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

Heidi pretty old dog now.

No longer run fastest in pack.

No longer hear when hot dog fall in night.

No longer smell fresh licorice opened three blocks away.

Sometimes Heidi miss who she used to be.

Sometimes Heidi even miss who she could have been.

It true.

Heidi look out window and see lonely, wet leaves with no smell. One day Heidi be lonely, wet leaf with no smell. One day all of us lonely, wet leaves with no smell. So why can’t we all get along? Why everybody all yelling BAD DOG at one another?! Heidi no understand. But Heidi study Mindfulness and know to live in moment. Heidi brain a tool. Heidi master of tool. No need to dwell in past or in future, there is only now. Heidi live in moment.

Heidi would like Skittles in this moment.

Oh. Hold on.

Heidi now live in different moment.

Heidi was just scrolling through Twitter in Compulsion Loop and see hero dog.

This moment now belong to Heidi and her feelings about hero dog. Heidi still have the feelings. Lots of them. Very good feelings. Feelings that reach deep and good.

Heidi want some of hero dog sugar in her bowl.

Hero dog chase bad two-legger in tunnel, get electrocuted, but still keep focused, still alpha predator who dispense justice for America! Hero dog, Heidi like some of your justice. Heidi let you be barbarian at her gate. Heidi a patriot for you.

Now Heidi want Skittles and hero dog.

Heidi live in that moment now.

Joe Biden, way ahead in the polls and the candidate that seems to have a clear path to victory over Trump in 2020, was once again attacked by his fellow Democrats. What must this man have be thinking? He has been in politics for what? Fifty years? He has held every policy position available, and for exceedingly complicated reasons none of us can understand, but his past is savaged by the other candidates. When a question comes to him he looks like he wants to pass. Exasperated, frustrated, mystified, each question, each accusation, a cold soup the old man keeps trying to send back.

If you cross the borders and enter into this swamp-nation, you will instantly be transformed into a pitiless ideological zombie. You will be shouting at everything. You will be angry, sunrise to sunset, and then into the night. Even under your blankets and the ominous, blue glow of your phone, you will still be furious, your brain in terrible flames. Twitter knows this and is now trying to encourage civil behaviour, both by cancelling offensive accounts, and nominating “well-behaved” people for “Sainthood.” Sainthood is nothing more than a halo emoji that appears beside your name, but Twitter is hopeful it might catch on and help put out the still burning swamp fire. Here are a few of the people who recently received a halo emoji:

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

Rachelle: Really?!!

Rachelle: Wow!! Having Lyle Lovett like one of your Tweets is amazing! That must be a real feather in your cap!

Rachelle: I’m proud of you, Pickle!

Rachelle: Yes, of course I do.

Rachelle: He’s one of The Avengers, isn’t he?

Rachelle: The Jewish one.

Rachelle: The one who could turn himself into a plane that’s also a tiger.

Rachelle: Oh.

Rachelle: I thought one of The Avengers could do that.

Rachelle: And that they embraced all religions, that they fought for freedom of religious expression and each hero represented a great faith.

Rachelle: Oh.

Rachelle: Well, I guess I don’t know who Lyle Lovett is then.

Rachelle: Hmm, a musician.

Rachelle: No, none of those songs are familiar to me.

Rachelle: Just before my time, I guess.

Rachelle: Not a dig, Pickle. You’re just a lot older than me.

Rachelle: No, I’d say 12 years is a lot. Anything double digits.

Rachelle: What??

Rachelle: He was married to Julia Roberts?

Rachelle: You mean the guy who looks like a scarecrow/funeral director is Lyle Lovett?

Rachelle: Wow.

Rachelle: It’s true, personality does counts for a lot.

Rachelle: And yes, it is almost as if Julia Roberts liked your Tweet!

Rachelle: Aww, that’s sweet!

Rachelle: Well, if I’m your Pretty Woman, you’re my little Lyle Lovett!

Rachelle: Yes, my power skating class is over and I’ll be home soon.

Rachelle: With the wings.

Rachelle: Extra mild. Sauce on the side. Extra wet naps. No carrot stick taller than the others. As always.

Rachelle: It’s a little bit of a serial killer kind of order, you know.

Rachelle: That was auto correct.

Rachelle: I wrote “You’re a sweet kind of order.”

Rachelle: Well, auto correct works in mysterious ways.

Rachelle: Through a glass darkly and all of that.

Rachelle: Yes, you probably will start getting ads in you Facebook feed for serial killer things now.

Rachelle: Well, they say technology knows you better than you know yourself, Pickle!

Rachelle: Oh, I’m kidding, honey.

Rachelle: You’re no serial killer.

Rachelle: In fact, you would be the worst serial killer in history.

Rachelle: Well, your allergies to start. Always blowing your nose and sneezing. You’d be detected straight away!

Rachelle: And then there’s your general physical and mental weakness. Serial killers have to be on the ball! I bet serial killers get 10 hours of sleep a night!

Rachelle: Ha Ha!! I know, I would kill for 10 hours of sleep, too!

Rachelle: But look, the fact that you could never be a serial killer is a compliment, not an insult.

Rachelle: I know, these are confusing times.

Rachelle: The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Rachelle: It’s from a poem.

Rachelle: I think the falconer is the person who dresses the falcon when they go hunting. Picks out the outfits. Not positive.

Rachelle: Anyway, see you in about half an hour! xo

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Rachelle: No, it’s not.

Rachelle: I’m sorry Pickle, you’re wrong.

Rachelle: It’s not the Marie Keto diet.

Rachelle: There are two different things. The Keto diet where you eat steak, and Marie Kondo, a Japanese spirit who tidies apartments when you’re sleeping.

Rachelle: It’s an easy mistake to make.

Rachelle: I don’t know how you’re expected to keep up either!

Rachelle: The world moves quickly, it really does.

Rachelle: Did you drop Jones off at daycare?

Rachelle: “Only Jones and Hulk make the rules now?”

Rachelle: He said that to you when you asked him to put on his boots?

Rachelle: OMG, that is the funniest thing I have ever heard!

Rachelle: I’m not sure I’d want to live in a world like that, either.

Rachelle: Can you imagine?

Rachelle: There would just be SO MUCH SMASHING.

Rachelle: Marie Kondo should be part of the Hulk and Jones team, quietly tidying up after they raze city after city.

Rachelle: Really?

Rachelle: How is that sexist?

Rachelle: And disrespectful to Asian culture?

Rachelle: It just is? Is that all you’ve got???

Rachelle: Look, proclaiming that you’re tolerant of everything but intolerance is not an explanation for why you think I’m sexist and racist.

Rachelle: No it isn’t.

Rachelle: It doesn’t even really make sense.

Rachelle: Yes.

Rachelle: By extension you don’t really make sense either.

Rachelle: Yes, all your friends know that.

Rachelle: For a very long time now.

Rachelle: When you really get going we call it “Murrbling,” as in, “Man alive, was Michael ever Murrbling last night!”

Rachelle: I don’t have time right now, Pickle. My hockey game is about to start.

Rachelle: Okay, I’ll pick up some Jackson Triggs on the way back, and of course I’ll come home with my shield, or on it. They don’t call me the Blonde Volcano for nothing!

Rachelle: Love you, too, and don’t let Jones and the Hulk push you around. You make the rules!

Rachelle: Yes.

Rachelle: By that I did mean I make the rules. xo

In it, I am wearing a costume that is clearly racist and offensive.

This picture was taken from a Christmas Assembly at Lisgar Collegiate in Ottawa, Ontario, and I was performing a rap as an “urban Santa.” Although I was not in black face as some have asserted, my family and I had just returned from a vacation in Hawaii and I had a very uncharacteristic tan. I am deeply apologetic for that triggering tan, the privilege that implies, and for my blatant cultural appropriation.

It is also true that I wrote, “I HAVE ALWAYS HAD A CRAZY CRUSH ON YOU!! in Marie-Therese Vitzhum’s yearbook in 1983. I am deeply embarrassed by my insensitivity to my brothers and sisters who struggle with mental illness. After finishing in the bottom third of the standings in a fantasy hockey league two years ago, I, too, fell into a depression, so I need you to know you have an ally in Michael Murray, not an enemy.

I love you.
I hear you.
And I am listening.

These past behaviours of mine are not in keeping with who I am today or the values I have fought for throughout my career as Commissioner of the Dirty Pigeon Fantasy Hockey League. I want to offer my sincerest apology, and to state my absolute commitment to living up to the expectations the Dirty Pigeon Fantasy Hockey Community set for me when you elected me Commissioner. I understand why your faith in me has been shaken, and I recognize that it will take time and serious effort to heal the damage this conduct has caused.

I am ready to do that important work.

Humbled and grateful for this teachable moment.

Your fantasy hockey Commissioner,

Michael Murray

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

Rachelle: I’m sorry, honey, that’s just not the way that it works.

Rachelle: Although you identify as a two-lunged person, it does not change the fact that you only have one lung.

Rachelle: Yes.

Rachelle: Yes, I think it would likely disqualify you from being hired as a bodyguard.

Rachelle: Hate speech?

Rachelle: Really? You think that’s hate speech?

Rachelle: Well, yes! You should Tweet about it then!

Rachelle: That will really help get things done!

Rachelle: I like the way you fight for justice, you really are the sharp end of the spear!

Rachelle: Oh Pickle, if it’s of any consolation, there are all sorts of reasons beyond you needing supplemental oxygen that would likely stop a person from hiring you as a bodyguard.

Rachelle: Well, you’re pretty weak.

Rachelle: I know.

Rachelle: That rope hang test back in primary school was hard!

Rachelle: I don’t know what they were thinking.

Rachelle: I agree.

Rachelle: It was biased against those with upper body strength issues.

Rachelle: I’m sure you would have gotten a gold star if not for that test.

Rachelle: Well, bronze for sure.

Rachelle: Regardless, my love, I think it’s time to let that go now.

Rachelle: It was a long time ago.

Rachelle: Okay. If Tweeting about it will make you feel better, you Tweet away!

Rachelle: I’ll wait.

Rachelle: What did you Tweet?

Rachelle: FUCK THE ROPE!

Rachelle: Well, that will show them!

Rachelle: Do you think people will know what that means?

Rachelle: Yes. I am very naive.

Rachelle: I believe you. It probably will go viral.

Rachelle: But look, there are other reasons you might not flourish as bodyguard.

Rachelle: You’re kind of clumsy. You move like a pigeon, all jerky and unpredictable.

Rachelle: Also, you don’t enunciate very clearly. I think people would have a hard time understanding the things you reported into your lapel microphone.

Rachelle: Yes. There could be confusion.

Rachelle: Communication is key for a bodyguard.

Rachelle: You’d have to repeat yourself all the time. Lots of wasted time. A terrorist only needs a second to blow himself up.

Rachelle: Oh Michael, I am not “shitting on your dreams.”

Rachelle: His name is Richard Madden. He’s the star of the tv show Bodyguard.

Rachelle: THAT IS NOT TRUE!

Rachelle: He is not an asshole.

Rachelle: He’s just very organized and knows what he wants.

Rachelle: It’s called confidence and strength, and it can be very, very sexy.

Rachelle: A commanding, strong man.

Rachelle: No.

Rachelle: That’s not hate speech either.

Rachelle: If I was an “Alt-Right Nazi” who wanted to “exterminate” those who lacked confidence and strength, do you really think I would have married you, Pickle?

Rachelle: Yes, it is true.

Rachelle: Your potential was, and still remains great. Very great.

Rachelle: You’re my favourite bodyguard.

Rachelle: No.

Rachelle: Sorry.

Rachelle: I was mistaken when I wrote that.

Rachelle: Richard Madden is still my favourite bodyguard.

Rachelle: He could guard my body any time.

Rachelle: Yes.

Rachelle: Sexually.

Rachelle: Well, as much as it would pain me, if a beautiful actress asked you to be her bodyguard, I wouldn’t stand in the way.

Rachelle: I expect Jennifer Lawrence already has a security team in place, though.

Rachelle: But maybe she’d still hire you on. I hear she has a big heart.

Rachelle: You could be The Littlest Bodyguard.

Rachelle: Maybe get on Ellen.

Rachelle: Yes, it would be the Christmas story the world needs right now.

Twitter was not at all what I thought it would be.

I envisioned a virtual water cooler where all sorts of people–many who didn’t work in an office– might get together during the day to exchange witty banter about what was going on in the world. I imagined a kind of democratic paradise, too, maybe like the ancient Greeks, a place where there was equal opportunity for everybody to be heard, and the quality of an idea was not contingent upon the status of the person bearing it.

Of course, it turns out that Twitter is a tire fire, and I simply could not have been more wrong.

Twitter and it’s 140 character cage, ( now upped to 280 characters ) did not spark conversations, it destroyed them. Instead of attempting to actually investigate ideas that you didn’t already own, people went on search and destroy missions, each Tweet a drive-by shooting aimed at a rival gang. Twitter was a weapon, a device used to amplify and distribute propaganda, and whenever a person was handed this weapon they immediately, without even knowing it, became a soldier in somebody else’s army.

Twitter was not a place you went to freely express yourself, it was a battlefield.

Just under a quarter of Americans are on this battlefield, and from what I can tell the preponderance of people using the platform would be loosely defined as a kind intelligentsia, those with sufficient space and security in their life to spend X-amount of time each day looking to make corrections in the lives of others. These people are driving the culture wars that are currently dominating our cyclonic news cycle, and that, in turn, is driving the political discourse. This means that the vast majority of Americans, more than 75%, are being led down a road paved by this influential, minority group.

Yet oddly, we seem more concerned about conspiratorial fictions then this beast in which we live.

No matter, the people behind Twitter know how dangerous and influential the platform has become, and in an effort to make it less pernicious, they’re now considering taking away the Like function.

Twitter is an obviously hierarchal structure, a place where status is measured by Likes, followers and retweets. The more of these you have, the more influence you wield. It’s practically a board game. The goal is not to learn about other people and their ideas, it’s about acquiring and exercising power. ( Exhibit A: Donald Trump) But it’s not the real world, not even close. The vast majority of humans live outside the gates of Twitter, yet they are directed and depicted, by those within. A technology that was meant to be radically democratic has somehow ended up being kind of totalitarian.

For instance, China is creating a Social Credit System which is intended to measure citizens social and business reputation. It’s a Black Mirror episode, a world in which everything you do is judged and catalogued by others, and it is upon that which your ability to function in society is dependent. In fact, Twitter had something very much like that which they called Klout, a complex numerical measurement of your influence. This is the unfortunate principal on which much of our social media exists, and if Twitter liberates us from it, they will be striking a great blow in a war most of us don’t even know we’re fighting.

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

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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.