Big Mike: Our Strange Heroes

Benny Jay and I had that conversation the day before yesterday. You know, the one wherein two old chums discuss the untimely passing of a third.

I was walking home from  the Barnes and Noble in the late afternoon. Every few minutes, a drop or two of rain hit my shiny scalp. As I struggled up and down the Ten Broeck hills, Benny rang me up and broke the news that Norm Van Lier had been found dead in his apartment. Our reactions ran the gamut from shock to silence and, finally, to uproarious laughter over shared Stormin' Norman anecdotes.

There was, as a single example, the time seven years ago that Norm decked a fireman. Based on news reports and what I think I know of Norm's ways, it wasn't hard to imagine what had happened. Norm was at home in his lakefront highrise, probably sitting in his beloved beanbag chair - or, at least, its modern-day equivalent- and listening to that first, brilliant Chicago Transit Authority album (my own favorite cut from it is "Questions 67 & 68.") Perhaps he'd employed some additional aid to achieve a certain tranquil frame of mind; no one can say. Whatever. The sound of sirens stopping in front of his building caused him to high-tail it down to the lobby.

Rattled that his mood had been broken, Norm had a head full of steam as he exited the elevator. In the lobby, he encountered a stranger wearing a white T-shirt. Apparently, a few cross words were exchanged.

The dialogue might have gone something like this:

Norm: "Who the fuck are you?"

T-shirted stranger: "Who the fuck are you?"

The next thing anybody knew, the man in the white T-shirt, actually one of the responding firefighters, was laying on the marble floor rubbing his jaw.

True? Who knows. But like all good stories, it ought to have been. Stormin' Norman was the toughest, meanest, most competitive son of a bitch you can imagine.

I knew that Benny would write about him yesterday. Norm Van Lier was to Benny what Ron Santo is to me. That is, a teenager's fixation. Even as we've become thicker, grayer, and more flatulent with the years, Benny and I have hung on to our boyhood idols, Norm and Santo. In fact, we've each written long, in-depth Chicago Reader cover stories of our respective paladins. The hardest part of the extended times we'd spent with Norm and Santo was trying not to look like the awe-struck, acne-faced geeks we'd reverted to.

After I hung up with Benny, I planned to follow up on his post by writing today that his affinity for Norm was baffling because no two more diverse personalities exist on this planet. Benny is the most accommodating, understanding, serene man on six continents. Norm was, of course, Stormin' Norman.

Yet, mirabile dictu, Benny expounded on that very dichotomy. Norm was everything Benny wasn't and, often, wanted to be.

It wasn't so with Santo and me. He was impulsive, confrontational, uncontrollable, thin-skinned, opinionated, and a general pain in the ass. Subtract 16 years and the exceptional baseball skills, and that would be the precise description of me.

Benny idolized what he wasn't; I idolized what I was. That's ironic because throughout his adult life, Benny has appeared to be very comfortable within his own skin. I, on the other hand, have spent most of my life trying to jump out of mine.

Benny and I will have that conversation again, perhaps very soon. Santo turned 69 on Wednesday. He's a diabetic and has a troublesome heart. We'll express our shock, turn silent, and then laugh ourselves to tears recounting the time he set his toupee on fire in the Shea Stadium broadcast booth.

What is it with us and jocks? Benny Jay and I have constructed our lives to be the antitheses of single-minded, physically-oriented, acquisitive, pugnacious professional athletes. Today we revere Philip Roth and Amnesty International. We discuss lofty concepts like altruism, egalitarianism, and the inner workings of the political process.

Yet we're still held in thrall by a couple of old warhorses. I doubt Stormin' Norman ever ranked altruism among his most cherished human traits. And I Santo knows why Portnoy was inexorably drawn to a girlfriend nicknamed "The Monkey," he hasn't let on yet.

We're odd birds, Benny and I.

Benny Jay: Norm Van Lier

I'm on the phone with Ronnie, talking about this and that, when he breaks the news in a casual sort of way: Oh, by the way -- did you hear that Norm Van Lier died?

At first I don't want to believe it. Like Ronnie got the story wrong.

"You're talking about Norm Van Lier -- Stormin' Norman Van Lier?"

"Yeah...."

"Of the Chicago Bulls?"

"Yeah...."

I can't talk. I don't know what to say. Can't really feel the full impact cause my mind has gone somewhere else.

We finish our conversation and I go on with my day. But it never really leaves me. I check the Internet coverage. I call a few friends. I listen to remembrances on the radio: Oscar Robertson, Rick Barry, and other great basketball players .

I walk around the house in a daze. I dig out my old diary, circa 1973. It's lying beneath some papers in the bottom drawer of my desk.

I open it gently, afraid it's gonna fall apart. He's there on almost every page. Sometimes I call him Norm Van Lier. Sometimes Stormin' Norman. Sometimes it's just Norm.

I'd quote some of the passages, but, I don't know, it's really a little too embarrassing. The gist is this: Norm Van Lier showed up with the Chicago Bulls back in the early 1970s when I was going through a particularly vulnerable time in my young life. Felt self conscious and insecure. Didn't think any of the girls would ever like me and, believe me, I wanted them to like me. I was crazy about girls. Thought about `em day and night.

Norm Van Lier had no trouble with girls. He drove a snazzy foreign sports car. I think it was red. Had an Afro and beard. Hung with rock stars. Partied all night and somehow or other made it to practice in the morning.

He played like a demon. Skinniest, smallest runt on the court -- he walked away from no one. He dove for balls, skidded across the floor. Scraped the skin off his elbows, arms and knees. He drove the hoop. Knock him down and he got right back up. You couldn't keep him down.

One time he went after Sidney Wicks with a chair. The man was eight inches taller. Norm didn't give a shit. He told reporters: "Wicks hit me in the throat with an elbow. Well, I went after that son-of-a-bitch with a chair."

I was listening to that game on my radio. I listened to damn near every Bulls game on my radio -- a tinny-sounding transistor. Alone in my room. Door closed. Keeping score. I remember the disbelief in the announcer's voice: He's going after Wicks. He's got a chair. They're holding him back. Holy, moly -- Norm Van Lier!

It wasn't just that I wanted to be like Norm. He was absolutely everything I wanted to be. And it was more than the girls or the sports car or the rock stars. It was his attitude. I was weak and he was strong. I was afraid and he was brave. I cowered in the corner and he stormed onto the center of the court. I stayed clear of fights, he fought anyone who got in his way. I needed him as presence or a spirit or an inspiration to show me how to get through my life.

So I took on his identity as my own. I wrote his name in magic marker on my Converse All Stars. I bought a Norm Van Lier T-shirt which I wore until it fell apart. When I scored a basket in a pickup game, I'd yell out: "Norm!" I wrote his name in my diary in big, bold letters. I talked about him all the time. I had arguments with my friends. I said he was the best guard in basketball. They came back with other guards -- Jerry West, Walt Frazier, Nate Archibald -- they said were better. It didn't matter what they said. I argued `til they got tired of arguing. I argued the way Norm played basketball -- just wore `em down.

On March 27, 1973, my buddy, Josh, and I went to the old Chicago Stadium. It was Fan Appreciation Night. They let us on the floor. I waited in a line to shake hands and get autographs. Norm Van Lier signed my Bulls poster, which I hung on my bedroom wall. Josh snapped a picture of me watching Norm sign the poster. I'm looking at that picture now. It's giving me chills. I was 17 -- he was 25....

Years pass. Norm retired from basketball. He left town and came back and became a TV personality. I watched him grow older. But it didn't really matter what he looked like now cause I didn't need him the way I used to. It's like "Puff the Magic Dragon." You outgrow that stuff. I got stronger, smarter, more confident. I didn't need a fantasy figure at my back.

But that's not the point. The point is this: When I needed him, he was there. Norm Van Lier, stormin' the court, swingin' that chair....

Rest in peace, my brother.

From The Editors: Milo's Down Below

Oh hell, sometimes Goggle Blogger can be such a pain in our asses. If you want to read today's post - a screamer from Milo Samardzija - scroll down past the Big Mike post dated February 25th and read the post headlined "Letter From Milo: Marriage Counseling." Or just click here.

GB's software puts a default date on a post the moment it's typed in the draft box. Then it gets retro-slotted even if we publish it several days later. Yuck. Fix this, kids, please!

Look for Benny Jay tomorrow. And, hopefully, we'll have many more Letters from Milo - provided his Lovely Bride doesn't strangle him today.

One more thing: buy Milo's book. Now!

Big Mike: Wise, Wise Man?

Here's what a geek I am. Because I've been hearing so many loudmouths bitch and moan about how the economic stimulus package is "full of pork" and "loaded with earmarks" and so on, I decided to read the actual bill.

Dubbed the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," it's 407 pages of the most brain-numbingly boring legal- and political-speak you've ever laid your eyes upon. No, let me amend that - it's the most boring thing I've ever laid my eyes upon. You are too smart to waste precious hours of your life studying the document.

That's right, I read the god-damned thing! Where did it get me? Well, now I know that none of those loudmouths know what in the hell they're talking about. Of course, I already knew that so I guess I'm back where I started. I suppose I can now argue with confidence against them. I have the facts. They don't. Then again, the facts never seem to make a bit of difference to them.

Why do I do things like this? Here's another example. When the steroid scandal hit baseball, I boned up on everything I could about performance enhancing drugs. I learned how prevalent their use is, what the health benefits and risks are, and how they might or might not actually improve a hitter's or pitcher's game. I then wrote a 5000-word treatise on the subject. All the while I was saying to myself, Just wait till I dazzle them all with my brilliance!

Naturally, when it came time to pit my research against the uninformed ramblings of the loudmouthed set, I may as well have been speaking Amharic.

We like to view ourselves as a rational, intelligent species. We call ourselves Homo Sapiens Sapiens - wise, wise man. It's as if we're insecure about our wisdom: Hey, we're smart! You hear me? We're smart!

We must be smart. We've created an Internet which provides us access to the most diverse, minutely-studied array of pornography imaginable. We've invented television and CDs and DVDs, which bring us the artistry of Howie Mandell, Madonna, and "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" directly into our homes. Perhaps our most spectacular and life-changing invention has been the automobile, whose evolution has resulted in that most sublime and aesthetically pleasing artifact known as The Hummer.

So yeah, we're smart. And I'm a smart ass but I like to think of myself as plain old smart as well. Sadly, though, we seem to have a need to be willfully not-smart too. I remember watching the first debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry during the 2004 election. No matter what you think about the respective candidates' positions, you have to agree that the incumbent Bush appeared embarrassingly uninformed and unable to articulate complex ideas. I felt a sense of shame and humiliation that the rest of the world saw the leader of the United States as, well, a dope. I wondered who could possibly vote for a man so lacking in intellectual assets. Oops - who's the real dope here? It turned out that a majority of Americans actually liked Bush's folksy befuddlement and were turned off by Kerry's intellectualism.

How about this? Years ago, I watched the mondo film "The Faces of Death" with my old pal Submarine Tony. Part of a series that was wildly popular in the 80s, it was purportedly a compilation of gruesome, real-life scenes of people being given one-way tickets out of this mortal coil. From the very start, I could tell that the producers' plan was to show a single, blurry, rough-cut clip of a real death and surround it with dozens of staged incidents.

So I launched into a scathing critique of the movie. I pointed out all the camera tricks and verbal suggestions, the breathless dramatic buildups and the shallow payoffs. I figured Submarine Tony would be thankful I'd opened his eyes. Instead, after listening to me for 20 minutes he said, "Would you shut the hell up? You're ruining the whole thing."

Another example. When Carl Sagan's book, "The Demon-Haunted World," came out in the mid-90s, I ran around excitedly telling everyone I knew what a great and valuable message it contained. Sagan wrote the book as a response to the exploding trends of pseudoscience. He deftly carved up fortune-tellers, UFO buffs, conspiracy theorists, New Agers, homeopaths, channelers, faith healers, and the like.

I was working at Barnes and Noble in Evanston at the time. One of my co-workers was Don the Egyptian, a tall fellow whom I'd figured to be fairly savvy. After I gushed about the book to him, he shrugged and said he wasn't interested in it. "I want my world to be demon-haunted," he said. "It's more interesting."

I wrote a note to myself: People want to be fooled.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only guy in the world who thinks the way I do. I also wonder where it gets me. Now and again I think, Wouldn't I be better off watching "Deal Or No Deal"? Instead, I read H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Then I think, Who would I rather hang out with? Howie Mandell or Carl Sagan? Sagan's been dead a dozen years now. I'd still prefer his company.

Letter From Milo: Marriage Counseling

This is our post for Thursday, February 26, 2009; pay no attention to the default date shown above - Eds.

Every few years my Lovely Wife becomes dissatisfied with the state of our marriage. Of course, it's all my fault. I don't pay enough attention to her. I'm uncommunicative. I drink and smoke too much. My hygiene is not what it should be. My friends are beastly. I'm inconsiderate to her friends. I snore. I say and do stupid things. I fart at inappropriate times. I'm a hopeless loser whose place in hell is pretty much guaranteed.

Okay, so I'm not perfect. I'll be the first to admit that I have a couple of minor faults. I mean, who the hell gets through this life without developing a couple of character flaws. Even the great ones have chinks in their armor. Winston Churchill was a drunkard. Barack Obama smokes. Michael Jordan is a degenerate gambler. Bill Clinton is a liar. JFK was a womanizer. Louis Armstrong was a pothead. Catherine the Great was overly fond of horseflesh. The list goes on and on.

When I point these facts out to my wife she just laughs at me.

"While you're at it, why don't you compare yourself to Jesus and Mother Teresa."

"Sweetheart, you're missing the point."

"There's no point, you're just trying to bullshit me."

"Angel, be reasonable. All I'm saying..."

"I know exactly what you're saying and I'm not falling for it."

"Honey..."

"Don't honey me. We have serious problems in our marriage and we need to do something about them."

For the next few days after this conversation there is a distinct chill in our household air. Silences, cold shoulders, slamming doors, angry muttering, ugly looks, sleeping on the couch -- my lovely wife throws her entire arsenal at me. And that's just the beginning. I know what's coming. I'm a scarred veteran of the marital wars. She's getting ready to drop the big one on me.

"Milo, I made an appointment with a marriage counselor."

"Shit, not again."

"If you love me you'll cooperate."

"Can I love you and not cooperate?"

"That's not an option."

"Shit."

In nearly three decades of marriage we've been to three different marriage counselors. The one thing they all had in common was that they were expensive, charging an hourly rate that would have made Johnny Cochran rewrite his business plan.

Our first counselor was a very attractive woman who we quit seeing when she began going through an ugly divorce, leaving her husband for a much wealthier man. We gave up on the second counselor when my wife got the impression that she was too sympathetic toward me. The third counselor lasted the longest. She was a young woman who seemed to have a good grasp on the marital condition. She understood that marriage is an unnatural state, a con game foisted on humanity by a pitiless, vengeful God. We stopped seeing her when she and her musician boyfriend moved to California.

It recently occurred to me that there are plenty of other poor souls being dragged off to marriage counselors by unappreciative wives. It also occurred to me that I owe it to my fellow married men to help them out in their times of trouble and woe. Therefore, I have compiled a few tips, suggestions, and defensive stratagems that will help them survive even the most savage counseling session.

1. Agree with everything your wife says. If she tells the marriage counselor that she caught you cooking and eating one of the neighbors, just say, "I can see how that would upset you, dear, and I'll try to do better in the future."
   
2. Never admit to affairs, gambling debts, drug habits, or that minor indiscretion with Sarah the Slut at last year's New Year's Eve party.
   
3. In the rare case that you actually like your marriage counselor, immediately begin complaining about her. The more you complain, the more your wife will think the counselor is doing a fine job.
   
4. Try to moderate your bad habits for a couple weeks at the onset of counseling. Bring your wife flowers and chocolate. If you can stand it, try to watch Oprah and the Lifetime Channel together, at least twice a week.
   
5. Avoid lesbian marriage counselors at all costs. They won't succumb to your manly charm, are notoriously hard-headed and nearly impossible to bribe.

I'm not saying that these five tips will turn your counseling into a walk in the park. That's impossible. Marriage counseling, by it's very nature, is a brutal, take-no-prisoners assault on your manhood. It's designed to break you down and reshape you into the wimpy, neutered wuss that your wife has always wanted for a husband. What I am saying is that by following these rules, you might, just might, come out of counseling with your manhood and dignity intact. Ignore them at your own peril.

Don't be a cheapskate! Buy Milo Samardzija's book, "Schoolboy," now - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Can't Sleep, Part II

The alarm rings at six, but I'm already awake. I never fell asleep even after I went back to bed. Just lay there thinking.

I get up, shower, down a cup of coffee, drive my Younger Daughter to school, and follow the school bus down the Eisenhower, across Austin Avenue and up Lake Street to Oak Park High School. I'm in a daze from lack of sleep, but as soon as I enter the old field house, I perk up. Something about me and sports.

I hang around George Jackson. His daughter runs the 800. Nice guy. I did a double take first time he told me his name. I wondered if his parents named him for the Soledad prisoner immortalized by Dylan ("Sometimes I think this whole world is a big prison yard, some of us are prisoners, the rest of us are guards"). But he was born before that George Jackson was famous.

I enjoy watching the meet with him. We talk to the girls as they run past. Give them advice. Like, don't go out too fast. Or, now's the time to make your kick. Not that anyone can hear us. We're mostly saying it to ourselves.

After an hour, he's got to go and I'm by myself. I scan the crowd for my buddies -- Ray, Bill, Daddy Dee. They're not here. I'm a little disappointed. Half the fun of going to these meets is talking to my friends.

I head over to Coach Caldow. But he's deeply focused on tracking the times. So I start talking to this random dude at the scorers table. I'm not sure who he is -- coach, parent, volunteer? He doesn't say anything, so it becomes a game: How much do I have to talk before he responds? I got time -- it's a track meet. They go all day.

Pointing to an article in today's paper, I tell him it's amazing that so many people are seeing "Friday the 13th."

"It's the number one movie in the country -- did like $47 million. I thought it was a Depression. How can people have enough money to see Friday the 13th?"

Silence.

"How many "Friday the 13th"s have there been? Eight, nine -- ten? You'd think they'd run out of plots...."

The girls line up for the 800.

"The girl to watch is Raena Rhone. She's the tall girl in -- I think it's the third lane. She's an amazing runner -- watch her...."

The gun sounds. Raena shoots out to the lead. It's like she doesn't really run so much as glides around the track -- makes it look so easy as she wins going away.

"I told you -- that's the girl," I say to the guy. "Remember her name. Raena Rhone. Years from now you can tell everyone that you saw her run way back when. You can even say you discovered her. You don't even have to give me credit...."

I get a half smile from him when I say that.

On the way home, I nearly fall asleep at the wheel. We're waiting for a red light at the intersection of Pulaski and Irving. A car horn blasts me awake.

I get home and head upstairs to my bedroom. I open a novel -- "Water for Elephants." It's about this veterinarian school dropout who runs away with the circus. I glance at the clock -- 2:45.

I open the book....

I snap awake. The book's lying across my face. I sit up and look at the clock -- 4:45. Damn, two hours!

I try to get up, but my head's still foggy. I told you, those sleepless nights will haunt you all day.

Letter From Milo: And The Award Goes To...

This is our post for Monday, February 23, 2009 - ignore the default post date indicated above

I've lost interest in the movies over the years. I don't go as often as I used to and when I do plop down ten or more bucks for a movie I always lament the fact that I could have bought a good paperback for less.

There are several reasons for my lack of interest, but I suppose the two main reasons are the actors and special effects. The biggest male stars in cinema today, in my opinion, are little more grown-up child stars, pretty boys who lack the necessary gravitas to carry off some of the roles they play. Actors like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, etc. seem to have stepped off the pages of Seventeen magazine and onto the big screen, without having lived any sort of life other than in front of the camera. Their faces don't betray any signs that life has been anything other than sweet to them.

I don't mean to seem like a curmudgeon, but when I think about actors like Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, or Clark Gable, I think of faces that reflect the realities of life. I can imagine sharing a foxhole with Bogart, working on an assembly line with Tracy, or having a shot and beer with Gable. The only thing I can imagine doing with Brad Pitt is asking if he would care to swap wives for the weekend.

Special effects have also ruined the movies for me. Everything seems to be done by animation, computerized wizardry, or some other devilish technology. Car chases, bombs blasts, entire cities destroyed by meteors, terrorists, or aliens from distant galaxies, are all generated by coffee-fueled geeks sitting in front of computer monitors. I don't even know why they use actors anymore. As for stunt men, they're a dying breed, spending more time in unemployment line than in front of movie cameras.

That said, my wife and I are preparing to go to an Oscar party tonight at Simon and Beth's house. It's an annual affair with plenty of great food, an overabundance of alcohol and good company. As much as I grouse about going to this party, I actually enjoy attending. I don't get out as often as I used to and this party is a chance to socialize, renew acquaintances, and make new ones.

The only thing I don't like about the party is that there is a mandatory Oscar pool. Everyone puts in five bucks and fills out a form picking the winners in a dozen categories. The person who picks the most winners collects all the money. I've never even come close to winning and I don't expect to do any better this year. I've only seen one of the nominated films and wasn't impressed with it. I can't even remember who was in it, what it was about, or whether it was in black and white or color.

As we get ready ready to go to the party, my lovely wife and I have our traditional pre-party discussion.

"Do me a favor, don't drink too much tonight."

"I'll try to restrain myself."

"Last year you got drunk and pinched Sarah on the ass."

"I was hoping you'd forgotten that."

"And don't tell any of your dirty jokes, either."

"Some people enjoy them."

"Just you and Steve, and that's because he's usually drunk, too. Everybody else is just grossed out."

"Jeez, why don't I just stay home."

"One last thing, don't start any arguments, please."

"When did I start an argument?"

"Last year and the year before."

"God, you've got a hellacious memory."

"And stay away from that slut, Sarah."

"Anything you say dear."

What surprises me is how seriously some of the people at the party take the Oscars. The immortal wit, Oscar Levant, once said that ballet is like baseball for fairies. The same can be said for the Oscars. It's like the Super Bowl for cinemaphiles. God forbid I make some remark, which I probably will, denigrating the occasion. I'll get ugly looks from half the people in the room and insults from the other half, which will not bother me in the least. I enjoy provoking people.

Still, I have to be careful. If I get completely out of line or offend too many people I might not get invited back to the party next year. And, as I mentioned earlier, I don't get out as often as I used to. I'd hate to cross Simon and Beth's Oscar party off my social calendar.

Big Mike: Franny's Life

Written Saturday, February 21, 2009

Good old Franny. My sis. Died a little more than a year ago. A day like today makes me think of her.

It's windy, snowy, and cold. The lawns are turning white. Louisville drivers are slipping and sliding all over the road as well as any environs within 30 yards of the pavement. Franny loved winter. This weather would have made her smile. She'd wrap herself in a comforter, slip an old movie into the DVD player, and act as though she were appearing in a Swiss Miss cocoa commercial.

I, on the other hand, despise winter worse than all the other ills that have plagued humankind since the dawn of recorded history. I'd tell Franny that I dream of moving to California so I won't have to put up with snow and ice and the hour and half of daylight of a typical January day. I'd tell her I crave spring and summer.

"Oh no," Franny would say. "You can't really enjoy spring unless you've experienced winter." Which, to me, is like saying I can't wait to serve a 10-year prison sentence because I'll be elated the day I'm released.

Franny took her pleasures wherever and whenever she could. She came from that generation of women who were, well, screwed by society and the times. She was born in 1938 and attended St. Giles elementary school and Notre Dame high school for girls. She was the kind of schoolgirl the nuns loved to hate. Sassy, rebellious, free with her opinions, she listened as more than a few nuns predicted a dire future for her. The women of the habit were certain she was on a one-way ride to cigarette-smoking, hot-rod-riding, liquor-guzzling, girl-gang membership, and, for all I know, membership in the communist party.

Funny thing was, they weren't so far off the mark. She was among the first of her peers to light up, go drag racing down North Avenue near Skip's Fiesta Drive-In, and drink alcohol. She didn't join a girl gang only because she couldn't find any. As for the communist party, she didn't care one way or the other.

Despite her teenaged moral turpitude, Franny got married when she was 20 to a nice boy named Bob. All Bob wanted was a comfortable home and the company of scads of children. By the time Franny was 24, she and Bob had four of them. They added another four years later.

With enough progeny to field a basketball team, Franny entered the 1970s harried, exhausted, and feeling a profound sense of emptiness. She was smart and ambitious enough to have gone to college and made a career for herself. But that option was as anathema to her neighborhood and the nuns who schooled her as if she'd become the Premier of the Soviet Union. Maybe worse.

Franny yearned to be well-read. She began to admire Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda, women who spoke up and did things. She found herself disgusted by the Vietnam War and racism. Only she was too busy wiping snotty noses to do anything about them.

When bright, accomplished women who were five and ten years younger appeared on TV, women who were able to take advantage of all the new freedoms of the era, Franny would sigh audibly. She wanted so much more than what she had.

Eventually, that longing morphed into a desire for change of any kind, no matter the repercussions. And believe me, there were repercussions when she took a part-time job as a bartender at The Foxy Lady on Madison Street to help pay the mortgage on a new home. The bar was in Chicago's all-black West Side. One night, a man named Julian walked into the joint as Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" played on the jukebox. Franny fell for him instantly.

Oh yeah, repercussions. Her affair with Julian cost her a husband, much of her childhood family, most of her friends, her neighborhood, and quite nearly her life. Soon after Julian had moved in with Franny on Marmora Avenue just off Grand Avenue, her home was shot up with high-powered rifles. It's 50/50 whether the shooters were local racists turned rabid by the presence of a black man on the block or the kin of the wife Julian had left behind in Cabrini-Green.

Franny and Julian got married across the street from City Hall in 1978 by a preacher wearing a white suit, white shoes, and a wide brimmed white hat with an enormous red feather in it. His "chapel," a cramped, dusty office in a building slated to be demolished, was wall-papered with aluminum foil and had immense pictures of Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King, Jr. on the front wall. A hidden tape deck played Marvin Gaye in the background. I was the best man.

Julian was gone by 1981. In the weirdest of ironies, he excelled in every vice that Franny's appalled, petrified family and friends had told her black men were known for. Franny never let on that he was a drunk, a philanderer, couldn't hold a job, and that he punched her like Sugar Ray Leonard when she displeased him. She never wanted them to think that they'd been right. She even hid it all from me.

She somehow rid herself of Julian even after he'd held her hostage at knifepoint one harrowing night. After that, Franny swore she was finished with men. She devoted the rest of her life to her kids and grandkids. She baked pies, cakes, and cookies enough to feed armies. She worked for days to prepare seafood gumbo, fried calamari, shrimp scampi, caponata, homemade bread and more on Christmas Eve and lasagna, ham, and lamb on Easter. She spent every dime she had on presents. Anybody who wanted could stay overnight. She was atoning.

When she was diagnosed with terminal cancer six years ago, she began to wonder if there's a heaven. If there is, I hope it's windy, snowy, and cold for her.

Benny Jay: Can't Sleep

I wake at 2:45 in the morning. Can't sleep. Go to the bathroom. Come back to bed. Still can't sleep. Think about a conversation I had seven hours ago with a 61-year-old man whose father used to be a Congressman. He's going through his dead father's papers, thousands and thousands of papers. He's got them in a storage facility on the south side of Chicago.

I think about -- what else? -- the Bulls. They won tonight -- or last night. Beat Denver. 117-99. Or was it 116-99? I think about who scored what: Gordon 37, Thomas: 22. Or was it 21?

I look at the clock. It's three. Seems like an hour's passed, but it's only ten minutes.

There's two kinds of sleeplessness. The kind where you can't fall asleep. And this....

The dog's restless. Her tags rattle as she licks her paws. Sounds as loud as a snow plow in the dead of night. I hear my Wife gently breathing. Who can sleep with this racket?

I get out of bed, find my slippers and head downstairs. My throat's parched. I need some water. Must have been that barbecue sauce we had at the Korean restaurant. Too salty. Gotta cut back on the salt.

There's a stack of newspapers on the kitchen table. I read about the acquittal of three men in Moscow for killing a journalist. I read about Obama's housing bailout. I read about the budget crisis in the state of California.

I look out the window. It's starting to snow. My Mother told me we were gonna get snow. Said we'd get 12 inches. She knows all about the weather cause she watches cable TV. Everything I know about the weather I learn from conversations with my mom.

I read a book about Reconstruction called Capitol Men. I think about that journalist in Russia. Can't get her out of my mind. I look her up on the Internet. Her name is Anna Politkovskaya. She covered war, crime, and corruption. Someone shot her in the head as she was leaving her apartment building. It might have been a hit ordered by the Russian mob or maybe the government.

I look out the window. Snow's falling faster. It's 4:45. My day officially starts in less than two hours. Got to drive my Younger Daughter to a track meet.

That's the worst part about sleeplessness. It haunts you all day....

To be continued....

Big Mike: My Head Hurts

One of the most emotionally powerful scenes I've seen in a movie features Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mark Wahlberg in "Boogie Nights." Hoffman plays the pudgy, nerdy, effeminate Scotty J. and Wahlberg is Dirk Diggler, possessor of a titanic asset most cherished in the porn industry.

The two are at an LA party. Scotty is emboldened by alcohol to express his secret feelings for Dirk. Outside the party, Scotty tries to kiss Dirk and is rebuffed. The camera lingers on Scotty for the next few minutes as he deals with his humiliation. He pounds the steering wheel of his car. He calls himself names. He sobs. Finally, he yells out, "Why am I so stupid?"

How many times have you wanted to yell out the same line? Not many of us have suffered unrequited love for a human tripod, as Scotty did, but time and again all of us have wanted to hit ourselves over the head with a skillet because we've done something spectacularly idiotic.

That was your humble blogger Tuesday night. See, I normally have a rule: don't get into political arguments in bars. Arguing with guys who are half in the bag is a fool's endeavor. And political discourse today has been transformed by TV and talk radio into a professional wrestling match where your guy is the upholder of all that is righteous and good while the opponent is a comic book character bent on the destruction of America. Yelling and personal attacks are de rigueur.

It was Trivia night and Team Gorlock was cleaning up. Here's one I'll bet you didn't know - which country is the world's largest producer of bananas? (The answer is at the end of this post.) Skip the Trombonist and I got that one wrong but not too much else.

We were feeling pretty good about life when in walked Captain Billy, fueled by his normal rage and, perhaps, a libation or four. The Captain generally is angry about illegal Mexican immigration, Indians and Pakistanis who are swiping IT jobs from good Americans, and, in his own inimitable words, "all those fuckin' towelheaded bastards."

His dudgeon lies just beneath the surface at all times. Mention the words poblano peppers to him and he'll launch into a screed about how the best way to stem the tide of illegal immigration is simply to pick off Mexicans one by one with high-powered rifles as they scuttle across the deserts of the Southwest.

Captain Billy's heroes are few but he's in thrall to the bilious Lou Dobbs ("Now there's the man who should be president.") and the mad Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County ("He doesn't give a shit about all the scum.")

Now you might think I'd be smart enough to refrain from matching wits with such a thoughtful observer of the human condition. And usually I am. Captain Billy operates under the notion that I'm always eager to hear his opinions. He'll catch me early on a Monday morning, say, when I'm rolling the garbage can out to the roadside. As the cardinals and the mockingbirds begin to announce their presence, the Captain finds it necessary to dash out of his house and explain to me that the best way to get politicians to become responsive to their constituencies is to have dedicated patriots sneak up behind a few of them as they leave their homes in the morning "and put bullets in their heads. Then we'll see 'em start listening."

Naturally, I do not offer counterpoint because, well, what am I gonna say? Golly Captain Billy, maybe we oughta try the ballot box first?

So, the Captain lugged his steamer trunkful of grievances into Dick's Pizza midway through Trivia. He ranted loudly about the world in general, then the French, then his wife - his favorite bullseye. At one point, he slammed his palm down on the bar and declared Andy the Trivia-meister "an incompetent fuck."

By this time, Skip and I, in a futile effort to ward off the onslaught, were huddled together like early-20th Century immigrants on the deck of an ocean liner entering New York harbor.

It was between the second and third rounds of the game when I forgot my own rule. A clip of Barack Obama flashed on the big TV screens. He was explaining one or another plan to delay financial armageddon. The mere sight of the president's face drove the Captain to an even higher level of fury. "Look at 'im," he barked. "This no-good, messianic, narcissistic asshole. He's worse than all the rest of 'em!"

This was followed by a string of garden-variety pejoratives and expletives. Then, as if a light bulb had flashed on above his head, the Captain delivered his biggest indictment of Obama. "He's lettin' that crazy bitch from California run all over 'im!"

He meant, of course, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is telling Obama what to do. A man allowing a woman to tell him what to do is the foulest entry in Captain Billy's list of abominations.

Here's where I said, Screw it! I launched into a defense of Obama that for sheer volume and spirit matched the Captain's own retorts. Diners lowered their heads and began eating faster. Skip did his best to shush us. Eventually, the bartender came around and warned us to keep it down.

The Captain still had to get in the last word. "Your problem," he said to me, "is that you try to make everybody who disagrees with you look like they're crazy."

Give me credit. I caught the words, No, only you, before they could escape my lips. After a few minutes, the Captain offered me a ride home. I quickly came up with an excuse not to go with him. Later, Andy the Trivia-meister drove me home. Poor guy. Through the whole ride he had to put up with me hitting my forehead with a fist and repeating the words, "Why am I so stupid?"

Trivia answer: India! Who knew?

Benny Jay: A Night At The Club

At eight o'clock I drive over to the health club. I'd been planning to go there all night. But the phone kept ringing and one call led to another and by seven I didn't have the energy to move. I thought about skipping my work out. But I figure -- I'm paying for this membership, might as well use it.

To tell you the truth, I'm not really a health-club kind of guy. Usually just run in the park. But my Younger Daughter needed a track to run during the winter and they were offering a deal and so in November, in the midst of the worst economic breakdown since the Great Depression, I signed up. If there's a dumber man in America, I haven't met him....

It's nearly empty when I get there. All the yuppies have gone home. I drag myself up to the running track and push myself through a mile and a half. I pick up the dumbbells and go through the motions of lifting them. And that's it. I'm so freaking tired I can barely keep my eyes open.

I walk to the locker room and head to the back to wash up and there's this fat, hairy naked guy blocking the ways. He's standing at the center mirror, his faced lathered with shaving cream, and he's talking on the phone. He's really loud, too. He's talking to some guy named Larry. He's going: "Larry, Larry -- listen to me, Larry...."

I don't want to listen but he's so loud I have no choice. I don't want to stare. But I can't resist. It's not often you see a guy this fat and that naked talking on the phone while shaving.

I take my shower. I put on my clothes and I'm heading for the door when I pass the big-screen locker-room TV and I see some guy is interviewing Craig Ferguson, the late-night talk show hows. So you have one talk-show host interviewing another talk-show host. I look closer at the interviewer and I think: Isn't that Michael Eisner? Yes, that is Michael Eisner. What's he doing with a cable-TV talk show? And how did I not know that he was doing this? I'm usually up on these things. And why would he even want to host a cable-TV talk show? You figure a big shot like Eisner -- former head of Walt Disney and all -- would want to do the talking, not the listening. I mean, Ferguson should be interviewing Eisner; that would make a lot more sense. And you can see that Eisner looks impatient, almost irritated, like it's a deal-pitch meeting and he can't wait for Ferguson to get to the point.

I sit in the big, soft, comfy leather chair to listen. The camera keeps zooming in and out focusing on Ferguson's hands. Sometimes it focuses on Eisner's hands. It's starting to annoy me. What's with the camera zooming in on the hands.....

I must have drifted off. I snap awake to see that Ferguson's gone and Eisner's interviewing Stan Lee, the old comic book artist. He's got to be like, I don't know, a million years old. But he's all peppy and full of big ideas. He's telling Eisner that he's got about a zillion projects going at once, including a comic-book movie featuring Paris Hilton. Eisner keeps asking these patronizing questions, like where does a man your age find his energy to have so many deals, like the old fart should be in a nursing home or something. I can see Eisner's really envious of Lee, like he's thinking: What the hell am I doing hosting this stupid cable-TV talk show? I should be making deals with Paris Hilton. I'm Michael freakin' Eisner!

The fat guy walks by. He's still talking on the phone -- talking to Larry -- but at least he's dressed.

Then and there I decide that I'm gonna be like Stan Lee as I grow old. I'll have a million projects, including deals with starlets, going at once. I feel a burst of energy -- my first burst of energy all day. Forget the economic depression -- my life's just getting started.

Letter From Milo: A Boy Named Who?

(posted Wednesday, February 18, 2009)

I once knew a boy named Sue. He was an Asian kid who went to my high school. His actual name was Soo, but I'm proceeding phonetically here.

There were a lot of funny names in my school. Many of the students were immigrants or children of immigrants, whose names consisted of odd combinations of consonents and vowels, strung together in ways that the Anglo-Saxon mind had trouble deciphering. I don't have a copy of my high school yearbook but, if memory serves, the roster of students' names would have baffled a Harvard linguist. I doubt if William Safire could pronounce half of the names correctly.

My name, Milo Samardzija, was near the top of the list of tongue-twisting appellations. It wasn't the worst, by any means, but it was close. There was only one teacher that ever got my name right on the first try and that was because she was descended from the same part of the Balkans that my family escaped from. The rest of the school's staff mangled my name for weeks or months before getting it right. One old fart, a drunkard who to tried to teach English, never got it right. He eventually gave up, resorting to saying Hey you or pointing at me when my participation was required.

It was during high school that I grew to hate my name. I envied people with names like Smith, Jones, or Johnson. Wouldn't it be great, I thought, to have a name with only one or two syllables? I had a distant relative in Milwaukee who changed his name from Rade Samardzija to Rudy Summers. I remember asking my dad if he had ever considered changing or shortening our last name. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "That's a stupid fucking question if I ever heard one."

As bad as I felt about my own name, I felt almost as bad for other students who had unpronounceable or awkward names, like Aphrodite Baffalukis, Predrag Bielopetrovich, Shlomo Finklestein, Scotty Queerman, and George Shitz. We were brothers and sisters united in humiliation, fellow travelers on the road to ridicule. How we got out of high school with our sanity and self-esteem intact is beyond me. In my case, I don't think I did.

Things only got worse when I was drafted into the US Army. If educated high school teachers couldn't pronounce my name then what could I expect from barely literate drill instructors? But, again, I wasn't alone. There were plenty of others in my basic training company with terrible names. I remember one guy in particular, an Armenian, with a name so complicated that it took the combined efforts of two sergeants and a Second Lieutenant to just come close to pronouncing it. In the end, they resorted to calling him Alphabet. The poor kid was so traumatized that he eventually deserted, defecting, I believe, to Huimanguillo, Mexico, Ikaluktutiak, Canada, or somewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I caught a huge break a couple of years ago when the Chicago Cubs drafted a young pitcher out of Notre Dame named Jeff Samardzija. When he made it to the big leagues last year and radio and TV announcers began broadcasting his name, it changed my life. Suddenly, people began pronuncing my name correctly - on the first try. I was no longer a Hey You, Alphabet, Whatchamacallit, or That Guy. I was a somebody, with a real name, a name that, at least on the North Side, was not so strange after all. It was a life-changing experience, liberating me from the purgatory of the bad-name-afflicted. I hope Jeff Samardzija has a long and successful career with the Cubs and never does anything to dishonor the noble name of Samardzija. After all, if someone with the fine, upstanding name like Bartman can be brought down, it can happen to anybody.

One thing about having an odd name is that it made me appreciate other odd names. In fact, I've become a connoiseur of awkward appellations. I've even compiled a short list of some of my favorite names, in various categories, that I take pleasure in hearing and saying. I'd like to share them with you.

• Politics: Dick Devine
  
• Football: Terdell Middleton
  
• Baseball: Pete LaCock
  
• Exotic Dancing: Ineeda Mann
  
• Statesmen: Zbigniew Bzrezinski
  
• Rock 'n' Roll (tie): Howard Futterman and the Amish Playboys and Skid Marx and the Excrementals

If you, faithful readers, have any favorite odd names, feel free to suggest them in the comment section of this blog. We just might post them someday.

Big Mike: The In Crowd

Which version of the song did you like? More than a dozen artists have covered "The In Crowd." If you're our age, you'll remember the chart hits done in early 1965 by Dobie Gray and later in the same year by the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Acts as disparate as the Ventures, the Mamas and the Papas, Bryan Ferry, Joe Jackson, and Quincy Jones have also recorded the tune.

I'm in with the in crowd and I know what the in crowd knows....

Now's your chance to become part of the new in-crowd. Our crowd. Be a permanent member of The Third City gang. Don't miss a single post.

Anytime of the year, don't you hear? If it's square, we ain't there....

Here's what you do - scroll down below the Who We Are blurb and find the Follow This Blog link. Click it. That's it! You're in!

I don't care where you've been, you ain't been nowhere till you you've been in....

As a Third City in-crowder, you get to read some pretty damned good writing by some of the best journalists, authors, and other scribes in this crazy mixed-up city. For free! Oh, and you'll be able to  read my stuff, too. Take advantage now - if this thing takes off, believe me, we're gonna try to soak every penny we can out of you!

Other guys imitate us, but the original is still the greatest - in crowd!

Benny Jay: Valentine's Day

At eight o'clock, I get the call from my younger daughter: She's on a bus bound from Ann Arbor to Chicago and it's racing through Gary.

Damn, that bus is going faster than I expected. I thought I'd have time to grab a bite to eat. But now I gotta fly....

So my wife and I hop into the car and hurdle down Ashland. To Elston. To Milwaukee. To Grand. To Halsted. Like a halfback running for daylight, looking for the street with the least amount of traffic. We're moving pretty good. Past Chicago Avenue. Under the elevated tracks at Lake Street. Until -- wham -- we hit a wall of traffic at Washington.

It's Greektown on a Saturday night and the joint is jumping. Like the whole city's coming down to eat. Outside of the restaurants, drivers race out of their cars and valets race in, u-turning across two lanes of traffic. As my buddy, Ed, would put it: It's a cluster-fuck.

So I make a quick turn down Monroe over the expressway and into the western end of the Loop. I'm gonna turn right on Jefferson. "Don't," says my wife. "It's one way...."

"Oh, yeah...."

"Why would you turn the wrong way down a one-way street?"

I have no answer. So I do the best thing -- I don't answer.

We got to Wacker and over to Jackson and up to Canal, where we wait for the bus.

I turn on the radio and hop from station to station: Oldies, Dusties, Disco, Rock. Nothing good. I turn off the radio. I'm still thinking about turning the wrong way into traffic.

The bus drops off our daughter and we head back to Greektown on Madison.

"Turn left at Halsted," says my wife.

I move into the right lane.

"No, I said left," says my wife.

"No, you said right," says my daughter.

But my daughter's wrong. My wife did say left. So why would I turn right when she said left? Just like why would I go the wrong way down a one-way street? Is it my age-old battle against dyslexia? I always had trouble reversing letters -- especially the e and the i. Even now I couldn't tell you how to spell yield.

Or am I losing my mind? Is this the first step toward senility? I got to eat more carrots. Or is it spinach? Damn, what the hell is it that you're supposed to eat to fight off senility?

Maybe I'm just hungry. Low blood sugar, or whatever's low when you're hungry. It's genetic. My whole family gets ornery when we get hungry. Especially my sister. Man, you don't want to go near my sister when she gets hungry. That girl will snap you're head off....

"Let's eat at the Greek Isles," says my wife.

We were going to eat cheap, but I'm too hungry to protest. I double park on Halsted. My wife runs in and out. "It's a 90-minute wait," she says.

"Damn, I thought we were in a Depression," I said.

"It's Valentine's Day," says my wife. "No cooks on Valentine's Day. Even in a Depression...."

We stop by the Parthenon. But the line's so long, it comes out the door. My daughter calls an Italian restaurant on Ashland. They tell her they're not taking anymore reservations for the night.

Where can we eat! I want to cry. But I hold my tongue. I'm not going to say anything cause anything I say will come out nasty. And I don't want to have a fight on Valentine's Day.

So I hit the highway and we get off at Elston and drive to California and wind up eating at this taco joint near Belmont. It's got this ugly fluorescent light that makes your face look green. I realize my daughter is staring at my forehead.

"What are you looking at?" I ask.

"You're breaking out," she says.

"No, I'm not...."

"Yes, you are -- isn't he, mom?"

My wife scrutinizes my forehead.

"It's a pimple -- everyone gets pimples....."

"But you're over fifty," says my daughter.

"People get pimples when they're over fifty -- what you don't think people get pimples after fifty?"

"Not like that...."

My wife leans over, pushes up my hair and moves in close like she's a jeweler eying a diamond.

"Stop looking at my pimples," I say.

"It's that hat," says my wife, referring to a cap my oldest daughter gave me. "It's too small. His head can't breathe...."

"But how do you explain the pimples on his forehead?" asks my daughter.

"Okay," I say. "Stop talking about my pimples...."

I order the Chicken Mole and my wife gets the steak (my daughter doesn't order anything cause she ate a big lunch in Michigan). I fall on my food. I mean, I'm just wolfing down that chicken. Every now and then my wife throws me a chunk of steak. And I mop up the Mole sauce with my tortilla until my plate is almost clean. It's one of those things where I eat so fast cause I was so freaking hungry that I still feel hungry even though I'm full.

I tell myself to take a deep breath. Breathe, baby, breathe. Life's gonna drive you crazy if you don't learn to breathe.

Big Mike: The Spirit Life

People seem to think bartenders live a glamorous, exciting life. They meet fascinating people. They hear the most riveting stories. They're seduced by attractive members of the opposite sex.

Maybe.

I spent a year setting 'em up for the Nardini boys at Club Lago in the tony River North neighborhood earlier this decade. Mind you, if a bartender were to live a glamorous, exciting life, River North would be the place to do it.

We had our share of celebs. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins loved the place. The painter Ed Paschke held frequent dinner meetings at a corner table. Photographer Marc Hauser blustered in on a regular basis. News anchor and television producer Bill Kurtis ate there a couple of times a week.

The elder of the Nardinis, Giancarlo, once walked Kurtis to the door. "I hope you liked it," Giancarlo said. Kurtis turned to him dramatically and, in that famous authoritative, stentorian voice, issued the proclamation, "We love it." Giancarlo scratched his head as he came back behind the bar. "He was alone," the boss said. "Was he using the royal we?"

The restaurant even was featured in a key scene in the movie "Mad Dog and Glory," a Robert De Niro vehicle that was about as memorable as a case of hiccups.

Since it was a good Italian eatery in a trendy district, Club Lago drew its share of sports stars. One night, the head coach of the Blackhawks came in with his wife. Giancarlo, a maniacal hockey fan, almost screamed like a teenaged girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. Patrons and staff were puzzled by the fuss. As a Chicago celebrity, the coach of the Blackhawks ranks between the Recorder of Deeds and the ice cream man. I don't remember his name; for all I know, his wife forgets it too.

Former Bears quarterback Bob Avellini once graced the joint with his business. For the sports-impaired, A Chicago ordinance bars the pro football team from employing competent quarterbacks. Avellini was as pedestrian as any passer in Bears history. Still, customers flocked around him at the end of the bar. Avellini stood as erect as a victorious Roman general charioting back into the city.

Baffled by the idolatry, I pulled aside a fellow named Mr. Darby, one of the most fevered of the flock bleating around the retired jock.

I quietly asked him, "You know that's Bob Avellini, don't you?"

"Of course," he gushed, "isn't it great?"

A brief tangent. That night's Avellini-mania was further proof that Americans value celebrity above all things. If a person is somehow lucky enough to be caught, even briefly, on a television camera, his or her life is deemed fulfilled. To wit: my nice Sheila brought her 12-year-old son to the Barack Obama victory rally in Grant Park on election night. One of the ten bazillion CNN camera crews found the kid and asked him his thoughts. He told the nation that it was an historic occasion. Cut to commercial. The rest of the family hasn't stopped talking about his six seconds of fame since. I expect him to be using the royal we soon.

Back to the point. Despite the romance engendered by caricatures like Billy Goat's in Chicago, the fictional Cheers in Boston, and Joe Bell's from "Breakfast at Tiffany's," a tavern is really nothing more than a church for drunks. I swiftly adopt a local bar in every neighborhood I move into. For the first few months, I'm giddy over my new friends whom I can depend on seeing any night of the week. Like the ideal family, they're always there for me. Eventually, though, I realize that they're not there for me but for the booze. I become disillusioned until I discover a new bar family.

So, where can I go to be surrounded by kindred souls? I haven't the foggiest notion but I continue to look. The only other place in the modern world where people regularly gather and commune is, well, church itself. I can't figure out which is the sillier addiction: god or alcohol.

As for the glamor of a bartender's life, by the time I left Club Lago, I was sick to death of stinking like cigarette smoke and being told what a great guy I was time and again, time and again, time and again. In a bar, a compliment can be nothing more than a verbal tic.

I'd been able to buy both a laptop and a car in cash, though. Paid my rent that way too. Pocketing a thick wad of bills every night is a powerful draw for the profession. Money, like sex, drives us.

Speaking of sex, I never was seduced by a ravishing beauty when I was a bartender. It didn't seem quite fair, capitalizing on the fact that she might have had four cosmopolitans in her. It reminded me of the old Woody Allen line: I never like to play to a roomful of people high on pot - they'll laugh at anything.

Letter From Milo: A Misspent Youth

It was either Mark Twain or Herbert Spencer who claimed, A proficiency at billiards is a sign of a misspent youth. If that's the case, then my formative years were a colossal waste of time. Between the ages of 15 and 18, if I wasn't in school or at home, I could be found in a poolroom called The Club on 5th Avenue near Broadway in Gary.

At the time I didn't consider playing pool a frivolous activity. In my neck of the woods, learning to shoot pool, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and acquit yourself honorably in a street fight were hallmarks of a well rounded education. I never did become a good street fighter (something about a yellow streak) but I did excel at smoking and drinking, a skill set that has served me well to this very day.

I also became a pretty good pool player, not great, but good enough to hustle a few bucks now and then. I played all the games, 9-ball, 8-ball, straight pool, rotation, one-pocket, and pea pool but my money game was snooker. At the tender age of 17 I won $52 in a marathon snooker contest against an old man we called The Admiral, because he always wore one of those cheesy yachting caps favored by Elvis and Count Basie.

I lost interest in playing pool around my 18th birthday. There were three reasons I gave up the game:

• I got seriously interested in girls. It's tough enough to get laid under any circumstances, but it's almost impossible when you hang around a poolroom all day.
  
• I had gotten as good as I was ever going to get. I had hit the proverbial wall and rather than trying to break through it or go around it, I decided to avoid it altogether.
  
• I came to the realization that being a "pretty good" pool player would have absolutely no effect on my future. Why waste any more time with such a silly game.

Boy, was I wrong about reason number three.

About 12 years later I was living in Chicago, scuffling to make a living as an editor, proofreader, and freelance writer and failing miserably at all three. Desperate for work, I answered a blind ad in the Chicago Tribune looking for an editor for a sporting magazine. To my astonishment, I got called in for an interview.

Let's call the person who interviewed me Bob. He was the owner and publisher of a group of poorly written, cheaply printed magazines that dealt with fringe sports like archery, table tennis, pinball, and, lo and behold, billiards. The position I was interviewing for was managing editor of Billiards Gazette.

Bob was an odd little man - twitchy, shifty eyed, and affected. The walls of his office were covered with autographed photos of celebrities, like Sinatra, John Wayne, and Raquel Welch but I noticed that all the autographs seemed to be signed by the same hand. He considered himself a titan of the publishing industry, a first cousin to Bennett Cerf. In reality he was a low-rent hustler. His publications were mainly vehicles for attracting advertising revenue. I doubt if circulation of any of the rags was more than 2,500 and those went mainly to the specific industry. I don't recall ever seeing any of them on a newsstand or gracing someone's coffee table.

Still, I desperately needed a job, and running a shlock magazine seemed to be as good a gig as any.

After a few moments of idle chatter, Bob asked, "Do you know anything about playing pool?"

"As a matter of fact I do."

"Are you sure?"

"Why would I lie?"

"To get this job," Bob smirked.

"You'll just have to take my word for it."

"No I don't," Bob said. "I'd rather see for myself. You have to know the game to run my magazine. Let's play a game of 8-ball."

It turned out that Bob had a pool table in his warehouse, a Brunswick that was in pretty good shape. He also had all of the accessories: chalk, hand powder, a bridge, and a rack of cues hanging on a wall. Now by that time, I played pool only four or five times a year, usually on tavern tables and usually when I was drunk. I was still a decent player but nowhere near the cocky young pool shark that I was at 17. I assumed Bob had to be good.

Nervous, I was relieved that Bob won the lag and went first. He broke, ran a few solids but missed a bank shot on the 4-ball and it was my turn. I suspected that he missed on purpose. It wasn't that hard of a bank shot and he seemed to be a better player than that. But the purpose of the game was to see if I could play, not to show off Bob's skills.

"Let's see what you've got, "he said, stepping away from the table.

I took a deep breath, stepped up to the table and played the game of my life. Like Toni Kucoc used to say, I vas in da zone. I didn't miss a shot and some of them were tough. I made long cuts, bank shots, and a combination. I felt like a kid again, on my way to beating some chump out of a few bucks. When I leaned over the table to line up my final shot, Bob reached over and picked up the 8-ball. He looked at me, nodded his head in approval and said, "When can you start?"

I ran the magazine for nearly a year. It was one of the more interesting periods of my life. I met a lot of pool hustlers, earned a decent buck and heard some great stories. My favorite story concerned Jackie Gleason and Paul Newman.

Gleason was a genuine pool shark. He learned to play as a kid on the mean streets of Brooklyn. As he used to tell it, his skill at pool helped him survive some very tough times. Paul Newman learned to play pool during the filming of "The Hustler," one of my all-time favorite movies. The director had hired Willie Mosconi, arguably the greatest player ever, to coach Newman. Newman actually became a pretty good player under Mosconi's tutelage. Unfortunately, he wasn't as good as he thought he was.

Shortly after Gleason's death, Newman was interviewed by a reporter who wanted to discuss the film and Newman's memories of Gleason. The interviewer asked if he and Gleason had ever played pool for money.

"Yes we did," Newman replied. "And I beat him two out of three games. I won the first two games for fifty bucks each and Jackie won the third game for five hundred."

A classic hustle, if you ask me.

Benny Jay: Howling At The Moon

I get a call at seven thirty or so from Norm. He's at the Bulls game with his stepdaughter, Audrey.

He tells me it's halftime and the Bulls are losing by eleven to Miami.

Damn! I hate Miami. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to face another Bulls loss. I can't take this season. Win one, lose one, win one, lose two -- the inconsistency is driving me nuts.

Norm starts in about Ben Gordon: too short, can't play d, can't dribble....

I can't take it anymore. I love Ben Gordon.

We hang up. I get busy. Time passes. I forget about the Bulls.

I go to the kitchen to have a delicious glass of chocolate milk.

I turn on the radio. There's six seconds left in the game. Bulls down by three. And Ben Gordon has been fouled in the act of shooting a three-point shot. Can you believe this! He's going to the free-throw line to shoot three free throws and possibly tie the game.

I turn off the radio. Too scared to listen. Then I think -- be a man! I turn it on again.

Gordon dribbles three times. Takes a Breath. Shoots. Good!

I pick up an orange and start tossing it in the air.

Gordon dribbles, breathes, shoots -- Good, again!

I close my eyes. I hold my breath. I cross my fingers. I say: "Please, please, please...."

Gordon breathes. Shoots. Good!

He did it. He did it. He did it. Ben Gordon tied the game!

I call Norm.

No answer.

I leave a message: "I told you not to hate on Ben...."

I rush back to the radio. Miami's inbounding the ball. Chalmers looks, looks, looks -- he throws it in. Intercepted by Hinrich. Bulls ball; Bulls ball.....

The crowd's howling. I'm howling. I call Norm. No answer. I jump up and down. I sing. I dance. I rework the Cubs fight song, which I sing as I loudly clap along: "Go, Bulls, go; go, Bulls, go -- hey, Chicago, what do you say, the Bulls are gonna win today...."

Nicky, the dog, comes into the kitchen. I pound her on the back: "The Bulls have the ball, Nicky; the Bulls have the ball....."

The commercial ends. The teams return to the court. Six seconds left. The Bulls have a chance to win the game.

Thabo Sefalosha's inbounding. He's looking to pass it in. He's looking.....

"Pass the ball," I yell.

He throws it away. Miami's ball. "Noooo!" I yell. "Noooooooo!"

I actually moan.

The phone rings. It's my older daughter calling from Iowa. She's been watching the game on TNT. "Can you believe this?" she says.

"They threw away the ball," I say.

"I know, but what a great game...."

"I can't believe Thabo threw it away...."

I don't wanna listen. But I do. Wade gets the ball. He throws it to Marion. He dunks. Bull lose.

I turn off the radio. I slump in a chair. I can't talk. Norm calls. But I'm too sad too talk. I walk the dog. I call my daughter. "I'll call you tomorrow," she tells me. "I'm going to a friend's...."

She's already over it -- she forgot about this game as soon as it was over. But not me. I can't forget.

I walk on. I don't even feel the cold. I take out my phone. I start to call Milo. I need to talk to someone. I'm halfway through dialing when I realize -- he goes to bed early. He's probably asleep. He's too smart to stay up late for this crap. I put away my phone and keep walking.

This love for the Bulls -- it's insane. It's irrational. I'm a lunatic. It's a curse.

I make a decision. That's it. It's over. No more. From here on out, I'm through with the Bulls.

I look at the moon and I howl....

Big Mike: A Guide For The Married Man

With The Loved One spending her weekdays in Bloomington, Indiana now, leaving me and the cats, Boutros and Terra, to our own devices, I've been thinking about the nature of marriage, love, relationships, and other forms of comedy.

TLO seems to be suffering more than we are. After all, she's sleeping in a sublet room, sharing an apartment with a cerebrum-on-legs grad student, while the cats and I have the run of the Louisville manor. We phone numerous times a day just to hear each others' voices. The conversations regularly seem to end up with one or both of us dewy-eyed.

I might think that would be the tale any married couple would tell in a similar situation but, of course, that isn't true at all. Take a couple of examples. My neighbor, Captain Billy, grants me the benefits of his wisdom as often as he can - that is, whenever her sees me before I can see him. The Captain has many fascinating ideas about husbandly duties and wifely obeisance.

He had much to say to me when he learned that I would drive TLO to work downtown every day before she jumped for saner pastures. We're a one-car family and I didn't want to be stuck without one. The Captain told me there was a perfectly good bus stop about a mile away and that my wife should have the decency to take that bus, thereby not putting me out and, besides, gas cost nearly four dollars a gallon at the time. "What the hell's wrong with her?" he demanded.

The Captain's family, being a normal Kentucky brood, has enough vehicles to open a used car lot. Everone in the family has a set of wheels. Hell, if Boutros and Terra lived with them, they'd have cars too. Normally, the Captain's wife drives her own car to work but at the time her car, a massive heap with a robust engine that serves as my alarm clock every morning, was on the fritz. Since the car has been in use since the Taft administration, it took weeks to find parts for it. Through those weeks, the Captain deigned only to drop his bride off at the bus stop, rather than haul her all the way to work (or, god forbid, let her use his car.)

For kicks, I decided to check the bus schedule to see how long her trip might be. It turned out she had to ride and hour and fifteen minutes each way. That bus, by the way, comes by every hour so woe unto her should she miss it.

I told the Captain that TLO might not reward me with a hug and a kiss if I suggested such a scheme to her. The Captain recoiled as if I'd taken a swing at him. "You tell her to take the bus," he advised. "You don't ask her."

Naturally, if I'd ever approach the delicate flower in that manner, I'd be the one recoiling from a flurry of swings.

I merely laughed off the Captain's advice and he walked away probably convinced my testicles are the size of protons.

Now, example number two. Skip the Trombonist's wife slipped while walking down the stairs late last fall and broke her ankle so badly she had to have metal bolts surgically inserted. Since she'd be confined to a wheelchair for a couple of months, she decided to stay in Harrodsburg in her sister's one-story home.

One Tuesday, during our Trivia game (Skip and I are part of Team Gorlock) I asked him if he missed the love of his life. "Damned right I do," he replied. "The dishwasher's full, the litter box is overflowing, there's nothing in the refrigerator. Shit, the place is a mess."

"Have you cooed these words into her ear yet, you old Romeo?" I asked.

"Nah. Why should I? Nothin' she can do about it now," he said.

After growing up in a family and neighborhood where husbands and wives regarded each other as if they were operating under United Nations-imposed cease-fires, I can be forgiven for thinking The Loved One and I have a rather unique relationship. Then again, I think of friends like Danny and Sophia, Ben and Pam, Milo and Sharon, all of whom have been hitched for more than 20 years. And if their words are to be believed, none has ever even entertained the notion of having an innocent fling. They all seem to cherish and care for their cellmates.

Who are the oddballs? We who sorta like our cellmates or Captain Billy, Skip, and their respective helpmeets?

Note from Big Mike: Celebrate today! It's the 200th birthday of both Abie Baby Lincoln (the original cast recording of "Hair" was the first album I ever owned - if you get the reference, you are awfully cool) and Charles Darwin. Both gents believed in god, pretty much the only thing I can take issue with either of them.