The Dinosaur House, he calls it.
The weekends are full of families, and after an hour or so of exhibits, everybody typically ends up at the children’s play area. It is here where Jones’ transformations begin. He becomes a knight in chain mail. A dragon. A Sultan from mysterious desert lands.
A prism changing colour with the light, he is all glittering potential here. The rest of us, the parents, we sit down and exhale, ring the children like a campfire. Try to remember the plots of the lives we’ve been living.
We were meeting a couple and their children there, and I asked the tired-looking husband, who I hadn’t seen in over a year, how he was doing. He sighed, explaining that he no longer worked downtown, but had been moved to an office on a loveless fringe of the city. He couldn’t ride his bike in to work anymore, and found himself transformed into somebody he did not recognize–just another dad commuting to an unremarkable job in an unremarkable corner of the world. All of us now, softly closing doors we will never open again, watching our children begin the future we once lived.
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I am an excellent father and husband.
A true family leader.
As such, I often find it necessary to call Family Councils so that my wife Rachelle, and our three year-old son, Jones,
can discuss important issues as they arise. These are the minutes from a recent Council:
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Michael: Okay, Council #37 is now in order. I know that Jones has a matter that’s been troubling him. Jones, would you like to take Thor’s Hammer from daddy so that you might air your grievances?
Jones: NO!!! I WANT CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD!!
Michael: We’ve talked about this Jones, you wave Captain America’s shield when you want to be acknowledged by the Daddy Moderator, and you hold Thor’s Hammer when you have the floor. It’s sometimes hard to keep straight in your head, but it’s very important.
Rachelle: Why? Why is it important?
Michael: You see Jones, Mommy just forgot to wave Captain America’s shield to signal that she wished to speak, so the Daddy Moderator has no choice but to OWWW! Jesus Christ Rachelle! That thing hurts! You do know I’m on blood thinners, right? You know that’s going to bruise. It’s not just against protocol to throw the shield, it’s medically unsafe!
Jones: NO TALK DADDY!! JONES TALK!!
Michael: I cede Thor’s Hammer to Jones.
Rachelle: Jonesy, what’s the matter?
Jones: I want to break a chair.
Rachelle: Because of something daddy did?
Jones: Yes. Daddy did it.
Rachelle: What did daddy do?
Jones: I’M GREEN HULK!
Michael: (Waving Captain America’s shield ) Jones? Jones? Can daddy please have Thor’s Hammer so he can speak?
Jones: NO! YOU LIZARD MAN NOW, DADDY!
Michael: Ha, see?! He wants to break a chair because he’s green Hulk, not because I did anything wrong!
Rachelle: Oh, really? Jones, is green Hulk mad because daddy is always finishing Jones’ dinosaur puzzles?
Jones: Yes!
Michael: You know, I put our Family Council protocols in place for a reason. Without strict adherence to shield/hammer regulation the chain of evidence falls apart! And Rachelle, you should know better than to ask leading questions of a child!!
Jones: GREEN HULK SMASH DADDY WITH CHAIR!
Michael: No! Put that down! I’m not kidding, Jones. Put. It. Down.
Jones: You Lizard Man, daddy, green Hulk smash you face!!
Rachelle: Oh my, green Hulk is so strong, I think Lizard Man had best do exactly what you say and let Jones work on his puzzles on his own, and at his own pace!
Michael: Lizard Man is sorry to have finished your puzzle.
Rachelle: Lizard Man has OCD. He has it bad.
Michael: No. Lizard Man does not. He just thinks that if you start something, it is your obligation to finish it.
Rachelle: Lizard Man thinks no such thing. Lizard Man has seen about five minutes of every show on Netflix, before abandoning them. Lizard Man started driving lessons, but never took a driver’s test, and he’s been on page 36 of The Angel Effect for what? Four months now? Six months? Years, maybe? Lizard man is a liar! It’s his evil super power, green Hulk! You must smash the lies!!
Michael: This Family Council is now adjourned!!
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Our son Jones is almost two and a half years old, and he is positively electrified by the creatures.
The idea of them are the current that runs through his body. His sun and moon. His east and west. They are spinning and shining and thumping and roaring through his days, they are everything he wants his universe to be. And so, on a cold morning in the disorienting limbo between Christmas and New Year’s, we took him to the Royal Ontario Museum.
Standing there as we entered, Jones twisting in his jacket to get free from my grip and and run to the “BIG DINOSAUR!”, I was hoping that my son might grow to love museums. I imagined him retreating into them over the course of his life the way he might a lake, emerging nourished and restored after each encounter. Sanctuaries of rich, wide spaces and cool tile. All the marvels of history respectfully arrayed before him, and always, he would have the sense of being somewhere else, a place just outside of time, and of being suspended right before a great mystery that was both his life and not his life.
And then he spun free and ran out into the great hall.
He was just so excited.
He tore from one wonder to the next, identifying each one as best he could. It was astounding to watch. He was a fever. A pinball. A waterfall. A million monkeys typing. I swear to you that he was glowing, he really was.
Watching, I wondered why our children, all so innocent and vulnerable, were attracted to the creatures we consider the most terrible and dangerous? Why run into the jaws of a dinosaur? Why the darkness? And all of the parents there, each one smiling through whatever weight it was their burden to carry, were likely pondering some variant of the same question as they watched their miracles of light streak so beautifully through the museum.
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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!
For years there’s been an obdurate, official position that there is to be no negotiating with terrorists. Negotiation, or worse, capitulation would lead to utter catastrophe and societal ruination.
It was a mantra that echoed, even boomed in our heads, and to so much as question it was to let the terrorists win. It’s all a little bit counter-intuitive, because on an personal level, we all know that if somebody we loved were taken hostage, we would negotiate, doing whatever we could to bring that light safely back into our lives. When the stakes are intimate and truly meaningful to us, we only care about the results, not the precedent we’re setting in achieving that result.
In acquiescing to the Guardians of Peace demands and agreeing not to release the movie The Interview, Sony was acting in self-interest.
They were not concerned with freedom of speech or following the US government’s rulebook on dealing with terrorists, or even protecting the vulnerable part-time employees who’d be working in the threatened cinemas over Christmas, or anything else that wasn’t a part of their bottom line.
A corporation is not a moral agency, and it exists for the singular purpose of making money, and whatever serves that interest, whether it’s long-term or short-term, serves the corporation. In tatters and reeling, their internal system almost destroyed, Sony made a rational, tactical decision. Put the movie on the shelf for now and see how it all played out.
What’s interesting is that when money, when the unencumbered progress of private enterprise was put in peril, objectives were met. Now, all sorts of smoke and mirrors surround this, but it reduces to the valuation of corporations over actual humans.
One could argue that the dominant species on the planet are actually corporations. Single-minded and constantly feeding, they’re boundless, traversing and devouring landscapes and cultures like a predatory science fiction behemoth. They must feed, and in so doing behave in a very reptilian, even predictable (if strategic) fashion. Although they may, very weirdly, have some of the same rights and responsibilities as human beings, they’re not human beings and don’t serve the broad interests of the species—they’re just seeking to metastasize, and any concessions that are made to modernity, social progress or environmental stewardship, for instance, are done purely to ensure they’re continuing to maximize profit within an evoloving host.
The lesson to learn here is that when an economic system is disordered, as was Sony’s, then a meaningful tactical response was achieved. Our hearts might break to see hostages taken in a coffee shop in Sydney or journalists executed in a faraway desert, but the terrorist’s goals are not achieved until what really matters is threatened, and that is the free market. Corporations, massive, powerful and ubiquitous, perhaps more powerful than nations, remind me of dinosaurs, and the cyber attacks now threatening them are a virus to which they might be vulnerable, and could ultimately cripple the entire species.
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Not only were the bikes like riding something from the 19th century, but the program struggled financially and has been being rebranded to “Bike Share Toronto,” and is currently looking for a new corporate sponsor.
I have submitted a list of new names for “Bike Share Toronto” hoping that they might prove appealing to the public and sponsorship!
1. Le Dificyle
This name will honour Canada’s bilingual nature, the city of Toronto’s multicultural character and be completely up front about how hard it is to ride the massive bike.
2. World Class Bicycles
This name would highlight Toronto’s status as a World Class City.
3. The Bumbaclot
Inspired by Rob Ford, the world’s greatest Mayor, this name harkens back to his drug fuelled rant in Jamaican patois that was filmed at the Steak Queen. Bumbaclot, as everyone now knows, is Jamaican slang for a cloth or rag used for menstrual blood before tampons were widely available, an accurate reflection of contempt considering how most people feel about the rental bikes after using one.
4. The Film Festival Flash (Triple F)
Tying in with Toronto’s World Class International Film Festival, this name will publicize the great event and all the stars, posers and wannabes who populate the streets during it’s run, and the bikes will also be promoted as a safe and alcohol-friendly conveyance by which to get from party to party!
5. The Velociraptor
![1085840330[1].jpg](http://michaelmurray.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/raptor9.jpg)
Piggybacking on the success of the Toronto Raptors basketball team, and cleverly using the French word for bicycle as a nod to Toronto’s great multicultural personality, the Velociraptor would make for a stellar moniker for the bike rentals! (Suggestion: dinosaur arms holding a basket protruding from handlebars of bike)
6. The Catapult
Given that the streetcar tracks all over the city streets spell doom for cyclists, especially those (tourists) not familiar with the roads, and typically catapult cyclists into cars and streetlights, the Catapult is a perfect name for the bikes.
7. LAGFPPS’s (Little Above Ground Foot-Powered Private Subways)
In keeping with Rob Ford’s promise to bring more subways to Toronto, this name will revolutionize the public’s perception of just what a subway is and will, as usual, save the taxpayer billions of dollars.
8. The Ton O’ Fun
This playful name will combine the weight of the bike with the joy of cycling, making an adventure on the city streets as much fun as a carnival ride!
9. The Ontarian
A classic homage to this great province in which we live!
10. The Pussy Wagon
This name, once again inspired by Toronto’s Mayor, references his statement that he “has more than enough pussy to eat at home.” Gritty, urban and controversial, it gives Toronto the World Class, Tarantinoesque edge it has always sought.
