*******************************
Rachelle: No, it’s not.
Rachelle: I’m sorry Pickle, you’re wrong.
Rachelle: It’s not the Marie Keto diet.
Rachelle: There are two different things. The Keto diet where you eat steak, and Marie Kondo, a Japanese spirit who tidies apartments when you’re sleeping.
Rachelle: It’s an easy mistake to make.
Rachelle: I don’t know how you’re expected to keep up either!
Rachelle: The world moves quickly, it really does.
Rachelle: Did you drop Jones off at daycare?
Rachelle: “Only Jones and Hulk make the rules now?”
Rachelle: He said that to you when you asked him to put on his boots?
Rachelle: OMG, that is the funniest thing I have ever heard!
Rachelle: I’m not sure I’d want to live in a world like that, either.
Rachelle: Can you imagine?
Rachelle: There would just be SO MUCH SMASHING.
Rachelle: Marie Kondo should be part of the Hulk and Jones team, quietly tidying up after they raze city after city.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: How is that sexist?
Rachelle: And disrespectful to Asian culture?
Rachelle: It just is? Is that all you’ve got???
Rachelle: Look, proclaiming that you’re tolerant of everything but intolerance is not an explanation for why you think I’m sexist and racist.
Rachelle: No it isn’t.
Rachelle: It doesn’t even really make sense.
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: By extension you don’t really make sense either.
Rachelle: Yes, all your friends know that.
Rachelle: For a very long time now.
Rachelle: When you really get going we call it “Murrbling,” as in, “Man alive, was Michael ever Murrbling last night!”
Rachelle: I don’t have time right now, Pickle. My hockey game is about to start.
Rachelle: Okay, I’ll pick up some Jackson Triggs on the way back, and of course I’ll come home with my shield, or on it. They don’t call me the Blonde Volcano for nothing!
Rachelle: Love you, too, and don’t let Jones and the Hulk push you around. You make the rules!
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: By that I did mean I make the rules. xo
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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.
]]>These are the text messages I received from my wife Rachelle the other day:
Rachelle: I’m not sure I think that’s a good idea.
Rachelle: Look, if you’re putting a pretend cast on our three year-old boy’s arm in order to attract the attention of celebrites at the Film Festival, you truly are a horrible father.
Rachelle: Because you’re using him as bait!!
Rachelle: You are exploiting a child.
Rachelle: Yes, even if he agrees to “play dress up for daddy.”
Rachelle: Jesus. Don’t ever, ever make me type, “play dress up for daddy” again.
Rachelle: Really???
Rachelle: That was actually your tag on Lava Life?
Rachelle: That is maybe the creepiest thing I have ever heard in my life.
Rachelle: I think I might vomit.
Rachelle: No, really. I cannot continue this text conversation.
( TWO HOURS LATER )
Rachelle: Really??!! You got Hugh Jackman to sign Jones’ fake cast for me???!!
Rachelle: That is the best thing you have ever done in your life.
Rachelle: Way better than that prank you pulled on the restaurant manager!
Rachelle: No, it was a good prank.
Rachelle: Yes, a really good one, I don’t think he saw it coming at all, but this, this is HUGH JACKMAN!! What did he smell like? Did he like what Jones was wearing? What did he write to me?? Jesus, did you touch him, did you put your hand on him at any point? What did he feel like? Did he talk to Jones?!
Rachelle: For the love of God, just try to remember what he smelled like!! Try. Try as hard as you have ever tried at anything in your life.
Rachelle. I know you have seasonal allergies and it diminishes your olfactory sense, but just concentrate, goddamit, what did he smell like? Was it the ocean? Was it the moon and stars? Was it roast beef and pumpkin?
Rachelle: Really?!!
Rachelle: Roast beef and pumpkin, I knew it!!
Rachelle: I don’t know how I knew it, I just did.
Rachelle: Yes, sometimes my friends and I talk about that sort of stuff.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: You truly want to know what my friends think you smell like?
Rachelle: Jesus.
Rachelle: Okay then.
Rachelle: Ottilie said she thought you smelled like the interior of an old airplane, one that still carried the ghost smell of crappy sandwiches and cigarette smoke.
Rachelle: Well, if you don’t believe me you’ll just have to ask her yourself.
Rachelle: Just out of curiosity, what do you think you smell like?
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: I have to say, that was a very unexpected answer.
Rachelle: Was Hugh very concerned about Jones? Did he want to know how he “broke his arm?”
Rachelle: Okay then, “fractured his wrist.”
Rachelle: Hit by a pitch?
Rachelle: You told Hugh Jackman you hit our son with a hardball?
Rachelle: Jesus, Pickle.
Rachelle: NO FUCKING WAY!
Rachelle: You got him to sign, “Rachelle, play dress up for daddy, love Wolverine?”
Rachelle: OMG, that is the sexisest thing ever, wait until I post a photo of that in my Annex Parents group! That’ll knock Vivian off the front page for a day or two!
Rachelle: And did you touch him? What did he feel like? Was there any give, or was it all rippling, equine power?
]]>
And although Doug shares the same bullying, impenetrable forehead and tiny, receded eyes that characterized his younger brother, he is distinct in a few ways. Primarily, he has always been seen as the steadying brains behind the operation. Always a belligerent and pitiless protector of his misunderstood, addict brother, Doug was also seen as the intellectual wind beneath Ford Nation’s wings. Doug dealt dope, while Rob used it.
That sort of thing.
At any rate, Doug Ford is now running against Liberal Kathleen Wynne to become the Premier of Ontario. He is doing better than you’d think, and seems to be riding a conservative, populist backlash that’s shivering up the spine of so many nations right now. Doug Ford, a white, affluent suburban businessman from a political dynasty, has long fashioned himself as being “For the People,” and has been making a point of courting various communities that might find more in common with his traditional values than say, Kathleen Wynne.
Who is a lady.
A lady lesbian.
A lady lesbian who is not For the People.
A lady lesbian who hates your way of life.
At any rate, one of the ways that the campaign is doing this outreach is for Doug and his family to go to a different community restaurant each month and review it. It’s part photo-up, part promotion for small business, and an opportunity for Ford to network and get his face in media. This is his first review:
Doug N’ Dash Food Reviews
******************************
Pukka (Indian)
778 St. Clair
Toronto
I have to tell you, when I heard the name I didn’t want to go. Who wants to go to a restaurant with a name like that? Nobody, that’s who. Lazy marketing there. Imagine if my family had called Deco Labels and Tags, FIBROMYALGIA or something.
Pretty negative, pretty confusing, eh? So the first thing I would do is change the Puke name to something like: GOOD INDIAN FOOD THAT ISN’T TOO GODDAMN SPICY AND COMES AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE.
The Indian people, so famous for their yoga, bright colours and diarrhea, aren’t stupid. No they just need somebody For The People, somebody who knows how to get the job done, to serve as a business mentor to help move them out of all the 7-11’s and into buffet style operations they can run themselves!
You will notice that Kathleen Wynne, who does not love minorities as I do, ever in a restaurant. This is because she has a finger disease in which the the skin is always peeling off. Really gross. Like a snake shedding it’s skin or something.
You watch her fingers.
You’ll see she’s hiding something.
So I had the butter chicken and the wife, who doesn’t much like the Indian food as it can give her the Aztec two-step, had something with kale in it.
You know women. Straight women.
Anyway, my chicken was good.
Not Swiss Chalet good, but good.
I’d give it a 7 out of 10.
Karla said her kale thing was good, too.
THIS RESTARAUNT IS FORD APPROVED!
]]>Thin and pale, her hair was pulled back into a practical, oddly lonely ponytail. Her mother walked beside her, carrying the young woman’s belongings in a plastic bag and speaking cheerfully about trivial matters, as if relieved to finally be able to speak of trivial matters. She was trying to assure her daughter that she did not belong in a hospital, I think, and that she could just pick up her life wherever she had been forced to abandon it. The young woman said nothing as the mother talked, and although her eyes were still a little sunken and dull, there were traces of relief to be read in her tired and beautiful face.
They passed through the revolving door that led to University Avenue and stepped out into what must have felt like a miracle. The night was so unseasonably mild that it seemed like you’d just emerged into some temperate and surreal vacation– and everything, the waiting stand of festive cabs, the disembodied sounds of the night, everything, felt laden with potential. The young woman stepped forward onto the sidewalk and looked up into the the dark canyon of sky above her. With arms outstretched and head back, she moved in a slow circle, as if calling the world back. When she was finished she was facing her mother, her arms still open. And in this unexpected moment their eyes caught. They smiled at each other, and then over the course of a second, maybe two, their smiles began to tremble, and then they were both in tears, sobbing and embracing on the sidewalk, the cab drivers looking quietly on.
]]>
It was a small affair, just a little trip to Prince Edward County. The weather was ridiculously beautiful, and like so many other people, we headed to Sandbank’s Provincial Park to meet some friends, friends who had carved time and space out of their lives to drive up from the city to see us. Often, it feels like friendships are circumstantial rather than permanent aspects of a life, little more than rushed appointments to reschedule, but when you’re by the water time moves differently. Nothing is hurried or obstructed, and friendships returns to the effortless state of grace from which they once emerged.
The day slipped away easily, and soon enough we found ourselves having dinner with about a dozen people at a nearby campsite. Sitting around the bonfire everybody was happy, happy like this was the only spot in the world they wanted to be, and these people, strangers and friends alike, were the only people they wanted to be with. Somebody with a strong and steady voice, the sort of voice that could lead the rest of, picked up a guitar and began to play Canadian classics.
Bobcaygeon.
Heart of Gold.
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Hallelujah.
Songs known in the bones.
And after each one, faint applause rose up from the dark of unknown campsites as other people let us know that they were there, too, a part of our circle even if unseen. After an hour or two, through all all the coincidences, improbabilities, miracles and tragedies that led us to this point in time, Rachelle and I went down to the beach, lay on our backs and looked up at the sky.
I took my glasses off. The stars, they were already so far away, how were my glasses going to make them any more comprehensible? It amazes me that the stars, such a permanent and essential declaration of the beauty and mystery of our existence, are occluded from those of us who live in cities. How could we let that happen? How could we travel so far from what we are?
And within this simple night, the sound of water lapping at the shore. A train in the distance. Disembodied music, rising like ghosts from the lake. Somewhere laughter and wind, a girl splashing and giggling into the water and a boy following her, and all around us infinity stretching out in every direction.
]]>There’s always one just-past-middle-aged man– usually with long grey hair pulled back into a pony tail or up into a samurai knot– executing some interpretation of a martial art using a huge wooden stick or some such. Whenever I see one of these men I am forced to imagine their apartment, and I do not like that. I do not like the fabrics and odours and screensavers
that puts in my head, and so I’ve always kept a kind of hostile distance from them.
Our park, the park where we take our son Jones to play every day, has one of these guys. He is pudgy, dresses all in black, and looks like somebody whose life had been taken over by Columbine ninja fantasies a long time ago.
As such, I have not yet chatted with him, and have chosen instead to make fun of him behind his back. However, since my completion of pulmonary rehabilitation I have hired a personal trainer and I now work-out in this park, which brings me in direct competition with the Columbine ninja for the creepiest man in the park. Yesterday, he was stationed, with his collection of magic sticks, by the bench where I now work out.
This is the conversation that took place:
Me: Hey there, what are you up to!?
Columbine Ninja: ( Continues his maneuvers without saying a word.)
Me: I’m about to work-out. Here. By this bench. This one here. Is that okay with you?
Columbine Ninja: (Raises one hand to shush me)
Me: (Begins to pull out resistance bands from a Shopper’s Drug Mart bag)
Columbine Ninja: You must never disturb a warrior when he is training.
Me: Are you a warrior?
Columbine Ninja: ( Does a maneuver with his big stick, strikes the branch of a tree)
Me: Nice.
Columbine Ninja: The true warrior is invisible to those who cannot see.
Me: Yes, of course, I should have known that.
Columbine Ninja: Not all who wander are lost.
Me: Are you a part-time life coach or something?
Columbine Ninja: I am a student, not the master.
Me: Uber driver?
Columbine Ninja: I am a student of Kenjutsu!
Me: I think you work at a weed dispensary.
Columbine Ninja: Anata wa seik? shite imasu.
Me: What was that, Klingon? That doesn’t impress me in the least.
Columbine Ninja: I wonder why it is that you have trouble breathing? Is it because you fear life? I think you are a scared man. In Kenjutsu they teach you how to control your breathing, how to master your fear before it masters you!
Me: I only have one lung.
Columbine Ninja: And all you need in order to live a failed life is one excuse.
And then the Columbine Ninja just walked away and I commenced the most melancholy work-out in history.
Excellent form, though.
]]>
What a beautiful couple we were. Really, you could have put us on an album cover. That album? It would have sold millions and millions and millions of copies. Best selling album in history. Captain and Tennille? Forget about ’em. We would have blown them out of the water. Losers.
That thing Ivana is wearing on her head?
Not a swim cap.
Not cancer.
Very European. Very classy. VERY expensive.
What do you think the thread count is on those sheets? 500? 800? Maybe 1000?
1200.
That’s right, 1200.
Egyptian cotton.
The finest in the world.
Ivanka is such a beautiful woman. So very talented. Have you seen her ski? Amazing. Could have been an Olympian if she wanted. But the truth is that she was never very good at art. Always used to hire other kids to do her drawings in school. This one was done by some Chinese. Ivanka, such a smart businesswoman. Her IQ might even be as high as mine. Such an improvement on her mother.
I was asked to do Playgirl. Many, many times. So many times I can’t even count. And the amount of money they offered me? You would not believe. The most ever. It was like the same amount they would have paid Jesus. Never did it, though. Didn’t like the idea of fruits getting off on me. Just disgusting, that. Anyway fruits, I guess today is your lucky day.
I get people to shave my chest now.
Bannon took me to that party a few years ago.
So much quality ass.
The ladies there had the best skin in the world. They were just as smooth as a bunch of billiard balls. Probably all used French moisturizers. I had sex with many, many of the girls that night– some with the masks, some without. It was hard work to stay hydrated.
Met Jamie Lee Curtis at a Planet Hollywood back in the 80’s.
Went on a date with her. Very uneventful, but let me tell you, those rumours of her having, you know, both sexes? Not true. All woman.
This is a more recent photo. Here I’m just roaming the White House late at night exploring. The place is really third rate. Desperately needs an update. If it was a contestant in a beauty contest? Boob, nose, eye job and liposuction just for starters. Reminds me. Walked in on one of the cleaning ladies changing the other day. You can do that when you’re President.
You think Obama didn’t?
C’mon!
]]>
It was a startling thing to see in downtown Toronto, this unadorned and pitiless majesty.
Had the bird taken it’s victim in mid-flight, plucking it from unsuspecting air?
Had it tracked it’s prey at great velocity, and then it’s sharp, sudden talons piercing the animal, and then the wood upon which the creature had been scurrying?
My eyesight is not great, and the bird receded back into the camouflage of the tree. I stared up at that tree– that tree which could have been two centuries old– for a long time, hoping to see that world flicker back into mine, but it did not, and this vivid life of blood and bone would remain known but unseen. A reminder on a cold, November day of this other world, of how quickly, astonishingly and with unsentimental finality, it will one day make it’s presence known to each of us.
******************************************
On a winter day while hiking through the woods, Rachelle’s father Terry came across the imprint of an owl’s wings and body in the snow. From the tracks, he could see that it had been following a mouse of some sort, and then swooped down, picking the creature up from the surface and carrying him up and off to death. He took a photograph of the imprint, and it’s amazing to see such a moment crystallized, to see just the shadow of this small and brutal divinity.
It has always reminded me of this poem by Mary Oliver:
White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field
by Mary Oliver
Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings — five feet apart —
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow —
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows —
so I thought:
maybe death isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us —
as soft as feathers —
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light —
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.
Recently, he’s gone so far as to start referring to the man as Saint Donald, and as absurd and even ironic as this strikes the vast majority of the populace, people have been reporting miracles involving Donald Trump for quite some time:
A golfer who lives in Anaheim claims to have seen an apparition of Donald Trump floating above the 13th green at the prestigious Trump National Golf Club. Normally, the golfer would have laid up and played for a par, but the Trump apparition seemed to be telling him to go for it, and so he did, holing the 260 yard shot for an eagle. “It was a damn miracle,” Chip Anger said, “I’d never done anything like that in my life.”
It was reported the Donald Trump came upon a Miss Universe contestant taking a bath and that she tried to entice him to bathe with her.
However, she was not Donald’s type, as he does not like small breasts, and so he refused, but not wanting to leave the young woman devastated, he turned her bath water into Trump Super Premium Vodka.
An evil and disgruntled contestant on The Apprentice had been making designs to assassinate Donald Trump, as she was certain she was to be the next who was to be fired. While in the boardroom she poured some poison into his glass of Trump brand water, and sure enough, just as Donald uttered the words, “Ereka, you’re fired!” his glass of water spontaneously shattered.
A man’s wife would not have sex with him. She would not even stimulate his genitals with her hand, and was planning on leaving him, so this man asked Trump for some advice on how to bring back her love. And Trump blessed a Trump brand steak for him, and said: “Serve your woman this steak, and after she has eaten of the Trump brand steak and tidied up, her lust for you will be huge.” And after the man had done that, his wife gave him great love, and it remained that she could not be far from him and was always eager to please him.
One day while some of his luxury condo dwellers were busy enjoying their opulent homes of burnished marble and luxurious platinum, all the power went out. When Donald Trump was told of this problem, flames, like flashes from a flint when struck, leapt from his tiny, vulgar fingers and all electricity was immediately restored.
