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

Rachelle: I’m sorry, honey, that’s just not the way that it works.

Rachelle: Although you identify as a two-lunged person, it does not change the fact that you only have one lung.

Rachelle: Yes.

Rachelle: Yes, I think it would likely disqualify you from being hired as a bodyguard.

Rachelle: Hate speech?

Rachelle: Really? You think that’s hate speech?

Rachelle: Well, yes! You should Tweet about it then!

Rachelle: That will really help get things done!

Rachelle: I like the way you fight for justice, you really are the sharp end of the spear!

Rachelle: Oh Pickle, if it’s of any consolation, there are all sorts of reasons beyond you needing supplemental oxygen that would likely stop a person from hiring you as a bodyguard.

Rachelle: Well, you’re pretty weak.

Rachelle: I know.

Rachelle: That rope hang test back in primary school was hard!

Rachelle: I don’t know what they were thinking.

Rachelle: I agree.

Rachelle: It was biased against those with upper body strength issues.

Rachelle: I’m sure you would have gotten a gold star if not for that test.

Rachelle: Well, bronze for sure.

Rachelle: Regardless, my love, I think it’s time to let that go now.

Rachelle: It was a long time ago.

Rachelle: Okay. If Tweeting about it will make you feel better, you Tweet away!

Rachelle: I’ll wait.

Rachelle: What did you Tweet?

Rachelle: FUCK THE ROPE!

Rachelle: Well, that will show them!

Rachelle: Do you think people will know what that means?

Rachelle: Yes. I am very naive.

Rachelle: I believe you. It probably will go viral.

Rachelle: But look, there are other reasons you might not flourish as bodyguard.

Rachelle: You’re kind of clumsy. You move like a pigeon, all jerky and unpredictable.

Rachelle: Also, you don’t enunciate very clearly. I think people would have a hard time understanding the things you reported into your lapel microphone.

Rachelle: Yes. There could be confusion.

Rachelle: Communication is key for a bodyguard.

Rachelle: You’d have to repeat yourself all the time. Lots of wasted time. A terrorist only needs a second to blow himself up.

Rachelle: Oh Michael, I am not “shitting on your dreams.”

Rachelle: His name is Richard Madden. He’s the star of the tv show Bodyguard.

Rachelle: THAT IS NOT TRUE!

Rachelle: He is not an asshole.

Rachelle: He’s just very organized and knows what he wants.

Rachelle: It’s called confidence and strength, and it can be very, very sexy.

Rachelle: A commanding, strong man.

Rachelle: No.

Rachelle: That’s not hate speech either.

Rachelle: If I was an “Alt-Right Nazi” who wanted to “exterminate” those who lacked confidence and strength, do you really think I would have married you, Pickle?

Rachelle: Yes, it is true.

Rachelle: Your potential was, and still remains great. Very great.

Rachelle: You’re my favourite bodyguard.

Rachelle: No.

Rachelle: Sorry.

Rachelle: I was mistaken when I wrote that.

Rachelle: Richard Madden is still my favourite bodyguard.

Rachelle: He could guard my body any time.

Rachelle: Yes.

Rachelle: Sexually.

Rachelle: Well, as much as it would pain me, if a beautiful actress asked you to be her bodyguard, I wouldn’t stand in the way.

Rachelle: I expect Jennifer Lawrence already has a security team in place, though.

Rachelle: But maybe she’d still hire you on. I hear she has a big heart.

Rachelle: You could be The Littlest Bodyguard.

Rachelle: Maybe get on Ellen.

Rachelle: Yes, it would be the Christmas story the world needs right now.

1. IN A BAD PLACE
2. THE HANGED MAN
3. RED DYE #40
4. LONE WOLF
5. ECXTINTION EVENT
6. UNMARKED VAN
7. GENETIC MUTATION
8. REDRUM
9. BELIAL
10. THE RAPTURE

    

11. RADIATION SICKNESS
12. BLACK GHOST
13. FENTANYL PATCH
14. NUCLEAR WINTER
15. INFERTILITY
16. THIS BORROWED WORLD
17. DATA CAPTURE
18. CONTAGION
19. FLAKKA ZOMBIE
20. MY SHEEPLE

Valentine’s Day Press Briefing by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer:

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

Mr. Spicer: Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for coming.

As some of the assembled press here might already know, but probably don’t, on account of being spineless merchants of ignorance and lies, is that today is Valentine’s Day.

Named after St. Valentine.

A Christian.

A Christian who was killed by Muslims.

I want those words to sit there for a moment and sink in.

No! No questions yet! We’re going to have a little time-out here and think about Muslims killing an an innocent Christian. A super Christian. The Tom Brady of Christians . That’s right, that’s how goddamn good Saint Valentine was, he was like Tom Brady.

And the Muslims killed him.

Do you know how he was killed?

Anyone?

No? Not one of you geniuses in the press corps has any idea? No, I didn’t think so.

Torture.

He was tortured to death.

Okay, moving on, I’d like to wish my lovely wife Rebecca a Happy Valentine’s Day– baby, you’re the light of my life! They say behind every great man is a great woman, and they’re right, they’re right, Rebecca.

However, the story dominating the news cycle today is the handshake between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Jerry Trudeau of Canada.

Jerry Trudeau, as you could all see– it was plain as day– has smaller hands than President Trump. Much smaller. It was funny how small they were. The President firmly guided the direction, intensity and length of the handshake. He was in full control at all times. Additionally, Ivanka, a world-class beauty, is much more attractive than Sonja, the Prime Minister’s wife. Is she older than him? We will look into that, but I believe that Sonja is older than Trudeau. Sorry? What did you say, Kellyanne? I can’t hear you above the howling from the media cages! Okay, okay, got it. Sonja is 7 years older than the Prime Minister and has had work done. How much work we are not yet sure.

President Trump, as you all know, can get any woman on the planet, and certainly would never have to stoop to marrying a woman older than him.

Saturday Night Live continues to disgust.

There is no greater example of the corrupt and biased media than this treasonous show. For the record, I was never known as “Sean Sphincter” in high school. Nothing but malicious, mean-spirited lies. Our intelligence service has discovered that next week SNL were planning on having ISIS as their special guest.

Not on our watch.

The President takes the security of the American people very seriously, in fact it is his highest priority, and from this point forward all operations at Saturday Night Live and Nordstrom will be suspended indefinitely. They are welcome to operate out of Iraq and see how they like it there. Additionally, Playboy magazine will be bringing back nudity.

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has retired in order to spend more time with his family. Here is the full statement from Michael Flynn.

“Working with Donald Trump has been the single greatest honour of my personal and professional life. Secure in the knowledge that the world is in his large, powerful  hands, I regretfully tender my resignation, effective immediately, so that I can spend more time with my family.”

Before ending I just want to congratulate Adele for her victory over Beyonce at the Grammy’s.

Very well deserved. All lives matter, people, all lives matter.

Okay, that’s a wrap.

However, I was curious to see how it might actually unfold in the real world and so I went out to a bunch of Starbuck’s in the Toronto area and tried to engage the staff in conversations about race.

Starbucks

10 Dundas Street East

8:30 pm

Me: Hi.

Barista: Hi.

Me: Are you a fan of the TV show Empire?

Barista: Don’t think I know that one.

Me: Oh. Well, it has an all black cast. Not a single white person on it. After a few episodes you don’t even notice how weird that is. It says a lot about race, I think, and the gritty world of Hip Hop. Very topical considering Ferguson and everything.

Barista: You seem very authentically informed.

Me: Well, I’m a part of Black Twitter, so I feel pretty plugged in.

Barista: I see. What can I get you?

Me: Decaf green tea. Grande.

Barista: I bet you like being white, don’t you?

Me: I don’t really see race.

Starbucks

407 Yonge Street

11:30 am

Me: Hey, anyone interested in rapping about race?

Barista: (foams milk)

Me: (Turning around and facing the customers in the lineup behind me) Anyone?

Guy with an eye patch: This might not be “politically correct” or anything, but I hate the Irish.

Me: Really, the Irish? But they have Leprechauns!

Guy with an eye patch: Exactly, Leprechauns are just about the creepiest thing in the world.

Me: What happened, did you lose your eye to a Leprechaun?

Guy with an eye patch: No, I lost it in a fire. The Irish also cheat at cards, and on their husbands.

Girl in denim jacket: And I have to add that the Muzzies got no business taking over this country, if they want to live here, they should damn well dress like everyone else, am I right?

Me: Hey, this is great, now we’re really starting to get into the hard stuff! How about you, (pointing at a woman on her phone) what do you think?

Woman on her phone: (Gives me the finger)

Me: (To Barista) People are still very uncomfortable talking about race. It’s a real shame, because as painful as it is, we really have so much to learn from one another. We need to be brave.

Barista: You do know that the campaign isn’t taking place in Canada, right?

Starbucks

585 University Avenue

2:00 pm

Me: (To Barista) So, who is your favourite black actor or actress? Supermodels count.

Barista: Why are you asking me this?

Me: I’m trying to start a dialogue about race. I want to find out about your lived experience. Have you ever written a letter to a black celebrity, and if so, was it a hate letter or a love letter?

Barista: It’s never occurred to me to write a celebrity a letter.

Me: Any celebrity, or just black celebrities in particular?

Barista: Any celebrity.

Me: Weird. Not even Pam Grier??

Barista: Look, I got to keep the line moving here, are you going to take that cookie or not?

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.

Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s most recent film, had this kind of “cottage effect” on me. Shot intermittently over 12 years, it depicts the unhurried, unremarkable metamorphosis of a boy as he ages from 6 to 18. Nothing really happens in the film, at least not as we’ve come to expect from the conventional, action-packed narratives that are part of our typical entertainment diet. Studiously avoiding exaggeration, Linklater employs a quiet, understated realism. Instead of getting to know the people on screen through defining acts of high drama, they’re revealed to us through ordinary, low-key repetitions. We get to know Mason, the boy in the film, before his personality is formed, and this makes for an unusually intimate and sympathetic portrait. We’ve been watching his pain and hope since he was a child, and like a parent, we cannot but help love him for that, even if we might not actually like him all the time.

Linklater repeatedly foreshadows catastrophe in Boyhood, and I kept waiting for something to happen, some tragic and intense vector to come sparking out of the story, but no, life plods along its ordinary trajectory. This, of course, is the way that it works in most of our lives, too. When we distractedly check our phones while driving, most of the time we don’t crash, and so it is in this movie, but each time that alarm signal is given, we remember just how fragile and beyond our control life is, and how at any moment, it can explode in tragic directions.

For me, a middle-aged man, the movie took place in the immediate, blurred past (last 12 years) where everything feels like it was yesterday, but simultaneously, the movie also took me to my distant past. Mason’s experiences, although set to a different backdrop of music, technology, etcetera, were my experiences growing up, too, and this gave the movie a circular, timeless feel. Getting to know Mason was like getting to know somebody at a cottage, proximal rather than directly communicated. All of our lives, for all the plot and ambition we stack upon it, unfold along the same lines. Nothing that happens to us is singularly unique, and in the end we’re all small, and there’s a beauty and melancholy in this shared humility, I think, something that Boyhood manages to bring out. And although the movie might not fully engage you throughout its three-hour journey, it will stay with you.

My hatred of him was immediate, visceral and enduring, and over the years I have taken time out of my busy, important life to write him a note each year on his birthday. This is a small sample of some of the letters I have written him:

July 3, 1986

Dear Maverick:

Your call sign in Top Gun should have been Muffin.

You’re a loser and flash in the pan and it’s obvious you don’t have a clue how to play beach volleyball.

Your smile makes me want to punch you with a rake.

Happy 24^th, moron.

Michael Murray

PS: Please send an autographed photograph.

July 3, 1992

Dear Tom:

I want to congratulate you on your Irish accent in Far and Away.

You’ve really been acting the shit out of things lately, especially when you made us all understand what it must feel like to be Tom Cruise in a wheelchair in Born on the Fourth of July. That was some heavy shit, really brave, and you deserve a milk carton full of Oscars for that role.

Happy 30^th, loser, it’s all downhill from here.

Michael Murray

PS: I have named my band Cole Trickle after your character in Days of Thunder. Inspired by your acting, we formed as a group even though none of us can play any instruments.

July 3, 2000

Tom:

What the fuck was up with your package in Magnolia???

I mean, please! Are you really that vain that you have to make it look like you have a giant cock? Really?? And did you even know what Eyes Wide Shut was about? Truly, you are the worst actor ever.

Happy birthday.

Michael Murray

July 3, 2005

Dear crazy Scientology person:

Joey will never love you.

You will never have her.

You may jump on sofas all you want, but you will never win her heart. You are a robot, a robot made of money and teeth, and although she has likely signed a contract, that contract will end and she will leave you. Mark my words, Cruise, mark my words.

You’re 43 now, and although you don’t know it, things are beginning to slip away.

Happy birthday.

Michael Murray

PS: I am taking the bus to America to buy a crossbow on the weekend.

July 3, 2014

Tom:

I’m on medication now and am doing well. I understand boundaries. I am sorry about the genetic material I sent to you on your 50^th birthday. It was inappropriate of me, to say the least, and trying to get you to introduce me to your ex-wife, the Katie Holmes version of your ex-wife, was insensitive. I just want to thank you for our friendship over the years, wish you the best as you move through your 50’s and let you know that I am really just fantastically excited for Top Gun II.

Happy birthday, old friend!

Michael Murray

What follows is a transcript of the speech Rondeau made to council:

“Let me start by giving you some numbers:

79, 510

143, 740

500, 100

10, 336, 440

These numbers are the high scores I achieved as a fourth grader in Space Invaders, Omega Race, Frogger and Asteroids. I’d like to just let that sink in for a little bit. Those. Numbers. Produced. By. A. Fourth. Grader.

I had a wicked powerful gift.

A wicked powerful gift that was stolen from me by the government.

I can guarantee you that my life would have turned out much differently if I’d been allowed to cultivate my gift and big government didn’t step in to crush the free market. Not only was the free market destroyed, but so was the spirit of a sweet, chubby boy in grade four who maybe wasn’t very good at sports, but learned how to compete and achieve greatness amongst the frogs, asteroids and pixels.

If I had been allowed to pursue my dreams I don’t think I ever would have been cursed with the Oxy addiction that’s plagued me for the last 8 years. I think I would have found the self-esteem I needed as a child and not been a bully magnet, I think I would have impressed some girls and perhaps learned to talk to them. When I’m sitting at the bar not playing a video game, I think about the life that might have been a lot.

A lot.

I know some of our city fathers thought that video games would lead to drug addiction, but it’s just the opposite! It’s the absence of video games that lead to drug addiction!

Just as it’s not right for Ben Affleck to get banned from the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas for counting cards, it’s wrong for the government to steal the dreams of children and merchants alike, and ban video games in our town! What is this, Footloose?! No, we’re not friggin’ Soviet Footloose, we’re America, and we don’t tell our citizens what to do! We’re number one, and we need to stay number one! China has some pretty wicked video gamers coming down the pipe right now, and in order to keep beating them, we need our kids to start early and play hard!

It’s been over 30 years, it’s time to lift the ban!

Pac-Man for everybody!!

Thank you for your time, and go Bruins!!”

(Standing Ovation)

Not only were the bikes like riding something from the 19^th 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

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.

And so for first-time director Aaron Wilson, who debuted his film Canopy at the festival, it must have been a validating and exciting experience. The movie has a very simple premise. An Australian pilot gets shot down while battling the Japanese over Singapore and improbably bonds with a Chinese soldier similarly trying to elude capture.

The central characters of this film—which is almost devoid of dialogue—aren’t really the actors playing the roles, but the jungle in which the story unfolds and the hyper-accented soundscape that surrounds them. Wilson is trying to do something different here, but in so doing Canopy comes across as more of a concept of a film than a film itself, an interesting idea in theory, but in practice maybe not so much.

It’s impossible to see this movie and not think of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red line.

I don’t think that there’s a film on the planet that compares well to it, and Canopy is no exception. Although Canopy is beautiful to look at, it never establishes an emotional grip on the audience, relying too heavily on the mechanisms of filmmaking rather than the film itself. For instance, after a spell, the wordlessness of the movie becomes burdensome, a cinematic imposition rather than an organic necessity of circumstance and disparate languages. Clearly, the director wants us keenly focused on the canopy of sound covering the silent action, but he points us so intentionally in this direction it’s as if we’re following a neon-signs-lit detour route.  The acoustics swiftly become a clumsy, almost naive contrivance that is master rather than servant to the film, pulling us away rather than in.

Perhaps if the actors were more expressive or physically compelling, the director’s reach wouldn’t have so exceeded his grasp. As it is, in spite of its lyrical flourishes and allusive passages, the movie has a constructed, almost humid weight. As we move from one poetic war trope to the next, as if in some theme park yet to be invented, Canopy does little more than ask you to like it.

When it ended, the near-full house applauded, as if in encouragement, it seemed, rather than appreciation. The director and his key people took the floor, ready for a Q & A, and the last amongst them to do so was the lead actor, Khan Chittenden. As is often the case, he was smaller and more vulnerable than you would have expected after having just seen him up there on the giant screen, and as he youthfully bounded down from his seat, he threw up an arm to the crowd, he too hoping for more than what was received.