Letter to Susan Sarandon
Dear Susan Sarandon:
I want to praise you for the genius that you are.
Opening up Spin, a club dedicated to ping pong on King street in Toronto is brilliant. For a long time I’ve felt excluded from the hierarchies of club life, a culture which has always put an excessive premium on looks, ability to dance, money, and not being gross when eating tapas with chopsticks, but now, now you’ve created an environment where I can shine and I thank you.
Susan, I am a ping pong God and by God I mean I am almost good enough to beat an Asian. My backhand is quick and surprising, my forehand utterly devastating and my serve, I have been told, distractingly feminine.
I have four ping-pong themed tattoos.
I also want to let you know that I have admired a few of your movies. Dead Man Walking made me cry, Bull Durham delighted me, I got high several times at The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and back in the day I was always eager to see you take your top off, something you did with such easy grace in Pretty Baby, Atlantic City and The Hunger. Those were star moments, Susan, you were a glittering, goddamn, topless star shooting across the sky! You were one of the best topless actresses of your generation, and this, like your ping pong club, is something you should be very proud of.
At any rate, I am writing to challenge you to game of ping pong. Now, I know you’re probably not as good as me ( I do wrist strengthening exercises daily) and so we could play doubles. Perhaps you and your husband Tim Robbins could play my wife and I? My wife, you should know, is tall, like your husband.
Oh.
My wife Rachelle just told me you two divorced. Sorry.
Well, perhaps you and Geena Davis, then? It would be like Thelma and Louise only instead of driving a car off a cliff at the end, you two get crushed in ping pong match?
Geena Davis, by the way, really gets under my skin. Do you hate her, too? She claims to be a genius and tried to go to the Olympics for archery. Archery! Are you fucking kidding me?! Susan, I have no respect for that. She goes out and chooses the most obscure “sport” in the world, probably buys the best archery technology on the planet, tries to seduce the archery coach and then attempts to slither onto the Olympic team. “Yay, aren’t I great! I’m just another movie star-athlete-Mensa member! USA, USA, USA!!”
I bet she’s the sort of person who gets a Sherpa guide to carry her and her espresso machine up Everest on some high end expedition trip. She probably married her plastic surgeon, too.
Got to hell, Geena Davis.
Call her, Susan, call her now.
This has to happen.
Rachelle Maynard and I against you and Geena Davis.
All proceeds from my martini drinking will go to the charity of your choice.
We will crush you without mercy.
Michael Murray
PS: How do you feel about your daughter, Eva Amurri, doing topless scenes? Does it make you proud, like she’s just a beautiful chip off the old block, or do just think she’s a slut?
PPS: You have kind of crazy, googly eyes. Do they work all right?
