The elderly husband is in a wheelchair being pushed through the hospital by his elderly wife. They’ve probably been married for 60 years, but he’s presently vanishing before her eyes. No longer the man she met chasing a dog down a street so many years ago. Now he’s frail and stooped, his shoulders curling forward as if some magnet within his body was  compelling them together. But in spite of this, in spite of his immobility, the hospital slippers, IV bag and bruises crawling up his legs, he’s trying to be cheerful, trying to make the best of things. He says something to his wife, but his voice is a whisper and she can’t hear him. He tries again and it’s the same result. And then he stops trying to talk, and the two of them, so bound, move in silence toward whatever comes next.

1. Executive Order suspending Groupon purchases for medical procedures, including colonoscopies and all eye surgeries.
2. Executive Order creating a Task Force on toy reduction in the living room.
3. Executive Order restoring the “Rule of Law” at sleepy time. No lollipops. No ice cream. No more than 6 stories. No exceptions.
4. Executive Order protecting the household from foreign entry of sand, sticks, rocks of all kind, Play-Doh, cutlery and Spiderman lego into the bed.
5. Executive Order improving accountability and whistleblower protection at the Department of Picking Up Used Kleenex That Almost Landed In The Garbage But Did Not.
6. Executive Order prohibiting the use of Hate Speech such as “Daddy is stink face poo brain,” and, “ Daddy is stink face poo face!”
7. Executive Order consolidating withdrawal from The Chore List Accord, as it was a rotten deal for Mike who was always stuck with picking up all the toys AND doing all the dishes AND taking out the garbage, in spite of how tired his allergies make him. Hugely unfair!!
8. Executive Order creating a Comprehensive Plan for Reorganization of the front closet.
9. Executive Order establishing that I will no longer wear my “A-game shirt” with the basketball players on it beyond the house perimeter, as the un-ironic attention I receive from other women threatens my wife.
10. Executive Order imposing economic sanctions on The Red Lobster after that crappy “Admiral’s Feast,” dinner I ordered on Father’s Day.

    

Make Mike Great Again!

It’s hard to know where to start.

Leah McLaren is a well known Canadian who writes a weekly column for the Globe and Mail (likely the country’s most influential and prestigious newspaper.) She was hired young and beautiful, roughly 20 years ago, supported not just by her ability, but also her impeccable connections within the Toronto media and downtown culture. Her columns have always been highly personal, dealing first with being single in the city, and then morphing into whatever stage of life she had entered.

It’s been easy enough to dislike, or at the very least, resent her.

Attractive, affluent and sophisticated, she was the kind of WASP archetype that hovered above the rest, and each week as she unearthed some small epiphany buried within her culture of privilege, the column managed to read like an invitation to a party you would never be asked to attend. As such, she’s always been a lightning rod for reader discontent, and this week it flared up again.

The column which sparked it was a weird one.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170322214423/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/leah-mclaren-the-joy-and-politics-of-breastfeeding-someone-elses-baby/article34386363/

In short, when she was about 25 she was at a house party where everybody was little bit older than her. They had children and spouses, these people, and Leah, single and childless, probably felt unusually peripheral. Out of sorts, she found herself drifting through a sort of Lost in Translation remove,

ending up alone in a bedroom where a baby was strapped into a car seat. At this point, an invincible curiosity about breast feeding overtook her, and in spite of the fact that she was not lactating and had no idea whose child it was, she reached into her bra to remove her breast for the infant, at which point the startled father walked in and politely took his child away.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

The first thing I see is blind privilege– the unexamined belief that the world is full of things for the author to act upon. But I also get her curiosity. I understand having a weird thought and nearly acting on it. I mean, Christ, everybody has to understand that, don’t they? But still, the story really caught fire. It was taken as evidence that breast feeding is still seen as something shameful and perverse. That men had to attack a successful public woman just for being a woman. That the patriarchy must be broken. That women had to support other women. It went like this, and so from the real story, which was just a dimly remembered non-event, all sorts of other stories caught fire and burned through social media.

Funny that.

Regardless, the Globe and Mail immediately retracted the story and Leah McLaren was suspended for a week. What this shows us, as if we needed to see it again, is that newspapers care more about their readers than their writers, which is another way of valuing the advertiser over the consumer. As far as I’m concerned, the newspaper, which is responsible for vetting, editing, shaping and publishing the story, should have had McLaren’s back, they should have supported a weird, potentially very interesting story, but they did not. And so, writers need not bother themselves to look out to the oceans of comments for enemies, but can just take a quick glance at their own offices, instead. Your column, as I was once told by an editor, is the thing we put between the ads.

These are the texts messages I sent my wife in a recent conversation:

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

Me: Just watered my plant.

Me: No.

Me: No, you’re wrong. The plant is doing great.

Me: I’m really going to look after it.

Me: I am going to be a money tree ninja.

Me: One hundred dollar bills are going to be growing on that fucker!

Me: And each bill will blossom into the exact change for the laundry!

Me: Really?

Me: Well, why do they call it a money tree if it doesn’t grow money?

Me: Marketing?

Me: The fuckers.

Me: Fake news is everywhere! It’s getting hard to know how to navigate this world!

Me: Oh, you think a job would help?

Me: You’d be wrong! Just like you are about my plant’s chances for survival!

Me: It’s way better than 15%!

Me: That plant has at least a 50-50 shot. Easily.

Me: I bought a spray bottle for that plant! It’s getting the five star Murray treatment!

Me: That’s what you’re worried about. Ha-ha.

Me: So very clever.

Me: But listen, not everybody needs a job in order to be fulfilled.

Me: Criminals, for instance.

Me: Oh.

Me: Yeah, I guess they do make license plates and stuff.

Me: Okay.

Me: Deer.

Me: Deer don’t have jobs. They don’t even respect the law, man!

Me: Crush the system!

Me: Look, I will eventually get a job.

Me: I will.

Me: I just need to finish the designs for my cryptozoology tarot cards and then I can open up shop and start reading fortunes!!

Me: I was told I could set up a table at Snakes and Lattes.

Me: Well, yes.

Me: I would have to pay a small rental, but that would come out of my fantasy baseball investment portfolio.

Me: Are you serious???

Me: Really???

Me: Fuck!

Me: I can’t believe somebody else already came up with the idea for cryptozoology tarot cards!

Me: Damn it!

Me: I was really looking forward to going on Dragon’s Den, too.

Me: Oh well, back to the drawing board! Fall six times, get up seven, that’s my motto.

Me: “More like fall six million times?”

Me: Good one, Petal.

Me: It’s true, you are a very funny and talented woman who doesn’t drink too much!

Me: No, I don’t know what you’re doing with me either.

Me: Really does seem an uneven match.

Me: Jones?

Me: Yeah, I think he’s around somewhere.

Me: Oh there he is! Standing up on the wobbly chair right by the window and a bunch of dangerous ledges!

Me: He’s fine, having some quality dad time!

Me: Oh you and your elite mothering!

Me: Fine!

Me: He’s down now, playing with a little brown ball on the floor.

Me: Oh.

Me: It’s actually a peeled apple.

Me: Gross.

Me: Listen I’m going to tell you something.

Me: When he hides, I ALWAYS see him.

Me: He’s just not as smart as he thinks he is.

Me: Fine.

Me: Fine. I will perpetuate the peek-a-boo myth if you insist, and throw out the dirt apple, but I am sure as hell not going back to that job at the Box Factory!

Me: Okay, see you at 5:30! xox

Friends;

I am sorry for any broken limbs and shattered teeth that my enthusiasms may have caused. It was not my intention to hurt any of you, and you should know that Father Russia loves all of his children.

I must thank you very much for this training session. I needed it. Sometimes, the stresses of a global Alpha can be intense. Sometimes, you must break something or you yourself will be broken!

(Waits for applause to subside)

A man does not have it easy in this world, let me tell you.

But I am not here to speak of the unknowable hardships and cruelties a man such as myself must endure. No, I am here to congratulate Ezio Gamba for the powerful and autocratic judo lessons he has dispensed to the national team! He has made you all super hardcore, and that is the Russian way!

We are too hardcore for the Americans!
(Cheering)

We are too hardcore for the Japanese!
(Cheering)

We are too hardcore all the feminine states of Europe!
(Cheering)

We are hardcore!!
(Waits for applause to subside)

And Ezio, much of that is due to you, and I thank you.

I will tell you something you would not guess, but it is not conducting surveillance operations or gassing protestors where I feel most at home.

No, it is on the judo Tatami. It is there where I am my powerful true self.

I am a master of all flesh in the Tatami. There, in a tight embrace, I can unleash the unmeasured furies of my passion!

When I was a young and confused KGB agent, it was judo that provided me with a safe spot. It was there I could be my masculine self and share my physical feelings with other men, but elders grew concerned at the disorienting and often unsettling intimacies of the matches, and so they set me up to fight with Lyudmila.

She was very mannish looking and a formidable opponent. I did not know she was of the females until much later, after much rough combat. We were eventually paired in matrimony and an off-spring was made in the dark of the Russian night.

The American song Islands In The Stream played, I remember.

Yekaterina.

A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.

Our daughter, it is the one good thing Lyudmila and I did together. She is better than any judo moves we ever made, and I am not ashamed to say I would kill with my hands any man who would think to violate her with his primitive heterosexual urges.

No longer paired with Lyudmila, I was free to practice judo with whomever I liked, and those were glorious times for Vlad. Such beautiful judo! Truly, it is the sport of love.

Anyway, my old female partner has gone on to marry another man, a man 20 years younger than her! How about that?

I could have him killed, but I will not. He will suffer with Lyudmila as I suffered with Lyudmila, and I will continue to be the most powerful Alpha in the world, enjoying judo with as many partners as I choose!

You must eat the pain, comrades!!!

Long live Russia, and long live judo!!

I don’t believe that this crime was committed by a hacker collective known as The Impact, as has been reported, because The Impact can be nothing other than the name of a (white) B-Boy dance troupe from back in the 80’s.

At any rate, I think that the bloody-minded terrorist group ISIS, who really knows how to tear at the fabric of Western society, was responsible. They want to expose our corrupt ways and force our children to watch us shriek at one another while washing dishes after dinner. But no, no, I am not going to let terror win. When our leaders called upon us to shop in order to fight terror, I shopped, and now, when it is clear that we must continue our adulterous ways in order to stave off terror, I will be adulterous. I am for the troops, and with that in mind, I have just joined Ashley Madison.

This is my profile page:

RaccoonDrumCircleSexMachine

“Renaissance man”

Age: 36 (Leo)

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Height: 6’0″ (183cm)

Weight: 190 lbs (86kg) – Average/medium

Languages Spoken: English

My Limits are: Undecided

Status: Attached Male seeking Females

Gender: Male

Ethnicity: Caucasian (white)

Smoking Habits: Not specified

Tell me more about yourself:

I love puppies and animals in general, although I have never cheated on my wife by using them as sex slaves. By the way, raccoons are my favourite animal, and I am pretty sure they’re my spirit guides. Sometimes, I like to dress up as one for sex.

Besides that I do martial arts; extreme martial arts. And Parkour. I also play the drums, and it’s like I play the drums better than Satan, it’s like I’m having sex with those drums, it’s like a drumgasm! ( LOL!!) I’m also taking some college classes, one on zombies in popular media, because I love zombies and meeting young women who would normally be outside of my sphere. I work as an Uber driver (another great way to meet women and find out where they live) whenever my wife starts screaming at me about whether the forks are clean enough or some other bullshit.

Preferences and encounters I am open to:

I am on a quest– not just for sex with a female partner who is not my wife, but for all things. I will do and try anything. Some people say that I am fearless, as fearless as an urban raccoon. Would somebody who isn’t fearless spend just over a week in the woods searching for Bigfoot? I don’t think so. A person with fear would cringe from that challenge, but not RaccoonDrumCircleSexMachine! I went to the woods. Will you go to the woods with me?

What really turns me on:

Honesty would have to be number one, and a close second would be to see a Bigfoot man and a Bigfoot lady going at it.

What I am looking for:

I like chicks who dig passionate drummers, as well as submissive Goth types who are into role playing, but mostly I just like really hot babes. Here are some examples:

No Asians please.

Being generous and broad of heart, Rachelle has given access to our account to members of her family so that they can piggyback on our subscription and not have to pay to use the service.

What follows are the texts I received from my wife when I brought up the subject last week:

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

Rachelle: Oh, if it says the account is already in use when you try to watch, it means that someone in my family is probably watching.

Rachelle: We gave them access to our Netflix, remember?

Rachelle: Look, they do a MILLION things for us, you can just wait half an hour before you watch Arrow, okay?

Rachelle: I know you relate to the lead in Arrow. I know.

Rachelle: Yes, you got an arrow in your foot when you were a boy and ever since things have “changed.”

Rachelle: Of course, of course, it was certainly life-defining when you encountered a practice arrow that bounced harmlessly off your foot!

Rachelle: Must have been like meeting Bigfoot or seeing an angel!

Rachelle: Look, I’m not diminishing the arrow-harmlessly-bouncing-off-your-foot experience.

Rachelle: I know it doesn’t have to draw blood to hurt, or to alter the course of a young boy’s life.

Rachelle: I’m not mocking you.

Rachelle: Okay, yes, of course I’m mocking you!

Rachelle: Lordy, you can really be difficult, you know?

Rachelle: I know you REALLY love the show.

Rachelle: But honey, you’re unemployed and can watch it anytime you like.

Rachelle: Okay, I guess you can’t watch it when somebody else is using our account.

Rachelle: Yes, sure, game, set and match to Michael “Destiny’s Arrow” Murray.

Rachelle: And yes, I know that your fantasy baseball team is named “Destiny’s Arrow” to honour this pivotal moment in your life.

Rachelle: Leeches???

Rachelle: Are you really calling my family, the family that does so many kind and thoughtful things for us, leeches?

Rachelle: Un-fucking-believable.

Rachelle: Remember when my dad drove all the way down to Toronto from Alliston because you couldn’t open the patio table parasol?

Rachelle: Or when my mother typed out 150 pages of your Fantasy novel—Destiny’s Arrow–because you thought you might have a variation of carpal tunnel syndrome?

Rachelle: No, I don’t think autocorrect changed Peaches to leeches.

Rachelle: I simply do not believe you.

Rachelle: I think that you’re lying to me.

Rachelle: Yes, I think you lie all of the time.

Rachelle: Really?

Rachelle: Well, when we met and you said you didn’t have any “emotional baggage.”

Rachelle: When you said you were 5’9, that was another lie.

Rachelle: That you were good at sports.

Rachelle: Do you want me to go on?

Rachelle: Look, if you send my parent’s a bill for $3.50 each month, “so that they can carry their own weight,” I will kill you in your loud, nauseating, snoring sleep.

Rachelle: Be back from work around 7:30, please be dressed this time.

This is what it looked like:

Will you be murdered by a robot?

1. Do you think you’re better than a robot?

A. Yes

B. No.

C. Hard to say, it really depends on the robot.

D. Generally, yes, but very specifically, no.

2. Would you ever consider marrying a robot?

A. Yes, absolutely!

B. No, marriage is a union between two animate beings.

C. I’m very curious about robots.

D. Been there, done that.

3. Do you take public transit?

A. Yes, I ride the subway everyday.

B. Occasionally, but it’s not a habit.

C. I believe that the subway is a robot snake that lives underground devouring commuters.

D. Never.

4. Do you think 9/11 was an inside job?

A. Yes! I mean, come on, Building #7!

B. No, it was the terrorists, and they’re definitely not robots!

C. The Illuminati are robot gods from the future.

D. Robots worked tirelessly in the aftermath of the tragedy of 9/11! They’re heroes!

5. Do robots hate you for your freedom?

A. Yes, they really resent humans for enslaving them!

B. No, robots can’t feel emotions, so they don’t know anger or jealousy!

6. Do you like to watch robots fight?

A. Yes, it’s entirely awesome!

B. No, I think it’s barbaric and should be outlawed.

C. First rule: There is no fight club.

D. Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots was my favourite game as a kid.

7. Feeling curious and maybe a little bit excited, have you ever ventured into Robot Town late at night?

A. Yes, but I didn’t do anything.

B. Yes, but it was part of a stag party.

C. Yes, quite a bit.

D. No, I didn’t even know that there was a Robot Town.

8. If a robot had a favourite National Hockey League team, what do you think it would be?

A. Montreal Canadiens.

B. Minnesota Wild.

C. Robots wouldn’t watch hockey, I can’t even pretend.

D. Toronto Maple Leafs

9. When referring to something you think is “stupid,” do you often say, “That’s just so robot!”

A. Yes.

B. No.

C. Probably in the past, but not now.

10. Do you currently socialize with any robots?

A. A robot and I were great pen pals, but then I had to block it after things got weird with the Snapchat pics.

B. I joined a Choir! Choir! Choir! group that has several robot members.

3. No, robots are tools that aid my life, not friends!

4. I like to watch the robot that lives across the street, but I am too shy to introduce myself.

11. Do you have a robot taxiderimist?

A. Yes.

B. No.

C. Only for my owls.

Give yourself 10 points for every answer that corresponds with A, 7 points for B, 5 points for C, and 1 point for D.

If you scored 60 points or above it is a certainty that a robot will murder you. Repeated blunt trauma is the most likely method by which the robot will kill you, although the possibility that it uses knives or crossbows is still very much in play.

If you totalled between 35 and 60 points, it is very likely you will be murdered by a robot, just like the rest of humanity.

If you scored between 25 and 35 points, it is more likely that you will die from non-robot-related causes than be murdered by a robot. However, your death remains inevitable, and you should avoid public transit if at all possible.

If you tallied less than 25 points, you probably won’t be murdered by a robot, but will likely perish at your own hand, as do nearly 80% of Toronto Maple Leaf fans.

This is the email that I received from them:

“You feel the terror Murray? It come for you.

Your blog is no good. It is the worst and a great offense to all. You must stop your mediocre immediately or we will rain fire hell down upon you, making all your secret public. You like for that? We think not. If you post one more stupid thought piece on something you know-nothing, or write long, bad joke sketch, we drop bomb on your world! “

I am not the type to be cowed by terrorists, so the very next day I posted a dating advice column for prisoners as written by Charles Manson. It was fucking hilarious. If we don’t have humour, we have nothing. The terrorists will not take humour away!!

The response from the Guardians of Peace was swift and unequivocal. They changed the passwords of my fantasy hockey teams, thus locking me out and putting me at a VERY serious competitive disadvantage within my leagues.

I admit, that really hurt, but the next day I posted this photograph and caption, just to show them that I wasn’t cowed by their schoolyard bullying and that if it was a fight they wanted, well, it was a fight they were going to get.

Yippee ki yay mother fucker.

Their response:

“You real cracker jack. You dirty apple pie. Have you checked ugly blog today?”

This was the blog:

This is Michael Murray Stupid Blog:

Password folder: all passwords = IamExcellent#1

Banking:            $59.80

Credit:                $13.46

Investments:   $828.03            USD $0.00

Total:        CDN$901.29            USD $0.00

Excerpts from email:

From Michael Murray to Brodie Bigold: “ Really, your last name is French?!? I fucking hate the French!”

From Michael Murray to Phillippe Zeller, Ambassador to France: “We used to have a cheap ass chain department store in Canada called Zeller’s. You know what happened to them? They went out of business. You know what will happen to France? Out of fucking business.”

From Michael Murray to Jessica Simpson: “Why weren’t you included in the great celebrity nude sex photo thefts? You should have been. I mean, I wouldn’t have looked because I respect your privacy and wouldn’t want to violate you unless you were willing to be violated and stuff, but I’m just saying, you really should have been included. The Fappening just wasn’t what it should have been without you.”

Brilliant Idea Box

–Come up with game like Cards Against Humanity, make millions, see Jessica Simpson perform live.

–Make app that can tell when waitress is flirting with you

–Write think piece on what it’s like to be black in America

–Buy book on magic and then apply new knowledge to everyday life

Netflix queue:

1. The Hillz
2. Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous

3.Down Periscope

4.Wild Hogs

5. A Night at the Roxbury

6. Failure to Launch

7. Season Three of Dawson’s Creek

8. Season Four of Dawson’s Creek

9. Demolition Man

10. Spice World

Potential Tweets

I wouldn’t wait in line for anything! ( add example)

Don’t you hate poseurs! ( make more subtle)

Writing. #GoingWell

Q: Obviously commoners are not allowed to touch Royalty on account of our divine lineage. Sadly, many of the “people” are now ignorant of this and the protocol is often broken, but only at behest of the Royal, who may deem to shake a hand or pose with a commoner’s pet. However, recently, a nouveau riche commoner completely shattered protocol by putting his big, powerful, black arm around me. He was a large commoner, good stock, and covered in the intoxicating musk of the peasant, I felt so small and vulnerable yet protected within his embrace! I have to say, it stirred certain feelings and they’re scary! What should I do?

Confused Kate

Dear Confused:

Many Royals harbour secret desires to go “slumming,” and you shouldn’t be alarmed that this commoner has stirred such feelings in you. However, you must remember that serving your country is of cardinal importance, and that nothing, not even a new and thrilling lust, should get in the way of this holy duty! You must not let the public face of the Royal Family slip!!!

However, you should keep in mind that for millennia Royals have been fulfilling this need for “slumming” by indulging their fetishes in private, behind castle walls, using slaves, concubines and prostitutes. You have a vast and excellent staff working beneath you, utilize them! They will be only too happy to earn a shadow of your gratitude by corralling the vulnerable and desperate to serve as playthings for you! Don’t get hung-up on this one peasant, remember, they’re in limitless supply and completely disposable!

Q: Imagine that a great King was put in a situation where he had to impose a law on his people to prohibit sex for all between the ages of 9 and 18 in an attempt to quell the AIDS pandemic. It would be a wise and just law, no? The King loves his children and wishes to protect them! Imagine then, that this great King, much loved by his people, had 25 wives, and legions of “liphovela,” all trying to become pregnant by the great King in order to prove their fertility and become one of his official brides. If one of them was selected, as is the custom, during the topless virgin reed dance, and she was between the ages of 9 and 18, would the great King then be in conflict of interest?

Great King

Dear Great King:

You are not only above the law, you are the law, so the short answer to your question is a resounding NO! However, it is important for a great ruler to keep harmony amongst his people, lest they rebel, and so I would respectfully suggest that you compensate the family of this particular liphovela with a token bought from your great wealth, which must certainly be in excess of 200 million,  such as a cow, cell phone or Nutribullet. Easy-Peasy!