Tall, powerful and with flowing, blonde locks and a fastball that exceeds 100 mph, he has the distinct aura of the divine about him. He had a tough time early in the game, but seemed to gather confidence and strength as it wore on.
David Wright, veteran third baseman and captain of the Mets served as his human interpreter at the press conference after the Mets victory:
Alice Gwyn, Yahoo Sports: “Thor, you seemed a little confounded on the mound out there as the game started. The Royals kept getting hits off you no matter what you threw. How did you adjust?”
David Wright, human translator:
Thor says, “I could not believe that even as I shattered their puny mortal weapons, sundering them like match sticks with my offerings, they still managed to get little, dinky hits! It was black magic, I tell you! I looked to my captain and said, “What dark arts are these? Surely Loki is behind such enchantments!”
But in truth, never once did I stop believing in my mighty immortal powers, powers which you can see were reflected in the final score.”
Joe Ainsley, New York Post: “Good effort out there, Thor. The first pitch of the game was quite an eye opener. Was the high and tight fastball that levelled Royals lead-off hitter Alcides Escobar meant to convey a message and change the tone in the series?”
David Wright, human translator:
Thor laughs heartily! He throws his golden locks behind his head, saying, the pitch was meant to convey that Alcides is a pitiful mortal and I am the immortal Thor! The Royals, a team that little changeling girl Lordes wrote a song about, needed to know they were in New York now and that things are very different in New York. I smote him. He will not be a factor in this series again. The pitiful human mewling from the Royals dugout after that, little kittens scared of a thunder, made Thor laugh. Verily, it was a good time.”
Benedict Summers, New York Times: “Thor, I have to say, it was good to see the God of Thunder so in control of things tonight, and wow, you are really, really crazy numinous tonight, blinding. Anyway, what would you say was the single most important thing to you being able to pitch such a gritty, consistent and powerful game?”
David Wright, human translator:
“Being a God and immortal status, for sure. I just reached deep into my well of divinity and kept throwing pitches of fire that I knew mortals would not be able to hit. Just stuck to my game plan. Also, the presence of the great Billy Joel at the game, and the playing of Piano Man,
was both touching and inspirational! It was like I was back in Valhalla at the hall of Bilskirnir! Thor, God of Thunder, thanks you all very much, but he must now go and feast and ice the immortal arm!”
( Thanks to Yael Friedman for the idea!)
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1. ROCK THE VOTE!!
In an effort to help remind Torontonians that it’s their duty to vote in the upcoming city election on October 27th, CondomTO would put out a series of prophylactics featuring various City Councilors and Mayoral candidates. Personalities should include:
Rob Ford
David Soknacki
Doug Ford
Karen Stintz
Olivia Chow
Sarah Thomson
- TORONTO: PROUD OF OUR WILDLIFE!!
This series of condoms would feature some of the urban wildlife that makes Toronto such a distinctive blend between big-city cosmopolitanism and natural green space, also serving as a reminder that animals are our neighbours and partners in city living! Creatures that should be considered for inclusion:
Pigeon
Raccoon
Small dog (As so many Torontonians are apartment dwellers, the city has a preponderance of small dog breeds such as Dachshund, Pug, Yorkshire Terrier, etcetera)
Rat
Squirrel
Bed Bugs
- CELEBRATE JURASSIC PARK!!
In honour of the Toronto Raptors basketball team’s great run into the playoffs, CondomTO would feature some of the star personalities involved with the team! Suggestions include:
Amir Johnson
The Raptor (Mascot)
Jonas Valanciunas
Kyle Lowry
Drake (Ambassador of team)
Nav Bhatia (Superfan)
The bar was pretty much off-limits for us at this age, but every once in awhile we might catch a glimpse of one of our teachers leaving the pub. It felt scandalous, that, like seeing the gym and math teacher skinny-dipping. Teachers just weren’t supposed to be people, more like mannequins, and to see suggestions of a life exterior to our school was shocking.
The Mayflower was a part of the constellation of my youth, part of a web that included the vintage clothing store Andy Upstairs (impossibly cool!), Cantor’s Bakery (awesome cookies!) the Penguin, (so sophisticated!), Johnny Shampoo ( New Wave haircuts!) the Party Palace (best hot dogs in the city!), and many other small points of light that connected our high school years.
In an indirect way, Lou Reed, who also came to his terminal point on Sunday, was a part of that network, too. A friend, who had a particularly keen and scholarly interest in music, introduced me to the Velvet Underground in grade 10, and although they weren’t of our generation, that band opened a big, thrilling window into the world that could be. Impossibly cool, dangerous and Avant-garde they were the very opposite of Ottawa, representing everything bigger, edgier and closer to the bone than we were. When I put on my Velvet Underground and Nico t-shirt I felt transformed, as if lifted up and out of my high school life and moving toward a limitless and exotic horizon, and now, some 30 years later, the news on Sunday reminded me that horizons recede and end, too.
And so, a melancholy day.
]]>He couldn’t be stopped, his dick had to be seen.
Of course, politicians have long been engaged in reckless, sex scandal drenched behaviour. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia and robust anti-gay activist has actually been celebrated for his aggressive sexual posturing, with his PR team strategically releasing sex room chat transcripts to the public in an effort to bolster his macho image by “gay-baiting,” a practice common in Russia, a nation now dealing with the fallout from Putin’s new anti-gay laws.
Here is one of those transcripts:
Bear60: Tell me! What is it you are wearing!!
Twink23: Black leather chaps and a wife beater. Also, I’m hard.
Bear60: You must prove this to me! I demand it!! You are submissive!!
Bear60: Ha! I am not gay and now you have sent me a photograph of your hard penis!! The joke is on you, fag-boy!!
Twink23: I like it when you talk like that, you want some more, don’t you?
Bear60: It is a nice penis you have, strong. It is a shame you waste it on men and not women!
Twink23: I would waste it on you.
Bear60: Tell me Twink, what sort of men do you like? Do you like Russian men?
Twink23: Oh, you know I do. I love the HARD consonants of the language, I love everything HARD about Russians—their lives, their hands, their dark secrets.
Bear60: Maybe it is one of your homosexual fantasies to imagine sex with a powerful Russian man who was once a killer in the KGB!!?? Perhaps that excites you Twink23!?
Twink23: Tell me more, Bear, tell me more!
Bear60: This man, he would take you roughly because he hates that you have unnatural sex! And to show you his anger and disgust he would tear off all your clothes, and it would just be the two of you in the secluded barn that had been sheltering you from the storm! Because you are weak, you would demand to be punished sexually for the things you have done and the Russian Bear would humble you with great force and beauty, and then your skin would glisten and emit a satisfied and loving rosy hue!
Bear60: Ah, Twink, I see I have tricked you into sending me another abberant photograph of you! Ha, you are a fool, but I see you must workout! A lot. I also work out, for I am a very vigorous and heterosexual man. Do you know where it might be possible for me to trick a black homosexual into sending me a picture of his penis and muscles? Maybe the three of us could chat?
Brooklyn and Lillian have been thinking about inviting a guy for a threesome!
They live near you and have shown clear interest in meeting and sleeping with you!
To read your messages and see how they look like, visit now
http://t.co/r8Rl48BeWg
And you WILL get laid, it’s a guaranteed fact!
********************************************
My response:
Dear Victoria:
Brooklyn, eh? That’s a funny name. I think it got some purchase in the 90’s, although I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe because Brooklyn was becoming a really cool and edgy place then, and that by giving a child that name parents thought they might instill them with the edgy confidence to go out and live a little, perhaps try a threesome with somebody named Lillian, the plain girl who always liked books more than people but now, with the encouragement of Brooklyn, is ready to break out of her shell.
I imagine that three out of five waitresses who work at Coyote Ugly share the name Brooklyn. I would very much like to see a pie chart of waitress names from that place. (Perhaps there’s a web site with such? If you know of one, please send it to me!)
Bu the truth is that I don’t know whether Brooklyn is the name of a guy or a girl. Posh Spice and David Beckham named their son Brooklyn, and there is a supermodel that goes out with a tennis player named Brooklyn, and so it seems to me to be one of those edgy, unpredictable names, like Charlie or Zion, that defy gender categories. You might think me old fashioned, but in the context of a threesome, the gender of the third person makes a difference to me.
The link you provided did not work, but took me to a page where I could buy discounted briefcases. I bought two, so thank you for that. At any rate, please send me a working link, or some other form of gender evidence, so that I might determine the sex of Brooklyn for myself, at which point we might proceed as is appropriate. I will look forward to hearing from you!
Michael Murray
PS: I like guaranteed facts.
PPS: I am married and love my wife very much, but feel that I make my best decisions when I have the greatest amount of information at my disposal.
PPPS: Posh Spice’s first name is Victoria. Coincidence?
PPPPS: I think she’s a natural beauty.
]]>Lebowitz is in possession of a verbal brilliance that’s brusque and clarifying. Without hesitation or doubt, she can distill complex matters into weighty yet witty gems that are so elegant you want to wear them as if jewelry.
Massey Hall, which is as beautiful as an old movie, was about half full of her acolytes, and we all awaited her arrival in happy anticipation. Unfortunately, the talk was a brief, superficial and epigrammatic “Show.” I suppose I’d been hoping for something more along the lines of a conversation, an organic flowering of thought that wasn’t bound by subject, time or convention, but what Lebowitz delivered was more like a greatest hits, as if she was a tribute band of her own best material.
Ghomeshi, who was affable and charming, was little more than a straight man, with Lebowitz, like some Vaudeville comedian, delivering the punch. There was nothing that she said on Friday that I had not heard her say before. She was the Fran Lebowitz persona throughout, and that was kind of exciting in itself, but overall it was a thin and disappointing experience, leaving me feeling the way I usually do after leaving the Ex.
Taking the subway home, I couldn’t help but feel kind of sorry for Lebowitz. She burst onto the New York cultural scene back in the 70’s, amidst much fanfare and expectation, and has been unable to produce a written work (she considers herself a writer, not a Hollywood Square wit) since 1981, when she published a collection of essays called Social Studies.
Now 62, she complained– with customary charm– about other people’s children, how suburban New York had become, our impoverished arts culture, and information technology—a revolution she’s heard about rather than participated in. It was stellar cocktail party chatter, but not very sturdy, lacking in any desire toward self-awareness or examination.
When I think of her now, I imagine a ghost living in a timeless, self-created limbo. Pacing the same 15 Manhattan blocks, too frightened or unsure to realize her genius, she remains in the golden age of her potential, locked in a glittering city that will always be bigger, better and more real than any subsequent iteration. It’s ironic that New York, a city defined by velocity and constant change, is the place that Lebowitz, who seems the very opposite of these qualities, has chosen as a professional avatar.
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September 27, 1978
Dear Andy:
Summer Camp was awesome!
I’ll never forget Camp Pinnacle or the excellent times we shared. I am disappointed that we never got to see Bigfoot or a UFO, though. But just so you know, I would play Cowboys and Indians with you anytime!
You will always be my cowboy.
Your Indian,
Michael Murray
April 16th, 1981
Dear Anderson:
Just so you know, I like girls. I really do. I don’t know, maybe you think that what took place between us (and it was only in the water!!) was like, homo or something, but it wasn’t. I like girls.
I kissed one last week. Her name was Padmakshi and it felt different but good. I haven’t yet felt her boob, but I know the day is coming. Do you think about Camp Pinnacle a lot? I do. Your eyes are as blue as the waters of Lake Wantok.
Michael Murray
April 19th, 1981
Dear Anderson:
Turns out Padmakshi was a whore! I saw her necking and getting felt up
by James Trylowsky last night! I hate her and I hope her house burns
down! I didn’t really like her anyway as her skin was too dry. I mean,
what does she wash with, sandpaper?
Michael Murray
PS: My parents just got a dog and we named her Cooper!
October 25rd, 1986
Dear Anderson:
I’m at university in Montreal now and the babes are wild! Man alive! I’m drunk all the time and the chicks are just all over me. I can’t keep them away in either French or English! Not that I’d want to. I mean, there’s no way I’d want to keep the girls away, because I love
them!
I love them for sex!
I think I’m going to be a lawyer when I get out of school. What about you, what do you want to be? Do you still have that cowboy outfit you used to wear back at Camp Pinnacle?
Michael Murray
October 3, 1991
Dear Anderson:
I’m working as a waiter and living with my parents. How are you?
Michael Murray
July 6, 1996
Dear Anderson:
Wow! I just saw you on TV and I have to say, you look fucking fantastic! You’re all famous and everything. I always knew that you would be. You were the best swimmer in camp! I always thought that you just had good manners, but now I know it’s because you came from money and had been to Europe and stuff. You’re quite the catch! (Ha-Ha)
I should let you know that it’s also pretty great to be me, too. I still like girls quite a bit, even though the recurring dreams and migraines continue. Ha, it’s funny, but I didn’t even notice that I chewed my nails until my therapist pointed it out to me during a session. She’s big into dream analysis, this one, and she wants me to focus on a dream I’ve had about twice a month ever since, well, I guess roughly the time we attended Camp Pinnacle.
Tell me what do you think?
I am a boy and I’m swimming in a lake. I don’t know how but I can tell that Jesus is watching me and that it’s his strength that’s giving me the power to swim. I’m swimming so fast! My mind and body are in perfect concert and I can do anything that I want in the water. It’s sunny and perfect, life at it’s best, and then I see another boy, Anderson, and he’s underwater tugging at my trunks. We begin to play and suddenly Jesus appears in the form of a shark and he’s swimming right at me and then I wake up screaming and covered in sweat.
Michael Murray
PS: The family dog Cooper died three months ago and we’re all very sad.
December 21, 1999
Dear Cooper Anderson the Superstar:
Is Y2K anything to really worry about?
Michael Murray
PS: I am including a picture I drew of you as a rugged tank commander.
February 17th, 2005
Dear Anderson:
It’s been a big year for you!
You covered Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Thailand, that revolution in Beirut, the death of the pope and the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. That was so romantic, don’t you think? I mean, after so many years their love still burned brightly and they were able to finally get married! It fills my heart with hope to watch that. And the outfits, the outfits were just awesome. If I ever get married I think I’m going to have a theme wedding, something fun. Maybe one half of the wedding party will dress up as cowboys and the other half as Indians? What do you think of that?
By the way, The Mole was awesome and I really miss it!
Michael Murray
June 1st, 2012
Anderson:
Well, I’m glad that you came to me with that question.
It’s true that your sexuality has nothing to do with your career, but at this point you’ve become such a well-known figure that to not address it seems a tacit admission of shame. People are going to love Anderson Cooper whether he’s gay or not, and they are always going to respect what you have to say. The truth is that it’s just not that big a deal— at least not for you— although it might be for others who for whatever reason keep things repressed and bottled up until they think that they’re going to explode and murder their parents whom they still live with. You should just say, “Look, the fact is I’m gay, always have been and always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself and proud.” And then just leave it at that.
That’s what I would do if I was gay, but of course, I’m not.
I’m still very straight and the migraines are still very bad.
I’ve been eating a lot of Kale, hoping that might help.
You might be interested to hear that after seeing Moonrise Kingdom I went and visited Camp Pinnacle. I sat on the dock by the lake (remember?) for a long time just staring out at the waters and thinking about all that lay beneath the surface.
As ever,
Michael Murray
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