The Eds: Go Away!

Hey - we've moved! Our new website is up and active. Go here: http://www.thethirdcity.org/

Enjoy - or else!

Letter From Milo: Pussy Magnet

I hate to brag, but I'm a real pussy magnet. Even though I'm 61 years old, balding, cranky and prone to farting at inappropriate times, I still have a dick that Man 'o War would envy. Other than that, I'm just a regular guy.

Now, a lot of you may think that being a pussy magnet is all fun and games. Lolling around on an oversize bed, wearing silk pajamas, sipping fine brandy, surrounded by adoring women eager to satisfy your every whim. Although in many cases - including mine - that is absolutely true, sometimes being a pussy magnet is just plain hard work.

Take a former acquaintance of mine named Charles. I used to run into him on the North Side Gigolo Circuit. I didn't know him well. In fact, the only thing I knew about him was that he was the hardest working pussy magnet I ever met. He was the James Brown of pussy magnets. When Charles wanted to get laid he would walk into a bar and hit on every woman in the place. He had no shame, no technique and no taste. If there were a hundred women in the joint he would approach them all and ask each one if they wanted to go home with him. It didn't matter how often he was turned down, laughed at, ignored or had drinks thrown in his face, He had skin as thick as a water buffalo's hide. As single minded as a junkie, he moved from woman to woman until, invariably, he found one who said yes.

Admittedly, it wasn't the approach that legendary pussy magnets like Errol Flynn, Warren Beatty or the immortal Porfirio Rubirosa would have used, but it worked for Charles. I haven't seen Charles in more than 20 years. Word on the street is that he found Jesus and now chases salvation with the same fervor he once chased pussy.

I never had a problem hooking up, as the young 'uns say. I would stroll into a fine watering hole and in 15 minutes I would walk out with two or three of the best looking women in the place. We would then retire to my bachelor pad where we would frolic on an epic scale, engaging in debauchery that would have boggled the mind of the Marquis De Sade.

People often confuse pussy magnets and gigolos. The simplest way to explain it is that pussy magnets fuck for fun, gigolos fuck for money.

I once considered becoming a gigolo. With my devastatingly good looks and awesome God-given physical attributes I would have been a natural. Women would have lined up to have mind-blowing sex with me. As a young man growing up in Gary, Indiana, I knew that I would eventually be an extremely handsome man. I also knew that my looks would be my meal ticket to a better life. After considering my career options at the time - steelworker, grave digger, washroom attendant, school janitor, ice cream truck driver or gigolo - I decided the latter was the way to go.

I had always imagined gigolos to be glamorous, suave, polished men who escorted wealthy, older but still attractive women to theaters, fine restaurants and glittering social events. And after the play, restaurant or party these graceful, refined men would take their escorts to a luxurious penthouse or fine hotel and give them a thorough, professional-grade fucking, leaving them limp and exhausted, with barely enough energy left to write out a handsome check. Sounded good to me.

As soon as I had settled on my life's work, I decided I needed to get in a little practice. Unfortunately, there was a severe shortage of wealthy, older but still attractive women in Gary at that time. In fact, I doubt there was a woman in the entire town who fit that description. I had no choice but to put my gigolo aspirations on indefinite hold.

Like most kids who never realize their childhood dreams of becoming cops, firemen, or cowboys, I never became a gigolo. Life intervened. Something always got in the way. There was the military and a bit of college. Later, there were drugs, booze and rock 'n roll. I was always a lazy bastard (see my earlier post about the Bum Gene), and, from what I understand, being a gigolo can be time-consuming.

Still, even though I never became a gigolo, I became a first class pussy magnet. I cut a swath through the North Side that made General Sherman's march through Georgia seem like a stroll through the Botanic Garden. Wilt Chamberlain had nothing on me. Even the great Bruce Diksas, a legendary pussy magnet in his own right, was envious of my skill with the ladies. I became so well known for my amorous exploits that aspiring young pussy magnets would come to me for advice.

"Milo, is it true that size doesn't matter?"

"Absolutely. You can have just as much fun with a fat woman as a skinny woman."

"Milo, why do women fake orgasms?"

"What! Are you nuts? I never heard of such a thing."

Once a pussy magnet always a pussy magnet. Even though I've been married for more than 25 years and not quite the #2 pencil I was in my heyday, women still find me irresistable. They know that when they have the great fortune to find themselves in bed with me that they are in the hands of a master.

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not the active pussy magnet I used to be, but I still like to keep my hand in. Every one in a while I'll sneak out, visit a night spot, pick up a couple of the finest women in the place and proceed to satisfy their wildest sexual cravings. I can't help myself. That's what pussy magnets do.

Just do me a favor, fellas. Don't say anything to my wife about this pussy magnet stuff. She'll kill me if she finds out.

Benny Jay: Weak Signal

I usually have at least two books going at once. But lately I've been in a reading funk, seems like I haven't read a good one in weeks.

Blame it on "The Wire." What a show. I might have gone my whole life without watching it -- never saw it when it was running on HBO, and it's been off the air for months. But Mike, the video store guy, told me about it -- said I absolutely had to see it, said it was the best show ever.

So I rented a DVD and after that I couldn't stop watching it. I'd be renting DVDs every other night. Mike must a made a fortune off of me. I was like a junkie, staying up to all hours, watching up to two or three episodes a night. Ran through five years worth of episodes in no time. Finished with a bang -- four shows in one night. Didn't get to bed `til five in the morning. Woke up in a daze, like I'd been on a drinking binge.

I say this all to let you know that when the night began I thought: Tonight's the night I read a book. But, you know how it goes -- once you're hooked on the tube it's hard to get unhooked. I remember Game Five's on ABC -- Lakers versus Orlando.

I turn the tube to Channel Seven. But Channel Seven doesn't work. Instead, a sign comes on: "Weak Signal."

"Weak Signal?" I mutter to myself. "What the fu...."

I surf around -- Channels Five, Nine and 32. They all work. All the funky little VHS stations work. I go back to Seven. "Weak Signal."

It must be that analog thing. I got the converter box 60 million years ago and Merlin -- our friend, the computer genius -- installed it. It had been working. But now it's not.

I turn off the TV and stare at the blank screen. I'm hoping that if I stare at it long enough, it will fix itself.

I turn it on. "Weak Signal."

I call up to the stairs to my wife. "Hey! The TV doesn't work...."

Silence. She's got the radio playing. So I yell louder: "THE TV DOESN'T WORK!"

"What?" she yells back.

"It's that analog thing," I yell.

"You have to reload it," yells my younger daughter.

I'm stunned that she of all people would have an opinion on this. "How do you know?" I yell.

"I heard it on TV...."

I look at the screen. "Did you say to unplug it?" I yell.

"No, reload...."

"Reload?"

"Yes...."

"Reload?" I mutter to myself. "What the hell does that mean?"

I look at the TV changer. I look at the screen. It's like I'm expecting one or the other to tell me what to do.

"How do you reload it?" I yell up the stairs.

"Call Merlin," yells my wife.

I find the phone. I call Merlin. He's not in. I leave a message, something like: "Merlin, you won't believe this, but the TV doesn't work. My daughter says to reload it. But I don't know what that means...."

I hang up. I try again. "Weak Signal." What a joke. It's bad enough I can't watch basketball most of the year cause I don't have cable. Now I can't even watch it when it's on Free TV. They made such a big deal about how getting rid of analog was gonna improve our lives, but they somehow managed to make things worse.

I throw the TV changer on the table, flop on the couch, and lie still for a moment. I hear my daughter and wife moving about upstairs. I casually look to my left and lying on the living room table -- beneath an old, unread copy of Time Magazine -- is a book: "City of Thieves" by David Benioff.

I remember buying it weeks ago on an impulse. Forgot all about it while I was hooked on "The Wire." I pick it up and start reading. It's about these two young men -- one's only 17 -- wandering through Leningrad in the winter of 1942 when the Nazis are shelling the hell out of their city. You figured it'd be ghastly depressing. But Benioff's got a dark sense of humor. The two boys haven't eaten a decent meal in weeks. They're both constipated. They have this one exchange:

"`When was the last time you had a shit?' Kolya asked me, abruptly.

"`I don't know. A week ago?'

"`It's been nine days for me. I've been counting. Nine days! When it finally happens, I'll have a big party and invite the best-looking girls from the university.'"

I laugh out loud when I read that bit. There are few things in life as pleasurable as reading a passage that makes you laugh out loud. I keep reading. I forget where I am. Time goes by. I'm a hundred pages or so into the story. It occurs to me -- the game must be over. I wonder who won. I click on the TV. "Weak Signal."

I know my wife can fix it -- she's freaking genius with this sort of thing (remind me to tell you about the time she fixed my ex-brother-in-law's vacuum cleaner). But it will probably be months before she gets around to taking the time to figure it out. Oh, well, we'll survive.

I return to my book. We're better off without this shit anyway....

Big Mike: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad....

The Loved One was reclining on the living room sofa, gazing out the window at the lush Kentucky greenery as we chatted. One cat was nestled in the crook of her arm, another in the crook of her leg. She should have been as relaxed as the government regulations that have led to our current economic mess.

We were, in fact, talking about the economy, in addition to the wars, the environment and the overall state of the union - all of which, we agree, had been criminally mismanaged by George W. Bush and his consiglieres.

I'm glad we agree on such basic issues. I can't imagine sharing bathroom space, dinner dishes and the living room sofa with someone whose political views are as dissimilar as, say, those of Mary Matalin and James Carville. I recall when this horrifying two-headed gargoyle first made news, back in the early 90s. They were celebrated for their purported all-consuming love that overcame any differences they might have had regarding such trivialities as capital punishment, abortion, lending a hand to those in need and killing brown people for the sake of inexpensive gasoline. In fact, there were even a movie and a TV program based on their laugh-a-minute media personae.

So, despite the two of us singing to each other's choir, The Loved One seemed tense, almost bubbling over with ire.

"Didja hear that report on NPR this week?" she asked.

"No, which?"

"The one about the American woman in Iraq."

"Tell me all."

The Loved One raised herself up on her elbows. "It makes me so mad, I could..., I could...," she fumed. She paused for a moment to find the right words.

"Go on," I said.

"Well, she worked for Halliburton."

"Yeah, Dick Cheney's old outfit."

"The things I could do to Dick Cheney...," she spluttered.

"Uh huh."

"She went outside the barracks for a drink with four other Halliburton people, all men. One of them handed her a beer. She took a few sips and she was unconscious, just like that."

"They roofied her?"

"Yeah. Then they raped her, front and back. They manhandled her breasts so badly that they're deformed now. She woke up and one of the guys was still there, sleeping. She tried to get them prosecuted but guess what - private contractors in Iraq can't be prosecuted for crimes they commit there.

"It makes me so mad! She's there trying to protect the people of Iraq but who protects her - from her own people?"

"My god."

"Here's what I want to do," The Loved One said through narrowed eyes. "I'd like to sneak into Dick Cheney's house in disguise and torture him. You know how he doesn't think torture is all that bad, right? Only I'd do to him what those guys did to that woman and I'd make sure he was awake for it all. I'd want him to feel it all!"

Normally, The Loved One is the picture of compassion and sensitivity (except when we argue; but, I admit, I can enrage even a lamb at times.) For this brief moment, though, she was the emotional sibling of my next door neighbor Captain Billy, who regularly rages about Mexicans, Democrats, Arabs and other miscreants who, in his view, ought to be slaughtered.

The whole world seems to be mad. Kim Jong Il is waving his primitive little nukes around like a four-year-old displaying his penis. The Taliban is blowing up innocents in Pakistan. The Jews and the Palestinians, natch, are still at it. al Qaeda's probably cooking up some kind of perverse birthday cake for us at this very minute. And pasty, jowly, bilious white men like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly are shrieking at us every day on radio and TV, whipping the anencephalic dopes of this nation (of whom there are a scary many) into action.

You think the recent killings at a Marine recruitment center, a doctor's church in Omaha and the National Holocaust Museum are flukes? I'm afraid they're trumpet blasts for opposing cavalries. I'm afraid, period. When I say the whole world seems to be mad, I mean both angry and insane.

The world occasionally has a nervous breakdown. We may be headed for the padded room right now. And when my normally placid mate suddenly has a taste for blood, I wonder if the world has come unhinged already.

Benny Jay: I Hate The Lakers!

It's been kind of quiet on my basketball front since the Bulls lost to the Celtics weeks and weeks ago.

But with the finals on free TV, I'm watching game four at home by myself and I'm trying to stay calm.

Lakers up two to one in the series. But Orlando has a three-point lead with eleven seconds left and Dwight Howard at the free-throw line. He hits one free throw and the game's pretty much over and the series tied.

I'm starting to get excited. Not cause I like Orlando -- I don't. But cause I hate the Lakers! I mean, I hate them almost as much as I love the Bulls, which is saying a lot.

I'm not sure why I hate the Lakers so much. Oh, hell, who am I kidding. It's envy -- raw and unadulterated. They're good. Really good. Always good. And even when they're bad, it doesn't really matter cause their fans don't seem to care. They're not lunatics about their teams -- like me and Milo and Norm and just about every other serious Bulls fan that I know. You don't see them walking around at midnight after a particularly hard loss, howling at the moon. What the hell do they care if the Lakers win or lose? They're rich. They hang with gorgeous babes -- they live in the sunshine out by the ocean. They don't need to win. And yet they do. Meanwhile, we desperately need to win, yet we don't -- or haven't in years. Is that fair? See my point? God, I hate the Lakers!

But, anyway, like I'm saying, they're about to get theirs. All Dwight Howard has to do is hit one....

The dog barks. The front door opens. My wife walks in. She's been out with a friend. "Are you watching the game?" she asks.

"He's gotta make one free throw...."

He shoots -- and misses....

"No!" I rage.

He shoots -- and misses again....

"No, no, no!"

And then, oh, man, the Lakers get the ball. Derek Fisher hits a three. The game goes to overtime. Oh, you don't need to know the rest. It's utter agony to watch -- why would I want to relive it? I can't even bear the final seconds. I turn off the TV before the game is over. I don't want to see the Lakers celebrate. Bad enough knowing that somewhere out in L.A. there's a fat guy with a bad toupee sitting in a hot tub with four gorgeous babes whooping it up....

I take out the garbage. I sweep the floor. I clean the sink. I get a text from Norm. He's gloating. He loves the Lakers. I don't know why....

I walk into the bedroom. My wife and my younger daughter are reading their books. So quiet and calm. Like nothing happened. I stand there. A few seconds go by.

"I hate the Lakers!" I say, breaking the silence.

My wife looks up from her book and smiles. It's a pleasant smile. A nice smile. The kind of benevolent smile you'd give a five-year-old who showed you his finger paintings.

She returns to her book.

"If Howard had only hit one free throw...."

They keep reading.

"Just one -- not even two. Just one...."

My daughter looks up with an annoyed grimace: "Dad -- I'm reading...."

I walk to my computer. I check my email. I wonder: If my wife had not come home when she did, would Howard have made a free throw? No, really, follow me on this. Is it possible that her coming into the house at the precise moment that she did set off some sort of invisible-to-the-eye psychic chain reaction -- like the butterfly that causes a hurricane -- that resulted, you know, in Howard missing those free throws? Anything's possible....

Norm text messages: "It's over."

I tell myself I shouldn't hate the Lakers! Hate is a negativity that hurts the hater more than the hated. I should love the Lakers! I should embrace their inner Lakerness.

I start to text message a congratulatory response. I get as far as: c-o-n-g-r-a-t. Then I stop. I can't do it. The hate's too strong. Ahhh! God, I hate the Lakers!

I grab the leash and walk the dog. I head down the street. I look at the sky. I go about four or five blocks and I realize: I've been thinking about Ronnie and Sammy -- two kids in a book I've been reading. I'm not thinking about the Lakers. My mind is on that book. The game's gone. Like it never happened.

Had it been the Bulls who'd lost rather than the Lakers who won, I'd be howling at the moon. But I love the Bulls. I only hate the Lakers! And that's the thing -- love is stronger than hate. Pass the word. There's hope for us all....

Randolph Street: Let's Keep Rollin' Down The River

Our resident photojournalist, Jon Randolph, is back from the land of sweet air and crystal clear Canadian waters, where he's spent the last couple of weeks reeling in a big haul.

"Caught fish like crazy at Lac Seul - walleyes and northerns," he tells us. "Got me a 36-inch pike and a 25 1/2-inch walleye. As old Mayor Daley used to say, 'There is nothing so wholesome as a fish.'"

We're sticking with Jon's series of pix shot between 1975 and 1986 along US Highway 61, following the Mississippi River.

continued below pix

"Mobile Home," Luxora, Arkansas

"Soul Bar," Mississippi

"Hunter," Arkansas

"Felix," Minnesota

"Cabbies," New Orleans

"Beach Boys," Wacona, Minnesota

continued from above pix

"I've got at least three to four weeks-worth of pictures left," Randolph says. "Unless you're tired of them or something." Hell no! We feel Jon is our own Walker Evans or Dorothea Lange - and this series proves it.

Join us next Friday for another Randolph Street. We're here everyday with new posts by Benny Jay, Big Mike Glab and the eagerly awaited Letter From Milo.

Big Mike: Useless Justice

I've been poring over a couple of books about the Chicago crime syndicate: "The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America," by Gus Russo; and "Captive City," by Ovid Demaris.

Reading them has left me horrified by the cozy relationship between the underworld and the upperworld. Crooks and sadists like Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Tony Accardo, Paul Ricca, Murray Humphreys, Sam Giancana and a slew of succeeding crime bosses were essentially business partners with assorted mayors, police commanders, judges, state senators and members of some of the city's most prestigious boards of directors. It was all an open secret that most Chicagoans chose to ignore.

I see no reason to believe the dynamic has changed now that organized crime is run by younger, more ethnically and racially diverse goons. Any accomplished office-holder has to be aware of the long reach of drug dealing, pimping and burgling gangs into City Hall, the circuit courts and the state house.

It seems crazy, but many of us celebrate these slobs. Take the whole Godfather-Sopranos-Rat Pack mania that's been going on for years. Countless lunkheads titter at "Goodfellas" lines and listen to Louie Prima disks because that's what Wise Guys listened to. Oh, what a guy the Don was, making people offers they couldn't refuse! And Giancana and Sinatra were as thick as, well, thieves - isn't that a riot?

I once did a story about Mike North, at the time, the king of Chicago sports talk radio. He brought me into his northwest suburban home and proudly showed off his basement den on which he'd spent a mint recreating precisely the office of Vito Corleone, right down to the cherry wood blinds.

After reading Russo and Demaris, I'd equate North's interior decorating choices with those of someone who elects to reproduce John Gacy's bedroom or Osama bin Laden's cave in his home.

Organized crime depends in large part on the labors of little men who jimmy car trunks, break into homes or knock over jewelers. Some of these penny-ante crooks even become local heroes of a sort. The Panczko boys - Pops, Butch and Peanuts - for instance, were compulsive burglars who were lovingly profiled in numerous Sunday newspaper magazine sections.

We laugh at and secretly cherish these chestnuts of Chicago's colorful history: Hey, our petty criminals and smart and entertaining! And our Mob is ten times better than New York's Five Families, the Cleveland and Detroit guys or those flamboyant LA kingpins. Hell, they almost bumped off Castro! They got Kennedy elected and then they killed him for two-timing them! Our monsters are better than your monsters!

I've had a couple of run ins with home burglars. In 1980, I was awakened by strange noises in the middle of a hot July night. I got up to investigate and discovered a treasure trove of my belongings piled on the back porch, waiting to be lugged down the stairs. I dashed to my roommate's bedroom to alert her. As I knocked on her door, I glanced toward the back door and saw the burglar coming back in for more swag.

I shouted and ran at him. When he saw me, his eyes became wide as saucers. He turned and flew down the stairs. I chased him only as far as the back porch because, well, I was naked. No wonder his eyes had grown so wide!

A dozen years later, in another apartment, I came home one afternoon to find my TV, VCR and stereo piled neatly near the front door. I found a note from my next door neighbor who said she'd happened to glance into my living room window and seen a stranger prowling around so she called the cops. The burglar was nabbed while hiding in the basement stairway under my back porch.

I also found several clean socks, taken from my sock drawer, scattered around the areas where the valuables had been. Later, I found a couple of socks in the basement stairway. I figured the burglar had used them to wipe stray fingerprints off the surrounding surfaces. Pretty smart.

Anyway, I showed up at the punk's trial a couple of months later. Before the proceeding, I sat in an ante-room with a couple of harried, distracted Assistant State's Attorneys. They told me they were certain this punk had been responsible for a rash of similar burglaries in my neighborhood. They thanked me, profusely and hurriedly, for showing up.

I went back out into the courtroom and sat next to the punk, whose picture I'd seen when the prosecutors had opened their file in front of me. As we rose for the judge to enter the court, I took advantage of the rustling and whispered to him, "I better never see you around my house again." The punk, maybe 19 or 20 years old, looked at me with panic on his face.

The case was called and the two of us marched up to the bench as if we'd come to court together. This elicited a surprised look from the judge. Then he fell back into his previous bored visage, thumbed through the case file and addressed me.

"Mr. Glab, did you find anything missing from your house?"

Now I panicked. None of my valuables were missing, of course. But if I answered no, he might decide there was no case here. I thought quickly. Aha! There was something missing!

"Yes, your honor. I found two socks - one white and one gray - in the basement stairway under my back porch."

I was ready to launch into an explanation of my fingerprint-wiping theory. But the judge cut me off, loudly.

"What?" he hollered. He threw the file toward his clerk. "Get this out of here! Case dismissed."

"Oh, but I...," I began, but he talked over me, directing his ire at the Assistant State's Attorneys. "Don't waste my time with stuff like this. What's the matter with you?"

The prosecutors looked sheepish. Then they looked at me. I shrugged. They shook their heads.

"Next," the judge announced.

The un-convicted burglar walked free. I like to think he kept my warning in mind. Maybe I even scared him straight. Maybe. Then again, he may have aspired to become so good at his occupation that one day some lunkhead might decorate his house the way he had. Or a Sunday newspaper magazine writer would pen a loving profile of him.

Benny Jay: Entertaining Ourselves

Big Mike and I are on the phone going over the fine details of launching our blog site.

A million, zillion people in the universe are launching blog sites everyday, but for us it's an impossible ordeal. I think Bill Gates built Microsoft in less time than it's taking us to launch this baby. The only man in the universe more ignorant about computers than Big Mike and me is Milo, the other stooge in this enterprise. Thank God he's not on this line or we'd be spending needless hours trying to explain this stuff to him.

As it is, Big Mike's in the middle of yet another labyrinth explanation of the latest chapter in this ongoing clusterfuck, and I have absolutely no clue as to what he's talking about so I keep ask extraneous questions that take him on tangents.

Then my other phone rings.

Usually, I'd just let it go. But, a.) I'm expecting a call from my buddy Rick, and b.) I think Big Mike could use a break from my endless stupid questions.

So I say: "Hold it right there, Big Feller." And I take the call.

"Hello," I say.

Pause. Then an unfamiliar male voice says: "Who just called me?"

There's an edge of suspicion to his tone. Like somehow I did something wrong, when, in fact, I did nothing wrong. Cause -- after all -- it was he just who called me!

So I say: "Who are you?"

Man, George Bernard Shaw himself couldn't come up with a wittier retort.

He mumbles, all indignant like: "Must be the wrong number." Then, click, he hangs up. No, sorry for taking your time. Or, my bad, I messed up.

I tell Big Mike what happened and for some reason it tickles our collective funny bone. It's hard to explain why we find this so funny. Perhaps it's cause the world is so unrelentingly miserable that we have to find ways of entertaining ourselves. But, whatever, we're going over the exchange again and again, analyzing its every detail, and we can't stop laughing.

Little do I know, but my younger daughter's in the next room. She must have been reading or something, cause she walks out in a huff, like my gales of laughter have interrupted her and she says: "Oh, my god -- how can you think that's funny?"

I ignore her and I tell Big Mike about the time I got a phone call from a lady who heard me say hello. "And then she goes: "Who's this?"

He's roaring.

"And I go: `Who's this? Who are you? You called me....'"

Big Mike stops laughing long enough to say: "How can she possibly think that's the right response to dialing the wrong number? This can't be the first time she dialed a wrong number and heard a strange voice on the line. When she did it before, did someone say, `This is Harry, who are you?'"

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha....

"Or, `Well, I'm glad you asked -- I've been wondering myself. I'm having an identity crisis....'"

Identity crisis! It's too much.

I'm howling. He's howling.

My daughter walks past the room. "Are you still talking about that?" she says in disbelief.

I want to call her a hater but I can't get the words out, I'm laughing so hard.

"Oh, my god," she says. "You and your friends are so weird...."

Letter From Milo: Jimi Hendrix, War Hero

I guess I'm just an old rocker. My musical tastes were formed in the late 60s and early 70s. I still listen to the old warhorses - Dylan, the Stones, Janis Joplin, the Dead, Cream, Traffic, the Doors, Van Morrison. If I'm driving down the street and hear one of my old favorites on the radio I turn up the volume until the car vibrates.

That said, there is one musician I esteem above all others, a musician whose music still sends a chill up my spine, someone who took the electric guitar to places it's never been before and created sounds that have been copied but never equaled.

I'm talking about Jimi Hendrix, genius, guitar god and war hero.

I first became aware of Hendrix in 1967, the year I graduated high school. His first hit, "Purple Haze," was all over the radio. The sound was like nothing I had ever heard before - big, bold, discordant, but undeniably different. It was alien to my unsophisticated ears. I just didn't get it. But, you have to understand, I had not started smoking pot yet.

A year later I was in Vietnam and I got it. Boy did I get it. The Vietnamese conflict has been called the Rock 'n Roll War. Music was everywhere. It seemed that every soldier had his own cassette player and collection of cassette tapes. I remember my first day in-country. I had just gotten off an airplane along with 200 other new fish and was standing on the tarmac at the Da Nang air base, listening to a bored 2nd Lieutenant welcoming us to Vietnam. While the 2nd Lt. was droning on about the noble mission we were about to undertake, I heard music in the background, coming from a collection of raggedy tents just off the runway. It was the Doors.

This is the end/

This is the end/

my friend

Welcome to Vietnam.

Just like in the good old USA, there were racial problems among the American soldiers in Vietnam. If you recall, the late 60s were when King, Kennedy and Malcolm were assassinated. There were riots in the streets of our major cities. Students were forming revolutionary cells and plotting to overthrow the government. Lines were drawn between the races, the generations and the body politic. It was a time of supreme tension and nobody could say with certainty what the future held.

What was happening in the States was mirrored in Vietnam. It was like a bizarre reflection of what was occurring on the streets back home. Lines were also drawn, political and racial. Black guys hung with black guys, white guys hung with white guys and Latinos kept to themselves. There were actually mini race riots in some of the division base camps like Chu Lai and Da Nang. We didn't have these problems in the field because, as infantrymen, we had more pressing concerns, like trying to keep the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Regulars from killing us while at the same time trying to kill them.

It was a different story back in the relative safety of the division camps. The REMFS (Rear Echelon Motherfuckers) had more time on their hands. And they spent some of that time fomenting racial discord. I'm not saying that all the soldiers were like that, but there were enough of them, both black and white, to create serious and often lethal problems. After all, when you mix young men, ethnic strife and automatic rifles together, there are bound to be a few..., ah, misunderstandings.

Music played a role in the racial divide. The music you listened to defined who you were. Black guys listened to soul and funk from Motown and Memphis. White guys listened to rock and country. And some poor souls just paid attention to their own demons. There was one musician, however, who crossed all boundaries, someone who both blacks and whites idolized.

That was Jimi Hendrix.

Whenever you saw groups of blacks and white partying together, sitting around bonfires, drinking warm beer and smoking pot, the chances are that the music blaring from cassette machines was played by Jimi Hendrix. There were several reasons for this adoration of Jimi. The first, obviously, was that he was a supernaturally gifted musician. He simply had no equal. His audacious combination of rock riffs, deep understanding of the blues and soulful stylings (he once played guitar in the Isley Brothers band) spoke to everyone.

Another reason he was loved by the troops was that Jimi had once been a soldier himself. Before becoming Jimi Hendrix, he had been James Marshall Hendrix, a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division. That simple connection made it seem that Jimi was one of us. We felt that he understood us and our terrible plights in ways that British fops like Jagger, McCartney and Clapton never could.

On Highway 1, near the South China Sea, there was a hill near the village of Sai Hyun called Hendrix Hill. This particular hill was strewn with huge rocks and boulders. On one of the largest boulders someone had painted, in letters that seemed 10 feet high, the word Hendrix. The boulder was easily seen from the highway and every time I passed it I couldn't help but smile. It was our Hollywood sign.

When Jimi came out with his "Electric Ladyland" album, there was a song on it that became seared into the mind of practically every soldier who heard it. The song was called "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)."  There's a line in that song that's guaranteed to bring a tear to every Vietnam veteran's eye. The line is:

Well, it's too bad/

that our friends/

can't be with us today

The line evokes memory, pain and loss. It brings back memories of old friends and comrades in arms, young men who died far too young, in a country 10,000 miles from home, often in circumstances too gruesome to relate.

To this day, when I hear that line, I have to stop whatever I'm doing and spend a few moments recalling those who made the supeme sacrifice. Faces and names run through my mind - Captain David Walsh, Sweet Jimmy Ingram, Stony Deel and many others whose names are etched on a granite wall in Washington D.C.

I'm going to wrap it up now. I'm going to put on "Electric Ladyland" and try to find some comfort on this rainy day. Jimi had a way of comforting a lot of souls. That's what heroes do.

Big Mike: Loving The Lakeshore

Perhaps the thing I miss most about Chicago is the lakefront. A river town like Louisville has a different take on things than does a seaport like Chicago. Here in the River City, people look upon the mighty Ohio as just another street to cross, albeit a deep, brown, mile-wide thoroughfare filled with driftwood, coal barges and a few odd animal carcasses.

If Kentuckians envision the Ohio River as an avenue out of town, it offers them only two directions - southeast toward Fort Knox or northeast toward Cincinnati. Somehow, I doubt many kids lull themselves to sleep with dreams of those two destinations.

Lake Michigan, though, presents a seeming infinity of options. When I was young, I'd look out over the lake and see nothing but horizon. Any time I pondered that distant line, I couldn't help but feel anything was possible.

I recall being seven or eight and sitting in the back seat of my father's sun-tanned copper 1960 Chevrolet Impala, the kind with the horizontal wings in the back and a white whoosh denoting a jet trail on either side. We'd be heading east toward the lake on a late Sunday afternoon, mainly because Ma wanted to get the hell out of the house.

To me, the lakeshore was a wild, exciting pace, picket-fenced by Gold Coast apartment towers and filled with odd things like countless silvery, staring bodies of washed-up perch and boat tie-down plugs that looked like so many Easter Island statues. Just south of Navy Pier, police marine cruisers and pleasure craft would pull up to the concrete landing as the sun began to set. Boaters would make the three-foot leap from their decks, the cops' keys and handcuffs jangling, and land with a strange mixture of awkwardness and grace. They'd go in to Rocky's, a fried fish shack, and buy a pound of fish and chips or clam strips. I looked at those men the way, I'm sure that some Portuguese kid looked upon explorers returning from the New World.

I had my own death-defying adventure some years later, in 1999, when I was a Coast Guard-licensed sea captain. I piloted a DUKW, more commonly known as a Duck, ferrying tourists along the lakeshore, regaling them with information about the lake and the city as well as the occasional funny story. I won't recount the stories here because they were only funny to visitors from Iowa or Kansas who, being on vacation, their pockets filled with pre-crash cash, already were in a giddy mood.

It was a warm and bright May Sunday afternoon. The Duck was filled with adults and kids. The city couldn't have been prettier. It was only a week and a half after a Duck had sunk in Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs, Arkansas, killing some 13 people, but no distant tragedy could dampen our good feelings. We splashed into the water at the Burnham Harbor ramp between Soldier Field and McCormick Place. The kids screamed in excitement and the adults grinned as broadly as people with pockets full of cash can.

I hadn't even begun my usual patter when suddenly what sounded like a thousand sirens began shrieking in my ears. Just as suddenly, a half-dozen roaring jets of water began gushing high out of the boat's emergency bilge pump outlets along the gunwhale. For the briefest of moments - a time that seemed to my adrenaline-amped senses to be endless minutes - I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening.

I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw some two dozens faces staring at me in terror. They wanted me, the captain, to make everything right. Gulp.

The craft seemed heavy. I tried to steer but the Duck hardly budged off the straight line. I eased off the gas but the engine still roared, automatically throttling up to run the emergency pumps. I wasn't confused any longer - we were sinking.

I floored the gas pedal and the Duck inched forward. The jets of water spewed even higher, 25 feet in the air. As long as I kept the pedal to the metal, the emergency pumps would work at full capacity. First one, then several women screamed. They were wearing flip-flops so they knew before anybody else that the floorboards were now flooded. My mind flashed to the horror in Hot Springs.

If the passengers were hoping I'd say something soothing, allay their fears or even make a joke, they would be sorely disappointed. All I could think of was how to get this half-century-old pile of shit back on land.

With the engine thundering, I swung the wheel to the left, virtually willing the tiny rudders to pitch us into a u-turn. A man reached up into the overhead compartment and pulled down a life jacket. I shouted out an order for the rest of the passengers to follow his lead. The Duck moved glacially, describing an excruciatingly broad circle in the harbor. Water began splashing over the gunwhales.

I glanced again in my rear-view and saw the entire assemblage looking at me, pleadingly. I'd never held an audience so rapt. By now, even strollers and fishermen on the shore gaped at us, knowing full well they might be witnessing something that would haunt them.

After what seemed hours, we circled around and hit the ramp hard. The Duck was so heavy with water that we got hung up on the lip of the ramp. No matter, we wouldn't go down now. I finally spoke into my microphone. "We did it," I announced, breathlessly. "We'll be okay now."

We waited for about 10 minutes so the emergency pumps could empty enough water from the hull to allow us to move again. Then we slowly climbed the ramp and pulled over next to the harbor master's house. My rapt audience cheered as if I'd just scored the winning touchdown for the Bears in nearby Soldier Field.

I jumped down from the pilot's seat, got on my hands and knees and looked under the Duck. I saw a gaping six-inch hole out of which spewed water. It took a good 45 minutes for the hull to empty out. Some of the male passengers hunkered down next to me to conduct their own examinations. They pounded me on the back and shook my hand again and again. Safely off the Duck, the moms rocked their mewling kids in the lawn.

I never loved the lakeshore so much as on that Sunday afternoon.

Benny Jay: Out Beyond The Arc

I'm at James Park up in Evanston with my my bowling buddies -- Cap and Norm -- watching Cap's kid, Miles, playing baseball.

Norm notices there's a basketball court across the way.

"You got a basketball in your car, Benny?" he asks.

"No," I say.

"I do...."

He looks at me and I look at him. We don't say a word. But I know what he's thinking: Yes, we came to watch Miles pitch. But he's already pitched his maximum three innings. And it's a lovely spring night. So....

We head over the court. On one end there's an empty basket. On the other end, a dad's playing one-on-one with his ten-year-old son. The dad's pretending he just can't block his son's shot. And the son is really excited cause he only needs one more basket to win the game. Meanwhile, over in the parking lot, a group of teenagers are passing a joint and listening to their car radio. I feel like I've gone back in time.

I won't kid you. As much as I love this game, I was never very good at it. I could never dribble with my left hand and I shot the wrong way (two hands, not one). I played strictly Y ball and intramurals. My game never advanced beyond going to the corner and waiting for someone to pass me the ball....

But, in the spring of my senior year -- when there was nothing much else to do -- I played basketball almost every day. Used to come to this park with my friends and shoot `til the stars came out. I mastered a Chet Walker head fake and taught myself to shoot like Bob Butter Bean Love, with the release behind my head so it's hard to block. I wore cut-off blue jeans, floppy socks and black All-Stars. We played until it was too dark to see and then we walked to the corner store and drank our soda and ate our chips and talked and talked and talked....

Norm throws me a pass. I haven't shot in years. Officially, I have retired. Every five or so years I retire.

My first shot falls short. My second comes closer. The third hits the rim. "Damn," I exclaim.

Norm's not hitting many either. The thing is -- he's the real deal. Back in the day, he started for Hales Franciscan High School on the south side.

We're really getting into it. I hit one. Norm hits a couple. I drill three in a row from the corner. "You love that corner, Benny," he tells me.

We shoot so much we forget about the baseball game. The sun's gone from the sky. It's hard to see. My back's aching -- like I pulled a muscle. Norm says his knee's acting up.

But we keep shooting.

Norm says it's time to take it out beyond the arc. I say, first guy to hit a three wins a dollar. He shoots and misses. I shoot and miss. He shoots -- all net.

"I shoulda known better than to bet with you," I tell him.

He pockets my dollar and says: "C'mon, Benny -- you can't go without hitting a three...."

So I go beyond the arc and launch a long jumper -- all net.

I start dancing and singing: "Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!"

Norm throws me a pass. I fire up another shot. All net.

"I'm Craig Hodges," I say. "Craig Hodges -- the world's greatest three-point shooter."

My third shot looks dead on. I raise my arms in triumph. But, no, it rattles out.

I figure it's time to go. But Norm's not ready to leave. The pride and joy of Hales Franciscan's not about to let no YMCA boy beat him.

He goes out beyond the arc and just like that -- bam, bam, bam -- hits three in a row. His fourth shot bounces out. But bottom line: He hit three and I hit two.

Don't get it twisted....

"I knew it Norm," I say. "I knew you weren't going to walk off the court in second place...."

Norm can't repress his smile.

"You beat me on my home court," I tell him.

"Next time, Benny," he says.

As we walk back to Miles and Cap, I get a feeling that I may have overextended myself. My toes, knees and back are aching. But, man, for a split second -- when that second three went in -- I almost felt young again....

Big Mike: The Guilt Trip

I worry about the damnedest things. And I'm not even thinking about how I'm fretting these days over the Cubs' offensive woes.

Living apart from my beloved lovely bride five days of the week is an ordeal. Living without a car in a town that values public transportation about as much as Chicago values honest politicians is almost as bad. Being stuck in the Murray Hill Pike ranch house from Monday through Friday is not quite a prison but it'll do as a metaphor.

It's gotten to the point that I've begun talking to the cats. No not, baby-talk, goo-goo, daddy-loves-his-little-girl pap. I leave that for The Loved One. Er, I mean, I leave it for her to talk to the cats that way - not that I talk to her like that. My contributions to our colloquys are usually limited to grunts and shrugs.

By talking to the cats, I mean, for instance, that when I finish writing a story I may read it out loud just to hear the sound of it as the female puss, Terra, dozes next to my laptop. My orations never fail to awaken her. She stares at me, probably trying to figure out if I'm barking out a warning or I'm just losing what's left of my mind. When I finish my recitations, I ask her, "How was that? Pretty good, huh?" To which she responds by licking her nether areas and then drifting back to sleep.

Or, say the male, Boutros, decides to emerge from whatever hiding place he's chosen for the morning. As he pads by, I might say, "Well, hello Big Man! How are you? Where've you been? Do you want to hear me read my piece as well?"

He merely keeps an eye on me as he digs into the litter box, does his business, and then goes back into seclusion.

Now I know how The Loved One feels when she tries to start a conversation with me.

Anyway, it wouldn't be a shock for anyone to hear that one or both members of a couple in a long-distance relationship have dallied about in infidelities. Not that I've even considered sowing a single stray oat. Heaven forbid! Why, I'm an honorable man and I have too much love and respect for my partner-for-life to break our trust. Besides, I'm 53 years old with a bad heart and an enlarged prostate. Women aren't exactly clawing at each other to get at me these days.

As for The Loved One's adherence to our bond, I believe that she's remaining pure in south central Indiana. Now that doesn't sound like a hotbed of flaming desire but she is, after all, still quite a hot number and there are probably more than a few randy cougar-hunters prowling around the environs of Indiana U. But marriage is nothing if it doesn't include trust.

Does The Loved One react to her own doubts in kind? Maybe not. She seemed awfully curious about someone I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. I told the story of Tammy, who considers herself, like me, as good or better an ex than a spouse.

"So," The Loved One asked, trying to sound casual, "is she pretty?"

Shrug.

"Do you see her over at Dick's Pizza often?"

Grunt.

"You two are pretty friendly, huh?"

Shrug and grunt.

Finally, she cut to the chase. "Well, do you like her?"

Now honey, I said, don't be silly. There's nothing going on. Besides, if I was trying to hide something from you, would I write about her in a public blog?

This seemed to mollify her. I'd hate to think of her tossing and turning in her sublet apartment wondering if I'm in the throes of passion with another but, then again, it's nice to know this old gasbag can still ignite a spark of jealousy. Not that I'd go out of my way to do so.

For instance, after I won this week's Trivia contest at Dick's, Icepick Mark (so-called because the Icepick is his cocktail of choice) offered me a ride home. I was feeling lazy so I took him up on it despite the common knowledge that he feels an evening is wasted if he hasn't indulged in at least a half dozen of his favorite refreshments.

I got in, tightened my seatbelt, grasped the oh-shit handle above the door for dear life and off we went. As we lurched out of the parking lot, Icepick Mark began telling me some convoluted tale that I'd have difficulty following under normal circumstances. His narration, though, now was competing for space in my mind with images of me flying through his windshield like a bald bullet.

To top it off, Icepick Mark was heading in the wrong direction. I hoped to interrupt him the next time he paused for air, but his tale ran non-stop. Finally, about a mile down the road, I said, "Pardon me, Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"Um, where are we going?"

"Well, it would seem logical that we're heading toward your house."

"Yes, that's true. Only my house is in the other direction."

"No it isn't."

"Hmm. I'm guessing I'm right on this point."

"Well, the last time I took you home, you had me drop you off at an apartment behind the shopping center."

"I've never lived behind the shopping center."

"Oh yeah. I remember distinctly."

"Be that as it may, I live in the other direction."

"Okay," he said, as if indulging me in a whim. "But I distinctly remember dropping you off there. You must have a girlfriend there."

To which I responded, Ha ha.

"No, really. You've got something going on over there. I know it."

With that, Icepick Mark executed a breathtaking u-turn and drove me home. As I exited his pickup truck and thanked him for the ride (and my lucky stars for my safe arrival), Icepick Mark iterated, "You've got a girlfriend over there. I know I dropped you off there."

I shrugged and grunted.

Now I'm worried. What if The Loved One happens to come with me to Dick's one day and Icepick Mark, lubed with his favorite refreshment, decides to tell the tale of my girlfriend who lives in an apartment behind the shopping center? I'll deny it, of course, because I'm innocent. No matter, though, philanderers always claim they're innocent as well.

Sheesh. The damnedest things.

Randolph Street: The American Carnival

... But yes, I think it can be very easily done

We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun

And have it on Highway 61.

from "Highway 61 Revisited," Bob Dylan, 1965

Here's the third and final installment of Jon Randolph's series of pix taken along US Route 61 following the Mississippi River, from 1976 through 1985.

"Mailboxes," Keeler, Wisconsin

"Three Gents," Mississippi

"Eagle," Davenport, Iowa

"Edsel," Burlington, Iowa

"Hat," Mississippi

"Wait," Minnesota

Good old Jon Randolph - as we speak, he's sitting back in a fishing boat on a crystal clear Canadian lake, keeping an eye on his line for action, pulling his cap low against the morning glare, perhaps even enjoying a cool libation. That's the life. We have only one thing to say - get the hell back to work, you bum!

Randolph Street, featuring the work of Chicago's premier photojournalist, appears here every Friday. The Third City brings you the best in writing, opinion, memoir and other gibberish every day. Keep an eye open for the move to our very own website - swear to god, it's coming soon!

Letter From Milo: Dropping Like Flies

I've run my own small business - make that a very small business - for about 15 years. I'm not saying I run it well, I'm just saying I run it. I've made good money, decent money and chump change. I've seen good times and bad times, but I've never seen times as bad as these.

The way the economy is going you have to wonder if Karl Marx wasn't right after all. Like hunter-gatherer societies, barter economies and the colonial system, maybe true capitalism's time has passed. Maybe it's time for a new economic system to emerge, something that still rewards individual initiative but takes into consideration the immense disparity in the distribution of our planet's natural resources.

Why should a few nations, blessed with an abundance of natural resources, prosper while other nations, blessed with an abundance of sand, rocks, snakes and AK-47s, teeter on the brink of collapse. It doesn't seem fair. It's a small world, dangerous and very crowded. Such obvious disparities in wealth serve only to inflame the have-nots. New chickens are hatching every day and they'll all be needing a place to roost.

Whoa! I'm getting in over my head here. My world view is basically limited to what I can see out of my window. If I try to go beyond that I generally get a headache and have to retire to my couch with a cold Blatz and the remote control.

I was just reading an editorial about about the bankruptcy of General Motors. The writer opined that GM was too big to fail. What kind of bullshit is that! Too big to fail! The dinosaurs failed. The Roman Empire failed. The Soviet Union failed. Everything eventually fails. Do people think GM is going to last as long as the pyramids? Let GM succeed or fail on its own merits. I've got no sympathy for a company that foisted a monstrosity like the Hummer on an unsuspecting public. I mean, who the hell needs to drive a military assault vehicle on the streets of Chicago? Might as well outfit a Sherman tank with baby seats and a roof rack and call it a family sedan.

My concern is not with the GMs, AIGs and big banks of the world. I'm concerned about the little guy. My sympathies lie with the auto worker not the auto company. My heart goes out to the bank teller not the greedy bank honchos who helped cause this economic meltdown. While the fat MBA-festooned bastards are grudgingly accepting the blame, they are not suffering any of the consequences. At the end of the day, they will retire to their gated communities, while the unemployed autoworker and bank teller will be lucky to hang on to their split-levels and bungalows.

Swear to God, if it wasn't for those unreasonable statutes that deprive a man of his liberty for committing even the most righteous of murders, I'd go and...

Ah, never mind. Where was I? Oh, yeah. As I was saying, as a small business owner, I rely on a lot of other small business owners to help me provide my advertising services. Several of my clients are small businesses, too, and it breaks my heart, not to mention my wallet, to see them struggling to stay afloat and, and many cases, drowning.

Small businesses are dropping like flies. I've seen mom and pop print shops go out of business. I seen advertising specialty suppliers, the people that provide coffee mugs, ball caps and ink pens with logos on them, go under. I've listened to the sad stories of print makers, rubber stamp manufacturers and silk screeners. I've commiserated with photographers who had to close their studios and designers who wonder where they'll get the money to update their computer equipment. I've listened to people who have worked hard and honorably all their lives wonder if they'll ever be able to retire.

I listen and listen and listen, and all I can do is quote the great Marvin Gaye: "What's Going On?"

In my very first posting on this blog site, I promised that I would never lie to the American people. Although I've fudged on that promise a few times, I'll be completely honest now. I'm suffering, too. My business is going through the same problems that other small business are dealing with - budgets slashed or eliminated, lack of credit, longer payment terms and clients defaulting on invoices.

I don't now how much longer I can or want to keep it going. If things don't pick up in the next six months I'll have to make some tough decisions. As it is, I'm probably going to have to get a night job, something to help make ends meet. The only problem is that half the people in the country are looking for night jobs to help make ends meet. As W.C. Fields said, "It's a tough old world, you're lucky to get out of it alive."

Anybody wanna start a riot?

Benny Jay: Swimming With Sharks

In the middle of the day, I get calling from my old friend, Pamela, the school teacher, calling from her class up in Evanston.

Must be the end of the school year cause I can hear the kids in the background, chattering quietly among themselves.

Pamela starts in where she left off the last time we talked just a few days ago. There's this used Mercedes she wants to buy from some dealership out in the western suburbs. She thinks the salesman is trying to rip her off -- he offered to sell it to her for 24-something but at closing he wanted 25-something. Or something like that. I never could get this car stuff straight.

"It's because I'm a black woman -- they think they can rip me off," she tells me. Just like she told me before. "If I was a white man, they wouldn't play this game...."

"Pamela -- white or black; man or woman -- it's all the same. They always try to nail you by adding on money at the end," I tell her. Just like I told her before. "This is what they do...."

Then I launch into the same story I'd already told her about how a different salesman at a different dealership in a different town pulled the same stunt on me and my wife when we bought our Ford.

But, Pamela's not buying it. She barely listened the first time I told her the story, and she's definitely not listening now.

"Here's what I want you to do," she says.

Uh-oh. Right away, I know, trouble's coming. She wants me to call the dealership and pretend I'm interested in buying the car and see what they offer. "Make sure you talk like a white guy -- use your best white guy voice. They have to know you're white...."

"Pamela, I can't do this...."

"What do you mean, you can't do this. You the president, ain't you?"

About four years ago, I hooked her up with someone she needed to know in a completely different matter and ever since she's been calling me the president -- like I'm the man with the amazing connections.

"Pamela, I don't know anything about cars...."

"So what -- I'll tell you everything you need to know...."

She goes into this recitation of everything I'll have to say. And, like the dummy that I am, I'm taking it all down -- literally. I mean, I'm writing a script of what I will say.

"It's a Mercedes CLK 350," she says.

"DLK 350?" I ask.

"No, C...."

I'm all mixed up. "Did you say C or D?"

"C -- like cat. Not D -- like dog. There's no DLK 350. Don't you know nothing about Mercedes?"

"No, nothing. How many times do I gotta tell you -- I know nothing about cars...."

"C'mon, president -- pay attention. Now, they wanted me to pay 25,800. But they're going to offer you 24,000. I know it. Just ask them for the advertised price...."

So I call the number she gave me and I wind up talking to a saleslady named Liz. Reading from my script, I say: "I want to buy a CLK 350. How much will that cost?"

Pause. Then Liz says: "Did you say CLK 350?"

"Yes," I say, desperately trying to sound confident, even though I'm having a panic attack because I just can't remember -- is it DLK or CLK?

Another pause. Then Liz says: "Sir, this is a BMW dealership -- we don't sell CLK 350s...."

Damn! Pamela gave me the wrong number. I try to play it off, like -- ha, ha, ha -- it's an innocent mistake and that I really know the difference between BMWs and Mercedes. "Oh, yes, of course," I say with a phony chuckle. "Sorry...."

But Liz is not done with me. As long as I'm on the line, she's gonna take a bite. "Sir, I have an LLS 500 on the lot. 2006. I'll sell it to you for 33-9. That's the best I can offer...."

At least, I think that's the car model she mentioned. Lord, only knows what she really said. "Ugh, no...."

"That's better than you'll find anywhere for a comparable Mercedes...."

"I gotta go...."

"What's your name?"

Not knowing what else to do, I hang up and call Pamela. "Okay, Miss-just-do-what-I-tell-you, you gave me the wrong number...."

"What!"

"You gave me the number to a BMW dealer. I called a BMW dealership to buy a Mercedes...."

"Oops...."

I hear the whole class cracking up. I swear, she's got me on the speaker phone. Guess I'm the entertainment for the day.

She gives me another number and I wind up talking to a salesman named Tony. I play it hard. I'm starting to get into this. I'm talking with a thick Chicago white-ethnic accent -- like I'm a Mobster from the northwest side.

"What's your advertised price for a CLK 350?" I ask.

"28,991...."

"Naw, naw -- your best price. I walk in there right now -- cash in my hand -- what are you gonna give me?"

"To be honest, sir, the only way I can do this is if you come in here," Tony says. "I have to run these things by my manager...."

I'm really getting into my mobster routine: "Forget the manager. It's just me and you, Tony. Gimme your best offer...."

"Sir, I can't do this over the phone...."

"Forget it, then....."

"Sir, what's your name?"

I say the first thing that pops into my head: "Harry...."

"Okay, Harry, what's your phone number?"

I start to panic again -- like what if this guy tracks me down? My mobster accent disappears. "I can't talk now," I say.

"Your email, Harry -- what's your email?"

"Oops, got another call coming in...."

I hang up the phone. My heart is pounding. I wait to see if Tony uses the caller ID to trace my number and call me back. Nope -- phew. I call Pamela. "This guy was a freakin' shark," I tell her. "You got me swimming with sharks. Five more minutes and he'd have sold me a car...."

Pamela and her class are howling.

"Find some other white guy to play this part," I say. "I don't even like cars...."