My hatred of him was immediate, visceral and enduring, and over the years I have taken time out of my busy, important life to write him a note each year on his birthday. This is a small sample of some of the letters I have written him:
July 3, 1986
Dear Maverick:
Your call sign in Top Gun should have been Muffin.
You’re a loser and flash in the pan and it’s obvious you don’t have a clue how to play beach volleyball.
Your smile makes me want to punch you with a rake.
Happy 24th, moron.
Michael Murray
PS: Please send an autographed photograph.
July 3, 1992
Dear Tom:
I want to congratulate you on your Irish accent in Far and Away.
You’ve really been acting the shit out of things lately, especially when you made us all understand what it must feel like to be Tom Cruise in a wheelchair in Born on the Fourth of July. That was some heavy shit, really brave, and you deserve a milk carton full of Oscars for that role.
Happy 30th, loser, it’s all downhill from here.
Michael Murray
PS: I have named my band Cole Trickle after your character in Days of Thunder. Inspired by your acting, we formed as a group even though none of us can play any instruments.
July 3, 2000
Tom:
What the fuck was up with your package in Magnolia???
I mean, please! Are you really that vain that you have to make it look like you have a giant cock? Really?? And did you even know what Eyes Wide Shut was about? Truly, you are the worst actor ever.
Happy birthday.
Michael Murray
July 3, 2005
Dear crazy Scientology person:
Joey will never love you.
You will never have her.
You may jump on sofas all you want, but you will never win her heart. You are a robot, a robot made of money and teeth, and although she has likely signed a contract, that contract will end and she will leave you. Mark my words, Cruise, mark my words.
You’re 43 now, and although you don’t know it, things are beginning to slip away.
Happy birthday.
Michael Murray
PS: I am taking the bus to America to buy a crossbow on the weekend.
July 3, 2014
Tom:
I’m on medication now and am doing well. I understand boundaries. I am sorry about the genetic material I sent to you on your 50th birthday. It was inappropriate of me, to say the least, and trying to get you to introduce me to your ex-wife, the Katie Holmes version of your ex-wife, was insensitive. I just want to thank you for our friendship over the years, wish you the best as you move through your 50’s and let you know that I am really just fantastically excited for Top Gun II.
Happy birthday, old friend!
Michael Murray
]]>What follows is a partial transcript of what some of their surveillance revealed:
2:43 am: Ford drives his Escalade, distinctive Ford You license plate and brass balls hanging from the vehicle’s undercarriage visible, into 7-11 parking lot. Tom Cochrane “Life is a Highway” plays loudly through the speakers.
2:45 am: Ford urinates against a nearby dumpster and enters store.
2:46 am: Ford buys large bag of Cheesies, opens them and begins eating them.
2:47 am: Ford says that each Cheesie is like “ a little orange blow-job,” and then offers some to the clerk.
2:48 am: Ford associate Sandro Lisi drives into the parking lot.
2:49 am: Ford asks clerk about his accent, wants to know if it was real or just something he made up.
2:50 am: Cheesie dust all over the mayor, he tells clerk that if city hall wasn’t so stuck-up, he’d speak with an accent all the time. Loves the Jamaican accent he says in Jamaican accent.
2:51 am: Ford gives clerk his business card, tells him to call if he has a pothole problem.
2:52 am: Sandro Lisi honks car horn.
2:53 am: Police receive tip from psychic that Ford might be in New Jersey. Helicopter dispatched. Possible we are currently following a double. Ford not to be underestimated.
2:54 am: Ford hurries out of 7-11, avoiding all eye contact with Lisi, unrolls Escalade driver’s side window and then goes and hides behind the dumpster.
2:55 am: Lisi, one arm in a sling, enters into 7-11 and buys a pepperette, bottle of Gatorade and a Scratch N’ Win ticket.
2:57 am: Lisi scratches ticket and wins. Very happy. Punches good arm up into air. Cashier gives him $10. Lisi buys five more tickets, scratching each one at counter. No wins. Lisi, angry, but clearly more disappointed in himself.
2:58 am Lisi leaves 7-11 and drops small parcel into front seat of Ford’s car.
3:00 am: Lisa makes cell phone call to Rob Ford. Undercover detective working as 7-11 clerk hears ringing behind dumpster. Lisi drives away
3:01 am: Rob Ford pops up from behind the dumpster and runs to car, looks in window at parcel Lisi had placed on the front seat. Does window of vehicle back up and returns to 7-11, buying rolling paper, matches and a copy of Maxim Magazine.
3:05 am: Ford exits 7-11.
3:06 am: Ford returns to 7-11, buys chocolate milk, drinks it, sticks several “Ford for Mayor” fridge magnets on a variety of products and surfaces.
3:10 am: Ford exits 7-11. Spots raccoon near dumpster, throws empty chocolate milk carton at it, shouting “Go deep, raccoon, go deep!”
3:11am: Two more raccoons emerge from shrubbery near dumpster, they all stare back at Ford with determined, glowing eyes.
3:12 am: Ford hurries into car and quickly departs parking lot.
*1 “I don’t want to be conceited and I don’t want to toot my own horn. But I believe when it comes to my fiscal policy, I am by far the best mayor the city has ever had.” Rob Ford, Nov 3, 2013
]]>
She was the daughter of a British diplomat and she lived in a huge, failing stone mansion. I cannot tell you how much that impressed me. She had an accent so delicate that each word she spoke seemed to unfurl from her mouth like a flower, like a fragrance. Oh, how I was crazy for her, how I ached for her lips, but she preferred the bad boys. She liked them wicked and unpredictable. Boys who were born under punches, boys that didn’t ask questions and liked to fuck. I played tennis and coached T-ball.
I remember having my arm around her once when we were returning from a cottage. She was asleep, her head resting on my shoulder. It was autumn and the lake we were driving by was so beautiful, the leaves an astonishment reflecting off the water, like a choral reef turned into light.
And Louis Armstrong, the forever of Louis Armstrong, was playing in the car, as if narrating, and I had my arm around Rebecca Harris who was so wonderfully asleep and safe and nestled into me, and it was a perfect moment that I wanted to sustain for eternity. Yes. This was it. Yes. And then the car hit a bump and I bounced up and hit my head on the roof and Rebecca woke up, startled. For the rest of the drive home I kept my arm around her, but it was different now, all wrong. It was like my arm was pinned behind her back and neither one of us was comfortable, and the Louis Armstrong that was playing became the crappy, sanitized Louis Armstrong and the lake fell behind us as we entered into the junk land that ringed the city, passing hamburger joints and lonely, broken homes, places and things that weren’t quite where they wanted to be.
]]>