*****************************************

Rachelle: Really?!!

Rachelle: Wow!! Having Lyle Lovett like one of your Tweets is amazing! That must be a real feather in your cap!

Rachelle: I’m proud of you, Pickle!

Rachelle: Yes, of course I do.

Rachelle: He’s one of The Avengers, isn’t he?

Rachelle: The Jewish one.

Rachelle: The one who could turn himself into a plane that’s also a tiger.

Rachelle: Oh.

Rachelle: I thought one of The Avengers could do that.

Rachelle: And that they embraced all religions, that they fought for freedom of religious expression and each hero represented a great faith.

Rachelle: Oh.

Rachelle: Well, I guess I don’t know who Lyle Lovett is then.

Rachelle: Hmm, a musician.

Rachelle: No, none of those songs are familiar to me.

Rachelle: Just before my time, I guess.

Rachelle: Not a dig, Pickle. You’re just a lot older than me.

Rachelle: No, I’d say 12 years is a lot. Anything double digits.

Rachelle: What??

Rachelle: He was married to Julia Roberts?

Rachelle: You mean the guy who looks like a scarecrow/funeral director is Lyle Lovett?

Rachelle: Wow.

Rachelle: It’s true, personality does counts for a lot.

Rachelle: And yes, it is almost as if Julia Roberts liked your Tweet!

Rachelle: Aww, that’s sweet!

Rachelle: Well, if I’m your Pretty Woman, you’re my little Lyle Lovett!

Rachelle: Yes, my power skating class is over and I’ll be home soon.

Rachelle: With the wings.

Rachelle: Extra mild. Sauce on the side. Extra wet naps. No carrot stick taller than the others. As always.

Rachelle: It’s a little bit of a serial killer kind of order, you know.

Rachelle: That was auto correct.

Rachelle: I wrote “You’re a sweet kind of order.”

Rachelle: Well, auto correct works in mysterious ways.

Rachelle: Through a glass darkly and all of that.

Rachelle: Yes, you probably will start getting ads in you Facebook feed for serial killer things now.

Rachelle: Well, they say technology knows you better than you know yourself, Pickle!

Rachelle: Oh, I’m kidding, honey.

Rachelle: You’re no serial killer.

Rachelle: In fact, you would be the worst serial killer in history.

Rachelle: Well, your allergies to start. Always blowing your nose and sneezing. You’d be detected straight away!

Rachelle: And then there’s your general physical and mental weakness. Serial killers have to be on the ball! I bet serial killers get 10 hours of sleep a night!

Rachelle: Ha Ha!! I know, I would kill for 10 hours of sleep, too!

Rachelle: But look, the fact that you could never be a serial killer is a compliment, not an insult.

Rachelle: I know, these are confusing times.

Rachelle: The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Rachelle: It’s from a poem.

Rachelle: I think the falconer is the person who dresses the falcon when they go hunting. Picks out the outfits. Not positive.

Rachelle: Anyway, see you in about half an hour! xo

******************************************************************************

Heidi hear about Red Hen restaurant. Two-legged owner make two-legger she think BAD DOG leave before dinner!

If some two-legger tell Heidi she have to leave when Heidi about to eat, things gonna get heavy.

Heidi not moving.

Heidi fuck a bitch up.

Heidi well regulated militia.

Heidi shock and awe campaign.

Heidi is Hound of War.

And when Heidi need to eat, Heidi eat.

Heidi eat Red Hen.

Heidi eat Blue Hen.

Heidi eat Yellow Hen.

Heidi eat Fascist Hen.

Heidi eat Progressive Hen.

Heidi eat Space Force Hen.

Heidi don’t care. Heidi eat all the hens. Heidi don’t care politics of hen. Heidi don’t care colour of hen. Heidi don’t care who hen sex with or where hen live. Not important to Heidi if hen or egg come first. Heidi eat both.

Heidi appetite is the law.

It the Alpha and Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and the End.

That all Heidi saying.

1. Executive Order suspending Groupon purchases for medical procedures, including colonoscopies and all eye surgeries.
2. Executive Order creating a Task Force on toy reduction in the living room.
3. Executive Order restoring the “Rule of Law” at sleepy time. No lollipops. No ice cream. No more than 6 stories. No exceptions.
4. Executive Order protecting the household from foreign entry of sand, sticks, rocks of all kind, Play-Doh, cutlery and Spiderman lego into the bed.
5. Executive Order improving accountability and whistleblower protection at the Department of Picking Up Used Kleenex That Almost Landed In The Garbage But Did Not.
6. Executive Order prohibiting the use of Hate Speech such as “Daddy is stink face poo brain,” and, “ Daddy is stink face poo face!”
7. Executive Order consolidating withdrawal from The Chore List Accord, as it was a rotten deal for Mike who was always stuck with picking up all the toys AND doing all the dishes AND taking out the garbage, in spite of how tired his allergies make him. Hugely unfair!!
8. Executive Order creating a Comprehensive Plan for Reorganization of the front closet.
9. Executive Order establishing that I will no longer wear my “A-game shirt” with the basketball players on it beyond the house perimeter, as the un-ironic attention I receive from other women threatens my wife.
10. Executive Order imposing economic sanctions on The Red Lobster after that crappy “Admiral’s Feast,” dinner I ordered on Father’s Day.

    

Make Mike Great Again!

******************************************

Atwood: You must know how much it pains me to do this, but after the most recent injuries to both Elvis Andrus AND Corey Seager ( si non fortuna velim fortuna omnino! ) I have found that my team, The Bad Feminists, is in need of some help at shortstop. Thusly compromised, I have no alternative but to attempt to discuss the possibility of a trade with you.

Me: You know, I really don’t have a clue how much it pains you to open a chat window with me. Please describe.

Atwood: It feels as if am a lone tree burning on the desert.

Me: A really ancient, worn out and desiccated tree? One that’s been completely abandoned by all the other trees that used to respect her but now subtweet her because they think her work is over-rated and old fashioned? A tree that just decided to go ahead and set herself on fire because let’s be honest, nobody was even going to notice?

Atwood: No, not that tree.

Me: Sounds like that tree.

Atwood: Your ability to evaluate the world around you is very poor. It’s why your team always finishes at the bottom of the league and you’re in a constant, emasculating state of rebuilding. It’s your cycle of pointlessness, part of what feeds your rage.

Me: I can’t remember– maybe because you look so much alike– but was it you who won the Nobel prize for literature or that singer Bob Dylan?

He might have come along after your time, so here’s a little video of him to ensure you have a clear, very clear picture, of the great literary talent who bested you for the Nobel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJymBJ_5iUg

Atwood: I am interested in acquiring New York Mets infielder Asdrubel Cabrera from you, and as you obviously have no chance of winning this year, I’ll give you a couple of promising, young players who you can use next year in exchange for him.

Me: No.

Atwood: Without even hearing who those players are?

Me: I’m not out of contention yet.

Atwood: Yes you are. You’ve never been in contention.

Me: I WON’T BE BULLIED!!!

Atwood: Is that what’s been happening to you? You’ve been bullied into failure again and again and again? That daily video chat with your mother each morning, it’s not really helping you organize your life and establish your own goals, is it? No? Well ask yourself, is it your mother refusing to trade me Cabrera, or is it you, Michael?

Me: Look, I’ll give you Joe Panik for Jake Baurers and Nick Williams.

Atwood: NO! As the great Aeschylus said, “ I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery!” You are a cheat, a blackguard! Panik just had thumb surgery and is out for the next two months! He’s worthless to me! Cabrera for Bauers and Williams, that’s it. Take it or leave it!!

Me: Can you arrange for me to meet Elisabeth Moss?

Atwood: I refuse to pimp out the wonderful actress from the award winning TV show, based on my award winning book, The Handmaid’s Tale, to you!

Me: You will if you want Asdrubel Cabrera in your lineup.

Atwood: You wouldn’t be allowed to make eye contact with her or touch her, you know.

Me: Jesus, of course I know that!

Atwood: I will think on the matter. You are dismissed.

The event first came to my attention back in 2006 when Stephen Colbert delivered a lacerating, satiric monologue to George W. Bush and his dubious assembly. I was astonished and exhilarated by the performance. It struck me as incredibly brave, a truly patriotic display of dissent that deserved all the awards. It was the sort of thing I could imagine being taught in university classes.

Of course, this was during the era of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, and I was already a huge fan of all things Colbert. The emergence of their shows changed the way that I, and a lot of people, digested their news. Network News Hours were no longer the sole, or even primary means of disseminating “the news.” The dull, superficial theatre of traditional networks was giving way to the faster, more entertaining curation of the Comedy Network. News was changing, becoming something like sketch comedy, and each night we got to choose what sort of news we wanted. Colbert and Stewart were the new Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw.

Stewart and Colbert’s were always very persuasive and funny, and it was easy enough to forget that they were in no way balanced or objective, but as Stewart was always at pains to point out, he was performing comedy, not providing a comprehensive analysis of American politics. Nevertheless, it was around this point that we all started to migrate into separate news camps, existing happily amidst our tribe without ever having to intersect with an idea outside of our chosen position.

And now, about a dozen years later, Donald Trump is President.

It’s my theory that the age of Trump has put a kind of freeze on comedy. You simply cannot satirize the man, as everything he does is so far beyond the range of expectation that he completely obliterates the idea of expectation, and without that there can be no satire. I mean, not a single person on the planet would be surprised if one day he removed his human face on TV.

To make matters worse, we’re so polarized in our beliefs that we no longer have a shared understanding of what is true or what should be funny. People aren’t even certain where power lies right now– just that they have enemies, so, so many enemies! And one of the shadows cast by living this way is that comedy has become little more than simply mocking your enemies.

At any rate, this brings me to the White House Correspondents Dinner that just took place, the one that featured Michelle Wolf from the Daily Show taking the piss out of Sarah Huckabee.

I didn’t watch all of it, and only saw snatches of her performance as it repeated throughout my social media feeds. I guess what I really saw was a meme, and my response was instinctive rather than analytic, and in this peripheral reading what I saw was not justice triumphing, but a person in a moment of power hurting someone else. Huckabee didn’t look like she was acting hurt, she looked like she was hurt, and it made me feel badly to see that.

I’m not sure why this is. Huckabee doesn’t align with my politics, so shouldn’t I take pleasure in seeing her receive her just comeuppance in front of the entire world, all dressed up as she was in her finest dress? Well, I don’t know. I have been furious in my life, wounded so deeply that all I wanted to do was verbally destroy a person, and I’ve followed through on that and let me assure you, there is no pleasure to be had in making somebody cry. It felt horrible to see the consequence of my words made manifest in the face of another human being. I don’t know, maybe now that I’m old and mortal, and a father to a young son, I’ve started to value mercy over justice. Maybe I just can’t find anything funny in this absurd mess we’re all in.

I honestly have no idea.

What is clear is that The White House Correspondent’s Dinner is a ridiculous anachronism, a kind of entertainment award’s show, that should just be cancelled. It was obviously designed as an insider event, an acknowledgment that although the media and the political class they covered had to sometime assume adversarial positions, they were still both privileged, with much more in common than not. And for one night they would all admit they were actually in the business of entertainment and just relax, but now they’re not so much on the same team. Now there are many teams, each one feeding on whatever it is that’s bubbled up from our collective unconscious and now lives in the swampland of social media. Its’ a war now, one with too many fronts to count, and humour is hard to find.

It was a hit.

A really big hit.

It became pretty hard to keep up, and then, after one reader misinterpreted my thoughts regarding the use of fire while giving a reading, I decided to step back to spend more time with my family. Regardless, the letters kept coming, and so I feel I owe it to my loyal fans to resurrect the column, which is what I’m doing right now.

*****************************************************

Dear Bitter Writer:

You’re likely aware of the Twitter Challenge in which women were asked to, “Describe yourself like a male author would.” The point of this, of course, was to illustrate how men objectified women, but what I would find really interesting with you– as an impossibly mediocre white man in possession of a level of confidence that outstrips your very modest competencies by an incalculable magnitude– is to have you describe yourself. I have included a photograph in case you should need a reference point.

Lynn from Montreal

Dear Lynn:

In Havana he was known as “ La muerte incómoda.”

It was a term of respect, of great respect, in fact, and more than a little fear. What had Michael Murray done to earn such a nickname from the gentle people of Cuba?

Well, that’s a long and complicated story that will reveal itself in time, but for now we should just imagine the man as he sat there, commandingly, in the barber’s chair. His face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, and his most striking feature was his opaline green eyes, which could be both alluring or intimidating, as the situation required. A part of his barber’s apron fell open from the cooling breeze of the fan and revealed the shirt he was wearing. There were little baseball players on it. He looked up, his eyes clear and even as he wiped some sweat off his upper lip, “ ¿Cómo está mi calva haciendo allí?” he asked the trembling barber. And in that moment Murray’s beauty was revealed the edge of a very sharp knife.

Dear Bitter Writer:

It recently came to my attention that an author at a major publishing house threatened to slap a reviewer who didn’t like his moronic, insulting book, and I was wondering if the publishing house was going to punish him for it, or if white male authors can do literally anything?

Karen in Toronto

Dear Karen:

Have you seen White Male Author: Infinity War, yet?

Easily the best of the franchise. Just fantastic.

At any rate, this movie goes a long way to answer your question. In it, Thanos

attempts to destroy Planet Earth, and after incapacitating both The Avengers and The X-Men it seemed that victory was certain. Right at this despairing point in the movie, White Male Author showed up and blasted him with his laser pulses.

He then flew around Thanos so quickly that the wind currents kept him pinned to the ground while the other superheroes freed themselves from the Polaris Fog that Thanos had used to trap them, and then all together were able to cast Thanos back into the Canyons of Zorg. So it’s clear that although White Male Author is VERY powerful, certainly superior to Spiderman, he might not be as invincible as The Hulk or The Thing.

At any rate, even though White Male Author is very, very powerful, I don’t think he can do literally anything.

*****************************************

Me: No, I haven’t heard back from Nancy.

Me: Well, I can’t think of any reason why she wouldn’t want to do it. It’s an awesome idea!

Me: She owns a cheese shop, so me setting up a grilled cheese booth in there is a no-brainer!

Me: It’s win/win, baby!

Me: Well, I thought I’d pick up one of those Instant Pot things and cook them in there.

Me: Oh.

Me: Really?

Me: The Instant Pot can’t make grilled cheese sandwiches?

Me: Why isn’t that on their advertising?

Me: Well, that sucks.

Me: Thought it could do practically everything.

Me: Yeah, I guess I did kind of imagine it like a robot.

Me: No, not like that.

Me: A benevolent robot, one that serves man, AND is capable of making a grilled cheese sandwich.

Me: Well, if it can’t make a damn sandwich, why the hell was it named Time Magazine’s Person of the year??

Me: Oh, I thought it was.

Me: The Silence Breakers were?

Me: I don’t know who they are.

Me: Oh.

Me: Yes, they are very brave women. #TimesUp

Me: I am an ally.

Me: Look, we’ve been through this before.

Me: Feminism is many things, many voices–and my collection of vintage Raquel Welch memorabilia doesn’t make me a “Bad Feminist.”

Me: It makes me an ally.

Me: No, not a creep, an ally.

Me: Well, let me tell you, I’d be delighted if she exploited me back.

Me: I really would.

Me: Oh, don’t act so innocent!

Me: You know you want to be exploited by Colin Farrell.

Me: I saw how many times you watched that Miami Vice movie, and I saw the way your eyes got all weird and intense whenever that greasy Crockett came on screen!

Me: I can’t believe you just wrote that!

Me: You’ve stopped going to your low carb support group, haven’t you?

Me: You were very high in agreeability when you were eating carbs.

Me: Now, not so much.

Me: The Rachelle Maynard I know (and love!) would never have said something like that to me if she was properly managing her carb withdrawal.

Me: Yes.

Me: Yes.

Me: I can see that now.

Me: I am sorry.

Me: I love you way more than I could ever love Raquel Welch.

Me: If I had a poster of you, I’d put it up over the fireplace. I’d wallpaper the entire apartment in you if I could!

Me: No, not like a serial killer.

Me: Like I’m your Crockett and you’re my Tubbs.

Me: We mustn’t let Trump divide us, my love.

Me: It’s what he wants.

As many of you know, I’ve been engaged in a running feud with Canadian literary legend Margaret Atwood for quite some time now.

Typically, the landscape for this war has been social media and chance encounters in our shared neighbourhood of Toronto, but about a month or so ago my mother

turned up the weird by writing Atwood a letter of apology on behalf of my family (  http://michaelmurray.ca/my-mothers-letter-to-margaret-atwood ), as I had refused to so so myself. After a few weeks had passed without my mother getting a response, she wrote to Atwood again:

*****************************************

Nov, 9, 2017

Dear Ms. Atwood:

Hi, how are you?

I am fine, but oh, my sinuses were just awful last week! I don’t know what it was, maybe a change in the barometric pressure or the wind, but honest to Betsy, I just wanted to climb under a rock and die! Even chewing gum was excruciating! It’s at such times when you really need a friend– just so you know that people care and that they’re grateful for all the little things you do for them, like sending hand-sanitizer because you don’t want them to pick up a nasty sinus bug like you did. By the way, did you get the hand-sanitizer I sent to you? I hope so, but you never know with the post office!

Have you got all your Christmas shopping done? I don’t even know where to begin, I’m still trying to catch up on all my cards from last year!

Oh, I think I hear Frito meowing!

That can only mean one thing—he wants his dinner, so I better go!

Yours sincerely,

Barb Murray

PS: In case you did’t know, you can now get a flu shot at Shopper’s so you don’t have to go through all the bother of going to a doctor’s office!

Nov, 13, 2017

Dear Ms. Atwood:

I know that you are a very important person and are probably very busy with your various hobbies and commitments, but that’s still no excuse for being rude! I don’t know how you were raised or what sort of morals you Hollywood types have, but where I come from you write a thank-you note if somebody sends you some hand-sanitizer. It’s just common decency.

I hope you remembered to buy a poppy this Remembrance Day. My father fought in WW II.

In the trenches. There was no hand-sanitizer there. Just death and foot disease. But my father endured all that hardship to help make the world safe for people like you, so I hope you always keep in mind the sacrifices he made for you.

I have been thinking a little more about my son’s behaviour toward you. It’s true that Michael has his issues, but I always taught him to be considerate. If you drop him off at a bar,  he will thank you, and if he gets a present, you can be sure he will send a thank-you note to the person who sent him the hand-sanitizer. Sometimes when he’s tired or anxious or hasn’t been attending his low carb support group meetings, he can get very crabby, so it’s crucial for him, and all of us, to maintain our routines (especially regular BM’s!) and get plenty of sleep.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

Barb Murray

PS: I have included an article that I clipped from the paper that I thought you might be interested in on Vitamin D. It’s very important that we get enough of it, especially in winter. Osteoporosis is a silent killer. I was a nurse, so I know.

PPS: Did you get many trick-or-treaters for Halloween? We only got two, and they were both teenage girls! And the way they were dressed, my Lord! I thought I should be handing out clothes instead of candy!

PPS: Do you have any children or were you barren?

All the same, family members told her that I had been writing about my feud with Atwood ( http://michaelmurray.ca/atwood-condo-tweet-fight#more-6562 ), and that some of the things I had been saying about her weren’t very kind. My mother was very, very disappointed in me and demanded that I write her an apology. We got in a huge fight about this, of course, and since I refused to do what she wanted, she went ahead and wrote Margaret Atwood a letter herself:

*************************

Dear Ms. Atwood,

Hi, how are you?

I am fine, although I have to say that the weather in Ottawa has been very unpredictable! One day it’s hot as the blazes and the next it’s so cold Frito won’t even go outside!

Just last week ( in late September) it was far too hot to shampoo the carpet, so I called up Bea and asked her if she wanted to go to the Second Cup for a coffee. She said Ok, but first she had to finish watching her show, and so I waited, and then once we got there Bea insisted on sitting out on the patio. I have no idea why she wanted to sit there. It was so humid it was like being in a sauna! It’s no wonder she felt faint, she’s lucky she didn’t have another heart attack!

Anyway, I hope that the weather is better in Toronto than it is here.

It has come to my attention that my son, Michael Murray, has been saying some mean things to you on the computer. That’s not nice at all. Just cheap. It’s elder abuse, is what it is, and he’ll find out exactly how that feels when he’s older. He’ll get his, he will, and then he’ll be sorry. Let me assure you he was definitely not raised to be so cheeky and disrespectful, and the ENTIRE Murray family is very sorry for the way he has behaved toward you. It’s shameful, and although no one likes to say it, the truth is that he’s never been the same since the bee sting. It changed him, even if the doctors said it didn’t. A mother knows.

By the way, congratulations on winning an Emma for The Handmaid’s Veil! Such a fancy event! It must have been nice to have all those lovely starts applauding the great work you’ve done! Did you see Hugh Jackman? Such a handsome, classy man!

Yours sincerely,

Barb Murray

PS: Just awful about Las Vegas! I don’t know what’s gotten into people!

PPS: I have inclosed some hand sanitizer (There is a special on at Shopper’s Drug Mart) as you can never be too careful during flu season!!

****************************

Dear Bitter Writer:

I think that having the capacity to feel a broad array of emotions is a big component of being a great, great writer, like you are, and with that in mind I was wondering what the first book that made you cry was?

Igor

Igor:

This one is very easy.

The first book that made me cry was Horton Hears a Who!

Completely fucking terrifying.

Dr. Seuss was one messed-up guy, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he turned out to some sort of unknown serial killer. He’s like a Stephen King for children. You should fear him.

Anyway, I was probably about four when this book was first read to me, and I immediately understood that our world was no different than the speck of dust Horton was holding. Our lives– even those of Mommy and Daddy– were incredibly precarious and vulnerable, subject to forces we know nothing about and couldn’t even begin to imagine. At any second, all we knew and loved could just vanish into an unknowable abyss. I did not sleep for two weeks after the babysitter (Summer) read this stupid book to me, and ever since, I’ve been cursed by a deeply penetrating existential terror, one that continues to govern my days.

************************

Dear Bitter Writer:

You’re such an interesting and charismatic person, I was wondering if you’d share with us any literary pilgrimages you might have gone on?

Oscar winning actress Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer:

Ha, so great to hear from you!

As far as your question goes, I’ve never been on a, “this is the cafeteria where Kafka ate,” or, “ this is the dungeon where Dr. Seuss used to torture his victims,” kind of pilgrimage. Instead, I think of each day as a literary pilgrimage. I go out with the conscious intent of finding a moment of beauty in the world, of discovering something holy, and then I try to recreate it using words. And so each day is a journey, a pilgrimage toward something sacred that must be worshipped. 

PS: Have you been getting my postcards? I have not heard back and was wondering if I was given the wrong super-yacht address for you?

PPS: I think you’re something sacred that must be worshipped!

*****************************************************

Dear Bitter Writer:

I just want to say how much I LOVED your brilliant book A VAN FULL OF GIRLS.

It is, and I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, the work of a true genius. Obviously, writing just pours out of you, but if for some reason you couldn’t be a genius writer, what do you think you’d do for work?

Taylor

Taylor:

Thank you for the kind, extremely perceptive words!

It’s hard to imagine a life where I’m not a writer, but if I were forced to live one by some alien over-lord or something, I think I would probably be a model. I think I could bring a lot to that job.