I Hate Michael Patterson

He haunts my dreams. He boldly strides thru my nightmares. He even inhabits my waking hours. From my vantage point from the last stool at the bar at the Press Club, I watch him - Mister Pefect, holding court, expounding on his views on global warming, talking about how cute his kids are, choking up a bit when he talks about how he misses Farley the dog. Even buying the occassional round of drinks and listening attentively to some loser freelancer bitching about how hard it is to get a break in this one-horse/one media-outlet town. ... As if he cares.

But from where I sit, I know what he's really saying as he sounds off about how we should all give Stephane Dion a chance. He looks right at me and tho the words that hit the back of my skull don't match the lip movements to what is coming out of his mouth, I know he is talking to ME. ... "Ohhhh, I'm Michael Patterson - and I'm soooooo cool. And you're not."

That's just one of the reasons I hate Michael Patterson. But the main reason is that everything in his career has come so easy to Mike. He's never had to pay his dues. And as a member of this business we call 'writ' - well, I kinda resent that fact.

Everyone knows Mike. Everyone loves Mike. He's the eldest child of Elly and John Patterson in For Better or For Worse, the comic strip that runs in the funnies in most of the daily newspapers in North America and probably the world. He's also a journalism grad from the University of Western Ontario (even tho he spent much of his time in town at the Ceeps with his room-mate 'Weed.' No need to guess where long-hair pony-tailed Weed got his nick-name.)

But after graduating from J-School at U.W.O., Michael became a successful freelance writer, a staff-writer for Portrait Magazine, a glossy national mag version of Toronto Life, where his first assignment - a cover story on a fashion celebrity was deemed too "critical" by the advertisers and so he was fired.

That article tho, led to a major journalism award which launched his career as a freelance writer in high demand who could pick and choose what he wanted to work on. Not long after that, he was invited to return to Portrait as Editor-in-chief - even tho he had absolutely no experience as a magazine editor.

While working full-time at the magazine, he kept up on his freelance work and penned his first book. Did I happen to mention that during all this time, he was a newly-wed with two toddlers running around while he's writing at home?

As a "quasi-journalist," do I need any more reason to hate Michael Patterson?

Well, here's another. Just recently, after surviving a fire that destroyed his house (but sadly not his lap-top,) Michael sent off his unsolicited book manuscript to the first publisher that came to his mind. In two weeks, the mail brought him a package containing a letter of acceptance, a contract, assurances that his book would be a best-seller, a commitment to buy and print his unwritten second book - and a $25,000 advance. For a first novel no less. A Canadian novel. And all this without an agent.

As anyone reading this blog will know from personal experience, unless your name is Tom Clancy or Stephen King or Howard Englebloom, in real life, it just doesn't work that way. But the non-writers who read the strip actually believe that's how it happens. And it makes the rest of us real writers look bad. I can't count the number of times where I've been at a wedding, funeral or reunion and some well-intentioned relative comes up and starts asking how my novel about the post-resurrection life of Jesus is coming along and then she brings up the name of "you know, that boy in For Better or For Worse - you should write a book like he did. Or maybe ask him to write it for you! Ha-ha." ... I have to put up with this kinda crap on a daily basis.

Now, I know what some non-writers out there in blog.land may be thinking - "But Sonny, lighten up. He's only a cartoon character. Isn't it kinda petty to be taking out your frustrations on a nice guy like Mike? Especially since he doesn't exist?"

And ya know what? I don't care. I say, bring it on Michael. In fact I've told him that repeatedly every night before they throw me out of the Press Club. What? He sits there taunting me, nursing a Brandy Alexander all night from the other end of the bar and I'm not supposed to say anything?

So - just like the response I give to the only other question people ask me, I say "Fine." ... and then I suggest we "take it outside." But unlike all the others, when asked that particular Part 2 of our conversation, Michael Patterson actually follows me out.

Am I scared? Shit man, he's a fukkin' cartoon character! What's he gonna do? Hit me over the head with an anvil? Drop a piano on my head?

But that's not the point. People love For Better or For Worse because it's supposed to be a "true life" comic strip - and who can't relate to the follies and foibles at Chez Patterson? I sure can. Just the same, he is a cartoon character and when I taunt him outside into a fist-fight and settle it mano et mano, he hits me over the head with his guitar. Just like 'El Ka-Bong.' Settling it man to horse. After a lifetime of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, I shoulda seen that one coming.

Most unbelievable of all is the much bally-hooed first novel that Michael has penned. Check out Mike's monthly blog at the For Better or For Worse website - www.fbofw.com - for the details.

It's titled, Stone Season, and - surprise surprise, it's not about a family growing up in suburban G.T.A. during The Wonder Years. Instead, it's about a rural middle-aged woman with two kids and a 17-year loveless marriage to an abusive boozehound farmer husband. Her name is Sheilaugh Shaugnessy.

See what I mean about how things come a little too easy to Michael? It's like he wandered into the CanLit section at his local library and tripped over a Margaret Laurence novel. "Sheilaugh Shaugnessy?" Geez, I'm surprised he didn't name her Hagar Shipley?

Yep, that's just what the world needs - yet another crappy novel about 'isolation' in Canada. Told from the point of view of a grizzled old farm girl. Yeah, this thing has 'best seller' written all over it. And it this country, that means 10,000 sold. Good luck to the publishers in making back that $25,000 advance.

But the biggest recent howler in Michael's life came when he recently quit his full time job at Portrait. Rather than have to lay someone else off. Like I've said, he's a good kid. But getting back to the unreality of the whole business about his writing career - he quits his full-time job while his own family is temporarily living with his parents. He now has no job. And as he somewhat fearfully informs his long-suffering wife Deanna of this news, she is so overwhelmed that she throws her arms around him and says, "It's about time!"

Yeah. As if.

But then it occurs to me that I should know better. I understand. Because I happen to personally know of another dreamer who, after finishing his post-high school education, quit his job at Dutch Laundry and within a month, impregnated his wife with child and signed a mortage for the house his wife and family to come have lived in for a quarter of a century. And his explanation at the time to his woman was that he planned on going into the writing game. Well, that was fine for a few years. A part-time job and regular freelance writing gigs made that actually seem like a possiblility. Then things change. You can't afford to take your kids to DisneyLand on that kind of money. You can't take your kids to 'Harveys' on that kind of money.

That guy was me. The woman was my wife, Mabel.

And the thing that tells me to grant Mikey a little slack is because I remember what Mabel said to me back then when I told her I was quitting my job to become a writer - mortgage and child-to-come notwithstanding, " Oh, that's alright. I knew you weren't a 9 to 5 type person when I married you. Just make sure you can make enough to pay the bills - ya blockhead."

To quote Muriel Hemingway at the end of Manhattan, when she tells Woody Allen that she's going to study in England for a year - "Sometimes, you just have to have a little faith in people."