These are the text messages my wife sent to me the other day:
*********************************
Rachelle: How’s the pulmonary rehab going, my love?
Rachelle: Oh, I’m so glad to hear that you’re dominating the warm-up exercises!
Rachelle: Yes, you are a natural leader, it’s one hundred percent true!
Rachelle: What’s The Flower Pot?
Rachelle: I see.
Rachelle: So you sit in a chair, and then move one of your legs as if you were lifting it over a flower pot?
Rachelle: What a strange name for an exercise!
Rachelle: Well, I don’t know. Maybe something a little more macho, something like The Grizzly Stomp or The Sumo Crush.
Rachelle: I like The Grizzly Stomp, too. You should write that down and put it in the Suggestion Box.
Rachelle: You already suggested a Cosplay night! Interesting idea, Pickle, but aren’t all the other residents elderly?
Rachelle: I see, that’s good thinking on your part, you can make your oxygen tanks look like rocket packs!
Rachelle: You are very creative, it’s true, and as you say, you are the Wayne Gretzky of The Flower Pot.
Rachelle: Really? The physiotherapist asked you to lead the class yesterday?! How flattering!
Rachelle: Yes, I am sure it was a great honour that everybody else was bitterly jealous of! I’m curious, did you get to choose the music for the work-out?
Rachelle: That’s great! Who did you pick?
Rachelle: Oh.
Rachelle: Well, it just seems like an odd choice.
Rachelle: I didn’t know, Tori Amos just seems weird to me. Complicated, annoying.
Rachelle: Sorry. I am trying to encourage and support you, my love.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: Right in the middle of the stretch she said you had a very small flower pot?!
Rachelle: OMG, That’s hilarious!
Rachelle: I mean nasty, just nasty.
Rachelle: 90 is old, and aging can make people mean.
Rachelle: You’re probably right, that smart-alecky Yvette lady likely had dementia.
Rachelle: Because it’s not your class, honey.
Rachelle: That’s why they wouldn’t let you “expel her from your program.”
Rachelle: Well, I’m glad you put her on notice, anyway, and sorry that everybody is now calling you The Little Flower Pot.
Rachelle: Think of it being like Dear Leader, a term of respect and fear.
Rachelle: Well of course I miss you terribly, but I’m struggling along. Even had a little party last night to fight the loneliness.
Rachelle: Probably less than 25 people, I don’t remember.
Rachelle: He might have been there, not positive.
Rachelle: Oh, you’ll get a kick out of this!
Rachelle: He brought his Porsche over the other day to take Jones for a ride, and Jones just loved it! I’ve never seen him happier! It’s astonishing Pierre doesn’t have any kids because he is just SO amazing with them!!
Rachelle: Yes, you’re amazing with Jones, too.
Rachelle: Sure Jones misses you.
Rachelle: Well, he’s still not really talking yet, so he missing you in a kind of subconscious way, I guess, but I can tell that he really does miss you!!
Rachelle: Tonight?
Rachelle: Oh, Steve needed to take somebody to the magazine awards at some fancy hotel and Jen is out of town, so I have to go as his date. Barf.
Rachelle: He was nominated in two different comedy writing categories.
Rachelle: It is a shame none of your work was nominated!
Rachelle: No, I have no idea why Steve won’t accept your Facebook friendship.
Rachelle: The world is mysterious.
Rachelle: Never mind that though, what are you up to tonight, my Little Flower Pot?
Rachelle: Fish stick night! Yum!
Rachelle: You’re my favourite fish stick, you know.
Rachelle: It’s true.
Rachelle: Don’t ever doubt that!
Rachelle: You will always be my favourite fish stick! xo
You might be astonished, as I was, to discover that there is actually quite a bit about baseball, specifically the Toronto Blue Jays and their playoff run, in it. Here are some of the standout passages:
*************************************************************
Song of Solomon 2:9
Marcus Stroman, my beloved, is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills!
Mark 14:51
A young man ran out onto the field after the 5th inning wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they seized him. But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked.
Leviticus 27:20
And after the pitch, which was surely out of the strike zone, was called a strike by the umpire, Josh Donaldson, the great rain maker of the Toronto Blue Jays,
turned to him, “Satan’s servant, if you do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile to you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.”
Samuel 23:12
But Edwin took his stand in the midst of the diamond, and Lo, the ball soared deep into the night, and the LORD worked a great victory.
Leviticus 18: 19
Thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness on game day, nor eat too much honey.
Samuel 15:3
This is what the Lord Almighty says… ‘Now go and strike the Texas Rangers and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey and batboy.”
Kings 2:23
Then he went down to Texas from the suburbs of Toronto to see the mighty Jays bring sorrow to the Rangers; and as he was going into the stadium, some youths came from the street and mocked him, and said to him, “BLUE JAYS SUCK! BLUE JAYS SUCK!” So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the Lord. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.
Revelation 12:7
And there was war in the Roger’s Centre. Joey Bats and his angels fought against Rougned Odor, and the Dragon and his angels fought back.
Isaiah 40:31
But they who are patient at the plate and let pass the false strikes of Ranger serpent Yu Darvish,
the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary.
Song of Solomon 2:3
Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is Troy Tulowitzki among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
Friends;
I am sorry for any broken limbs and shattered teeth that my enthusiasms may have caused. It was not my intention to hurt any of you, and you should know that Father Russia loves all of his children.
I must thank you very much for this training session. I needed it. Sometimes, the stresses of a global Alpha can be intense. Sometimes, you must break something or you yourself will be broken!
(Waits for applause to subside)
A man does not have it easy in this world, let me tell you.
But I am not here to speak of the unknowable hardships and cruelties a man such as myself must endure. No, I am here to congratulate Ezio Gamba for the powerful and autocratic judo lessons he has dispensed to the national team! He has made you all super hardcore, and that is the Russian way!
We are too hardcore for the Americans!
(Cheering)
We are too hardcore for the Japanese!
(Cheering)
We are too hardcore all the feminine states of Europe!
(Cheering)
We are hardcore!!
(Waits for applause to subside)
And Ezio, much of that is due to you, and I thank you.
I will tell you something you would not guess, but it is not conducting surveillance operations or gassing protestors where I feel most at home.
No, it is on the judo Tatami. It is there where I am my powerful true self.
I am a master of all flesh in the Tatami. There, in a tight embrace, I can unleash the unmeasured furies of my passion!
When I was a young and confused KGB agent, it was judo that provided me with a safe spot. It was there I could be my masculine self and share my physical feelings with other men, but elders grew concerned at the disorienting and often unsettling intimacies of the matches, and so they set me up to fight with Lyudmila.
She was very mannish looking and a formidable opponent. I did not know she was of the females until much later, after much rough combat. We were eventually paired in matrimony and an off-spring was made in the dark of the Russian night.
The American song Islands In The Stream played, I remember.
Yekaterina.
A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.
Our daughter, it is the one good thing Lyudmila and I did together. She is better than any judo moves we ever made, and I am not ashamed to say I would kill with my hands any man who would think to violate her with his primitive heterosexual urges.
No longer paired with Lyudmila, I was free to practice judo with whomever I liked, and those were glorious times for Vlad. Such beautiful judo! Truly, it is the sport of love.
Anyway, my old female partner has gone on to marry another man, a man 20 years younger than her! How about that?
I could have him killed, but I will not. He will suffer with Lyudmila as I suffered with Lyudmila, and I will continue to be the most powerful Alpha in the world, enjoying judo with as many partners as I choose!
You must eat the pain, comrades!!!
Long live Russia, and long live judo!!
]]>
His silence during this time had fueled all sorts of speculation, with some people believing he’d been in Switzerland to attend his girlfriend giving birth, while others thought he was ill, had power seized from him or that he might even have been assassinated.
Well, he appeared hale and hearty on Monday morning, and it turns out that Putin, utilizing the survivalist training he learned as a KGB operative, had spent the last week camping on his own. These are his private journals from that trip:
Day 1:
As spring approaches, the burning comes hard and fast.
I shudder with the unnatural urges and I know that I must, once again, remove myself to the Bialowieza Forest and make peace with the natural world.
My mind, as if fevered, returns again and again to that Sikh cab driver as he stared out his car window on Shkolnaya.
For a moment, our eyes, like magnets, found one another, and we were two beautiful, masculine animals locked to one another, our breathing becoming so urgent and alive, and in such perfect and furious unison as to be inseparable. We would to be just one, all flesh, muscle and luxuriant and mysterious beard. Ah, but this moment lived only in our hearts and minds, for we never met or spoke, just two rugged ships passing in the fading light of a tired Moscow day.
In the Bialowieza Forest there are no seductive cab drivers with strong, Indian features. No, here there are berries. Here there are cold streams in which to cleanse impurities from one’s naked body! Here there are animals to kill! Here there are so many places to unleash the rage and to let the echoes of pain take flight!!!
Day 2.
I am heterosexual.
I am heterosexual.
I am heterosexual.
I am Dear Shirtless Leader.
I am a powerful, heterosexual leader.
I am ruthless and without pity.
I am heterosexual.
Day 4
I use rocks to pound my hands. The pain reminds me of how much I love women and not men. Rocks are my friends. I will incite my people to throw them at the homosexuals when I return from my purification!
Day 5.
I spent the day in penetrating, decontaminating meditation.
The cold of the March forest felt good on my naked body. It was like being caressed and then handled roughly by the indifferent hands of an anonymous man looking to satisfy his own primal needs. I was an empty and willing vessel, a village waiting for to be led by its mayor.
I then ate two birds that I knocked out of the air using my belt. They are part of Father Russia now.
Day 6.
Today a young stag approached my camp while I made weapons from the beaks and talons of the birds I ate. This buck looked at me with both certainty and curiosity, and as a confident as a bear, walked right up to me and licked my bare chest.
I could have torn him apart with my horrible weapons, but I did not. He continued to lick– he must have been starved for nutrients and minerals—and I took his beautiful head in my powerful hands– and then he began to lick me in an intimate spot. The forest was a beautiful canopy above us and the sunlight was falling like gold coins all around, and for a moment there were no other living creatures in all of the universe, and then I twisted his neck and killed him, and there was but one living creature left, and it was then that I knew I had won and was ready to return to society.
]]>
While out for a run on Canada Day, Joe Killoran came across Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (fresh from an apparently combative two month stint in rehab) and his entourage stomping about Toronto looking for votes. Killoran, who looks a little bit like Zeus or one of those Spartans in the movie 300, began, in an admirably articulate state of rage, to scream at Ford. “Yes,” we collectively said, “these are my words manifest in the pleasing form of a man!” The Ford brothers, normally masters of physical intimidation and the death stare, shrivelled up in Killoran’s presence.
Killoran, stripped to the waist, looked like the truth. Radiating a masculine power that seemed fueled by the archetypes of the 1970’s, Killoran was our single-combat hero. He was what we wanted to see in the mirror, saying what we wanted to say. In short, he was the ideal proxy, and Rob Ford, the actual proxy of Toronto, was it’s pale and receding antithesis.
The irony is that Rob Ford’s narrative positions the Mayor as Toronto’s Everyman. He’s just a regular Joe, a guy who likes helping out the common folk, hates the high-minded, mocking elites and struggles with the same sort of demons that we all do at the end of hard-working day. Ambushed so vividly by an actual regular Joe, the myth was laid bare. Ford, the man who stakes his brand on his ability to connect, his ability to be real, man, was a paper tiger, a bully stripped raw by the confrontation that stood unblinking before him.
It was an entirely awesome and revealing moment, so naturally it’s been co-opted and ruined. Inspired by Killoran, a handful of protestors who look like some agitated soccer dads yelling at the ref from the sidelines, have taken to calling themselves The Shirtless Horde.
One of them, after unconvincingly shouting, “I’m not intimidated by you!” at Rob Ford’s sobriety coach, was actually kicked by him, in the shin, I think. It’s exactly the sort of thing you remember taking place at recess, and as much as I might want to imagine myself the Shirtless Jogger, I do not want to imagine myself a member of The Shirtless Horde.
Even worse than showing us what we really look, The Shirtless Horde has the distinction of reinstalling the Ford myth. Surrounded by their limp chants, Ford puffs up– like he’s just eaten some spinach– and once again projects the confidence of a man who believes the script that he’s just here to bring some sense and fiscal restraint to a downtown that’s spun wildly, indulgently out of control, and this, this will be an exhausting way for us to spend the rest of our summer, so Shirtless Horde, please stop, your work is done.
]]>
Dear Queen Elizabeth II:
Happy birthday!!!
I just want to say that you look absolutely fantastic for 88! Really, I could see in the photograph that your skin was just glowing so I really want to congratulate you on that. I had my passport photograph taken yesterday, after only a five year interval, and I’m very sorry to say that I looked asymmetrical, angry and jaundiced, like a hard drinking 68 year-old. Really, I looked like I live in Russia or something, and I don’t!
I’m actually from Canada, so I’m one of your subjects, and when I was a boy I used to collect stamps with you on them. There must have been hundreds of them, and they all looked pretty much alike—you, looking regal in front of some aspect of Canadian industry.
None of them were valuable for collectors as so many were printed and used to mail letters. (You remember mailing letters, don’t you? Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you always had a fancy butler to mail them for you and put the stamp on the envelope, otherwise I guess it would have been pretty weird to put a stamp of yourself on the envelope. That’s the sort of thing that could go to a person’s head, I think.) At any rate, they were everyday stamps, the sort that filled the pages between the cool ones of Grizzly Bears or hockey players, but every once in awhile for a special occasion they’d put out a stamp of you that was practically the size of a hockey card. It would be either silver or gold and it was like finding a jewel. Suddenly, we got to see you in all your majesty, if that makes any sense.
Everybody has regrets, but I imagine a queen might have more than most. You were locked into a very particular life from the time you were born and you must always wonder about that boy you thought cute way back when, or what it would have been like to have been a hippy and get high with a Beatle. What would you say your biggest regret is?
I regret never learning how to fire a gun.
And if you could sleep with either Colin Firth or Russell Brand, which one would you choose?
Don’t be shy, it’s your birthday.
Michael Murray
PS: Is Gwyneth Paltrow really British?
]]>Otter Jan 20- Feb 18
Otters are typically very strange, many ultimately suffering from some form of mental illness. Left to their own devices they usually become unscrupulous and disease prone.
Wolf Feb 19- Mar 20
The Wolf is good with weapons.
Falcon Mar 21- Apr 19
The Falcon is a decisive, natural born leader, although they typically hate other people. The Falcon can often be a little bit conceited, but as their judgment is often very good, a little bit of arrogance is understandable. Falcons must be wary of gluten.
Beaver Apr 20-May 20
Mostly business, the Beaver gets the job at hand done with maximum efficiency and aplomb. Practical and unsentimental, the Beaver has a terrible sense of direction and will often get lost, thus making for very poor scouts.
Deer May 21- June 20
The Deer is the quick-witted joker of the zodiac. The Deer is also known for it’s wonderful voice, one that’s capable of mesmerizing people with song or creating perfect imitations of all manner of wildlife. Both Prince and Curtis Mayfield are Deers.
Woodpecker Jun 21-Jul 20
Woodpeckers are extremely irritating and often shunned. Notorious gossips, they’re known for spreading discord throughout the community and are often assigned the most dangerous tasks facing the tribe, like tasting suspicious meat or vegetation. Very stingy and lacking in generosity, there has never been a Woodpecker chief.
Salmon Jul 21- Aug 21
Electric, unpredictable and wholly creative, the Salmon is a true live wire. Many Salmons gravitate toward story telling or work as shamans. Generous, intelligent and empathetic, the Salmon never has a shortage of friends. Lucky number is 6.
Bear Aug 22- Sep 21
Pragmatic and methodical, the Bear is the one to call when a steady hand is needed. However, the Bear will always be lazy, prone to obsessive masturbation and very easy to manipulate. Few Bears live beyond the age of 40.
Raven Sep 22- Oct 22
Ravens, noted for their great physical beauty are demanding, inconsistent, vindictive and abrasive. Favourite food: maize.
Snake Oct 23- Nov 22
The Snake is a natural in all matters of the spirit. This preoccupation with the ethereal plain often leads other to view them as mysterious and sometimes frightening, but the truth is that they are often funny, inspiring and helpful, although prone to abnormal mood swings and chest infections.
Owl Nov 23- Dec 21
As changeable as the wind, the Owl is a tough one to pin down. A vicious temper keeps most people at a distance, but when properly nurtured and supported, the Owl can often become an adept cook, excelling particularly with soups.
Goose Dec 22- Jan 19
Persevering, dogged and ambitious to a fault, the Goose always achieves their goals. Indifferent to the approval of others, the Goose is determined to succeed at all costs. Those born to this animal sign make for excellent assassins.
]]>He couldn’t be stopped, his dick had to be seen.
Of course, politicians have long been engaged in reckless, sex scandal drenched behaviour. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia and robust anti-gay activist has actually been celebrated for his aggressive sexual posturing, with his PR team strategically releasing sex room chat transcripts to the public in an effort to bolster his macho image by “gay-baiting,” a practice common in Russia, a nation now dealing with the fallout from Putin’s new anti-gay laws.
Here is one of those transcripts:
Bear60: Tell me! What is it you are wearing!!
Twink23: Black leather chaps and a wife beater. Also, I’m hard.
Bear60: You must prove this to me! I demand it!! You are submissive!!
Bear60: Ha! I am not gay and now you have sent me a photograph of your hard penis!! The joke is on you, fag-boy!!
Twink23: I like it when you talk like that, you want some more, don’t you?
Bear60: It is a nice penis you have, strong. It is a shame you waste it on men and not women!
Twink23: I would waste it on you.
Bear60: Tell me Twink, what sort of men do you like? Do you like Russian men?
Twink23: Oh, you know I do. I love the HARD consonants of the language, I love everything HARD about Russians—their lives, their hands, their dark secrets.
Bear60: Maybe it is one of your homosexual fantasies to imagine sex with a powerful Russian man who was once a killer in the KGB!!?? Perhaps that excites you Twink23!?
Twink23: Tell me more, Bear, tell me more!
Bear60: This man, he would take you roughly because he hates that you have unnatural sex! And to show you his anger and disgust he would tear off all your clothes, and it would just be the two of you in the secluded barn that had been sheltering you from the storm! Because you are weak, you would demand to be punished sexually for the things you have done and the Russian Bear would humble you with great force and beauty, and then your skin would glisten and emit a satisfied and loving rosy hue!
Bear60: Ah, Twink, I see I have tricked you into sending me another abberant photograph of you! Ha, you are a fool, but I see you must workout! A lot. I also work out, for I am a very vigorous and heterosexual man. Do you know where it might be possible for me to trick a black homosexual into sending me a picture of his penis and muscles? Maybe the three of us could chat?
The boy’s name is Jurg and he’s 12 years old. He lives in a city I’ve never heard of (Prokhladny) in a part of the Russian Federation I’ve never heard of (Kabardino-Balkaria), and by sending him $25 a month, I’m helping to feed, clothe and educate him.
What follows is my correspondence with Jurg.
Dear Jurg:
Well, it’s nice to meet you! My name is Michael and I live in the city of Toronto, Canada with my wife and our little wiener dog Heidi. I work as a writer and my wife as a graphic artist. She’s tall and I’m not. Toronto is a pretty cool place, and if you ever get the opportunity you should come and visit. I hope the small contribution I make to you is of some use, and that we become best friends over the years. Please, tell me all about your life in Russia!
Mr. Murray:
My English is not expert so forgive mistakes please. My father, before he left he never forgave the mistake and would yell, “Jurg, Jurg, you are bad in the head!” and he would hit me. I work in Tungsten mine to make bread. The money you sent is kind and I thank you. Send photograph of your tall wife?
Jurg:
I’m so sorry to hear that your father beat you. That’s awful, but I’m sure that he loves you very much and was likely just having difficulties managing the stresses in his life. It’s sometimes very complicated to be an adult. I am sending you a picture of our little family here in Toronto and hope you are well!
Mr. Murray:
Toronto is city where Maple Leaf hockey club play, right? They are the shits. Russia much better at hockey than Canada. Your wife not bad, though, much better than you. You have potato on face where nose should be! I say wife 8 out of 10. If you spare more money life be better for Jurg and maybe he get lucky with lady who 8 out of 10.
Jurg:
Ha-Ha, such a precocious boy! That line about me having a potato on my face is very funny! Maybe you’ll grow up to be a comedian! The ladies like comedians, you know!
Potato Face:
We are very sorry to see you no send more money. We now have picture of your pretty wife and little dog and have many cousins living in Toronto. Would be shame if something happened to them.
Something with brick happen to make blood.
When 9, I drown a bear in Tambuken Lake.
Jurg:
I’m afraid I cannot afford any more than $40 a month. I hope that this amount is able to help you and your family.
Potato Face:
That is better. Jurg now own pit bull for safety. In your sake I call him potato face. No more letters from you, just money assistance, understand?
]]>“Do you have air conditioning?” I asked.
“Dah,” he responded in a blunt, unfriendly East European accent.
“Would you mind turning it on, please?”
“It is expensive for me to run AC, it take more energy, you know? So I keep windows open for breeze, OK?”
“Look, I’m sorry, but I’m dying in this heat, and the regulations say that you have to turn it on if the customer asks for it, right?”
The driver, irritated, snorted.
“What?” I asked, also irritated.
“You are weak, little man who can’t take sunshine?”
“Yes, that’s right. I am a weak, little man who can’t take the sunshine,” I sighed.
The driver pretended to laugh, shook his head and said something in a language that I presumed to be Russian.
“Have it your way, little mister boss.”
He then powered up the windows and contemptuously snapped on the AC.
We drove in black silence for the next five minutes.
I hated his fucking guts.
I hoped his native country got obliterated at the Olympics.
Food poisoning.
Nightmares with toys.
No Internet.
Being dunked-on while playing pick-up.
All these pestilences I wished upon him.
As I sat there concentrating my hatred, I began to pick at my fingernails. This is a habit that manifests when I’m angry, and in this case I managed to peel off several crescents of nails, which I then stored in my pocket. This detritus felt disgusting so I opened the window and tried to throw them out of the car.
The driver, his furious eyes staring at me from the rear-view mirror, shouted, “You demand AC like little dictator and now you put window down! You have no manners in my home! You waste my money, it is now five dollars extra!”
“C’mon, don’t be such a prick, I was just throwing a piece of fingernail out the window. Would you rather I left if on the seat?”
“You are disgusting man.”
“Like you’ve never picked at your fingernails.”
“You know who you are? You are like Gollum from The Hobbit. That is you.”
“That tattoo of a bear you have on the back of your neck looks gay.”
The driver slammed on the brakes.
“Gollum throw body waste out of my car, I throw Gollum out of my car. Get out now or I break you into pieces.”
“Really, are you serious?”
The driver looked at me, his eyes softening.
“Maybe I am not myself. My boy is sick and the doctors say he might lose hearing. It is awful and I cannot sleep, imaging his world without music, and then people like you come in and complain about small, small thing and I blow top. You be quiet and sit still, say nothing and I will take you home, but remember, say nothing!”
