She lives in the same part of Toronto as I do, and occasionally we bump into one another as we did yesterday when Rachelle and I were at the local park with our two-year old son Jones:
************************************************
Me: Oh, shit.
Rachelle: What?
Me: Two o’clock.
Rachelle: The woman in the cloak?
Me: I thought it was a cape.
Rachelle: No, that’s a cloak.
Me: Ok, whatever. Either way, it’s Margaret fucking Atwood.
Rachelle: I think she’s coming over. I’m going to take Jones to the swings! You two talk on your own!!
( Rachelle and Jones run off as Atwood approaches)
Atwood: Forgive me, but I have to ask, do the police get called very often?
Me: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Atwood: You, a middle-aged loner who will never be accepted by his neighbouring, wealthy peers.
Never-quite wearing the right brand and always on the periphery, just shy of conversation, always staring at the children and their pretty young mothers, staring so hard it seems as if you’re trying to fill some interior void that can never stop hungering. I’d think that might make many of the parents nervous.
Me: I think I’m seen more as a kind of guardian, like Batman.
Atwood: Yes, Batman, or perhaps a guardian, like a hollowed-out and mother-dominated crossing guard still living with his deceased parents. Maybe like that, too.
Me: Did you make it to the corn boil here the other day? Blue grass band and everything.
Atwood: Here at Sibelius park?
Me: Yes.
Atwood: No, I was in LA at the Emmy’s.
Me: Funny how the city of Toronto would name a park Sibelius, after a Finnish composer of classical music, before naming one after you, a Canadian writer of impenetrable, mostly hated books. Wonder why that is?
Atwood: I am astonished. You must have been reading your Wikipedia in order to find out who Jean Sibelius was, for surely you thought he was some old Toronto Maple Leaf who died in car crash, no?
Me: JONES!!! NO KICKING!!!! I’M SERIOUS!! I WILL TAKE THAT DIGGER AWAY!!! DON’T THINK I WON’T!!
Atwood: They’re so beautiful at that age. It’s wonderful to see such attentive nurturing, too. With all the advantages you’re giving your son, I am sure he will go far in this world, maybe all the way to The Keg.
Me: I heard you were wearing your housecoat on stage when that thing you wrote so long ago, The Handmaiden’s Tale, won some Emmy for best red outfit worn by a supporting actress, or something.
Atwood: Handmaid’s Tale, and it was awarded Best Drama, amongst several other awards, for being considered a prescient and uncanny representation of Trump’s America.
Me: It’s no Game of Thrones, is all I can say.
Atwood: “Perlen vor Schweinen geworfen,” as they say.
Me: Yeah, whatever.
Atwood: I saw that the *Giller Prize nominees were announced.
Me: JONES!!! I’M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN!!
Atwood: I couldn’t help but notice you weren’t nominated.
Not even on the long list.
Again.
How does that make you feel, Marcel?
Me: It’s Michael.
Atwood: Right, so sorry.
* The prize awards $100,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English, and $10,000 to each of the finalists.
]]>It was a pretty busy day, and in almost no time at all I found myself separated from Rachelle and Jones. These are the texts from my wife that followed:
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Rachelle: Where are you?
Rachelle: The Bat Cave?! That sounds dramatic!!
Rachelle: Really? That’s weird!
Rachelle: I thought it would have something to do with Batman, too. Maybe a tribute to Adam West or something.
Rachelle: Adam West.
Rachelle: He just died.
Rachelle: He was the original Batman.
Rachelle: No, Michael Keaton was not the original batman.
Rachelle: Thought for sure you’d know that.
Rachelle: Well, because you’re seasoned.
Rachelle: That’s not an insult.
Rachelle: Seasoned things are delicious.
Rachelle: Like Ikea meatballs.
Rachelle: I still can’t believe you ate 19 of them that one day .
Rachelle: Yes, it was very impressive, very alpha male.
Rachelle: However, if you’d pushed through to 20 it would have been even more alpha, I think.
Rachelle: Just saying.
Rachelle: Where are we? How nice of you to ask!
Rachelle: We’re in the kid’s play area, right near the tepee.
Rachelle: I have discovered that medieval headgear is really heavy!
Rachelle: What have you learned in the bat cave besides the fact that Michael Keaton was not the original Batman?
Rachelle: And beside the fact that you’re old.
Rachelle: Bats eat mice like you eat meatballs.
Rachelle: Pickle, I am glad that you can still learn new things.
Rachelle: Sorry?
Rachelle: Why don’t you want Jones in the tepee?
Rachelle: Cultural appropriation?
Rachelle: No, I don’t hate my First Nation’s brothers and sisters.
Rachelle: The tepee was just a nice, quiet spot for Jones to sit and colour for a bit, that’s all.
Rachelle: I mean, it is expressly there for the kid’s to use!
Rachelle: You don’t know what the Great Spirit wanted! Perhaps that’s exactly what the Great Spirit wished for!
Rachelle: Lord, you have to spend less time on Twitter.
Rachelle: I swear, people should have to take a test before they get on that thing–like kids having to be a certain height before going on a ride.
Rachelle: I’m sorry Pickle, but you’re just too suggestible.
Rachelle: Last week you were insisting the Russians were cyborgs.
Rachelle: Regardless, it’s not a “cultural appropriation” tepee, but more of a “spirit guide” tepee.
Rachelle: I had a vision when I was in there.
Rachelle: Of Justin Trudeau.
Rachelle: He was dressed in his tepee denims and smelled of pine needles.
Rachelle: Shirt?
Rachelle: No, just the jean jacket.
Rachelle: Yes, unbuttoned.
Rachelle: I know. Yes, you and some other kids beat him up in grade school.
Rachelle: You know, that’s probably something you shouldn’t be so proud of.
Rachelle: No, you couldn’t.
Rachelle: No, you simply could not do a plank– no matter how much you trained or hard you tried.
Rachelle: It’s like the 20th meatball for you, a bridge you shall never cross.
Rachelle: Oh, no!
Rachelle: He didn’t speak at all, he just smiled at me, and when he did I knew that everything was going to be fine. Sunny ways everywhere!
Rachelle: Oh! I think I see you Pickle!
Rachelle: Do you see us?
Rachelle: Look! Jones has a dinosaur he wants to show you! He’s running to you now, our little sunny way is running right to you!
Donald Trump is the living embodiment of a cliffhanger.
I swear, everything the man does compels us to astonishment. And once this happens he has us trapped– as the complicit media knows all too well. Almost obediently, we’ll sit there in anxious anticipation, eagerly awaiting his next act as if it were an episode of Breaking Bad. Trump, always the catalytic agent, exists to propel narratives forward. Where that story came from or where it might be headed is entirely immaterial, all that matters is that in that moment you cared, and the more passionately you cared, the better for him.
Since his election my media streams have been rivers of fire. All day long people have been screaming at one another and making the boldest declarations. It reminds me of the Olympics, actually. Some sport I will have never heard of might pop up, and after a brief, mechanical explanation of what it is and a few minutes of watching, I’ll feel like an expert.
And so it goes with politics. We may not speak the language, we may not have visited the country, we may not have any friends who are native to the place, but in very short order, we still have really, really strong opinions about what should happen to it.
Whenever I find myself assuming this role and asserting some far too sure political view, I remind myself that I have trouble keeping my own house in order. What’s my economic plan for the USA? Hell, what’s my economic plan for my family!
The world is infinitely complex, and our ability to understand it is miniscule. Our chances of being wrong about something are far greater than our chances of being right, and it’s important we keep this in mind, particularly when judging those we disagree with. I mean, if you’re awake enough to understand that not all Muslims are terrorists, then you should be awake enough to understand that not all of your political opponents are racist morons.
One’s politics are a very poorly articulated version of the sort of person one might be in the world. Typically it says more about how we’d like to be seen, than how we actually conduct ourselves. And it is just so hard to live a pure life in this society, we must always keep in mind that it is upon monstrous deeds that most of us have happily, blindly, built our lives.
The furious, pre-apocalyptic tensions defining the USA right now are typically lumped into two categories. There are the coastal city-states that house the progressives and elites, and then there is the rest of America, a kind of seething, primitive horde—think Orcs.
I try to look at it more like the future pitted agains the past.
Every year our world changes more than it has in all the generations stacked before it. A lot of people are disoriented and terrified by the velocity at which their lives are now moving, while others are grateful that time has finally caught up with them. And when one traditional way of life is subsumed by another, there is usually a violent reaction, and I think that’s what we’re seeing– the past trying to claw the future back in place, and a resentful and protective future stomping back.
So be kind if you can, for everybody is feeling like they’re hanging off the edge of a cliff.
]]>
It’s just not quality.
Melania is posing naked for a classy magazine.
I’m really happy about this because I want everybody to see what I have and they don’t, so I’m at the photo shoot making sure everything goes Trump perfect. I’m giving Melania instructions on how to pose, and as she’s doing exactly what I tell her to do, I try to Tweet a picture with the words,“Twice with this one last night!” but discover I can’t get into my Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump.
I am building a wall. It’s a great wall, a huge wall. It’s going to be the best wall ever. And then somebody, A Mexican, approaches me and tells me that there are scuff marks on some of the imported marble. A Mexican. What does a Mexican know about imported marble? Nothing. Enraged, I pummel him with the might of an angry white nation, and when I’m finished I’m covered in Mexican blood, which is just disgusting. I try to wash it off but can’t, and the more people I hire to wash it off, the thicker and stickier it seems to get.
I am in the penthouse of one of my many, many luxury apartments. I’m there to evict the deadbeat tenants by forcing them to jump off the balcony. One of them refuses. I wake up in a cold sweat.
I am waterboarding Ted Cruz’s wife because she won’t change her last name to something American.
In spite of her pain and terror and screaming and begging, and that her top was so wet it was completely see-thru, the experience was not nearly as sexually exciting as I had expected it to be. Woke up feeling empty, a sensation that trailed me all day long.
I am Captain of the Starship Enterprise.
I’ve rented out three decks as luxury condos, converted the Holodeck into a casino, crushed the Starfleet union and am running a real estate training program for my promising officers. Federation mismanagement had been costing the tax payers a fortune, but with me at the helm, the Starship Enterprise was making a fantastic profit and had never looked better. And then we’re doing a routine patrol of Quadrant 4 when a Klingon Bird of Prey suddenly materialized before us. As I was negotiating with their Captain, I noticed a stain on my uniform. Laundry had screwed up again!
In this dream I am a boy, lost and alone in the woods with no business plan.
]]>At any rate, Rob officially registered to run for re-election on January 2, being the first and so far only candidate to do so. It was at this time that Rob unveiled the official campaign slogan for the October 27th election: Ford more years!
This is where the mayor and I run into a disagreement. I think it’s a bad campaign slogan and that he should have gone with one of the suggestions I made to him during one of our late night brainstorming sessions:
- EVERYTHING IS FINE
- ROB FORD: BRINGING THE NFL TO YOU
- ELITES MAKE ME PUKE
- ROB FORD: THE DARK KNIGHT
- FORD TOUGH
6. ROB FORD: FOR A BIRDLESS TORONTO
7. MOVING FORWARD AND FORDWARD.
8. GET LUCKY.
9. IN FORD WE TRUST
10. ROB FORD: A FORMULA FOR SUCCESS
11. FORDING OUR STRUGGLES TOGETHER
12. ROB FORD: WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND
13. FORD YOU!
14. ROB FORD: SHOOTING THE PAST IN THE HEAD
15. IT’S ROB’S JOB, DAMMIT!
16. A PUSSY IN EVERY POT
17. HOPEFULLY CUTTING THE WASTE/WAIST
18. FORDAPALOOZA
19. ROB FORD: TOO LEGIT TO QUIT (This one has theme music and signature campaign parachute pants)
**************************************************************************
Me: Holy Mother of God, you are just stunning! You are insanely beautiful! Jesus!!
Marion: Thank you, that’s very sweet of you to say.
Me: Your voice is chocolate, French chocolate.
Marion: I see.
Me: I think I need my inhaler. Sorry. Jesus, this is embarrassing.
Marion: It’s all right.
Me: It’s just that you’re so beautiful. You’re luminous, like a cloud made of gold and light.
Marion: I’m just an actress who has agreed to talk to you about my new movie Rust and Bone that just opened in the United States.
Me: Yes, yes.
Marion: It is a wonderful film, very complex and beautiful.
Me: You train whales in this film, don’t you? You’re a beautiful marine biologist! I bet you look even better with your hair wet. It probably changes the way it smells. If I were a killer whale I would do whatever you told me to do!
Marion: Yes, well, the film is about a whale trainer who suffers a terrible accident where she loses her legs. She is both a physical and emotional amputee, and must let love back into her life. It was a very challenging role for me to play, but as an actor all you want to do is discover more about the human soul.
Me: You have such beautiful legs it would be a shame to lose them, even if it was just in a movie! But yeah, I think I know what you’re saying about the human soul. I get it. You were in Batman, too, weren’t you? I always thought you’d make a great Catwoman. Have you ever thought about being Catwoman? You’re more beautiful than Halle Berry times Michelle Pfeiffer times Anne Hathaway times Halle Berry again, plus all the old TV ones.
Marion: I think that they did marvelous jobs playing that role and I don’t think I’d want to repeat work that had been done so well. I like to always do something new, to always challenge myself.
Me: My wife thinks that I’m a real challenge.
Marion: I am sure that she does.
Me: What movie do you think you were most beautiful in?
Marion: It’s been a pleasure Mister Murray, but I am afraid I’m on a very tight schedule and I have an another appointment to keep now.
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Mary Webster, November 13, 2009
“I can no longer be near that man. He lost a tooth one night when we were dancing. It just fell out of his head, and all he did was put it in his pocket and jam some Kleenex in his mouth, which quickly became sodden and red. I had to run to the washroom and throw-up. It is impossible, and I mean physically impossible, for me to dance with him again.”
Claire Hepburn, December 12, 2009
“I will not dance with him again. He’s just too sweaty. At first you can see it on his upper lip, and then it’s all over his face. His hands are cold and slippery, like something that lives in the water, and one night I noticed that he was sweating through his pants, near his groin. He said he had an unusually effective lymphatic system. Gross.”
Julia Barylak, December 12, 2009
“He simply can’t dance. It’s like he’s trying not to dance and you’re fighting against some creature from a parallel universe who’s attempting to thwart your every move. It’s so frustrating that when I get home after class I drink a bottle of wine and watch game shows. I really hate him.”
Alex McLaren, February 28, 2010
“He always asks me to call him The Colonel, and I’m not going to do that.”
Jillian Dickens, September 02, 2010
“He gets tired very easily and then his nose begins to whistle. It’s demoralizing, as if some ghost or the specter of death is in the room with you.”
Rei Hokkaido, March 15, 2011
“I always feel like I’m one of those prank shows when I’m dancing with him. At first it was kind of fun and unpredictable, like a witty conversation with somebody begging for money, but then it quickly devolved into a display of mental and physical illness. I’m sorry, but dancing with him just makes me sad and I come here to be happy, my life is difficult enough, you know?
Alison Perry, October 12, 2011
“He wore a mesh top to one class and is always telling knock-knock jokes. That’s enough, isn’t it? But even more, his dancing skills and ability to learn new moves are so horrible that I feel I’m regressing whenever it’s my unfortunate turn to partner with him, and I cannot do that any more.”
Aurina Gupta, September 2, 2012
“I was there the day he wore the Batman costume to class on the opening night of The Dark Knight Rises. He really seemed to think that the cape was sexy and kept spinning around and around, or rather, stumbling around and around. He knocked over my water bottle and stepped on my iPod, breaking it. I cannot tell you how much that evening upset me. I was sure he was going to get on the subway and shoot people after that class. “
Debra O’Malley, December 11, 2012
“I can’t say why, but he just reminds me of the Ikea Monkey.”
I was unable to suspend my disbelief and enter the world– regardless of how artfully crafted it was– that was unfolding before me on the screen. All I could think about was the shooting rampage in Colorado.
Instead of serving as an escapist summer blockbuster where I got to expunge myself of any violent impulses that might be lurking in my soul, I felt a crushing, depressive realism. The shootings in Aurora were ever-present in my mind and I could not shake them free.
I watched the exit doors, imagining the shooter walking in from one. I tried to figure out at which point in the movie the shootings had started and how confused, surreal and terrifying that must have been. I thought about what I would do to protect Rachelle and myself if it happened here. I wondered what all the other people in the theatre around me were thinking. I was all over the map, quite frankly, and was barely watching the movie at all but more the darkness between the audience and what was taking place in front of us, if that makes any sense.
And when there was actual gun violence or horror on the screen, I found myself shirking away from it, which is something of a first. I’ve grown up in a culture of violent imagery from TV, movies and to some extent video games, and I am just as hardened to it, and appreciative of it, as the next person. There’s an obvious charisma to violence, and watching it manifest can be exhilarating, but now, suddenly, it was ugly and true, like hearing the sound of somebody getting punched in the face in a bar fight.
I imagine I’ll get past it, but I wonder if I’ve come to a kind of tipping point in my life where violence on the screen has stopped being make believe, no longer acting as a therapeutic safety valve for the rages and impulses we would never act on, but rather inspiring us toward them?
No matter, the crowd loved the film, and as we left I noticed that I might just have been the oldest person in the theater. Beside me as we all shuffled to the exit was a meathead kind of teenager. Built like a fridge, he had the dim, slightly sadistic look of any number of high school jocks and in his hands he had a football that he was spinning up in the air and catching. Again and again he did this, easy and superior, and I wondered if he imagined it a weapon, the sort of thing he could have pulled from his utility belt and thrown at a would-be gunman, saving the day just like Batman.
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