I was suprised to be contacted by Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently.
As many of you will remember, I was an old drinking buddy of his brother Rob, who was mayor of Toronto for a controversial stretch of time back a few years ago.
Rob and I attended Carleton University in Ottawa at the same time in the 80’s and it was there that we became drinking buddies at Rooster’s, the campus pub. We were never best friends or anything, but much later, when I moved to Toronto and we re-connected on Facebook, Rob would habitually open chats with me when he was drinking and looking to revive the “good, old days.” According to his brother, Rob truly valued what I had to say and as Doug put it, “If you were good enough for Robbie, you’re damn sure good enough for me!” and with that he offered me a job as a staff writer at his office. My first job has been to write some follow-up ads promoting that fact that Doug’s new government made good on their promise to make it legal for beer companies to lower the price of a beer—if they want to—from $1.25 to $1.00.
This is the script for my first ad:
( Doug Ford speaking to camera from his basement den )
“ I haven’t had a drink in over 25 years– not because I have any sort of problem. I don’t and I never did, and I will sue the bejesus out of anybody who says different.
Just try me. ( Two second pause)
No, I stopped because I’m disciplined. Good governance and fiscal restraint require discipline, a quality I learned as a shotputter and as the no-nonsense businessman who steered Deco Labels and Tags to be voted– by the readers of Etobicoke Style magazine– as one of the top three Label and Tag operations in all of the region.
For four years running.
We’re proud of that.
But none of this means I don’t remember what it was like to have a nice cold one. I do. And I remember how powerful it can make you feel. You and your crew, cruising the streets of the city looking to blow off some steam. Not looking for trouble, but sure as hell not afraid of it, either, and The Stones are blasting, maybe Street Fighting Man, and you’re all piled into your dad’s Beemer, roof down, and it feels so good. Oh, and all the ladies in their summer clothes? (Doug–make direct eye contact with then camera and then smile, teeth showing) Ah, the stories I could tell… (Doug– chuckle to self) Well, those were different times, I guess, but we felt like rowdy, young gods, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario thinks everybody should be able to afford to have that feeling, too, which is why we’ve now made it possible for Ontarians– both men and women– to enjoy a 25 cent reduction in the price of a beer!
Government by the people, for the people.
I’m Doug Ford, and I’m your premier.”
( This is the first ad the Doug Ford ran before I got involved:
https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2018/08/03/doug-ford-says-buck-a-beer-coming-by-labour-day/ )
]]>Today I have given the Blog over to Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund:
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Heidi like to party.
It true.
No big deal, just how Heidi unwind and have good time! Sometimes booze or drug act as social lubricant so Heidi can have sex with anonymous dogs.
Very exciting! Very, very hot!! Heidi love that, fun times!
Heidi always in control, though. Heidi could stop partying anytime she want. Heidi not on drug and alcohol leash, Heidi have dextroamphetamine on leash! Heidi always in charge! But then one night Heidi partying and Heidi begin to dig hole. Dig, dig, dig!! Heidi could not stop digging! Heidi crazy with digging! Would not notice if cheeseburger fell on Heidi’s head! In some sort of dig trance! And then suddenly Heidi come to and realize she have no idea why digging! Heidi not even know where she was!
Later, video of Heidi digging hit YouTube. Heidi not look right. Collar hanging all loose and stained, tail wagging strange and jerky. Heidi feel shame, Heidi bad dog that night.
Made Heidi stop and think.
Did Heidi have problem?
Heidi consider.
It true memory getting bad.
Always forgetting where bone is.
Sometimes have blackout and no remember how end up covered in mud. So embarrassing. Feel irritable all the time, especially if have to do stupid trick for treat! HEIDI HATEHATEHATEHATE THAT! AND WHEN TWO-LEGGERS MAKE HEIDI WEAR CUTE OUTFIT?!! HEIDI WANT TO DESTROY AND RIP TO SHREDS!! HEIDI WANT RIVERS OF BLOOD TO FLOW!!
Maybe Heidi have anger problem and not party problem. Maybe anger root and party only tree. Heidi take quiz to find out.
Q. How often do you become angry in a normal day?
Not all bark angry bark, but probably 3, 500 time a day.
Q. Do other people comment on your anger?
Heidi told BAD DOG all the time! MAKE HEIDI SO ANGRY COULD BITE BABY FACE OFF!!
Q. Do you believe you are critical of yourself and others?
No, Heidi good dog, very good dog. Two-leggers moron. Birds morons.
Cats morons. Bugs morons. Squirrels morons. So many, many morons!
Q. Do you tend to blame others for your bad luck or unhappiness?
Heidi have to say yes, it very true observation!!
Q. Do you frequently find yourself starting or participating in arguments?
Stupid question! Heidi stand up for what right! Twitter bring out troll-stupids and Heidi have to set them on fire!! You no want to get in flame war with Heidi!
Q. Have you damaged property during an angry outburst?
Yes.
Q. Have you ever physically harmed another person during an angry outburst?
Of course, Heidi great warrior! Heidi Dachshund! Whole point is to kill, it why Heidi go for neck!!
Q. Have you ever been charged with a violent crime?
Heidi no answer this question. Pass.
Q. Do you keep any weapons at home?
Heidi is weapon, motherfucker.
Heidi deadly weapon.
She bring you close with her velvet ears and coco bean eyes, then game over!
These are the texts messages I sent my wife in a recent conversation:
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Me: Just watered my plant.
Me: No.
Me: No, you’re wrong. The plant is doing great.
Me: I’m really going to look after it.
Me: I am going to be a money tree ninja.
Me: One hundred dollar bills are going to be growing on that fucker!
Me: And each bill will blossom into the exact change for the laundry!
Me: Really?
Me: Well, why do they call it a money tree if it doesn’t grow money?
Me: Marketing?
Me: The fuckers.
Me: Fake news is everywhere! It’s getting hard to know how to navigate this world!
Me: Oh, you think a job would help?
Me: You’d be wrong! Just like you are about my plant’s chances for survival!
Me: It’s way better than 15%!
Me: That plant has at least a 50-50 shot. Easily.
Me: I bought a spray bottle for that plant! It’s getting the five star Murray treatment!
Me: That’s what you’re worried about. Ha-ha.
Me: So very clever.
Me: But listen, not everybody needs a job in order to be fulfilled.
Me: Criminals, for instance.
Me: Oh.
Me: Yeah, I guess they do make license plates and stuff.
Me: Okay.
Me: Deer.
Me: Deer don’t have jobs. They don’t even respect the law, man!
Me: Crush the system!
Me: Look, I will eventually get a job.
Me: I will.
Me: I just need to finish the designs for my cryptozoology tarot cards and then I can open up shop and start reading fortunes!!
Me: I was told I could set up a table at Snakes and Lattes.
Me: Well, yes.
Me: I would have to pay a small rental, but that would come out of my fantasy baseball investment portfolio.
Me: Are you serious???
Me: Really???
Me: Fuck!
Me: I can’t believe somebody else already came up with the idea for cryptozoology tarot cards!
Me: Damn it!
Me: I was really looking forward to going on Dragon’s Den, too.
Me: Oh well, back to the drawing board! Fall six times, get up seven, that’s my motto.
Me: “More like fall six million times?”
Me: Good one, Petal.
Me: It’s true, you are a very funny and talented woman who doesn’t drink too much!
Me: No, I don’t know what you’re doing with me either.
Me: Really does seem an uneven match.
Me: Jones?
Me: Yeah, I think he’s around somewhere.
Me: Oh there he is! Standing up on the wobbly chair right by the window and a bunch of dangerous ledges!
Me: He’s fine, having some quality dad time!
Me: Oh you and your elite mothering!
Me: Fine!
Me: He’s down now, playing with a little brown ball on the floor.
Me: Oh.
Me: It’s actually a peeled apple.
Me: Gross.
Me: Listen I’m going to tell you something.
Me: When he hides, I ALWAYS see him.
Me: He’s just not as smart as he thinks he is.
Me: Fine.
Me: Fine. I will perpetuate the peek-a-boo myth if you insist, and throw out the dirt apple, but I am sure as hell not going back to that job at the Box Factory!
Me: Okay, see you at 5:30! xox
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Fantastic turnout here.
Just light’s out.
You’re a great, great crowd, a very smart crowd, and I want to thank you all for coming out in such huge numbers to hear me speak. What’s that? Wow. My people are telling me that there are thousands more waiting outside. In the rain. Terrifying lightning flying around, too, and the sort of giant thunder that scares dogs. These people don’t care. No, they’re happy to risk their lives. They just want to be close to greatness and pay their respects. Real Americans, those people. I love them just as much as they love me. Well, maybe just a little bit less– let’s be honest– but still, I give them huge, huge amounts of love.
Of course, the media will make up lies about this turnout, just like they did at the inauguration.
So dishonest.
No conscience at all.
Lazy perverts.
They’d even stoop to blacken the memory of Mary Tyler Moore just to push their liberal agenda. Makes me want to throw-up.
But you know who doesn’t want to make me throw-up?
Mary Tyler Moore.
So beautiful.
So classy.
Such manners.
A real tribute to her race.
A true 9 out of 10.
It’s hard to believe she was taken before Crooked Hillary. Crooked Hillary who is so sick and weak and has those big bug eyes that always make it look like her head is going to explode. And those coughing fits? Awful. Why couldn’t death just take her? Yesterday’s news. She’ll probably be the next to go anyway. .. And then Bill. Both in such poor, poor health. Sad. Thankfully, I don’t have that problem. I am in excellent health. Best health of any President in the history of America.
It’s a fact.
Never had a drink in my life.
And no drugs either.
And let me tell you, it’s not like I didn’t have opportunity.
I had big time opportunity.
Mary, Mary liked to drink. It’s true. She struggled with it, but it didn’t matter because she really could turn the world on with her smile.
She really could.
Honestly.
No lie.
She could also do it with her ass.
Sweet Jesus, what a caboose!
You’re all probably wondering, did I?
A gentleman never tells, but let me just say that I bounced quarters off that ass. It should have been classified as a secret weapon because that ass could topple regimes. If I had sent Mary, the vintage Mary, young, like when she was doing the Dick Van Dyke Show,
into one of those pathetic, little airport protests, everyone would have seen her ass and just forgotten where they were. Seriously.
You couldn’t say the same for Rhoda.
Oy vey!
No, Mary was the real deal, the one and only.
Mary, and I can give her no higher compliment, was a real star– the Ivanka of her times– and America and her allies, will miss her.
]]>
The site enables people to trade all manner of goods, absolutely anything you have lying around or might want to cook. If somebody likes what you posted, they send you a message and the bartering begins.
This was my first post:
Posted by Michael Murray
Toronto Division
Genuine Sialkot Pro Field Hockey Stick
Made in India, this vintage field hockey stick is a real gem! Nicknamed “Sally,” it was used by high school Goddess Victoria Reid during the season that saw her team, The Lisgar Lancers, win the Ottawa city championship in 1983. Victoria scored a record 36 goals with Sally!
The stick, which feels solid and sure in the hands, is also rumoured to have been used as a murder weapon. So if you’re looking for a little bit of security around the house and are still unsure of guns, this is what you’re looking for, as the stick’s hooked nature guarantees that irregular and jagged wounds would be cut into any invader. I hate to give up this wonderful piece of history, but my wife insists, believing it to be cursed. Ha, ha. Let me assure you, Sally is not cursed, just brutally effective, as many squirrels and at least one homeless man rooting through our garbage for empty wine bottles can attest. It is also important to note that Sally never has conversations with me. I don’t get “different” around her, and you won’t get “different” around her either, just stronger, more violent and a little unpredictable!
All reasonable trade offers will be considered. #Sports #Hockey #Vintage #Murder #Weapon #ProbablyNotHaunted
Response from Dealer Dave
Toronto Division
Bullshit.
I don’t believe your story for one second, but I need something to use for my son’s birthday pinata and your field hockey stick sounds like it would work. I have a Chinese bootleg CD of the U2 album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, would that work?
Response from Michael Murray
Toronto Division
No, a crappy U2 CD will not do.
Do you have any wine?
Response from Dealer Dave
Toronto Division
No, I am not giving you wine for a piece of wood. I have a CD by the Tea Party, would you prefer that?
Response from Michael Murray
Toronto Division
No deal!! Sally says no!!!
Response from Cindy84
Toronto Division
Your dog is super cute! I also like your carpet. Would you be willing to trade either one of those instead of the creepy stick? I have gift cards…
Response from Make$2000AWeekFromHome
Toronto Division
I’m impressed, I have to admit. Seldom do I come across a blog that’s both equally educative and interesting, and without a doubt, you have hit the nail on the head. The problem is an issue that too few folks are speaking intelligently about. I’m very happy I found this during my search for something relating to this.
Response from Redrum
Toronto Division
Interested in the weapon.
Do you know what became of Victoria Reid?
Response from Michael Murray
Toronto Division
Heard it was a suicide, but even after all these years there’s still a lot of controversy surrounding her death. Th CBC is said to be making a mini-series on it called, “The Possession of Victoria Reid.”
Sometimes she comes to me in my dreams.
Response from Redrum
Toronto Division
I work at a packing plant and have meat to trade. Lots of ground beef. One pound of ground beef for the weapon?
Response from Michael Murray
Toronto Division
I’m worried about food safety. I got Listeria once and will not go through that again. Do you have any wine? Sally likes you and wants to serve you.
Response from Redrum
Toronto Division
I have a half-full box of Jackson Triggs Merlot.
Response from Michael Murray
Toronto Division
Deal!
]]>After being rejected by two guys and then seeing me approaching, he said in a voice that was both inviting and reproachful, “Hey man, don’t be like those guys, why dontcha buy one?” I shook my head, and this brought out his bitterness, “ You’re not in a hurry, man, you’re not doing anything, I can see that!”
He was right, but it still felt like an insult, like it was intended to be an insult, and as I sat down to have a tea on front of the Common, I was now acutely aware that I was no different than any of the other drifters who composed the street at this hour.
A young homeless man with a big, spacey grin on his face and a huge backpack slung over his shoulders came down the sidewalk. Everything made him happy, and when he saw my tea he beamed as if he had just seen a mystical object. I thought he might reach down and take it, but a display bicycle in front of Curbside Cycle caught his eye. Fashionable, with a big, wooden delivery container at the front, it was just sitting there, one of those art objects that got people in off the street to talk to the engaging staff.
The homeless guy just got on this bike, and silently, practically invisibly, turned into traffic and vanished into the city. It was astonishing, this, like something imagined rather than seen. Curious to see how the world would unfold without intervention, I did nothing. Nobody did anything, until one of the employees happened out of the store, noticed the missing bike and had events explained to him by a preoccupied deliveryman, who pointed down the street.
As if created for just such an occasion, two young men rocketed out onto the street from the store and sprinted off after the missing bike. They were built for this. Not for violence or displays of virility, but because their native disposition was to act, to confidently not be a bystander. A pretty girl came out from the store and watched after them, standing on a concrete city planter as if a pedestal and staring off into the horizon after her knights. And there was something beautiful and heartbreaking in this, and in their return five minutes later with the purloined bike, and once again the winners having won, the loser having lost.
Rachelle, my wife, had to work and was unable to make it. These are the text messages that she sent me over the course of the evening:
*************************************
Rachelle: Pickle, tell me, how’s dinner going?
Rachelle: Really? You’re giving it a C minus, maybe a D?
Rachelle: That’s strange.
Rachelle: Really? You’ve lost a lot of respect for the family?
Rachelle: Did they call you out for bringing half a bottle of wine again?
Rachelle: You have to stop doing that. It’s embarrassing!
Rachelle: It is.
Rachelle: No, I’m not embarrassing, you’re embarrassing.
Rachelle: Oh, I think I know what happened.
Rachelle: What did you wear out?
Rachelle: You wore your black turtleneck and that jacket, didn’t you?
Rachelle: I know you think it makes you look like Carl Sagan.
Rachelle: I know.
Rachelle: But I still don’t understand why you think that’s a good thing.
Rachelle: Look, I don’t hate the cosmos.
Rachelle: Or space exploration.
Rachelle: Just bad clothes.
Rachelle: Now come on, just tell me what happened.
Rachelle: Oh, sweet Jesus that’s hilarious!!
Rachelle: So, just before everybody was about to start dinner, Marston said, “Edgy Pastor, would you please lead us in grace?”
Rachelle: I love that girl.
Rachelle: No, she’s not full of herself.
Rachelle: She’s so clever, and she’s right, when you wear that outfit you do look like an edgy Pastor.
Rachelle: Yes, you do.
Rachelle: Yes, like some white dad who’s going to rap Genesis or something.
Rachelle: Oh honey, I would never get in the way of your relationship with God!!
Rachelle: There’s more?
Rachelle: Hannah said, “It looks like a jacket you mother might have bought you.”
Rachelle: It’s like that girl is my daughter.
Rachelle: And then she added, “At a store called For Your Son.”
Rachelle: “For Your Adult Son.”
Rachelle: Oh Lord!!! Tears are streaming out of my eyes I am laughing so hard!
Rachelle: And then Marston said, “And she paid for it with a coupon she clipped from a newspaper?”
Rachelle: Oh Pickle, you really are defenceless in the face of those girls!
Rachelle: So what did you do?
Rachelle: Oh.
Rachelle: Do you think that was a good idea?
Rachelle: Well, it’s just if you’re always pretending to have an asthma attack, people might not be very responsive when you actually do, that’s all.
Rachelle: See? I told you!
Rachelle: That is just too funny, I love that they all held hands and prayed for the edgy Pastor during your fake asthma attack!
Rachelle: Did you end up saying grace?
Rachelle: Well, I think you should have embraced the persona and rapped it!
Rachelle: Yes, your life is nothing but a series of missed opportunities.
Rachelle: Oh, I’ve got to go, work calls!
Rachelle: Well, my edgy, little Pastor, I’ll see you in two hours, may you walk with the Lord!
]]>
Middle-aged men, guys getting off work and who are still in their FedEx or Hydro uniforms go there. Each night, as part of a promotion, the bar host’s a card came which takes place at the back on one of those poker tables you can buy at Canadian Tire. The other night it was Texas Hold ‘Em they were playing, and although it’s a cashless game, since it’s poker, people felt heavily invested.
As I was sitting at the bar drifting through the sports section, a fight erupted at the back of the bar. It was extraordinary how quickly rage, explosive rage, swept in and over the table. Men, something now ignited within, had pushed back their chairs and were standing. Screaming and swearing, they waved their arms about and stiffened into fighting posture, fists clenched. A woman, who seemed to be at the centre of it all, had a voice that was a black, untranslatable hiss, more the unearthly vocalizations of possession than language. She threw a glass against the wall, her long hair waving in fury, as the men shouted. It seemed the very manifestation of mental illness, that from the collective interiors of these people, a dark, stormy cloud of violence had been summoned.
But the thing that struck me the most was how quickly it all passed, and how everybody seemed to enjoy it. It had been fun for them. What, I wonder, does that say about us? On a frigid, lonely night in February a group of strangers go out looking for something. They find one another at a card table in a bar, and what they needed was this, to wake up and experience that jolt of electricity spiking through their bodies, so that for a moment each one of them was alive in the streaming arteries, heroes on a battlefield, the lion’s roar that answered back to the night.
At Sanagan’s Meat Locker the guy working the cash wore a baseball cap that said Jimmy’s Coffee. It had brownish, indeterminate stains and smudges on it, and somehow this made it look deadly cool. I told him I liked his hat, and he said, “You like all the meat stains on it, don’t you?” I nodded. “Yeah, whenever I’m in the back room I’m constantly getting banged about by all the hanging carcasses, it’s like getting whacked in the head all the time by those pugil sticks on American Gladiators!”
Later, I went to Mackenzie’s Pub on Bloor. The man sitting to my left had a shaved head and haunted eyes. He stared straight ahead, his right hand slowly, almost tenderly caressing the sleeve of his jacket. He never looked over at anyone or up at the bank of TV’s above the bar, but straight through the skyline of liquor bottles in front of him and into his fragmented image staring back at him from the mirror. He seemed intense, maybe even angry, as if immersed in a circumstance that was overwhelming and forced– Led Zepplin playing chaotically in the foreground, as if emanating from his head and not the sound system all around us.
When I got the bill from the bartender for $19.89, she exclaimed, “Good year!” I didn’t know what she meant and said, “Sorry?” “Oh, 1989, I was in high school then, it was a good year,” and then a small, embarrassed, maybe even somewhat melancholy laugh, before she turned to another task.
The Leafs are on TV, but they’re losing again and nobody much seems to care, instead, they focus on the consoles in front of them, concentrating on the trivia game unfolding on the monitors above the bar.
“Which film features a man living the same day over and over again?”
The guy to my right, who is still in his FedEx uniform, is startled to attentiveness by this question, “Groundhog Day, Groundhog Day!” he shouts as if sounding an alarm.
The other men, slowly and silently, reluctantly even, nod—tell them something they didn’t know.
To my left is a man who smells like cigarette smoke and is wearing the sort of sweater that invites fascination and curiosity. How old is that sweater? Was it a gift? If not, what was it that attracted him to it? He’s the most animated person in the bar, giggling nervously and speaking quickly, his eyes always darting. He and the bartender, an efficient but world-weary bald guy, have a rapport, a banter, and they’re trying to stump one another with arcane Simpson’s trivia and forgotten players from the OJ trial.
Mark Furhman!
Nicole Simpson’s dog was a white Akita!
Can I borrow a feeling by Kirk Van Houten!
All night the conversation jumps about in this way. They’re no longer the people that they became, but are now floating free, inhabiting a nostalgic landscape where they remain limitless and ascending. O, there are just so many details to untangle and isolate, to cherish… Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, what country was the best to build your base from when playing Risk, and later, the naming of all the Replicants from Blade Runner, each one uttered with tenderness and respect, as if each one a kind of miracle, like a love from the past who was never to be seen again.
