When the waitress brings me the bill she sucks in her cheeks like a super-model and shakes her shoulders from side to side, “Good music tonight”, she says.
George Michael is playing.
Freedom.
I like her, although I am not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because she’s wearing a grey t-shirt just like the one you had. Maybe that’s all there is to it. Maybe I like her because the grey t-shirt she’s wearing connects me to you, helps me to draw a line back to your body.
At the table next to me sits a couple. The man has thick fingers and puffy eyes, and the woman is skinny and looks reflexively defensive, like she’s used to evading attack. They are speaking slowly, as if English were their second language, but it’s not. They’re just drunk and concentrating, trying to summon something true from their well of hurt. He looks into his glass and then up into her wary eyes, “There is something about you I have been missing so much,” he says.
And the waitress, looking from side to side at the nearly empty pub, sighs as I dig out my credit card to pay the bill. I ask her why the heavy sigh. She tells me that it’s been a long day.
And then there is a pause, and in that moment the space between us fills with something.
It’s sadness.
It’s desire.
And we look at one another, our invisible lives inching closer now, everything closer.
]]>It’s been well over a week now since Ammon Bundy and his militia men took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in Oregon.
As the harsh winter falls like ash around them, neither the Federal Government nor The Citizens for Constitutional Freedom have shown even a hint of quit.
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The Citizens for Constitutional Freedom Press Conference, January 14th, 2016
Ammon Bundy: Once again, our intelligence gathering services have had to bring us some very bad news.
On the heels of the death of our great teacher and brother, David Bowie, another true patriot and giant amongst men has been taken from us. Our comrade, Alan Rickman, star of stage and screen, has fallen.
Ryan Bundy: This is bullcrap, man!! Bullcrap!!
Ammon Bundy: Easy brother, easy.
Ryan Bundy: By the hammer of Grabthar, we shall be avenged!!
Ammon Bundy: Rickman died as he lived, with his boots on.
While carrying out an assault on a government facility in Northern California, Rickman was struck down by a hail of gunfire from CIA operatives posing as paramedics. It was a cowardly and treacherous act and….What? Well, where did you hear that? Really? Really? Did TMZ report that, too? Well, geez. Cancer, hunh? Do they think it was planted in his body by the government. Inconclusive, eh? Okay. Okay. Give me a moment. Just bear with me! This is a very stressful time, okay? Don’t forget, I’m fighting tyranny here, for you and your children, so just cut me some slack! I’m doing God’s will, not yours, okay!?
(Conference is interrupted for five minutes)
Ammon Bundy: Okay, thanks for your patience. Sometimes constitutional freedom take a little bit of time.
Our intelligence department has just confirmed that Alan Rickman died under very mysterious circumstances late last night. Naturally, many of my men– myself included–have been shaken to the core by this devastating news. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s not my style, but there were more than a few tears shed last night. Three more of our men, devastated by grief, just like when Ziggy Stardust took his final bow, left the encampment and returned home this morning, and as always we wish them Godspeed.
Ryan Bundy: May our comrades ride as swiftly and surely to their families as Alan Rickman to Kate Winslet, in his portrayal of noble Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility!
Ammon Bundy: As always, we will continue the battle, to be the tip of the spear, just as Professor Severus Snape would have wanted. If he were here right now, he would cast a spell on the government and we would all be enjoying the land that is rightfully ours to profit from.
It is hard to imagine, but it was only a few short weeks ago that my family and I sat around enjoying Rickman’s brilliant work in that modern Christmas classic, Love Actually. Yeah, I can see more than a few smiles in the press gallery, there. Rickman spoke to us all, even godless, liberal media, and he had the truly unique ability to tap into the soul of the white, middle-aged man and speak directly to us.
Ryan Bundy: Lord, I related, I related so hard, for who amongst our clan hasn’t made the mistake of giving our wives a Joni Mitchell CD for Christmas!?
Ammon Bundy: Hallelujah, brother, don’t I know it!
Alan Rickman told the difficult truths. His portrayal of complex antagonists is what made me want to get into the business of fighting for the Constitution and taking over government buildings. I had always hoped to find an adversary as strong and charismatic as Rickman– a Hans Gruber to my John McClane.
We will miss him truly, madly and deeply. May a flight of angels carry you home, brave soldier.
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It was a hot night and most people were sitting out on the patio, but we were inside at a booth that had a view overlooking Bloor Street.
As we studied our menus, a bird flew in through the open doors leading to the patio and with a feathery thud, hit the window directly behind our table, and then slid out of sight into a narrow channel that dipped behind the restaurant’s banquettes and between the windows.
The staff seemed indifferent to this small calamity, more concerned with keeping the operation running smoothly than rescuing the tiny bird. For a variety of reasons, our table was incapable of physically rescuing the bird, as well as being unable to persuade anybody else to do what we could not.
The slender alley in which the bird was trapped wasn’t wide enough for it to fully extend it’s wings, but it kept trying. Flapping madly but futilely, it struggled to lift itself out of the mysterious and disorienting circumstance into which it had suddenly arrived. It would rise up, and then just a tiny bit more, almost to the lip of freedom, and then exhausted from the effort, collapse.
There was nothing we could do, and the bird, subject to an indifferent environment it could not comprehend, fought again and again. And throughout the meal we heard the small, determined sounds of struggle, of something almost taking flight and finding the release of infinite horizon.
Glum and distracted, on one of the saddest nights conceivable, we sat there eating amidst the repetition of heroic failure– each one of us not having to work too hard to find a parallel situation in our own lives, each one, rooting like hell for that bird.
Back in the early 90’s, while both of us were very stoned at a frat party in Montreal, we played a game of ping-pong. Let me tell you, playing ping-pong while high is just about the funniest thing you can do in the entire universe. I don’t care what dimension you’re talking about. It is a blast. This is the conversation I had with the young man who would later become the Liberal leader of Canada:
Me: Does your father sleep with a lot of models?
Justin: He dated Christy Turlington for a couple of months.
Me: She’s in that George Michael video Freedom! Sexiest video ever!! Did you ever see her changing or anything?
Justin: No.
Me: Rip-off. Sometimes you just gotta ask yourself what the point is of having a dad who’s the Prime Minister.
Justin: He’s not the Prime Minister! It’s been like a century since he was in office!
Me: I think he is.
Justin: No way!!!
Me: You’re not very informed, you’re very weak on policy.
Justin: Are you high? I am really high.
Me: Totally, and I can’t believe Claudia Schiffer is engaged to David Copperfield. He’s creepy. It’s like his eyes never move.
Justin: Do you remember how to serve in this game?
Me: I don’t think you do serve.
Justin: What do you do then?
Me: I need to think for a second.
Justin: Oh, I know, you just bounce it over the net! (throws ball into net)
Me: You have to do it again.
Justin: No!! It’s your serve now!
Me: Swerve? What does that mean?
Justin: Serve!!!
Me: Stop switching between French and English, you’re fucking me up!!
Justin: Just throw the ball!
Me: (throws the ball)
Justin: (swats at ball, like a cat, with his open palm)
Me: You’re supposed to use the paddle!
Justin: Are you sure? That doesn’t feel right.
Me: This is the longest ping-pong game in the history of ping-pong.
Justin: I know, it’s like we’ve been playing for days.
Me: It’s an endurance sport. Who invented it, was it the Egyptians?
Justin: I think they made the balls out of scarab shells and papyrus paper.
Me: The Egyptians were so fucking cool.
Justin: What’s the score.
Me: It’s 9 to 3 for me.
Justin: Right.
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