Well, the other day my mother actually received this letter from Margaret Atwood:

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

December, 6th, 2017

bärb/

noun

noun: barb; plural noun: barbs

1. 1. a sharp projection near the end of an arrow, fishhook, or similar item, angled away from themain point so as to make extraction difficult.

                  2. a cluster of spikes on barbed wire.

                  3. a deliberately hurtful remark.

Dear Barb:

Please forgive me for being so informal as to use your first name. I can see that you’re not just appropriately (refer to above prolegomenon) named, but that the Murray line carries very excitable genes, and I certainly don’t want to offend you or any of the other members in your easily inflamed tribe.

Let me first thank you for your apology concerning the alarming behaviour of your 50-something son, and the thoughtful inclusion of hand sanitizer with your letter. You are right, hand sanitizer does make for a nice, affordable stocking stuffer. Thank Heavens for Shoppers Optimum points, eh, Barb?

It’s interesting to note that the word “barb” is derived from Latin and Old French words for “beard.” The patriarchy has a deep reach, Mrs. Murray, a very deep reach. For instance, I wonder why your fully grown, almost elderly son, does not feel the need to apologize for himself to a respected woman he’s been publicly berating? Why would his mother have to do it?

Could it be that Michael, an archetypically mediocre white man,

was born into a world that was made for him, a world where women existed as bit players present only to serve his narrative? And then, with all competition smothered, with the entire force of a white, phallocentric history pushing him forward, Michael, armed with every conceivable advantage, became the author of one very unsuccessful vanity-published book.

That’s what he did.

He did not become an astronaut, he became a fantasy baseball enthusiast. And as he ascended to the status of fantasy baseball enthusiast and nothing else, he fully believed that all his “achievements” were due to his unique genius, and all failures a conspiracy of invisible, unknowable enemies.

Does that sound about right?

But it’s not your fault, Barb. It’s the world we were born into, and if you want to learn more about why your son is an asshole, you should tune in to Bravo on April 30th to watch the award-winning, crisply produced recreation of my uncannily predictive dystopian novel, A Handmaid’s Tale. It stars Elisabeth Moss, whom you might have seen on the cover of some of the magazines you buy at the mall.

Margaret Atwood

PS: Von all den Kreaturen, die auf der Erde atmen und sich bewegen, wird nichts gezüchtet, das schwächer ist als der Mensch.

These are the text messages my wife sent to me the other day:

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

Rachelle: How’s the pulmonary rehab going, my love?

Rachelle: Oh, I’m so glad to hear that you’re dominating the warm-up exercises!

Rachelle: Yes, you are a natural leader, it’s one hundred percent true!

Rachelle: What’s The Flower Pot?

Rachelle: I see.

Rachelle: So you sit in a chair, and then move one of your legs as if you were lifting it over a flower pot?

Rachelle: What a strange name for an exercise!

Rachelle: Well, I don’t know. Maybe something a little more macho, something like The Grizzly Stomp or The Sumo Crush.

Rachelle: I like The Grizzly Stomp, too. You should write that down and put it in the Suggestion Box.

Rachelle: You already suggested a Cosplay night! Interesting idea, Pickle, but aren’t all the other residents elderly?

Rachelle: I see, that’s good thinking on your part, you can make your oxygen tanks look like rocket packs!

Rachelle: You are very creative, it’s true, and as you say, you are the Wayne Gretzky of The Flower Pot.

Rachelle: Really? The physiotherapist asked you to lead the class yesterday?! How flattering!

Rachelle: Yes, I am sure it was a great honour that everybody else was bitterly jealous of! I’m curious, did you get to choose the music for the work-out?

Rachelle: That’s great! Who did you pick?

Rachelle: Oh.

Rachelle: Well, it just seems like an odd choice.

Rachelle: I didn’t know, Tori Amos just seems weird to me. Complicated, annoying.

Rachelle: Sorry. I am trying to encourage and support you, my love.

Rachelle: Really?

Rachelle: Right in the middle of the stretch she said you had a very small flower pot?!

Rachelle: OMG, That’s hilarious!

Rachelle: I mean nasty, just nasty.

Rachelle: 90 is old, and aging can make people mean.

Rachelle: You’re probably right, that smart-alecky Yvette lady likely had dementia.

Rachelle: Because it’s not your class, honey.

Rachelle: That’s why they wouldn’t let you “expel her from your program.”

Rachelle: Well, I’m glad you put her on notice, anyway, and sorry that everybody is now calling you The Little Flower Pot.

Rachelle: Think of it being like Dear Leader, a term of respect and fear.

Rachelle: Well of course I miss you terribly, but I’m struggling along. Even had a little party last night to fight the loneliness.

Rachelle: Probably less than 25 people, I don’t remember.

Rachelle: He might have been there, not positive.

Rachelle: Oh, you’ll get a kick out of this!

Rachelle: He brought his Porsche over the other day to take Jones for a ride, and Jones just loved it! I’ve never seen him happier! It’s astonishing Pierre doesn’t have any kids because he is just SO amazing with them!!

Rachelle: Yes, you’re amazing with Jones, too.

Rachelle: Sure Jones misses you.

Rachelle: Well, he’s still not really talking yet, so he missing you in a kind of subconscious way, I guess, but I can tell that he really does miss you!!

Rachelle: Tonight?

Rachelle: Oh, Steve needed to take somebody to the magazine awards at some fancy hotel and Jen is out of town, so I have to go as his date. Barf.

Rachelle: He was nominated in two different comedy writing categories.

Rachelle: It is a shame none of your work was nominated!

Rachelle: No, I have no idea why Steve won’t accept your Facebook friendship.

Rachelle: The world is mysterious.

Rachelle: Never mind that though, what are you up to tonight, my Little Flower Pot?

Rachelle: Fish stick night! Yum!

Rachelle: You’re my favourite fish stick, you know.

Rachelle: It’s true.

Rachelle: Don’t ever doubt that!

Rachelle: You will always be my favourite fish stick! xo

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!

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

Me: Hi! I really want to thank you for taking the time to talk with us, and add what a personal honour it is for me to be speaking to a woman with with such a dizzying literary capacity. You are truly one of the greatest writers in the entire world.

Atwood: That’s very sweet of you, thank you.

Me: I think an awful lot of people would be surprised to learn that you played Fantasy Baseball.

Can you tell us here at The Knuckler how you got into it?

Atwood: As people may or may not know, I’ve always been very interested in speculative fiction, and when I heard about Fantasy Baseball, I thought it was in the same vein. You know, like Fantasy Literature, so I looked in to it. Alas, it was not, but I became fascinated by it and all the marginalized, impotent men that play it so obsessively. It’s role playing, really, where all these limited, in many cases arrested men, bond together and pretend that they’re something much more powerful than they are in the ordinary dirt of their relentlessly disappointing lives.

It’s like a religion for them, I think, a little treehouse they can retreat to and act as supreme ruler of a secular male kingdom. I have always thought that without Fantasy Baseball there would probably be an awful lot more mass shootings. Anyway, I got involved in order to research a character for one of my books and have been playing ever since.

Me: Oh.

Atwood: And I have to say, I’ve done very, very well.

Me: Good for you.

Atwood: I’m sorry, are you being sarcastic?

Me: Oh no, a marginalized, impotent shooter-type such as myself wouldn’t have a clue how to do that!

Atwood: I see.

Me: I guess you’ve just been a very lucky player!

Atwood: Lucky?

Me: Plucky. A very plucky player.

Atwood: Really?

Me: Well, let’s not get side-tracked with semantics here. So, I’m sure all of The Knuckler’s readers would love to hear what your Fantasy Baseball team is called!

Atwood: The Blind Assassins.

Me: Oh.

Atwood: Mister Murray, I have to say, you sound disappointed.

Me: Well, coming from a “literary genius” you’d expect something a little more imaginative and eloquent. It seems lazy and nakedly self-promotional to name your team after one of your own books, especially if it wasn’t good enough to be an Oprah Pick or made into a movie.

Atwood: What is your team called?

Me: Mike’s Mashers.

Atwood: That’s very clever. How are they doing this year?

Me: They’ve been savaged by injuries I’m afraid, so it looks like I’ll be rebuilding again.

Atwood: Again, eh? So, how long have you been playing Fantasy Baseball?

Me: I don’t know, 25 years?

Atwood: Have you ever won?

Me: Ha, ha, ha! Have I ever won? What a funny question! Let me tell you, I’ve more than held my own.

Atwood: But have you ever won? Have you ever finished in first place? Have you tasted the sort of victory that for a moment erases all those memories of being the last pick, of being mocked for throwing like a girl, of all those many, many times of being over-looked by the more talented and beautiful?

Have you ever had your revenge, Mister Murray?

Unfortunately, I suffered an asthma attack at this point during the interview and we had to suspend our chat.

is married to Heidi Cruz, an investment manager at Goldman Sachs. She was recently threatened by Donald Trump.

The story goes like this:

An ad designed to target Mormons shows a photo of Trump’s wife, Melania, in one of those sort-of nude poses that only exists in magazines.

Trump, furious, blamed Ted Cruz for this assault on decency and took to the attack on Twitter, posting:

“Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!”

Now, everybody is curious to know what’s in those beans Trump is threatening to spill.

I may know.

Heidi Cruz and I have been confidantes to one another for thirty years.

She is an absolutely lovely person, a shining example of what America, at her best, can be.

Heidi and I met at a Christian youth camp one summer when we were both teenagers. Heidi was the best prayer partner I have ever had. Such soft hands. Anyway, it was a magical summer, and though some might say what happened between us was a sin, I cannot believe that God would frown upon such love.

Although Heidi and I have not seen one another in a long time and we have chosen very different life paths, we have remained faithful pen pals over the years. Here are some of the more recent emails that she has sent me:

Michael, my Morningstar:

Ted’s appetites disgust me.

Wednesday was Star Wars night.

Again.

As always, I dressed up as a Storm Trooper and Ted as Padme Amidala.

Ted’s rape fantasies can be quite elaborate, but this night was mercifully straightforward. I took him with force, but as I was still mad about a comment he made about the “tone” of my grace over dinner, I was perhaps a little rougher than normal, and his shrieks and crying were so loud and authentic that the secret service burst into the room. This has happened four times now. We are getting a soundproof dungeon made for this activity now.

In Christ,

Heidi
xo

Michael, my port in a storm:

I have to say, I really love the work I do at Goldman Sachs. I just feel that I’m doing God’s work, that I can really help people by creating wealth and then letting some of that wealth trickle down.

Today I caught Ted putting on my lipstick while he was shaving.

I actually threw up.

You Michael, are my endless summer,

Heidi
xo

Michael, my child of God:

I cannot believe that Sarah Palin is going to be a judge on a reality TV show. Gag. I have met her, several times, and let me tell you, she is no Judge Judy. She really is a moron. Still, she has really, really lovely hair.

I touched it once at a fundraiser and it was beautiful, like God and America.

Complete in Him,

Heidi
xo
Michael, my little lamb of Christ:

I had a variation on the dream again last night.

In it, Ted was putting on his makeup and rattling on about something gross, as usual, when Sarah Palin walked into the bedroom and looked right at me. She motioned that I should follow her, which I immediately did. I was curious, attracted– sexually attracted. She led me to another room where she let me stroke her gorgeous hair and then we began to kiss. She told me it was okay, that God would love me no matter what I did, and that she knew about the homeless man Ted and I picked-up and killed on Terrorist Sex Fantasy night, but that she didn’t care. And I was so relieved, and then Donald Trump appeared, laughing, his hands so tiny, so terrible! And then I woke up screaming and crying, which of course aroused Ted AND made the dog bark.

I was almost late for work!

We killed that man so many years ago, and outside of the USA! Do you think God really notices what happens in Africa? Why does he keep sending me these dreams?

Also, Goldman Sachs is very bullish on any company heavily invested in ethanol plants.

Didn’t hear it here, though.

Walk in light,

Heidi
xo

Not being the type of man to evade controversy regarding his penis, Trump immediately took to Twitter to clarify the matter.

@realDonaldTrump: Unlike Obama, the ABSOLUTE worst President in history, I don’t dodge the tough questions.

@realDonaldTrump: When his handlers told him to deny the American people an answer to the birth certificate question, he caved and did what he was told.

@realDonaldTrump: He avoided the question. Not what a leader does.

@realDonaldTrump: Nobody owns Donald Trump, and nobody owns the American People! #TrumpInternationalGolfLinks&Hotel

@realDonaldTrump: Donald Trump is an energetic leader, and if the people want to know the size of my penis, then I will show them!

@realDonaldTrump: Believe me, I have absolutely NOTHING to be ashamed of. I GUARANTEE you that I am WAY bigger than average! #DonaldJTumpSignatureCollection

@realDonaldTrump: Here he is, the Chairman of the Board, the Trump Tower:

@realDonaldTrump: My doctor, who is the BEST doctor in all of New York, says that I am in PERFECT health, my hands are LARGER than normal, and my penis is in the 98% percentile in terms of length AND width.

@realDonaldTrump: And let me tell you, it functions, boy, does it EVER function!

@realDonaldTrump: No complaints in the bedroom.

@realDonaldTrump: Just ask tennis superstar Maria Sharapova.

@realDonaldTrump: She was pretty inexperienced, but I taught her a thing or two. #ArtOfTheDeal

@realDonaldTrump: And her legs! Beautiful woman, truly beautiful.

@realDonaldTrump: Sad to hear about her drug scandal, but she’ll bounce back. Tough girl. Winner. One of my crowning achievements.

@realDonaldTrump: Charo.

@realDonaldTrump: Charo met the Trump Tower MANY times.

@realDonaldTrump: One of THE greatest guitarists of the 70’s.

@realDonaldTrump: What a body!!

@realDonaldTrump: Susan Anton.

@realDonaldTrump: We did it on the 16^th green of one of my many luxury golf courses.

@realDonaldTrump: She was more than satisfied. 

@realDonaldTrump: Loved the Trump brand.

@realDonaldTrump: The grass was cut so fine it felt like velvet. Can’t remember the course, but it doesn’t matter, they’re ALL cut like that. #TrumpQuality

@realDonaldTrump: Susan Anton, she was very athletic back in the 80s. Miss California.  #MostMexicansAreRapists

@realDonaldTrump: Appeared in Battle of the Network Stars. Looked great in a bathing suit. I have to say, I had my opportunities with a lot of those ladies.

@realDonaldTrump: I even have a few regrets, a few opportunities missed, but I won’t talk about those now, a gentleman has to keep some secrets, right?!

@realDonaldTrump: Connie Sellecca. She met the Chairman of the Board.

@realDonaldTrump: Multiple times.

@realDonaldTrump: Marco Rubio couldn’t even get a loser like Rosie O’Donnell. #LittleMarco

@realDonaldTrump: Also, Sharon Stone, star of Basic Instinct, and a HUGE Trump supporter, stuck her hand down my pants in the bathroom of the Rainbow Room.

@realDonaldTrump: Very sexy. #CouldHaveDoneHerInTheBathroomButDidn’tAsWasMarried

@realDonaldTrump: I haven’t even scratched the surface here. So many more.

@realDonaldTrump: Let’s make America great again! #VoteTrump

“On Wednesday morning, the public got their first glimpse of disgraced CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi– who is charged with five criminal offences including sexual assault and choking–as he appeared at a downtown Toronto courthouse.

What are sex criminals wearing this season?

Well, foregoing his signature, I’m-old-but-a-downtown-scenester-who-likes-beating-women-rock-guy style, Ghomeshi went with a black suit, crisp white shirt and subtly pattered dark tie. Standing beside his fearless and brilliant lawyer, Marie Henin, who was smartly turned-out in black with a lurid splash of lipstick across her face, the pair looked evil and powerful, like they had mastered the dark arts and were taking the charges very seriously.

Ghomeshi, who typically sports a youthful, mop of dyed hair that suggested the gentle innocence of a Muppet to his victims, had trimmed it, a clear attempt to convey to the court that he was a serious man, a full grown predator and that these women would have understood that, via his hair, and thus implicitly consented to being attacked by him. His signature five-o’clock-shadow, a reminder of his love and violent fantasies surrounding the sleazy 1980’s TV show Miami Vice, was gone, once again suggesting that he was a powerful, business-savvy man of violent and criminal action. “Think Christian Grey, not Ted Bundy, “ Mr. Ghomeshi’s stubble-free face declares.

By not wearing a bloodstained white shirt, Ghomeshi and his legal team are sending a clear message to the courts that he is not always beating women for his own twisted sexual gratification,  but is often taking time to try to plot some form of consent from his victims, usually while setting up his video camera and arranging his other props. The tie, dark and respectful, but with a subtle pattern, is a clear indicator of the BDSM interior of Ghomeshi, a bold statement of his violent intentions that not even the most drugged, intoxicated or star-struck woman could possibly have misunderstood.

In court we see that Ghomeshi has decided to eschew the tie and go for a more casual, you’re-relaxed-and-in-my-lair-and-I’m-showing-you-my-record-collection vibe. He’s showing the court that he’s their friend, the voice that they allowed into their home, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom for so many years, and that their relationship is now so intimate that the obvious next step is to introduce a startling, brutally violent, dangerous and one-sided sexual component into their life together.

With Ghomeshi, the safe word is always “style.” “

We’re related, although the mechanics of this familial connection remain distant and unknown, and we only met once at a huge wedding about 15 years ago in Chicago. I thought we got along entirely brilliantly, but he proved reluctant to continue any sort of correspondence or relationship with me after the fact, growing more and more biting and bitter–as many aging actors who have never won an Oscar do– as the years passed and my career took off while he played the voice of Garfield in some movies.

At any rate, as some sort of promotion associated with the Toronto International Film Festival, Friday was declared Bill Murray Day and I was asked by a local publication if I would use my “special access” to the faded star to secure an interview. This is the result:

Dear Bill:

It’s your cousin Michael here, the funny Murray. Remember me? I was the one wearing the bowtie at the wedding in Chicago in 1998. I requested I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing by Aerosmith at the party and because you were a really big ham and sang it to the wedding couple in that cheesy-we’ve-all-seen-it-a-million-times-way, it became “their song” and everybody thought you were a hero.

Nice one, Bill. Anyway, it didn’t end well for that couple. Botched murder-suicide. Not that you’d care.

I have some questions that a newspaper wants me to ask you, okay?

Here they are:

1. What was it that attracted you to the role of Garfield? Was it because you were horny for Jennifer Love Hewitt? She’s less than half your age, you know.

2. What do you think of the massive nude celebrity leak? Was it a good thing for democracy?

3. Why wouldn’t you ever enter any of my fantasy baseball leagues?

4. Are you sick of making movies with Wes Anderson yet because an awful lot of people are sick of seeing you in movies by Wes Anderson?

5. Do you know any of the details regarding Traci Murray’s alien abduction back in 1987? She didn’t have any tattoos before, but three after—very puzzling. It is a great family mystery and you should perhaps consider making a movie based on it once you’re finished with the Garfield trilogy.

6. You’re a big golf fan. Would you say that’s your greatest embarrassment? If not, please explain.

7. Are you “above” correspondence? My mother always said that your side of the Murray family always thought they were “special.”

8. Did you know that I won the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest?

9. Have you won the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest?

10. You made some pretty controversial remarks about Jewish people back at the wedding, would you care to take this time to elaborate upon them?

Dear Bitter Writer:

What are writers really like?

Ansell Pitt

Dear Mister Pitt:

Writers are the worst.

I’d be hard pressed to think of any single grouping of people, be they bound by profession, religion, ethnicity, sexual fetish or disease, that are worse than writers.

Writers are grubby, small, aspirational and hateful people.

The only thing that they loathe more than themselves are other writers. The success of other human beings, even in some cases animals, is toxic to the writer. If you happen to fall into conversation with one about something that is “good,” or something that you “like,” the writer will quickly, as if in a panic, change the topic to something that is “not good,” or something that they “don’t like.” They will do this in the way that a squirrel might scurry off up a tree when it gets startled. Writers feel diminished by light and joy, and will seek to suck as much of it as possible out of any given day. Never, ever ask a writer to make a speech at a wedding.

Think of this way:

If all the writers on the planet were jammed into one insufferable country, it would be torn apart by civil war and terrorism.

And then likely bombed by every other county in the world, too.

It would just be that bad a place.

Dear Bitter Writer:

Hello, love the very helpful blog! My question is book cover designs. What would go on it? Should the character be on the cover or should the cover relate to the content in the story? Thank you.

Samantha Bell

Dear Ms. Bell:

Are you some kind of a moron?

Look, if some other moron is willing to publish your stupid book, you should let them put whatever the fuck they want on the cover!! As a writer it is essential that you learn to be a sycophant. You must shamelessly align yourself with whatever the prevailing tribe is, and ceaselessly, but with as much elegance and perception as you can muster, lather all editors and associated “literati” (gag!) with compliments. Tell them how much you love the little, European scarves they’re always wearing and how cool their frames and tattoos are, and for God’s sake, if they want you nude and fully penetrated on the cover, you let them know how much you love their “edgy vision” and ask how many orifices they want penetrated, damn it!

My cat Frito would love it here!

My cat Frito would like to take it from here, Simpson!

Somebody here isn’t eating a balanced diet and if they’re not careful they’re going to get the gout!

I wouldn’t be so pleased with myself if I were you, one day you’ll get yours, and let me tell you, it won’t be nice!

Old Macdonald’s drinking caught up with him and he died two years ago. He had cirrhosis of the liver and then was taken by pneumonia. Just too weak to fight.

You, you’re just another good-time Charlie, you’re not getting the eggs for free from me,  buzz-off!