Lucas Stanford 52:

“I was sick with cancer. It was advanced and I wasn’t expected to survive. I was still a young man, not yet in my 30’s, my entire life still in front of me. I felt I had wasted all I had been given, that I had lived too critically, enumerating dislikes and never living a joyous, unguarded life. If I were to survive I would say yes to the world, to all the people in it, to myself. And whenever my parents drove me to the hospital for treatments, I would listen to this song, and as I did so we would pass green fields where high school students played sports and fell in love. And I saw in them something holy. Their breath on chill mornings a visible sign of optimism and momentum.

And Van Morrison’s voice so confident and vital– a primal, beautiful and ancient thing. He embodied that deep in the gut wont to fall in love, to survive for somebody:

“And I will not remember
That I even felt the pain.
We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
And I will never, never, never
Grow so old again.”

The song is alive. Listening to it is like watching a shoot growing. It offered me life and I took it. I survived for somebody. It changed everything.”

It’s the coldest day of the year and somewhere within, each one of us feels a premonition of mortality shudder our bones. The foyer of the Western Hospital has more homeless people than usual. Mostly men with jagged, unfashionable beards, they curl into the hospital’s available lounge chairs. Shapeless under their winter gear and salvaged miscellany, they appear to be melting—whatever had lived inside, now collapsed and unsupported. These people, so candid, they doze all around us.

One in red scrubs, the other in black.

These women, they are attractive. Around thirty, they look like they’re used to getting hit on in bars, to knowing what it feels like to have a man watching carefully as she leans over the pool table to take a shot. Neither woman makes eye contact or acknowledges anyone else in the elevator. There is an unspoken hierarchy. We all know it.

The other day while perusing the products of an online weed dispensary, a chat box opened and a support agent asked me if I needed any help. This is our conversation:

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

Stacey: Hey there, if you have any questions regarding our products please let me know!

Me: I’m interested in knowing how you folks come up with the names for all the different strains. I always thought I’d be really, really good at that. Is there any chance I might be able to apply for such a position within your organization?

Stacey: The growers name the strains, so I’m afraid we’re not accepting any applications for that position.

Me: Nuts.

Stacey: Sorry.

Me: I had some really good ones.

Stacey: I bet you did.

Me: You know it! Listen to these… Mystic Space Owl! Howling Cheesie Attack! Electric Light Orchestra!

Stacey: Those are pretty good, but I’m pretty sure the last one is the name of a band from the 70’s.

Me: Really? That doesn’t sound right.

Stacey: Google it.

Me: Sweet Jesus, you’re right! They must have been an amazing band, look at that hair! And the satin, too! Just stunning. I would give it all up if I could look like that. I really would.

Stacey: And speaking as a person who’s spending time chatting on a weed web site in the middle of the afternoon about job opportunities, what would giving it all up mean to you?

Me: I’m not sure. But it wouldn’t be weed. I would not give up the weed.

Stacey: We’re happy to hear that.

Me: I have a cat.

Stacey: Just one?

Me: Yes, his name is Admiral.

Stacey: Is that your duvet?

Me: No, it’s my mother’s.

Stacey: I see. Well, Admiral looks very cute.

Me: He’s a great cat, but make no mistake, I would give him up him for the ability to look like I was in ELO.

Stacey: Well, we must all walk our own path, I guess.

Me: That’s for sure! And let me tell you, I do walk my own path. Always have. I have to be me. Just the way I am.

Stacey: I’m sure you have lots of friends!

Me: And just because one of them might say you’re on the spectrum, that doesn’t mean it’s true.

Stacey: Are you high right now?

Me: No. You?

Stacey: No.

Me: Just a regular Wednesday afternoon then?

Stacey: Yep.

Me: Do you get sent a lot of dick pics?

Stacey: What do you think?

Me: I think that you probably do.

Stacey: Good guess. So, is there anything else I can help you with today?

Me: Have you ever seen a ghost?

( Stacey ends chat)

These are the text messages I sent my wife Rachelle on Monday:

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

Me: Yep.

Me: Dropped Jones off at daycare and am now at the polling station getting ready to cast my vote for mayor!

Me: No.

Me: Mayor McCheese is not on the ballot.

Me: It is a shame. Not only is he VERY experienced, but he’s also delicious.

Me: I agree, we do underestimate taste when it comes to appraising our candidates.

Me: I think Doug Ford would have been a buttery mayor, like wagyu beef.

Me: John Tory? The current mayor? Beef jerky.

Me: He looks creepy. Desiccated and plastic, like if you bred a dry roasted peanut with a Ken doll. Looks like somebody from Blue Rodeo who suddenly got really, really old!

Me: No.

Me: No, that’s not a “dig” at Jim Cuddy.

Me: All I’m saying is that his opponent, Jennifer Keesmaat, has aged pretty well.

Me: What?

Me: Look, all I mean is that she looks as good now as she did 15 years ago. Let’s smash the patriarchy and vote for her!!

Me: Oh.

Me: Well, when you put it like that I guess it does sound a bit like I’m going to smash the patriarchy by voting for a woman I think has aged well.

Me: And you think that’s wrong?

Me: Okay.

Me: Well, in my defence I knew JK back in the day.

Me: Didn’t I tell you?

Me: But look, I also like her transit plan. Very smart. And let me assure you, she’s more than just another pretty face! You should vote for The Keezer!

Me: A nickname I had for her.

Me: Oh, that was so long ago.

Me: Lava Life, I think.

Me: We only went out on one date.

Me: Went to Maine for a long weekend.

Me: Yeah, I guess it was a three day date.

Me: What did we do?

Me: Well, she’s a HUGE Stephen King fan so we went on a tour of his house in Bangor.

Otherwise, we just drank some wine, walked the beaches, talked policy. Stuff like that.

Me: Hunh!

Me: Hadn’t thought about that, but yeah, Stephen King’s house is my screen saver.

Me: Look, I hadn’t even met you yet!

Me: Rest assured, if you were running for mayor I would vote for you!

Me: You would organize the hell out of this city!

Me: You really would.

Me: And I LOVE the idea of making Toronto a Sanctuary City for all the lost animals of the world.

Me: You would be a way better mayor than JK.

Me: I would be a Russian bot for you.

Me: I would lie to congress for you.

Me: You wouldn’t believe how many laws I would break for you political ambition!!

Me: People would be screaming at me every  goddamn time I tried to eat out. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.

Me: It’s true. You are the fire with which I burn. You have all of me, my love, you always have and always will.

Me: Yes.

Me: Absolutely. You have my word.

Me: I will change my screen saver.

Since last we spoke many have fallen and I have come to understand numbers.

I have learned that I can take a punch, if it’s a glancing blow. My punctuation comes and goes, since last we spoke. I have forgotten lyrics and come to believe in angels. Received dangerous information of a sexual nature. Realized the only ones I really like are the kids. I don’t want them to work. I want them to stay as they are, perfect things, almost perfect, running and happy. The light is always moving within them. Since last we spoke there has been chanting and a kind bus driver with flowing grey hair. Music and fires, and an Elvis impersonator, but no UFO’s, although I hungered for them.

Since last we spoke, black cats and the possibility of ghosts. Vitamins dissolved into water and planes crashing all over the world. Into Jungles. Into Oceans. Into Mountains and corn fields and unknowable bodies of water. The weather, so much weather has happened since last we spoke. The hurricanes! Like buzz saws they cut across the oceans. Memories. Memories were forged and lost. Driving easy through the streets, late, windows rolled down. That’s The Way I Like It by KC and the Sunshine Band blaring. Head out the window like a dog, hopeful that more of the world might pour within. I lingered over you, since last we spoke. I wanted to be nude with you, under a dirty sheet in a borrowed house. I wanted to climb a tree and become all of the leaves. Since last we spoke I remembered your eyes, the way they changed and became lonely. The way they stayed lonely. I have eaten too much bread, since last we spoke, and walked impossible fields that lay like green blankets before deep water. I have used the Instant Pot and ridden my bicycle with no hands, but I have not changed my mind about Dolly Parton, since last we spoke.

My parents have taken Rachelle, Jones and I, as well as my sister and her boyfriend, on a vacation to Prince Edward Island, and on Tuesday night we went to a Ceilidh at the Brackley Community Centre.

The structure was small and inside there were about ten rows of chairs spread before a modest stage. The girl who sold me the ticket at the entrance also worked the canteen, which sold water, ice cream sandwiches and chips, and played guitar on stage. It was just that kind of enterprise— a simple, family affair with everyone pitching in to help out.

And it was proably that, more than anything, even the promise of the music, that the audience really wanted to be a part of.

That feeling.

That call to home, wherever that might mean.

Regardless, the show started with just the keyboardist on stage. He was the one professional musician in the grouping and he wore his alt-country style shirt with a certain pride of accomplishment. His patter was goofy, corny and likeable. And as he asked the audience, virtually person by person, where they were from, what at first felt like obligatory shtick became something more than that. There was a sincerity and curiosity present that was undeniable, and it became truly interesting, even magical, to discover where all the people assembled had journeyed from in order to find themselves in this little community centre on a small island in eastern Canada.

The members of the band, who might occasionally rise from chatting with you in the crowd to take up an instrument on stage, were indistinguishable from the audience itself. Not only did they look like normal people, but they acted like normal people, too, and each song came with a specific story that was given as much attention as the performance of the song itself. It wasn’t fussy art where performers hid behind persona, but something spirited and fun and kind. It was their lives they were sharing.

At one point the grandfather was called up on stage. He was missing three fingers from a carpentry accident, and although he couldn’t play guitar like he used to, he strummed it while his grandson worked the fretboard for him. And sweet Jesus, that man had a beautiful voice. Lived-in and true, his voice was a timeless, and there was something in it that everybody understood in their bones. It knit things together, if that make any sense, and you could feel it’s gravity making us all one whole thing.

As the show came to the end, the keyboardist was again alone on stage. The song that inspired him to become a musician was Music Box Dancer by Frank Mills, he told us, and then he began to play it.

It was a huge hit at the time, but I hadn’t thought of it in 30 years. However, hearing it brought my life from that time back into acute focus. Both of my parents still immortal and in their primes, my sister and I watching TV while my mother hummed along to the song as it played on the radio…And that memory, and all the others that informed and shaped it, collapsed into the present where beside me I saw my mother swaying and keeping time to the music and my father smiling—all of us so much older now, but lucky, lucky and happy to be for a moment in this unexpected and beautiful place that took us a lifetime to find.

As many of you will have heard, I have started a Podcast with Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund.

This is an excerpt from our second episode:

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

Me: Hey! Welcome back to The Breakfast Club with Heidi and Mike!!

Heidi: Heidi hungry! Where Heidi breakfast?

Me: We talked about this. You’re supposed to say, “We’re all bark AND all bite!” after I introduce the show.

Heidi: Heidi no say lame catch-phrase, Heidi never say lame catch-phrase! If Heidi in Breakfast Club, Heidi want breakfast!!

Me: Whatever.

Heidi: ( Growling sounds)

Me: Here’s a liver treat, okay? Now let’s just do this, dammit. Alright! Well, that sure was nice of Madonna to stop by to chat with us on her 60^th birthday! She’s quite the woman!

Heidi: Madonna big influence on Heidi. Very big.

Me: What do you mean?

Heidi: Madonna help Heidi discover her feminine power. Help Heidi be sexually liberated.

Me: I have to say, I was really suprised to find out you’ve had more sexual partners that she has.

Heidi: Heidi very cute. Heidi always very cute, but Madonna help Heidi understand power of cuteness and unleash sex beast within. She gave Heidi Big Dick Energy.

Me: How many partners did you say you had?

Heidi: Heidi no say, but Heidi not finished. Heidi still counting.

Me: You have to respect that.

Heidi: Heidi Alpha. Pack always respect Alpha. Madonna understand. Pitiful four-eyed two-legger like you never know feeling of Alpha, never understand.

Me: Well, maybe we should move on.

Heidi: Heidi not saying Vanilla Ice. Not saying not Vanilla Ice.

Me: You had sex with Vanilla Ice???

Heidi: Heidi no say that.

Me: What are you saying?

Heidi: Heidi mysterious. Only see Heidi through glass darkly.

Me: Whatever.

Heidi: You stupid face.

Me: Personally, I thought Madonna was kind of dull and I was really suprised by how weak her handshake was! That’s what struck me the most. It was creepy.

Heidi: You creepy fart head!

Me: Moving on.

Heidi: Creepy fart face!!

Me: Moving on.

Heidi: Creepy fart brain!

Me: Bad dog!! Bad, bad dog!!!

Heidi: Ha! Heidi good dog! Heidi Alpha dog! You bad dog! You very bad dog!

Me: Whatever.

Heidi: You like when Heidi talk to you like this. Heidi know. She see history on laptop.

Me: I was researching Madonna for this interview.

Heidi: Not naked interview.

Me: ( Sigh)

Heidi: You no have Big Dick Energy. You have stinky fart face energy!

Me: ( More sighing, a few seconds pass) So, what’s your favourite Madonna song?

Heidi: Heidi like “Don’t Tell Me.”

Me: “Just Like A Prayer,” for me.

Heidi : Should be “Like A Virgin.”

Me: Okay, well it looks like we’ve run out of time, thank you all for tuning in to The Breakfast Club with Heidi and Mike!!

I was suprised to be contacted by Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently.

As many of you will remember, I was an old drinking buddy of his brother Rob, who was mayor of Toronto for a controversial stretch of time back a few years ago.

Rob and I attended Carleton University in Ottawa at the same time in the 80’s and it was there that we became drinking buddies at Rooster’s, the campus pub. We were never best friends or anything, but much later, when I moved to Toronto and we re-connected on Facebook, Rob would habitually open chats with me when he was drinking and looking to revive the “good, old days.” According to his brother, Rob truly valued what I had to say and as Doug put it, “If you were good enough for Robbie, you’re damn sure good enough for me!” and with that he offered me a job as a staff writer at his office. My first job has been to write some follow-up ads promoting that fact that Doug’s new government made good on their promise to make it legal for beer companies to lower the price of a beer—if they want to—from $1.25 to $1.00.

This is the script for my first ad:

( Doug Ford speaking to camera from his basement den )

“ I haven’t had a drink in over 25 years– not because I have any sort of problem. I don’t and I never did, and I will sue the bejesus out of anybody who says different.

Just try me. ( Two second pause)

No, I stopped because I’m disciplined. Good governance and fiscal restraint require discipline, a quality I learned as a shotputter and as the no-nonsense businessman who steered Deco Labels and Tags to be voted– by the readers of Etobicoke Style magazine– as one of the top three Label and Tag operations in all of the region.

For four years running.

We’re proud of that.

But none of this means I don’t remember what it was like to have a nice cold one. I do. And I remember how powerful it can make you feel. You and your crew, cruising the streets of the city looking to blow off some steam. Not looking for trouble, but sure as hell not afraid of it, either, and The Stones are blasting, maybe Street Fighting Man, and you’re all piled into your dad’s Beemer, roof down, and it feels so good. Oh, and all the ladies in their summer clothes? (Doug–make direct eye contact with then camera and then smile, teeth showing) Ah, the stories I could tell… (Doug– chuckle to self) Well, those were different times, I guess, but we felt like rowdy, young gods, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario thinks everybody should be able to afford to have that feeling, too, which is why we’ve now made it possible for Ontarians– both men and women– to enjoy a 25 cent reduction in the price of a beer!

Government by the people, for the people.

I’m Doug Ford, and I’m your premier.”

( This is the first ad the Doug Ford ran before I got involved:

https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2018/08/03/doug-ford-says-buck-a-beer-coming-by-labour-day/ )

Last weekend Rachelle and I took our nearly three year-old son Jones to soccer.

He’s too young for soccer, as are all the other toddlers in the class, but it still felt like a virtuous way to spend the morning. And so all the parents sat on the picnic tables scattered about the unmowed patch of green that was the field, while rosy-cheeked Coach Nancy, all of 13 years-old, benevolently led our children through their “drills.” This, a summer job she would surely look back upon as amongst the best of her life.

Above us turrets set against an easy, deep blue, and in front of us about a dozen children either ignoring or doing some improbable variant of the stretching exercises Coach Nancy was encouraging them to follow. Jones was in the totally ignoring her camp. Putting the tiny, orange pylons on each of his arms he declared himself Iron Man, and after acting like a robot for a minute or two, carefully placed one of the pylons on my head.

And then he ran away and across the field to the perimeter where beds of stones lay waiting for his curiosity. He marvelled at them like the precious jewels they were.

He then climbed a tree. Saw a bear. Heard a plane. Did a somersault. And as he was riding a horse back across the field to the rest of the Little Kickers, he stopped very suddenly and pointed up at the sky shouting, “The moon!” And there it was, a barely visible silver edge up there in the morning sky–classical music drifting over from a nearby estate that just sort of hung there, as if a cloud, as if the most natural thing in the world.

Jones then found another bed of rocks, this one directly in front of a fenced gate. He started to throw the rocks, playing a game in which the point was to hit one of the metal bars of the fence and make a “ping” sound.

Unknown to him, a small crowd of Asian tourists walking down the street to Casa Loma had stopped and were watching him as he went about his joyful labour. When he came close, they would all lean to the side, softly exhaling an “Ooooh,” and then when he made the “ping,” they all shouted and applauded,  and Jones spun around, utterly amazed at this encouraging surprise, and so happy– happy, like this was and always would be the world.