Take a deep breath.
Try to do a little better.
Jones is happy. He stands on the sidewalk in his mountie hat smiling and waving a little blue lightsaber. He is fascinated with the dandelions. Some are yellow flowers, others are the heads of men, all covered with bushy, white hair. “Like Santa,” Jones points out. But the rain falls on the just and unjust alike, and the lightsaber scatters their seeds across the lawns of Toronto just as God had planned.
Sidling up against fences, marvelling at cracks in the sidewalk and dogs in the distance, Jones is in no hurry. Let time adapt to him, not the other way around. And on this journey he sees some purple flowers that have just blossomed. He notices this. How yesterday they were sleeping in green nests, and today they are awake. He runs over and hugs the new flowers. Inhales so deeply it seems the flower must live within him now, too. And he smiles. “This makes me happy,” he says simply. He then breaks into song, “Flower Song, Oh, Flower Song, I Want To Sing The Flower Song.” And he sings the rest of the way to daycare, and when we get there he is still singing. His classmates run to greet us, swarm Jones, who still singing, vanishes into the happy pack.
No longer visible, just his singing now.
The rain falling so very lightly, the world freshly green.
Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who sparked a player protest movement by taking a knee for social justice during the national anthem, has just signed on as the centrepiece of an advertising campaign with Nike that will last until 2028.
I have mixed feelings about this.
It might be inevitable, but I always find it distressing when activism is transformed into product. A recent and particularly ham-handed attempt at this occurred when Pepsi used Kendall Jenner as an instrument to co-opt the symbolism of the Black Lives Matter movement in an effort to sell soft drinks.
The ad was a failure in just about every way, but it was particularly stupefying to watch one of the most privileged people on the planet try to show us that drinking Pepsi was actually an act of resistance, and that protest itself was more like going to a really sexy block party than say, having a fire hose turned on you.
No matter, Colin Kaepernick stands on different ground, and everything I have read about him suggests he’s a good and sincere man, one who has quite clearly been denied an opportunity to work because of the way he has been expressing his political beliefs. There are rational, if unappealing, arguments on both side of this issue, but his activism, and the price he’s paid to for it, and the money he has donated to it, seem real enough. So real, in fact, that although he hasn’t actually played football for over 2 years, his jersey is still amongst the top sellers.
Nike, who not long before they signed Kaepernick, extended their deal with the NFL to supply them with uniforms and equipment for the next eight years– at a price in excess of a billion dollars– saw an opportunity to have their cake and eat it, too. The NFL is a monolith, a powerful institution that is comprised of almost 70% black players, players who are almost certain to suffer lasting and severe brain injury as a result of their jobs.
It’s a gladiatorial spectacle that has always exploited it’s workers for the benefit of gamblers and billionaires, and as wonderful as the game might be, the league that governs it is really kind of evil, and in spite of Nike’s deep and longstanding partnership with the NFL, they want to be seen as a white hat corporation. When we see that swoosh, we’re supposed to think of commitment and excellence and fighting against the odds. We’re supposed to think of character.
Nike doesn’t want us to think about how they enable and profit off a violent and dangerous sport that cares little for the combatants, so they hire the iconoclastic Kaepernick to sell shoes to us, thus “seizing control of the narrative.” Nike now pays Kaeprnick for his activism. In the old days, people would say they bought him. And so, with Kaepernick as the face of Nike’s campaign, we are to believe that they are the Rebel Alliance and not the Death Star.
We are to believe that Nike is about civil rights, not sweat shops.
Anyway, I don’t begrudge Kaepernick a single thing. I like his protest and I like him, and I hope that the fortune he has now earned makes him happy, and gives him an opportunity to further his activism and do whatever the hell he wants. He has earned that. Just don’t believe that Nike “has seen the light.” No, they’re just presenting the face they think we want to see, while keeping their own concealed.
]]>He may not have been the “best” Bond, but he was my Bond, the one I grew up with.
My parents used to take me to his movies regularly, and it was always a thrill. The iconic, deadly cool theme music, the risque opening in which you could kind-of-and-kind-of-not see naked women, and then the whole camp fantasy of being a handsome and unflappable spy– it was all immensely appealing to a boy on the cusp of puberty.
Kind of like a Wes Anderson film, the Bond movies starring Roger Moore were a child’s vision of the adult world — a comic book fantasia made manifest, but one that promised to be safe, free from the dreary weight of all the unimaginable day-to-day realities that lay ahead.
I was 13 when Moonraker came out. Jaws, a lurching behemoth with steel fangs, was the primary villain, and he was awesome. At the end of the film, after Bond had coasted to victory and Jaws was pulling himself out of the rubble of some foiled plan, a tiny blonde– busty, pigtailed and bespectacled– appeared to help him. Jaws turns and smiles, his metal teeth glinting, and she smiles back. It’s love at first sight, and they then exit into some charming and eccentric future together.
What I remember, and what everybody I have asked remembers about this scene, is that the woman ( Dolly) had braces. This was what connected the two. In spite of their size difference, they were soul mates in braces. It was the sort of thing a 13 year-old kid, the type of kid who might actually have had braces, and that the movie was trying to appeal to, instantly related to. All of us watching, in the midst of our tortured, monstrous throes of puberty, hoped to find a Dolly, too. It was something that resonated deeply and stayed with us.
Anyhow, in returning to the YouTube clip of the scene, I saw that it was clear that Dolly did not have braces.
I mean, I had been fucking positive she had braces.
This braces-less reality seemed utterly impossible to me, like discovering I was a Replicant and not a human at all, but there it was.
No braces.
Anyhow, if like me, you remember Hannibal Lecter saying, “Hello, Clarice,” or Darth Vader intoning, “Luke, I am your father,” or Sally Field shouting, “You like me, you really like me!” while accepting an Oscar, then you have apparently experienced what I have just discovered is known as the Mandela Effect.
Now what the Mandela Effect is, is complicated, Internet complicated, and it’s layered in the sort of conspiratorial proofs that only online culture can provide.
Dive deep, if you wish:
Without tunnelling into the rabbit holes surrounding this phenomena, I will simply say that what clearly emerges from all this is that our memory, be it individual or collective, is incredibly unreliable. Sometimes, what we believe to be true, what we know in our bones to be true, what even our tribe agrees is true, is not true. Memory is mysterious, a product of our consciousness that is constantly being constructed and revised, existing as a work in progress rather than some immutable photograph we can reference at will. Everything is in flux, and the truth, as unpalatable as it is, is that we know nothing for sure, and are very, very easily manipulated. In the furious age of Trump, it’s wise to keep this in mind before launching a scorched earth assault on anything that might contradict our world view. We would all benefit from a little less certainty and a little more kindness, I think.
]]>I didn’t have much of an appetite for the Oscar’s this year.
Normally I’d be all in, enjoying the glittering and flimsy spectacle as much anybody, but this year felt different, and whatever spirit or anticipation I’d typically bring to the affair was just not there. In fact, I was dreading it, imaging it another long– really long– continuation of all the sneering, bitter arguments that were ceaselessly looping through my media feeds.
Social media has begun to feel like tuning in to some late-night AM radio call-in show. The voices, disembodied and angry, fire from the dark, each one inveighing some furious certainty. There is no complaint too small or too large, and each one comes obsessively detailed by the over-confident sender. There’s an urgency to all these declarations, too, as if impulse more than thought, and the momentum always moves forward– retreat or rumination, let alone a kind of sympathy, utterly unthinkable.
To willingly step into this each day, as I do, is an act of madness. To me, it feels like being closed in a room with a hundred growling dogs while the unmediated grievances of the world strobe in front of you. It colours your mood, this, so even before something of “actuality” happens in your physical life, you’re already tense and combat ready– you’ve already become somebody you don’t want to be. And I swear, if we could somehow tap into the cataract of doomed energy that feeds this monster, we would be masters of the universe.
Initially I had imagined the Internet as something almost utopian. It would be democratizing and unifying, kind of like The Force, and united by the millions we would be able to destroy evil Death Stars. Instead, it’s proven to be infinitely divisive, revealing that the Internet itself might be a horrible Death Star.
The limitless options presented by technology have moved us away from what had been commonly shared. Whatever our interests may be, however perverse, remote or idiosyncratic, we can find a subculture dedicated to that passion or hatred online. We are never alone, but our channels never seem to be open, either. Living in gluttonous echo chambers of our own devising, we now customize our experiences, changing them to suit our needs rather than adopting to the mean. In this way, popular culture is being eradicated, with each person becoming a hermetically sealed culture unto themselves.
Naturally, the idea of compassion or empathy withers in this climate of radical tribalization. It’s now completely normal for people to proudly boast of de-Friending somebody who disagrees with their politics or to happily live within the paradox of being tolerant of everything but intolerance. If you step into Twitter, far from finding a marketplace for the free exchange of ideas, you find a war zone. Every once in a while you pop up from your trench, fire off a few salvos at the enemy, and then duck down again—kind of like a shooter game.
The Internet in the age of Trump ( who I believe saw and exploited this rather than created it), is a grim landscape lacking in kindness.
Full of hall monitors ready to pounce on anybody not adhering to the common orthodoxy, it’s a place you go to confirm your certainties and your enemy’s idiocies. It is a place where fighting, where aggression is the entertainment, and it is perhaps the loneliest place on the planet.
Heidi now lives a life of glory with Rachelle’s parents about an hour north of Toronto. Today I have given the Blog over to her:
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2016 very big year for Heidi.
Heidi no cat, so Heidi tell you the truth.
Heidi think she was depressed last year. Just lay around in old den with SHITTIEST PACK IN THE WORLD feeling angry. Heidi not in a good place. You know story about frog and pot of water? If frog put in boiling water it jump out. If frog placed in warm water it happy. Frog swim about! Then water slowly get hotter and hotter until frog boil to death! Change was so gradual, little frog didn’t even notice it was dying!! Heidi was that frog.
Big time.
In Heidi new, amazing life, Heidi have boat. Heidi lookout, always barking at enemies of boat! Heidi have all sorts of parties on boat, too—so much fun!! Heidi supermodel on billionaire yacht! Heidi have lots of sex. Country sex WAY better than city sex!!
Heidi also go on adventure in woods. One day Heidi see owl swoop from sky and take mouse! So terrible, yet so beautiful! Heidi run at night on cool wet grass, smell moonlight. Heidi wise now. Also lose two pounds and look AMAZING. Now have 2 million followers on Instagram! All the colours in the Heidi rainbow now shine!
How Heidi escape path of death and move to palace of glory? It so easy! Heidi simply bite baby in face!! That Heidi first and last rule for success.
BITE.
BABY.
FACE.
Sometimes Heidi think about old pack. Follows them on social media to watch as they spiral into hopelessness. Old, smell clothes in background of every picture. Look so tired and sick. They frogs in boiling water! Sad.
2016 also see Donald Trump rise to power. So what if Trump can’t read, Heidi can’t read either, and Heidi super fantastic!
Progressive elite know-nothings. Live in concrete boxes. Put sweaters on dogs. Keep dogs on LEASHES. Don’t understand how real world works. Heidi say build wall around them and their identity politics, then drop big bombs until all dead frogs!!!
Heidi sad about a few things in 2016 though.
Muhammed Ali die.
He float like a butterfly.
David Bowie die.
He was diamond dog.
Carrie Fisher die.
Princess Leia drown in moonlight and become constellation.
Rob Ford die.
He big dawg.
Leonard Cohen die.
He bird on a wire.
Heidi like to bark at bird on a wire, but sometimes Heidi feel like one, too.
Heidi advice for new year?
Bite baby face.
Know you want to.
Just do it. Good things will happen.
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The other day President-elect Donald Trump gathered his cabinet together for a round of golf and some frank talk about America.
A transcript of their conversation in the locker room of Trump National Golf Course in Westchester, NY was leaked to the press:
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Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:
Hey, you bitches know Florida, right?
General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary:
Total smoke show.
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:
That baby got back!
Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:
Testify!
Donald Trump, President-elect:
I love her coasts. Superb coasts. The best coasties in all of America. I love to get right in there, stick my face in the them and just splash them all around.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:
It is no Russian propaganda that you sir, are the the greatest man on the planet!
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:
You da man! Big dog always huntin’!
Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary:
She ever let you into her Everglades?
Donald Trump, President-elect:
Let me tell you, her Everglades are very exclusive, like so, so super exclusive that you wouldn’t even believe, and let me tell you, I have been to her Everglades many, many, many times. She can’t get enough. When I’m with her, I make it rain.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:
You’re the RainMaker, sir!
General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary:
I once had a layover in Delaware. Did some real drilling there, let me tell you, yeah, some real drilling.
Donald Trump, President-elect:
Delaware?! She’s a village bicycle. Disease infested. Strictly bottom-rung. Not even a 6 out of 10.
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:
Yo, you better get yourself checked by your doctor, could have the crabs.
Donald Trump, President-elect:
“Brain Surgeon!” Give The General here an examination, tell us if Delaware gave him the clap.
Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary:
I can tell from here he’s got SDD, Small Dick Disease, and that it’s terminal!
Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:
That sick burn pleases the Lord!!
( High-fives and laughter from all)
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:
Anyone playing Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare?
Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:
Fucking rules. Took three Ativan and played it for eight straight hours last night.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:
Zombie mode is the tits!
Donald Trump, President-elect:
Okay, okay, girls, let’s focus. Listen up. Okay. There’s a black guy and a Mexican in a car. Who is driving?
(The cabinet is silent)
Donald Trump, President-elect:
The cop!!
(The cabinet howls with laughter!)
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:
You got to Tweet that one, President-elect!
Donald Trump, President-elect:
Okay, who lost that round of golf? Was it Ross the Loss? No? “Brain Surgeon”? Was it you? Bad Hombre Priebus? No, okay we’ll make it Sloppy Second Pence. Pence you’re today’s loser and have to buy us all dinner. Has to be an exceptional meal, super exceptional, the very best, and if it is, I’ll bring out those Sarah Palin hot tub pics I was telling you about.
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
On our first day at our new school my friends and I wore crisply pressed overalls and carried Charlie’s Angels or Star Wars lunch boxes, each one containing a meal which a mother had lovingly and thoughtfully prepared. We knew nothing of pessimism, and the kids waiting for us there looked at us like we were a different species, as if emissaries from a past they had never known.
Exponentially cooler than we were, these kids all seemed so much more grown up. I was in awe of how independent and worldly they acted, as if totally free from childhood. They hadn’t just hit puberty they’d shot past it. They knew all about sex and drugs and rock n’ roll, and when they fought, blood was drawn. In short, they radiated everything that I, still prepubescent and utterly innocent, was not, but very much wanted to be.
At this time, as teenaged life was accelerating mysteriously toward me, I watched my first episode of Saturday Night Live. I was probably eleven years old, maybe twelve, and all I knew about the show– mostly gleaned from my sister who was four years older than me– was that it was on late, and was racy and dangerous in the kind of way that adults, or at least parents, didn’t quite approve of.
The first sketch I watched was called Night on Freak Mountain, which was awful in all the ways that are typical of Saturday Night Live. It didn’t matter, though. It was about drugs, and it was late at night, both of which to me seemed inexhaustibly cool. (Later, it was Mr. Bill who ignited my grade seven imagination, probably because I still related to toys.)
No matter, it didn’t spark a love affair. I never became a dedicated fan or made a point of watching the show, and for the most part, like a lot of people, thought it lame. In fact, as far as I was concerned, it was the opposite of cool, but if you’re of Generation X, SNL served as a kind of water cooler around which you invariably orbited, and whether we liked it or not, it was imbued with a gravitational force that ended up bending our lives.
Although I had no intention of watching the SNL 40th anniversary special on Sunday, I ended up doing so, and quite simply, it made me happy. It played like a history of the pop culture of my life, and seeing all the people who composed its landscape was touching. Sweet, celebratory and maybe even a little bit sad, the show was like returning to my old high school or university campus, a precinct that really only exists in memory. And so I toured the grounds, marvelling at all the familiar places and feeling refreshed by the faces of all those I had once known, and those that had receded from memory, too, everything once again feeling vivid and limitless.
“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.” “
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This is a recent email that I sent to him:
Slobber!
How’s it hanging, Mister Touchdown?
Things are pretty great in our world, one reason being that Rachelle just introduced me to a new App on my iPhone called Draw Free. It’s way cool, like Pictionary for your phone. You play with a friend, and each one of you gets a word you have to draw out using your finger on the screen of your phone, and the other one has to guess what it is. Here’s my drawing of Bruce Lee, pretty awesome, eh?
We should play sometime. It would be an awesome drinking game and I’d fucking love to play a kind of adult version (NO HOMO) with you!
Anyway, the real reason I’m writing is that an acquaintance of mine was in a library the other day and he wrote this about the experience:
“Hoards of youth in the library today. Dozens & dozens. We’ve got to do something about young people in the library. Will lead to trouble.”
Just thought the Mayor should know.
Keep well, Slobber, keep well!
Michael Murray
Mur:
I am completely fucking in with the Draw Stuff game.
Art was one of my favourite classes back in school, and my teachers thought I had talent. I used to paint kick ass Star Wars scenes. I did one watercolour of Luke and Princess Leia that was so out of the box they made me see the school psychologist. Miss Hancock. Jesus, she was hot. Boner City, man, Boner City.
I’m glad you brought this library shit to my attention. The last thing we need are libraries jammed full of teens. That would be a shit show. I’m tough on crime, and I’m not going to help create an environment that would make things easier for crazy shooters. Libraries should only have a couple of nerds in them at a time, while the rest of our kids are at football practice, learning how to drive or at home on the Net. We need to shut down the library gravy train.
I’m going to launch a campaign called Library No More. It’s going to be fucking awesome. We’re going to have pro athletes on board and look into the idea of mobile libraries, kind of like the ice cream truck, only with books. We can shut down libraries all over the city, and then service those areas with the library truck once a week.
Dude, can you come down to City Hall so we can talk more about this? And let’s play that Draw thing! Why don’t they have that in bars, anyway, like Karaoke for drawers? Drawaoke, they could call it. Fuck, my brain is on fire with ideas! It’s a Rob Roll!! A Ford Fire!! Gotta cancel all my meetings and stoke the flames!!
Slobber
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