owen. She told me that we’d won our floor hockey game and it was the BEST GAME EVER!! EVERYBODY PLAYED FANTASTIC AND HAD A GREAT TIME!! After their “stirring victory,” they went to Clinton’s, where they got free wings and pitchers of beer-- for some reason-- and then had spontaneous piggyback fights on the sidewalk, like some stupid, fucking Mentos commercial. It turns out that minus me, the team “gels.” As Rachelle tactfully put it, “ it seems that people might feel less pressure when you’re not there, as there’s less shrieking and vomiting before the game.” Nice.

Well, as The Judas Cobras were running around having the time of their lives, I was at home on the sofa fighting for my life. While drifting in and out of consciousness, I had a sort of waking dream in which the stuffed squirrel on our mantle began to speak to me. He told me that his name was Skip, not Mr. Peanut, as Rachelle had dubbed him. Skip, a Presbyterian with some interesting and progressive ideas about the church, told me that Rachelle steals money from my wallet and spends hours on Clive Owen fan sites. Thinks she might be a shoplifter, too. Just saying.

Last night while Rachelle was asleep in bed, I watched a special hour-long episode of Paranormal State. It was about demonic possession, and Ryan, who leads the college-aged team of ghost hunters, got so angry that he swore at a spirit and then went on YouTube to ask the audience to pray for the afflicted family. It was very dramatic.

In this particular episode, Chip, an effeminate 55 year-old medium, also lost his cool with the spirit, and in the pitch-black of the house, threw a temper-tantrum, shouting at the imagined ghost that HE WOULD NOT BE BULLIED!! It was not lost on me that he was screaming at something that wasn’t actually there. At that moment, it wasn’t hard to imagine that Chip-- sensitive and unsure of his sexuality-- probably grew up an outsider in a hostile and unwelcome environment, and whatever ghost he was yelling at on the TV show, was likely a ghost from his unhappy past, and not somebody else’s.

The show is stagy and bereft of any actual evidence of the paranormal, but I find it compelling all the same. The vulnerability and need of the people, both claming the haunting and searching for the haunting, is palpable, and you can see how desperately they need some higher power to assume responsibility for the confusing, and often unhappy circumstance they find themselves in.

When I was in university, we used to fool around with the Ouija Board from time to time. I suppose it was something of a drinking game for us, or at least that’s the way that we portrayed it, but I think there might have been more to it. We were just starting out, and none of us had any idea what sort of person we might become, or if we would ever find and share love in this world. Away from our families for the first time, we craved some sort of sign that we were on the right path. Looking for reassurance we turned to the supernatural, hoping to summon the benevolent spirit of a much loved grandmother, who would return to us and calm our anxieties, telling us that yes, everything was going to be grand, and that we were all going to be so very happy.

They are going up.
See them rise
on black wings, drinking
the sky, without smiles
or hands
or shoes.
They call back to us
from the gauzy edge of paradise,
good news, good news.

        --Anne Sexton

I love both The Manx and Chez Lucien, and on the weekend, I visited both bars.

Waiting for friends at the Manx on a Friday night, I realized that the place has always had a knack for making me feel either very included, or very excluded. Sometimes, I walk in and am swept up into things, becoming a part of an ever- expanding table full of people in excellent moods. On nights like these—with a three pint buzz-- everybody seems witty and at the top of their game, and I feel like I’m at a terrific party where I’m making all sorts of brilliant friends.

The Manx is one of the undisputed arts hubs of the city, and all the people who work there carry with them a sort of hipster celebrity. They’re not waiters, they’re artists and musician and poets, and I always find myself hoping for their approval, which is an utterly demoralizing thing to realize.

The bar itself was designed to facilitate conversation. There are no TV sets, nor is there any ambient music playing, save for the fuzz of death metal pushing out of the kitchen. If you’re there on your own, there are no distractions from your solitude, and looking around at the clubby atmosphere, it can be easy to feel like a customer sitting amongst a bunch of friends. When this happens, I always feel needy and awkward, like the last person being chosen in a game of pick-up basketball.

Chez Lucien, on the other hand, was designed to be a safe haven for people who are used to feeling that way. It’s just off the beaten path, and it’s simple in its’ ambition. It’s not seeking to consciously establish a home for the Ottawa arts community, but to provide a place for black sheep to go and have a drink. There’s an effortless honesty and lack of inhibition to the place, and you never feel judged there. While the Manx may make talking easy, Chez Lucien actually makes being comfortable there easy, and in the end, that’s why it will always be my most trusted port in the storm.

On Thursday, Rachelle and I made the drive from Toronto to Ottawa in order to visit my family. It was an ugly March day, feeling more like the end of autumn than the start of spring. It was overcast, and all I could see in the world were subtle variations of grey. It was kind of depressing.

However, as we got closer to Ottawa, blue skies emerged, and I began to notice lines of geese flying overheard. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I had a remembrance of driving back to Ottawa from Montreal.

It was also in March, and it took place about twenty years ago. I was in university at McGill and I was an unmitigated academic disaster. Worse, I was an emotional disaster, too, in love with a person who didn’t love me, I ended up spending all of my time drinking beer, shooting pool and listening to sad music. I had run out of money, was failing out of school, and was unhappy, even though I didn’t know it. The only solution was for me to move back to Ottawa, to live with my parents, and of course, I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to stay, or at least I wanted people to believe that I wanted to stay.

The car ride back to Ottawa was pretty quiet. I sat there, humiliated at having failed life in every possible regard, still needing my parents to save me and shelter me from the storm. I must have radiated resentment.

 At some point on the drive, a flight of geese returning home flew right over the car. For whatever reason, this excited my mother, and she broke into a sort of girlish delight. She pulled the car over, and we got out and watched the geese,  my mother exclaiming, “Look, Michael, the geese are coming back! Isn’t it wonderful!”

Honestly, I didn’t know what the big deal was. Geese. Alright. Geese.

However, it was completely out of character for my mother to behave in this way, and I noted it as strange, and although I didn’t think much of it at the time, I remember it now, decades later. And yesterday, as the grey turned to blue, I realized how comforting it must have been for my mom to rescue her son, and to have him, like the Canadian Geese, return safely to her in the spring.

I know I not supposed to be Blog chief today, but is Goran, spin master DJ super flash and bookie master, again!! You feel the heat, bitches?!

I only here today because leetle Murray bug made real dumb bet last night and no can pay Goran the cash he owe, so I get another day to trumpet business interests on Blog. Last night, leetle Murray bug bet that Megan Joy get voted off American Idol. As if! You see the coconuts on her?! America love her coconuts! She is like Russian tennis star! And she have sleeve of tattoo, which not only give her “indie edge” but also evidence that she belong to Russian mob, likely Potato Bag Gang, and that they in control of whole thing. You can see that they already drugged the Paula cougar with the happy sauce so that she do what they tell her. Eet obvious.

G-Man DJ Master Flash Services and Entertainment

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And great DJ entertainment services keep the dance floor hopping!

G-Man DJ Master Flash Services provide quality music and entertainment that includes:

Professional DJ
MC Services
Over 3, 000 musical selections spanning entire 1980’s 1990’s decades!
Balloon sculpture
Belly dancing ( by request)

G-Man DJ Master Flash Services offers custom entertainment packages that meet your special needs. From corporate mob party of 1,000 to family party of 12, charity events and Bar Mitzvahs, G-Man DJ Master Flash Service provide the A-1 service so that everybody have a great time!

So get the party organized and the bodies there and G-Man will make your event one that will be talked about for weeks and weeks, maybe months to come!

G-Man provide the beat to move your feet, bitches!

Call Goran at 905.668.2323

Hello peoples!

Eet is Goran here, and although I am still black belt first star DJ and bookie in GTA, I must say I not feel like myself today. On St. Patrick Day I went to go to little bug’s house so to eat his dog and collect rest of gambling debt he owe to me. He no answer door, but I know he there because I hear him sneeze, which he do when nervous. Eet is his tell in poker. Anyway, as I kick door, I see bunch of college frat boys painted green. They get alligator drunk to celebrate the Irish snakes, and I join in. It good fun, like Moscow schoolyard!

So we have good time in their party house and then I ask them where the skanks at and some boy tell me go to Madison pub for the whores and so I go there. I ask cougar lady if she want it gangster style and she say nothing, so I say, “Don’t hear me St. Fatrick! What your problem? You lucky I even spit at you!” And then I spit on her, but this not Irish style and big brawl ensue. Next day I wake up in leetle park with hobo men, so not feel good today.

I find out just moments ago that not called Blob, but Blog. My bad. I feel like pigeon. Sometimes my English not so good. After today I give BLOG back to bug, as his debt now paid through advertising on site, but if he fail to pay again, I come back.

If need DJ service call Goran at  905. 668. 2323.

I rock casbah and make all the bitches sweat!

I greet to you the citizens of the web globe!

Eet is Goran here, top dog bookie and DJ master flash!

Until leetle four-eyed Michael bug get money he owe me for gambling debts, I own his Blob. He tell me that Google Analytics says he has over one million unique hits per day on his Blob, and that his Blob is big voice in global world, like NBC, network of top potato show Heroes! He says that Blob reach world and is better than money, but I no gold that fall from the tooth, and I negotiate Moscow style—Bang, Bang! So we decide that advertising on his Blob worth $1,000 a day, not $3,000 he claim in leetle, girl whine voice. You mess with Goran, you find yourself also-ran! So, whenever bug boy lose bet to me, if he can’t pay cash on the mash, I take over Blob and use it to cross-pollinate my world busineeses.

          G-Man DJ Master Flash Services and Entertainment

Great event require great DJ entertainment!

And great DJ entertainment services keep the dance floor hopping!

G-Man DJ Master Flash Services provide quality music and entertainment that includes:

Professional DJ
MC Services
Over 3, 000 musical selections spanning entire 1980’s 1990’s decades!
Balloon sculpture
Belly dancing ( by request)

G-Man DJ Master Flash Services offers custom entertainment packages that meet your special needs. From corporate mob party of 1,000 to family party of 12, charity events and Bar Mitzvahs, G-Man DJ Master Flash Service provide the A-1 service so that everybody have a great time!

So get the party organized and the bodies there and G-Man will make your event one that will be talked about for weeks and weeks, maybe months to come!

G-Man provide the beat to move your feet, bitches!

Call Goran at 905.668.2323

Eet is me, Goran! I am uppermost top dog DJ bookie in all of GTA, including Etobicocke region! I dress in diamonds, baby! I have taken over leetle writer man’s Blob because he can no pay his debt to me. If don’t pay soon, I eat his dog with mustard sauce and chives. No problem! Dees man is tiring to me. What did leetle bug with glasses think betting on ice capades? He think he going to beat expert line set by Goran? Ha! And Africans beat Russian at ice hockey! Ice capades not even sport, is just entertainment!! Like DJ music! So, until bug pay up da money he owe to Goran, I have his Blob and will say what I want say to world!

If need DJ service call Goran at  905. 668. 2323.

I rock casbah and make all the bitches sweat!

Standing beside me at the corner of Yonge and Bloor was actor Elijah Wood.

Frodo.

As I was standing there staring at him, I had no idea who he was. I thought he looked like somebody, but I wasn’t sure whom, and so I just stared. Maybe that’s what star power is, a physical charisma that compels the audience to pay attention. I mean, I honestly just thought he was some short guy who looked like somebody I was familiar with, but still, I took in all his details. The thoughtful, slightly angry set to his face. His hipster sneakers. The embroidered pattern on the back pockets of his expensive jeans. The way he hunched his shoulders as he smoked his cigarette trying to protect himself from the wind.

Returning home I passed two elderly Sikh men with newspapers bags slung over their shoulders. One man delivered papers to the east side the street, the other the west. Smiling, they made a point of waving at one another after each delivery.

In the small park at the foot of Madison, four homeless men crowded around a bench. You could hear them a block away. One of them is standing up, while the other three sit, watching. In a palsied voice, he shouts out, “I’m going to fuck you like a hurricane!” The other men burst out laughing. One of them, a plump man with a gentle face, says, “Oh, do it again! Do it again! That is so funny, that is so funny!” And so the man pulls up his belt and does the imitation again, adding something a little extra this time, and the plump man, laughing, rolls right off the bench. He has no defenses against this world around him.

I was at The Food Depot on Dupont earlier in the day picking up a few items: garlic bread, Kleenex and saran wrap. For whatever reason, these are the things that I decided I needed on a Thursday afternoon.

I had a lot on my mind and was kind of distracted when I was paying the cashier, an older woman from Poland. I put my money down on the conveyor belt and then stared off at the horizon, waiting. A moment passed before she spoke to me, stating primly, “ Would you please pass the money to me.”

I looked down and noticed that the cash was about a foot away from her. It was certainly within her reach, but she would have had to stretch out for it a little bit, and today, for whatever reason, she decided she was no longer going to do that. There was absolutely no reason the customer couldn’t exhibit enough consideration to hand her the money, why should she have to stretch out all the time? Her back was sore, and the arthritis was acting up in her hand, and you know, the cold air rushing in from the door opening and closing all the time, wasn’t doing her back any favours either. She’s sixty, she’s lived a life, and was damn sick and tired of stretching out for other people’s money, and so, with a stiff back and polite, but firm manner, she drew her line in the sand.

“Would you please pass the money to me.”

Under the umbrella of Prison Fellowship Canada, I’ve been participating in a program in which I correspond with an inmate. For the last two months, I’ve been writing to  “MotherTrucker,” who has been incarcerated for some sort of vehicular violation. In my last letter to MotherTrucker, I asked him if he had any ideas on how I might make a little bit of money, as I had incurred some accidental gambling debts. In order to protect my privacy, I use Clooney as a pseudonym.

This is his response:

Clooney:

I don’t have much time to write as there’s a White Supremacist meeting out by the basketball courts in ten minutes, and as I’m White Thunder Fist’s b****, I have to be there incase anybody wants their head or chest shaved.

I think you should consider becoming a Bounty Hunter.

Dude, I can give you a list of fugitives, telling you where they hangout, and if you cut me in for 50%, then we have a deal. I’m perfectly positioned to gather all the intelligence we need, and then you can just sweep in and clean up the mess. You should know that it’s not dangerous in the least, as the guys I’m talking about are junkies with very low fitness levels. You could knock them out with a donut.

Look, I’ve got to fly now, as the meeting is about to start. I can hear the chanting down coming down the hall. The mood got pretty grim in here after the black guy became President, but after Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture, well, things got f***** crazy.

MotherTrucker

PS: Dog the Bounty Hunter is ready for a fall. His ticker is weak from all the steroids and coke.

Last week, we attended a dinner party in which one of the guests told a story. She was telling us about being at another function, one that was hosted and attended by a bunch of really rich people. As a sort of parlor game, the hostess asked each diner to tell the rest of the guests what they were going to give up for the recession.

Obviously, there’s something distasteful about this. I imagined people, tanned from a recent vacation in the Barbados, sipping wine and eating expensive cakes bought from some fancy bakers. They had probably been talking about how expensive it was to send their kids to UCC. This, of course, was the point of the person at our dinner party was making. For the wealthy people she was talking about, the recession was an abstraction, and whatever deprivation they were suffering was self-imposed, and not borne of uncontrollable circumstance. For instance, one woman responded by saying,“ Well, this year the hunt will be very, very different….”

This made us all feel kind of smug, like we were in touch with the real world, and not these other people, but that wasn’t true. All of us, sitting around the table, were privileged, too, I think, and this sparked a heated conversation, but I wasn’t really listening, as I was trying to figure out what sort of hunt the woman had been speaking of. At first, I thought of a foxhunt, but then I decided that it must have been an Easter Egg hunt. It would take place at an estate, and there would be hundreds of guests, each one dressed up as if for the Kentucky Derby, and the grand prize for the person who collected the most eggs would be a weekend in New York.

On Sunday, Rachelle and I drove out to Scarborough to go to the Pacific Mall.  We were both ridiculously excited, imaging a sort of theme park, where absolutely anything we could imagine would be available, with some freaky Asian flair, and sold for next to nothing.

This was not the case.

The mall is large and generic, arranged in a practical, if unimaginative grid that resembled a network of office cubicles. Although there were hundreds of stores, there were really only about six different types of them, with each place being a minute variation on the one that preceded it. In short order, this became utterly numbing, and we had the sensation that we were wandering around the exhibition grounds, each store feeling like a carnie-operated stall selling the same junk as the last.

Perhaps because of this, we were attracted to the video arcade. I wandered in circles looking for an old school game like Galaga, but realizing I was 20 years out of step, settled on some shooter game involving aliens. As I never figured out how to activate my flamethrower function, I was quickly dispatched.

Nearby, a 17 year-old Asian girl was playing Rock Hero. She was dressed-up in the provocative manner of a Japanese schoolgirl gone bad, sporting three inch heels, a mini skirt, and stockings that ended about two inches beneath her skirt. She had the guitar balanced saucily on her hip, and kept tossing her long, black hair back.

This attracted a crowd of excited teen boys, who pretended to be playing the adjacent game, where they had to toss little basketballs into a hoop. It’s actually a kind of humiliating game, one that always makes you look like a clumsy, panicky kid, and so, that’s exactly the way that they looked.

However, one guy stood apart. Bald and wearing a sleeveless Michael Jordan jersey, he walked with a swagger designed to suggest a thug’s life. Instead of playing the juvenile version of basketball, he chose to hit a speed bag that measures the force of your punch. He would wind up, and then hop twice, before unleashing a devastating roundhouse. Each time he did this, he was really casual about it, like it was no big thang, but after each blow, he allowed himself a quick peek back at the girl, hoping that she’d noticed.

It was 16 degrees out on Friday.

Heidi and I strolled down Madison, passing the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house, where privileged Daddy’s Girls were assembled on the steps and in the front yard. Some poked away on their MacBooks, while others, holding rakes like the entirely foreign objects they were, attempted yard work. They released a collective sigh when they saw my little Daschund march by, her tail wagging.

In front of the ROM, we stopped for our first Polish sausage of the season. On my third bite, I noticed Margaret Atwood walking down the street. She’s small, and on Friday she was wearing thick-soled orthopedic shoes, which made her look quite vulnerable. I wanted to wave, and was desperately trying to make eye contact with her, but it was no use. She seemed unaware of the world around her, of all the warmth and optimism that filled it on this, the first day of spring. She paused briefly to tie-up her shoelace, but then continued along, missing out on Heidi snatching the sausage from my hand, presumably seeing only the things that were invisible to the rest of us.

Looking around the Berkley Church on Thursday night, Steve looked at me and said, “Jesus, mate, I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a soup kitchen.” We’d been given tickets to see an Edgar Winter concert and really didn’t know what to expect. As it turned out, the place was full of a bunch of people in their mid-50’s, people who didn’t look like they left their apartments all that often.

The men all seemed to have the same haircuts that they had back in high school, and so there was lots of defiantly long, gray hair. Many of them had beards and wore concert bomber jackets that I imagined they saw as part of their “going out” uniform. There must have been eight one of them for every woman in the crowd, each one of the women having an aggressive, boozy quality about her, as if she’d been to her fair share of interventions.

The opening band was comprised of five 20 year-olds who looked like they were dressed up as rock stars for Halloween. They were called Symphony of Nine, and they were truly awful. Honestly, they were like a parody band, encapsulating every horrible rock cliché there was without even a glimmer of self-awareness.

The drummer chose not to wear a shirt, revealing the pale flesh of somebody who had just spent a winter in Canada. As an accent to this look, he donned a top hat with a Do-Rag underneath it. The lead guitarist, who shared a haircut with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, wore a Mandarin collar jacket. He was mystical. The keyboardist was shy, focusing all of his energy on his craft. He had a New Wave vibe to him, and his black hair shone blue beneath the lights. The bassist hid behind tiny, John Lennon sunglasses, a goatee and a Do-Rag, while the lead singer threw himself out there for all to admire. He had on some Sgt. Pepper style jacket and he tried very, very hard to be seductive and charismatic, but it was no use, his reach exceeded his grasp.

I checked out their merchandise table, which was hopefully arrayed with homemade t-shirts and CD’s. One of the band’s girlfriends stood there awkwardly, hoping somebody would buy a Symphony of Nine sticker, but nothing was moving, and she, like everybody else, just stood there, waiting.

It was heartbreaking to watch.

Last night, in a spirited yet demoralizing floor hockey match, The Jesus Cobras fell by a score of 4-3 to The Bomb Squad. The Bomb Squad was a team characterized by crisp, white t-shirts and headbands that were worn without a trace of irony. They had one dirty player, and one player who looked like a pop star from the 1980’s. The dirty player was named Kat, and she must have been at least six foot two. She was all elbows and knees, that one, and there was a look in her eyes that suggested her mother loved her sister more than her, a resentment that Kat would never get over.

The 1980’s pop star proudly wore a ‘C’ on his jersey. It’s likely that he ran for student council back in high school. He liked to dart about in circles, making fancy deke moves around our graphic designer and food critic defenders. Whenever he took a shot that our antique collector goaltender would save, he’d yell out, “Damn, we can’t get anything by him! I normally score five or six goals a game, and tonight I only have two!” And then he would run off, a stream of self-importance trailing after him like a gaseous emission. He was kind of shaped like a pear.

The Jesus Cobras count Spike Jonzes amongst their supporters.

The woman in front of me at the grocery store looks a little bit like a bird. She’s far too thin, her glasses make her eyes look massive and she has a nervous manner, hopping stiffly from one foot to the other. Her basket is full of organic carrots, a couple of bags of seeds and some rice cakes. It strikes me that there’s probably no more than 80 calories in that entire basket. I imagine her, like a bird, eating one sesame seed at a time.

When it’s time to pay, she pulls out her debit card and looks back at me, shooting me a sour look. She hunches over, as if protecting her test answers from a copy cat, making sure that I don’t steal her code as she punches in her numbers. Her world is a dangerous place. Calories, code thieves, pesticides!

Behind me, a man who is in his mid 50’s snorts. He can’t believe she’s making such a display of her privacy. This makes the woman, who I suddenly realized has a similar pigmentation to a carrot, even more rigid. The man smiles at me. We’re on the same page, he thinks. He’s buying ten cans of orange juice. Nothing else.

The cashier has ash-white hair and his name is Simon. He’s in the dozy, indifferent trance that we all fall into when we’ve been doing a repetitive task for many hours. He makes some mistake, and then mumbles some request into the microphone. He then just stands there, blankly staring off at some imagined horizon. The man behind me spins around in a circle, his arms outstretched, looking for support. “What is this fucking bullshit?! Come, on!” Everybody in the line-up inches forward and pretends to be reading the tabloid headlines. Simon stares out the window. The carrot/bird woman collects more evidence that the world is a hostile and dangerous place.

It’s funny how two people might interpret the same thing.

On Valentine’s Day, a fire truck with flashing lights, parked on the street near our apartment. It was obvious to me that they weren’t tending to a bona fide blaze, but had been called out on another matter. As I looked out the window, it dawned on me with some certainty that they were tending to an attempted suicide. There’s an apartment complex just a little bit to the South that houses all sorts of university students, and I imagined one of them, alone in his room. His girlfriend recently broke up with him, and feeling homesick and overwhelmed, both by the big city and being in a university program he couldn’t keep up with, he gave himself over to despair, and attempted to kill himself. He was prone to depression and had difficulty making and maintaining friendships, and he simply couldn’t bear the thought of telling his parents he flunked out of school.

Rachelle, when confronted with the exact same scenario, imagined a young man trying to impress his Valentine’s date by preparing an elaborate dinner, which he then burned. This set off fire alarms throughout the apartment building, bringing forth the fire department. She imagined the couple telling that story at their 60th wedding anniversary, their entire family gathered around.

Our real estate agent’s name is Rod, and I get the sense that he might be a very lonely man. He seems positively happy to spend his Saturday afternoons with us, as if it’s a relief for him to step outside of his life for a few hours. He’s quick to smile, and before either Rachelle or I can finish a sentence, he begins to laugh. And if he’s not laughing, he’s apologizing for something inconsequential.

In short order we found out that he was freshly divorced, and that his ex-wife-- who won custody of their seven year-old boy-- now lives in the home they bought together when they started their family. Rod is living in a condo down by the lake. He laughs when he tells us this, and then takes a sip from the coffee he bought at The Second Cup. He pushes open the door to the master bedroom, “new windows, “ he says, rapping his knuckle against them.

It must be heartbreaking for him to shepherd couples like us around day after day, couples full of optimism and hope about the future they’re building together. There must have been something in each one of the six homes we saw yesterday that reminded him of the life that he had hoped to enjoy with his wife and son.

In the basement, beneath the stairs and beside the workbench, the husband’s work desk--a framed photograph of his son in a Maple Leafs jersey sitting beside the computer. In the little used guest room, a folded blanket that smells of mothballs. Inside the fridge, a half bottle of white wine, a box of left over piazza, and a few containers of vitamins. The doorbell mounted on a piece of wood sculpted to resemble a guitar. A sweatshirt draped over the back of a chair, the words “Thinking of You” written across the front.

By far, the best part of the experience is the Lincoln Town Car they send to pick me up. I get so excited by this that I stand out in front of my apartment waiting for it. By doing so, I hope to attract the attention of neighbours and strangers alike, so that I can then happily tell them that I’m going to appear on TV to speak about an important matter of pop culture. I want them to know that I’m more than just that man they see through the window, the one in the housecoat with all the chocolate ice cream stains on it.

The Town Car pulled up in front of our apartment nearly 20 minutes early. My first impulse was to rush out the door and sit in the car, and like a kid at prom to hangout the skylight shouting at everybody who passed by, “I’m going to be on TV!!” But it struck me that this might not be so cool, and that the driver might be looking forward to 20 minutes of peace, when he could just sit there and collect his thoughts after a hectic day of trying to navigate through vicious city traffic.

The driver was named Horst, and he was from Poland. He was really big on opening the door for me, which made me kind of uncomfortable. I mean, I only want to be a big time movie star for the benefit of my neighbours. For the driver, I want to be a “man of the people,” and just as soon as he mentioned that we lived in a beautiful neighbourhood, I immediately told him that we were renters who couldn’t afford the area.

This led to a conversation about the economy, and we traded stories of misfortune, but Horst was no downer. He spoke of his mother, who immigrated to Canada from Europe just after the war. She took the train from Halifax to the prairies, and coming from a densely populated part of the world, was startled and alarmed to see all the wide-open, undeveloped space in Canada. She would stare out the window of her train car with days passing without her seeing a single human being. All she saw were cows, and she wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into, but she took solace in the fact that cows were all well fed, unlike the emaciated ones back home.

A certain somebody who shall remain nameless, recently told me that my Blog posts, “although sporadically diverting” were “WAY TOO LONG!!!”  She—I mean, he or she—went on to add “ not everybody cares about every little thought that pops into your head. Most of us have REAL lives and REAL jobs, and simply don’t have time to indulge the ego of a self-absorbed, self-obsessed, sheet-stealer by reading his stupid Blog. And for the love of Pete, will you please pick up some toothpaste, like you said you would!?”

Sadly, the world has its haters. It’s disappointing that in this time of hope and reinvigoration, when we all need to come together and support President Obama, some people still feel the need to destroy that which is beautiful.  I guess some people just aren’t very good at floor hockey, and are jealous of those of us who have a natural gift for it, and that their frustration and self-loathing comes out in all sorts of nasty and pernicious ways. Although I cry for these lost souls, I also pray for them, for I am built of light and will not let the haters of this world prevail, for that would be unfair to the children, who are the future. 

For a few weeks there in the winter, as a philanthropic effort, I was making soup and then distributing to homeless people down on Bloor Street. Unfortunately, this ended badly after the ground beef soup debacle. Apparently, the soup I made had been giving out was causing diaherra*1, which was not my intention. At any rate, it all got very ugly one day when three hobos began to scream and throw soup ( at least I hope it was soup) at me. I did not know that ground beef could go bad, thinking that if it was boiled and cured with some alcohol, it would be fine. Live and learn, I guess.

Anyway, ever since I discontinued this program, I have been looking for a new charitable activity, and  decided to implement a Toronto chapter of the Guardian Angels. The Guardian Angels are a volunteer organization of unarmed citizen crime fighters. In 1979, they were developed by Curtis Sliwa in New York City as a response to escalating violence on the subway system. As I have an abundance of spare time and good will, I thought I could help protect the subway passengers of Toronto, and perhaps score a free transit pass from the city in the process.

On Monday afternoon, wearing the identifying red beret of the organization, I got on the subway at the Spadina stop. Armed with the boom box I use for our floor hockey practices, I set up shop on a crowded subway car. So that people knew who I was and what I was doing, I played angel themed music on the ghetto blaster. This is a partial list of the music that I had on my compilation:

Calling All Angels-- Jane Siberry and K.D. Lang. Angel--Sarah McLachlan. My Angel is a Centerfold-- J. Geils Band. Angel of the Morning--Juice Newton. Angel of Harlem—U2. I’m Your Angel—Celine Dion and R. Kelly.

As I stood there patrolling my car, a dude in a hooded New York Jets sweatshirt-- who looked like a criminal-- gave me a menacing look. I had been at my post for less than five minutes, at this point, and already something was afoot. He said, “Turn that fucking shit off right this second or I’m going to shove that box up your ass.”

I have to say, this was a little bit intimidating, but I stood my ground, telling him “It’s alright, I’m a Guardian Angel.” I looked at some of the other passengers for support, but they all pretended to be reading that Metro newspaper thing. I then turned the music up just a little  louder, hoping to calm the guy down a bit. When I did that, the dude said “Now you done it.”

He stood up and crossed his arms across his chest, like he thought he was LL Cool J or something. I sat down and turned off the boom box, at which point the rest of the passengers on the train began to applaud. I think they were supporting my bravery.

After this challenging shift, I got off at the next stop at Bay, going to Pusateri’s to comfort myself with a piece of carrot cake and a tea.

Remember, if you see a man wearing a red beret on the TTC, know that he is your friend and protector—he is your guardian angel.

*1. How do the hobos know that it was my soup that caused the diarehha? Given the lifestyles they lead, and the crazy things they're ingesting ( Scope, Crystal Meth, paint thinner. Tim Horton's donuts), it could have been absolutely ANYTHING, and to blame my soup is a hostile, knee-jerk reaction, the sort of behaviour that likely contributes to being homeless.

Rachelle’s nephews, William and Sammy are aged 7 and 5. We think that they’re brilliant, and routinely send them postcards from various fictional characters. They always respond, dictating a letter to their mother, and then decorating it with stickers. This is a letter that Sammy, the youngest boy, sent to us in response to one we sent to him from the famous pirates Bluebeard and Captain Jack Sparrow.

Dear Bluebeard and Jack,

This is pirate Sam. You look like a girl man, Jack. Jack Sparrow, I think you have a bad guy on your ship and I hope you get him and find him. You should sword fight him. I hope the bad guy loses.

Bluebeard, we are going to wreck the closet with real swords. But they are really pretend swords. Then we are going to eat octopus wings, worms, clams and for dessert, we are going to eat scorpions.

We are going to the mountains to find treasure. The map is here. But we aren't going to go too fast, because you know what happens when you go too fast. You will go slow. And so you need to go fast and slow, fast and slow. Then you will find the treasure in the mountains.

Please come join me and play with me. The mountain is really a monster. You should fight it with your swords. I will see you there, but only a minute. I think you could fight with 2 swords.

Love pirate Samuel.

I can show you how to make money.

*******************************

It was Sammy’s birthday yesterday, and as a gift we bought him a costume, an orange jumpsuit that could either be an astronaut suit or an inmate’s uniform. This is the letter that we sent to him to accompany the present. I cannot wait to get the response.

********************************

Sammy:

This is the true story of the authentic 1969 replica prison jumpsuit that belonged to Haywood ““Smokey” Beansgarden, that we have given to you for your birthday. At first glance, it might look like an astronaut suit, but this is not the case.

Haywood Beansgarden was a master criminal and imposter. He was not born mean, as many have thought, but was born small, growing to be no more than the size of a five year-old boy. Because of this, people were always assuming he was a kid, and were telling him what he could and could not do. Finally, on Haywood’s 30th birthday, he got sick of it, and started to steal from everybody who told him what to do. He found that his small size and innocent appearance made it easy for him to sneak around and gain the trust of those around him.

By the time he was 32, he had amassed a fortune of nearly a million billion dollars, but Haywood didn’t care about money. He just wanted respect, and so he ran for office, hoping to become mayor of Miami, Florida. Unfortunately, Haywood tried to use his money to buy the votes of the people of the city, and he was caught and imprisoned for fraud and bribery. It was in jail in Florida, where he worked on Alligator detail in the swamps of the everglades, that he wore the prison jump suit that you have before you.

One night, sick of having to clean Alligator teeth again, he made a break for it. He spent two days slogging through the swap, battling insects and alligators and man-eating flora. It is rumoured that he survived on a diet of butterflies. When he emerged from the swamps, he found himself in a place called Cape Canaveral, which was home to the United States Space Program.

Knowing that the police were looking for him, he thought quickly, and sewed on some astronaut insignia on his prison jump suit, explaining that he was a tiny astronaut who was going to the moon in order to test the effects of gravity on children. And so he went on board Apollo 11, and landed on the moon, at the Sea of Tranquility. When the spacecraft returned to Earth and splashed down in the great blue ocean, Haywood was nowhere to be found, and to this day, his whereabouts, and the origins of his nickname “Smokey” are unknown.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEin5dgZqY&feature=channel_page

The first walk of the day usually sees Heidi and I heading down Bloor. The territory that we cover, between Spadina and Bathurst, is pretty dog friendly, with all sorts of places habitually having a store of dog treats. This is less a native generosity toward canines than it is a savvy business plan, because once a dog knows where a treat lives, it will never forget it.

For instance, at Queen Video, they’ll present your dog with a treat if you rent a movie, but if you don’t, if you’re just browsing or returning a movie, they’ll refuse to give one out, regardless of how desperate and cute the animal might be acting. They condition the animal, and then deny them the reward unless their owner rents Leatherheads or whatever  other lame movie they might actually have in stock.

I can’t quite express how angry this makes me, and I’ve been having a cold war with one clerk—always in pigtails, not-quite fashionable frames and an ironic heavy metal t-shirt—for about six months now. She positively delights in not giving Heidi a treat unless I follow their rigid protocols. One day I called her a “Dog Treat Nazi,” but she was too young to get the Seinfeld reference, which just added another layer of frustration and humiliation to the experience for me.

No matter, they’re not all like that. Today, as we passed by Weiner’s Hardware, Heidi began to pull violently toward the store, having received a treat there before. I yanked her away, and continued down the street, when one of the employees threw the door open and called us in, assuring me that I didn’t have to buy anything and that he just wanted to give my dog a treat.

I recognized the man, and told him that he’d been a great help to us one day back in the spring, how in fact, the entire staff of the store had.

It was an absolutely brilliant Saturday, and Rachelle and I and the dog were running errands. Rachelle popped into the hardware store to pick something up, and I sat with the dog on a bench in front of the mysterious Annex Billiards Club. It struck me at that moment that I was an extraordinarily lucky person.

I couldn’t have been happier. Through oceans of circumstance and desire, Rachelle and I had somehow managed to find one another, and to be alive, in the sun, in a world of limitless hope and possibility. I was actually consumed with gratitude, when I noticed that Heidi’s leash had gone completely slack. I looked down and saw that it was no longer attached to the dog, and that my little blood hound, nose to the ground, had wandered onto Bloor, one of the busiest streets in the country.

Pandemonium ensued. Instinctively, I thoughtlessly ran out into the street. Cars and trucks screeched to a halt, pedestrians screamed and the dog, panicked, ran back and forth with terror in her eyes. Eventually, I dove at the dog, corralling her at the curb just in front of Weiner’s hardware store. At this point, there was a mass of pedestrians, and all the red-shirted employees of the store were out there, like firemen, helping to look after both the traumatized dog, and the traumatized man. I was touched by their simple, unaffected goodness.

Five or ten minutes later, Rachelle came out of the store, completely unaware of what had happened. I imagined how things could have turned out. How both of us, the dog and I, could have easily been hit by a car, and in a completely unanticipated flash, Rachelle would have returned from the store to find her life tragically altered.

I recently found out that Julien Batts, the brother of my friend Rachel Davenport, just passed away. He was healthy and happy, living life in the streaming arteries, and then he was stricken by Meningitis, and he was gone in a matter of days, before anybody had a chance to say what needed to be felt and known in the bones.

As a dedication to Julien, I’d like to share the beautiful poem “Poise” by David O’Meara

Poise

---for Andrea Skillen (1968-2002)

I see that steady beauty mark
and hear your clear dissenting voice say
oh c’mon, as I scratch this note to you
on a low, wet day in summer.

You wouldn’t want the fuss, I know, nor
trust the souped-up sentiment—it’s just
I’m trying to arrange a parting batch
of verse before we all get too disorganized, stray

far apart, forget the dates of birthdays
you’d have marked inside your calendar. (Strange
that in a certain numbered space
you’ve stopped, and we keep going on.)

If it scares me in the future that
things we did might blur, get lost, as if you’d
slipped off to a back room in a badly-lighted
bar with greying carpets,  I equally know

your footwork on the dance floor
or that purple grin of lipstick will not
escape remembering. Just as we won’t soon
forget that hospital bed, the undying

laughter there, and you and Claire grown
more beautiful with courage.
The word I’m thinking of is poise, why
we’ll miss you greatly in the years

that come, and wonder what you’d say, each
semblance of your remembered wit reminding us how
whole years pass by without telling
our friends how much we love them,

so I’m telling them now.

As my debts to Goran, my bookie, have been steadily increasing after my disasterous string of bad luck betting on the weather, I have realized that I am going to have to go out and get a job. I am willing to do pretty much anything, just so long as no spiders are involved, and you should all feel free to offer me work.

At any rate, Rachelle sent me a a job post from Monster.ca today, in which Major League Baseball was looking for a baseball reporter. This has been a boyhood dream of mine, and so I jumped at the chance and applied straight away, letting them know that I would be happy to relocate to New York or San Francisco, but not Kansas City or Houston. It's just the way that I roll.

I am very optimistic about my chances, and have included my application below:

                                                                          February, 17, 2009

Baseball reporter?

Hell, yeah!

My name is Michael Murray, and although, like Dustin Pedroia, I’m small in stature, I’m also a plucky second baseman with surprising pop and immeasurable grit. And Like Pedroia, I stand 5’9, but play larger.

However, of even greater importance, considering the position I’m applying for, is the fact that I am aces when it comes to the writing. You might think that my enthusiasm implies that I am green, but MLB, let me assure you I am anything but green. If I were a ball player, well, I would be a savvy veteran, or an up and coming manager. I am presently a writer at the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, where I’ve been writing a weekly column about watching television for the last three and a half years. I’ve also been doing all sorts of freelance work for other papers and newspapers, play an excellent floor hockey game and regularly dominate my fantasy baseball league. In fact, my team—A Fury of Pigeons—is considered a fantasy dynasty, nicknamed “The Big Feathery Machine.”

I have a degree in English Literature from the University of Ottawa, about a billion ideas, the ability to hang from a rope for up to three minutes, and a deep love and understanding of baseball. I can throw a curve ball, and my favourite team is the Montreal Expos, still.

I live in Toronto, where I am well known for my charity work and ability to write clear and concise, yet compelling imaginative, prose about baseball.

Michael Murray
www.michaelmurray.ca
http://michaelmurray.ca/blog/

PS: If you would like a card yourself, just send me your specifications and a twenty dollar bill ( No loonies!) and I will forward a signed, limited edition card for you.

The other day, Rachelle and I got an e-mail from a friend that contained this link :  http://www.hame.ca/blog3/norm/

It concerned Norman Elder,  an explorer, exotic animal owner, author, artist and Olympic equestrian. A child of privilege and wealthy bachelor, he was a Toronto eccentric who lived in a beautiful and strange home at 140 Bedford in the Annex.

The link sent us to a photo gallery of the Norman Elder Museum, which he founded in 1967, and which was gutted and fully renovated shortly after his death in 2003. The museum was home to a bestiary of taxidermy, secret tunnels, panther skeletons, human skulls, pythons and unexploded military mortar shells. In short, it housed magic.

The upper floors of the home served as a rooming house for tenants, and it looks like the website was put together by somebody who lived there for a spell, probably during the late 70’s or early 80’s.

I can barely imagine what it would have been like living there as a young man. You must have felt like you were living in a movie, that you were the real life embodiment of The Royal Tenenbaums. Really, everyone there must have felt so alive, so very special.

The photographs are amazing for all sorts of different reasons, and they tell their own story far better than anybody using words could ever hope to.

However, there is one picture that stands out for me, and it’s a picture taken in the bedroom of the guy who created the site, back when he was living in the museum. In this photograph there’s a beautiful, young  woman reading a book on the floor, while all around her the future blooms.

It looks a bit like a dorm room from 1978, but what’s remarkable about the picture is how out of place it is. It’s personal, intimate even, and it pops up in the gallery as if by accident. The textual gloss describes the picture with the introduction “Better days—“  I imagine the guy who lived that moment, now near 50, recalling Cathy reading and exactly what song was playing, and just what a perfect point in time that was. Now, when he looks back on his life, he returns there, with all else, Norman Elder and his eccentric museum, the cavalcade of people coming and going, falling away, seving as mere backdrop to the potential written into that photograph.

A young, married couple live in the basement apartment directly beneath us. The wife is the more social of the two. When she stands out on the sidewalk to have a cigarette, she always smiles and waves, but the husband isn’t interested in any sort of communication.

I often pass him on the street while I’m out walking the dog, but he never says anything. He pretends that he doesn’t see me when I nod my head. He has mutton chop sideburns, and usually keeps his longish hair tied up in a samurai knot. Outside, he always wears wraparound sunglasses and is plugged into his iPod. Striding about with his hands in his pockets,  his face impassive, he gives the impression of impenetrability, like he feels invincible. Late at night, I can hear the rumble from the shooter games he plays rising up through the baseboards like Earth-bound thunder.

One day while down in the laundry room we share, I was immensely touched to find his yellow Best Buy work shirt in the dryer. His nametag was still pinned to the front--Reginald, a name I had not known belonged to him until that very moment.

The other day, while looking for Valentine’s dessert recipes I could make for Rachelle, I came across a window on her computer screen. By some fluke, it opened up in front of me and I accidentally read it, discovering a fan letter to Clive Owen, who is over-rated and on steroids.

I don’t know, although I am part of the Cameron Diaz fan club and have several posters of her in the bathroom and in the mudroom, I’m completely open about my affection for the actress. I mean, as I’ve told Rachelle, it’s always been my hope that the two of them could one day be friends. I, unlike some people, think that honestly is the best policy, and that the only way to move forward is through open communication. But whatever, if some people think that best way to go about things is to secretly write letters to hack actors behind the back of the person they’re supposed to love, well, all I can say is Jesus is watching and I hope that they like their Valentine’s Day gift of nothing.

February, 09, 2009

Clive Owen

42 West 11400 W. Olympic Blvd

Suite 1100

Los Angeles, CA

90064 USA

Dear Mister Clive Owen:

My name is Rachelle Maynard and I live in Toronto. I stand six-feet tall, have a Weiner dog named Heidi and smell like flowers. I just wanted to write you a short note to let you know that I think you’re an absolutely stellar actor! I don’t normally use exclamation points, but you sir, deserve one! Maybe two!!

I want to bake you a pie.

A blueberry pie, I think.

Call me.

Rachelle Maynard

xo

416. XXX. XXXX (Note: THIS IS RACHELLE’S CELL PHONE NUMBER, NOT OUR HOME NUMBER!!!)

On Monday night, I went out to Dundas with some friends to attend an estate auction. It was the first auction that I’d ever been to and I was kind of excited. Located in a community center off the highway, the place was packed and actually quite joyless. It wasn’t what I expected it to be, which was kind of social, charming even—like The Antique Road Show, only infused with energy and anxiety associated with gambling.

No, it was a room full of serious, old people and professional collectors. I always thought that the antique dealers would resemble Queen street hipsters, or maybe southern gentleman with exquisite drawls, but these people looked like the guys at the Ex who took your money before you stepped onto The Scrambler. They were outsiders, people who lived amongst dirt and junk, hoping to find profit in garbage.

The woman who took our Visa card numbers and gave us our auction flag, had an irritated porcine face and the blunt manner of somebody who expected no favours in this world, and thus, would grant none.

The concession stand was booming. Tim Horton’s donuts and plastic-wrapped burgers-- that were heated in a microwave-- were flying off the shelves. People sat on folding chairs, still wearing all their winter gear, eating a hasty dinner as they settled in for the next four hours of stationary shoping.

The auctioneer kept tugging at the collar of his sweater, clearly worried he was going to collapse in the heat of the room. As he was zipping along, he would occasionally punctuate his patter with a request, “open the back door, there,” before returning to “heynowi’vegot50caniget75757575!”

In front of him stood a man whose job it was to hold up the items being bid upon. Tall and bespectacled, he had the appearance of an owl. Obscured by the painting he was holding up, the only thing you could see were his eyes and his big, grey mustache. Every once in awhile, as if in counterpoint to the rhythm of the auctioneer, he would shout out “HEP!” He reminded me of a Muppet.

It’s funny, but what the auction reminded me of was a bingo hall. Rachelle and I went to one in Toronto last year, and we expected it to be, well, fun, but it wasn’t. The people there were not social, but wholly concentrated on the task in front of them. They wanted a BINGO, and anything that might distract from that was to be shot a sour and hateful look.

No matter, I was at the auction for the experience and was determined to bid on something, if only to feel the giddy rush of competition. I had hoped that something small, that I could relate to, like baseball cards or comic books would pop up, and in a sentimental gesture, I could bid on it. However, I didn’t have a clue what anything was worth, and so I just stayed quiet.

This continued until a bayonet came up for bid. A BAYONET. I have never in my life wanted a bayonet, and have, in fact, always thought that people who had decorative knives in their home were creepy. But as soon as this Remington Bayonet from 1917 came up, I wanted it, and began waving my little number 76 around bidding on a killing instrument.  This probably tells you everything you need to know about the psychology that infects people at an auction house.

Thankfully, I did not get it. However, my friends Steve and Candace bid successfully on items, and in each case, when the auctioneer yelled SOLD! and pointed at them, they each exhaled the word “fuck, ” shaking their heads.

Smoking cigarettes or chewing gum, pimped out gangsters cleaned their Audis and Mercedes. Dumping their empty Tim Horton's cups into the trash, they still swaggered, daring you to make eye contact. 

Getting out of a pick-up truck with Georgia plates, two men in their early 20's begin to clean out the car before giving it a through vaccum. They remove a game of trivial pursuit, a fishing rod, several pairs of boots, a thermos,  a copy of Tom Wolfe's A Man In Full, and a football. They put everything on the hood of the cab, and then, sharing a smoke, pull out a map and discuss their next destination.

A Jeep screeches in, and the driver yanks it into a parking spot like he’s part of the opening montage to a cop show. He wears a baseball hat on backwards and has a pierced lip.  He sends his eight- year old boy--who probably thinks his dad is the coolest person on the planet-- off to get some loonies from the machine. The boy takes off at a dead run, and the father turns away to make a phone call.

A man and a woman step happily out of heir Porsche sportscar. They have a tiny water fight with the spray guns over the hood, but an employee, who had been standing unhappily off by a dirty snowbank, steps in and puts an end to it.

On Wednesday night, The Jesus Cobras lost by a score of 8 to 7, to The Enforcers, a team full of guys who buy celebrity sex tapes and listen to Nickleback. This was the second game of our floor hockey season, and it was a bitter disappointment to me that our team lost. First of all, it was clear that several of The Enforcers were not “beginners,” as the Toronto Central Sport and Social Club Co-Ed league rules stipulates. Our team is made up of Asian designers, screechy gay men, UFO enthusiasts and a food critic, whereas the dude in the New Jersey Devils jersey on the Enforcers came with his own floor hockey stick, which he screwed together, like a pool cue.

Second of all, I did not have my best game. Normally, The Jesus Cobras have come to expect a high level of leadership and play from me, but I was off my game on Wednesday. Yes, I ACCIDENTALY scored 3 ½ goals ( the last one went in off Rachelle’s ankle) on our own net in the last five minutes, but this was simply a matter of our defensemen and goaltender not being alert and in position to accept a good, crisp pass.

I know that there’s been some mumbling that maybe I meant to score those goals on our own net, and yes, I have incurred some rather large gambling debts after a making a few wagers on the Super Bowl. However, in no way did my gambling debt influence the effort I gave on the floor on Wednesday night. I blocked THREE shots, and have the bruises to prove it. (By the way, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who’ve allowed me a little bit of extra time in paying off my gambling debt to you, in order to address the more pressing issue of paying off my bookie, Goran. You’re classy people, and if I’m ever in the position to return the favour for you, well, I certainly will, if the situation permits.).

Look, I know that Keo took a few grainy cell phone photos of me in the parking lot of Scarborough High, after the game, taking money from some teens. This was not because I had standing bets with them about the outcome of our match with The Enforcers, and then “threw” the game. That would be absurd, and the suggestion is insulting. I was simply selling them some weed. At any rate, I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to put this talk to rest. I want to assure you that I am, and will always be, your leader and rock on defense. Even though we lost on Wednesday night, we should be proud of ourselves.

We were fucking Spartans.

Rachelle and I moved into our apartment in the Annex nearly two years ago. At the time, an older couple that were downsizing, were moving out of their beautiful house directly to the South.

When I introduced myself to the husband, he snarled at me, “what do you want me to do about, write a book?” He paused a moment and then broke into a huge grin, before pumping my fist like a long lost relative.

His wife was beautiful and elegant. She was probably about 75 years old, and whenever I saw her I thought of a character from a work of fiction, a woman ahead of her times who was never afraid to be who she wanted to be. When she moved, you could smell her perfume and hear her jewelry. 

Their move was presided over by their adult daughter. Thin and joyless, she stood on the sidewalk each day trying to force her parents into doing things her way. It was stressful just seeing her, let alone having to listen to her. One day, under her guidance, the mother drove her Jaguar sports car into the garage, breaking the door clean in half. I believe that the accident well may have been an intentional act of rebellion against the daughter.

Later, I found out that the husband was an Auschwitz survivor, but that he never spoke of the experience.

After passing through a gauntlet of recorded questions, I reached a man, who had the accent of somebody who was working out of a call center in India. This always gives me a little bit of a thrill, making me feel multicultural and a part of the global village.

I always get chatty when I reach a call center. Different voices cue different curiosities in me. Inevitably, I ask them where they’re living, and often, we have a conversation, of sorts, even if it’s just about the weather, and I always get a visual picture in my head of the person I’m speaking with. Badri, who lives in Mumbai, rides his bicycle to work, is scared of getting married and loves American football. That sort of thing.

However, the guy I had from Bell was in no mood to chat. He was barely able to suppress his irritation with my casual ignorance. As he asked me basic questions I had no answers for, his voice would rise in pitch, his frustration and excitability traveling the 8,000 miles from India to Toronto. This, in turn, made me frustrated and excitable, and I channeled my hostility toward Bell, toward him, eventually demanding to speak to “his manager” (how ridiculous is that?) when he told me-- with obvious satisfaction-- that I would have to pay to have some technician come to my house to figure out the problem.

“I HAVE TO PAY YOU BECAUSE YOUR SERVICE DOESN’T WORK?!!”

And so, I cut off my nose to spite my face and refused to pay, thus going without TV reception for four days until a thaw came and melted the ice off my satellite dish. It could have been four months.

Usually, my interactions with telephone solicitors and call centers, goes better than that. There was a glorious summer back in the 90’s when I whimsically told the solicitor calling that although I did not want to buy a photo session from the Bay, I would be happy to read her a poem. For the rest of that summer, every week or two, I would get a call from her, or one of her friends, asking me if I would read another poem. I felt like a rock star.

The poem that I read to her, that I happened to be reading at the time I received her call, was Sunday Night by Raymond Carver.

Make use of the things around you.
This light rain
outside the window, for one.
This cigarette between my fingers,
these feet on the couch.
The faint sound of rock-and-roll,
the red Ferrari in my head.
The woman bumping
drunkenly around in the kitchen . . .
put it all in,
make use.

One note, the Christian organization that shepherds this project, insists that we use “handles” to ensure privacy, and that all profanity is blocked out.

Mothertrucker:

I was very sorry to hear of your run in with the white supremacists, but at the same time, I’m proud of you. “White Thunder Fist” had no right taking an extra chocolate milk at lunch, and you were right to stand up for yourself and your other inmates. Perhaps in the future, you could change that chest tattoo of a burning cross they gave you into a character from Narnia? Just thinking out loud, here.

As you requested, I looked around to see if there was a Jennifer Aniston sex video on the Net. It turns out that surfing porn can be damaging to your computer, as you might get something called a “virus.” Unfortunately, this happened while I was watching various videos to see if the lead actress was actually Jennifer Aniston. MotherTrucker, although many of the short films featured very pretty actresses and MIFL’s, there was nobody who looked just like Rachel, our favourite “Friend.” So, I have to say that I don’t think that an authentic Jennifer Aniston sex tape exists. Sorry!

However, on my journeys, I did find out that Jessica Simpson has gotten fat. Her quarterback boyfriend cheated on her-- in her own bed-- and Jessica has been eating ever since! MotherTucker, the world can be a cruel place, as you know after your experiences with both the law and with the white supremacists. I just wish that all the haters out there would give poor Jessica a break. I mean, she’s given us all so much pleasure over the years, and with the spirit of optimism and hope that is afoot now that we have a new president, I had hoped people wouldn’t be so petty.

On another note, the Super Bowl was yesterday, and the Steelers beat the Cardinals. I’m afraid that I bet against the Steelers, and now owe Goran, my bookie, $2,000. A serious man, that Goran. I have asked my girlfriend—Persephone-- if she would drive me to Buffalo so that I might donate some plasma and get some cash later this afternoon. I tell you, I am not in her good books right now, as I ruined our computer ( I am writing from the public library right now) with that “virus” I got from looking for the Aniston video.

At any rate, I have to go now MotherTucker, as there is a particularly pushy 12 year-old girl who just reported to the librarian, that “mister four eyes has been hogging computer #4!” Whatever. Her Ipod is too loud, but you don’t hear me complaining, do you?

I will send you a postcard from Buffalo, and if you, or any of your prison chums know of any quick ways to score two thousand dollars, I would be crazy grateful, as I’m in a little bit of a jam right now.

Jesus saves!

Your friend,

Clooney

Today, my column in The Ottawa Citizen was on the Super Bowl, (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Entertainment/Shock+Bowl/1238844/story.html) or more truthfully, why I’ve never been much of a fan of Football. The gist of it is that it was never any fun to play as a kid, as you spent more time policing the game than actually playing it. I mean, nothing could be more of a buzz kill after a dazzling broken field run, than having to stop the play, try to count off the distance you had just accumulated, and then bicker with the opposite team about whose stride was the closest approximation of a yard.

Another thing that tended to ruin my experiences with football was the ball itself. Not everybody had one, and the one kid that did (who always used his ownership of it as a point of entry into a social circle that normally would have shunned him) treated it as if it was as delicate and precious as a human brain. If I’m remembering correctly, the blue chip model was a Wilson, and it was expensive. As such, it came with it’s own set of rules. You could not spike the ball. You could not let the ball touch the pavement. You were not to get the ball muddy or wet. In short, you were not to play with the ball. I mean, it just made you want to go read a book or something.

With that out of the way, I will now bravely go forth and handicap tomorrow’s Super Bowl game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals.

Team Name.

Although I don’t exactly know what a “Steeler’ is, it sounds formidable. A Cardinal, either the bird or religious person, does not.

Edge:  Steelers

Talent Pool.

Pittsburgh has a population of two and half million, while Arizona, a state, has a population of six and a half million people from which to draw from to stock their team.

          Edge: Cardinals

Quarterbacks.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is nicknamed “Big Ben” and has sore ribs.  He is a close personal friend of Donald Trump, has his own line of Beef Jerky named Big Ben’s XL Beef Jerky, has been in a motorcycle accident and the first thing he said at the end of his last game was "The Lord is good!"

Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner is old and probably has knee disease. He and his wife are active born-again Christians, and in 2006, Warner was featured in a political advertisement opposing a bill supporting embryonic stem cell research.

Edge: God could go either way on this one.

Outfits.

The Steelers wear brown and yellow uniforms, the colours of dirt and urine. The design on their helmets looks like it might be the logo for some atomic commission, like it was chosen from a high school competition in 1954.

The Cardinals dress in nifty red, like the Flash. They have a Cardinal on their helmet and he looks like he’s got something evil in mind, like he wants to fuck you up, bitch. His crest also looks like a Mohawk, earning him extra menace points.

     Edge: Cardinals

Cheerleaders.

Due to the economic downturn, the Pittsburgh “Steelerettes”  have suffered some cutbacks, and instead of pom-poms, they now use dumbbells with strips of garbage bags glued to them.  As such, many of the girls, who need to be very powerful in order to perform the routines, are plus-sized models and body builders.

The Arizona Cardinals cheerleaders team captain Marcie, an electrical engineer at Intel, said the whole team is thrilled to be part of the Super Bowl. She also said that they were going to “bring it” and that their routines to No Doubt’s “Hey Baby” and The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There” were going to make things “sticky.”

     Edge: Cardinals

I predict that the Cardinals will win by 14 ½ points. I called Goran, my bookie, and placed the bet. He said to me, “Little Bro, one day, you will make me broke, my man,” before laughing and hanging up.

This is kind of hard to explain, but for a variety of reasons, I was invited down to the Much Music building on Queen Street to experience the Dream Machine. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine) This device was invented by some surrealist beatnik, and through stroboscopic visual stimuli-- whatever the hell that means—was supposed to inspire mystical visions in the viewer. I was told that I might touch the face of God.

The thing, which stood about five feet tall, looked like it was made in shop class. It reminded me of something you’d see in the basement of a 1970’s era swinger, or a groovy lamp you might have seen in the alien ambassadors residence on a vintage episode of Star Trek. It rotated loudly and cast off light in an arbitrary manner. I closed my eyes, as I was instructed, and waited for the voices of angels to come to me, but after ten minutes, all I had was a faint headache.

Kind of relieved that I didn’t lose myself to some altered state, I left the building, walking out into a throng of about 150 excited 14 year-old girls. At the same time I was concentrating on the Dream Machine, Taylor Swift-- 19 year-old country singing sensation--was appearing in the Much Music environment. Oh, her fans were all so happy. They wore home made shirts and brandished home made signs. They shrieked and smiled and stood in puddles. They took photographs and sent text messages to everybody that they knew.

I tell you, this is the sort of thing that I love about living in Toronto. At any given moment in this city, you might stumble into some assembly of people sharing a passion.

The other week, having stepped out of Tim Horton’s, I suddenly found myself in the middle of 10, 000 people marching against the Israeli escalation in Gaza. I mean, I just wanted a donut, but suddenly, I was swept up in something intense and sincere and real, just as I was when I walked into the Taylor Swift throng.

I crossed the street into Starbucks, which was bursting at the seams with the overflow. Unaware of a universe beyond their dreams, the girls hogged all the tables. Seven of them would be nested around three tables, sharing one drink. They knocked over cups of coffee with their backpacks, shrieked at one another from across the shop and made plans to upload all of their photographs, likely 100’s, onto Facebook. Constantly ferrying themselves between the coffee shop and the street, the door was always swinging open, a cold rush of winter air and girlish screams blowing in. Oh, their eyes spun like pin wheels, and it was like they had never been more alive, for this was a day that would burn brightly in their hearts for decades.

At dusk, a white SUV with a miniature soccer ball dangling from the rearview mirror, pulled up in front of Starbucks. It was full of kids, and the mother at the wheel of the vehicle, had the biggest smile on her face. Three girls emerged from the doorway of the coffee shop. Stepping over the slushy snowbank, they got into the warm car. The mother drove off, shepherding them all safely home, where rich with the stories of the day, they would tell their parents of their adventures—the perfect end to a perfect day.

I wanted to be a part of their tribe, but I lived in the wrong neighbourhood. Where I lived, we chose cross-country skiing, because it was more affordable, over the sexy downhill.. And so I watched as the girls I loved returned to school on Monday. Wind-burned, they wore Ralph Lauren sweaters and spoke of the après-ski parties they attended up at Tremblant. And they, like the mysterious lives they lived, were concealed behind Vuarnet sunglasses.

On occasion, a sympathetic person would let me wear their glasses over lunch, and I swear to God that they transformed the world. Everything became clearer and more cinematic. Colours were sharper, and I always felt invulnerable behind them. I would lean against the school and strike a pose of natural confidence, but I could never pull it off. I was a thin boy who was always too embarrassed to take off his shirt in public. The glasses were too large for my narrow face, and they made my eyes looked bulbous, like an insect. At a glance, you could see the want radiating out of me.

The other night, while at a friend’s for dinner, the host gave me a pair of vintage Vuarnet sunglasses that he’d happened upon. He’d heard me speak of them, and thought that I’d get a kick out of them, now that I’ve traveled 20 years from high school.

When I put the glasses on at the dinner table, I returned to the past. It’s funny how memory works. The other week, I opened a package of baseball cards from 1990, and was immediately transported in time, recalling small details from my life that somehow connected to the name of a baseball player I had long since forgotten. And so it was with the Vuarnets. With unanticipated clarity I saw people and moments that I didn’t even remember had existed.

There was Richard, always wearing a yellow sweater to school, who died years later while working in the oil fields of Alberta. Friendless Chung Duy, who was always the last kid standing in dodge ball--silent and quick as lightning. Marcia and Fateema, who always sent one another chocolate hearts on Valentine’s Day, so that they didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of being passed over, yet again. And all the crushes, confessed and hidden in the pages of a yearbook, written small, so as to carry less risk.

Lord, we were all so beautiful.

Truly, so very beautiful.

They don't get the spotlight and they don't have the big contracts. But our Athlete of the Week feature highlights the unsung sports heroes from the high schools to the local clubs, saluting those who play for the best reason of all  - the fun of it.   If you know an athlete we should be featuring here, email us at athlete@citynews.ca.

                                                                            January, 28th, 2009

Citynews:

I would like to nominate Michael Murray for the Athlete of the Week, as I think that his dedication and spirit serve as an inspiration to floor hockey players throughout the GTA.

Although he’s small in stature and quite a bit older than the rest of the players in the league, Michael pretty much holds his own. Without him, the Jesus Cobras ( the team he plays for) would not be the Jesus Cobras. His enthusiastic cheering from the sidelines is always a welcome encouragement, and when he does take a shift, he shows fearless character, completely unafraid to get hit by the ball. Michael has some physical issues ( a hernia, just one lung, near sighted and frequent nose bleeds in the winter) that make competing at a high level a challenge, but his good nature and infectious laugh always makes the game a little more special, reminding many of the players that regardless of your circumstances, you can still do your best and have a good time.

You should really come out and watch him play one night, and then you will really know what I mean. He is truly a pillar of light in the co-ed beginner floor hockey league, and if anybody deserves to be honoured with Athlete of the Week, it is Michael Murray.

God bless,

Michael Murray

I was assigned a prison pen pal who goes by the handle “MotherTrucker.” When I signed up for the program-- in which you correspond with an inmate-- I had kind of hoped to get somebody fascinating and terrifying, like maybe a serial killer or a dying Nazi. I thought that would be cool, but I guess that was asking for too much, because “MotherTucker” claims to have been put in jail for a vehicular violation. Whatever. As my therapist said, “it’s not all about Michael, all the time.”

I am excerpting my last letter from “MotherTrucker” here. One note, the Christian organization that shepherds this project, insists that we use “handles” to ensure privacy, and that all profanity is blocked out.

Dear Clooney:

Did you see the SAG Awards the other night? What a ******* waste of time! It’s utter bull****!! Can you believe that Meryl Streep won best actress for her portrayal of Sister Aloysius Beauvier  in Doubt!? Bull****!! I swear, they’d give her an award for taking a dump, just so long as she did while speaking with an accent. Speaking of which, do you like porn? We don’t get porn in prison.

Me and my lady used to like porn. We used to get ****** up after I got back from my weekly Montreal to Toronto run and watch hour after hour of it while eating KFC. Do you think Jennifer Aniston will ever leak a sex video? If there’s one circulating out there, would you mind telling me about it? I can’t tell you how ******* cool that would be!

Got in a fight with a white supremacist the other day. He took an extra carton of chocolate milk at lunch the other day and I called him out for it. Probably shouldn’t have done that, as sensitivities in that community have been running pretty high since the election in the US. Ended up getting my head shaved and a tattoo of a burning cross on my chest. Clooney, don’t let anybody tell you getting a tattoo doesn’t hurt, it hurts like a **********!! Especially when it’s being done with a fork and some hot sauce. ***********!!

Anyway, I gotta go, as “White Thunder Fist” wants his sponge bath.

MotherTrucker

PS: Leafs suck!!

An Indian woman of about 50 came in after me. She had long salt and pepper hair that fell to her waist and she wanted to know if the place was vegetarian. Considering herself a people person and very much wanting the new business to succeed, the girl behind the cash launched into a jubilant description of all the vegetarian dishes. The Indian woman listened for a bit and then laughed, admitting that she actually wanted something with meat in it. Somehow this was a winning comment, and everybody in the place smiled, discovering that this woman was not what they had presumed she was.

Basking in the goodwill and flush with confidence, she began to talk about the previous menu, which had been a failure and necessitated a re-brand of the operation. It was her opinion that it contained too much starch and too many potatoes. The owner was there, and he indulged her. Smiling weakly, he agreed with everything she said. She went on about the potatoes at some length, stressing that she had told them they had too much potato in the menu but they didn't listen, and well, you see what happened? She then went on about how it was supposed to be her day off, but she had to come in because somebody else wasn't doing their job, and then the potatoes again.

She was sitting on a stool during this, and at one point decided to lean down and pet Heidi, my Daschund. She got a happy and receptive greeting, just like she did when she entered the store, but then she leaned down suddenly, as if reaching down to unscrew the dog's head and Heidi recoiled and snarled at her, hackles rising.

This made me think of the woman's life. How whenever a little bit of goodwill or grace entered into it, be it a receptive little dog or a store full of smiling people, this woman, just out of synch, had to press things just a little too far, always alienating and eventually irritating those around her. Imagine the complaints she must take home daily, how heavy even the air most feel to her.