The Third City

The Eds: Go Away!

2009-06-17T13:01:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-16T08:32:00.006-04:00

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

2009-06-15T10:59:00.021-04:00

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....

2009-06-14T10:06:00.009-04:00

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!

2009-06-13T11:29:00.014-04:00

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

2009-06-12T09:09:00.009-04:00

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

2009-06-11T09:00:00.011-04:00

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

2009-06-10T12:23:00.008-04:00

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

2009-06-09T09:41:00.018-04:00

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/

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

2009-06-08T09:23:00.009-04:00

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

2009-06-07T01:59:00.011-04:00

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

2009-06-06T11:44:00.007-04:00

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

2009-06-05T09:18:00.020-04:00

... 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

2009-06-04T08:53:00.011-04:00

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

2009-06-03T12:19:00.016-04:00

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...."

Big Mike: Ma, The Homewrecker

2009-06-02T10:22:00.007-04:00

When I was younger (read: the week before last), I operated under the assumption that all the puzzles, uncertainties, traumas, heartbreaks and flat-out stupid decisions that accompany romantic life would magically disappear once I'd reach a certain age.

From the age of 13, when I discovered the opposite sex (the thought of the young, long-haired, curvy Kathy Chelini still makes my breath catch) I realized that the irresistible urge to reach an understanding with a female for the two of us to provide each other with friendship, affection, wise counsel and occasional nudity was a journey fraught with landmines.

At that age I realized that the emotions, strategies and overall thought patterns of those members of homo sapiens sapiens whose cells carry 23 X chromosomes are utterly baffling to me. I concluded that it was difficult - if not impossible - to accurately gauge when and if a girl was interested in me and whether that interest might culminate in pal-hood or true love. And then, once the game rules had more or less been laid out, it became even more challenging to determine whether at any given point my new gal pal/love of my life was secretly angry, sad, resentful, bored or suddenly curious about that new guy who just moved into the neighborhood.

So, when it came to girls, at 13 I was lost. Suffering from blissful optimism, I assumed that I'd figure the whole thing out long before I was 20. But I was still lost at 18. As well as 21. And 25. Thirty-three. Forty-two. Fifty. Even as recently as this past weekend.

I'm not so clueless to think that the women of my life haven't also been dumbfounded by me. Heck, my chaotic, inscrutable psyche has left enough dazed girls and women in its wake to populate a small town.

Fair enough. Still, I foresee a time when I'll no longer be bewildered by the mating imperative and all its attendant jealousies and misconceptions. Now, the age of 60 seems a fairly good target. How many 60-year-olds do you see running around fretting over love? Certainly by the age of 70 my worries will be over. At 80, such concerns will be dim memories.

That's why the phone conversation I had with my mother yesterday nags at me.

Ma turns 88 this year. Born in 1921, she remembers streetcars and horse-drawn milk wagons. She has lived through Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination and 9/11. She's been toughened by life.

Yet she cried on the phone yesterday.

"Mike," she began dolefully, "I've been having trouble at church."

"Trouble at church!" I exclaimed. "How can you get into trouble at church? Whadja do, nail a list of theses to the door?"

"This isn't a joke!"

"Okay. Sorry. What happened."

"Well, there's this usher...."

Uh oh.

"... I think he likes me. He always goes out of his way to say hi to me. He flirts with me. He smiles at me. One time, during the collection, I had to dig for my envelope in my purse while he stood there holding the basket. He patted me on the shoulder and said, 'Don't worry, that's alright.' I think he liked standing next to me for so long."

"Well Ma, that's nice, isn't it?" I offered, trying to erase from my mind the image of a bent, wizened old buzzard lurking over my mother's pew.

"No it isn't! He's married!"

Oy.

"His wife knows what's going on. She watches us like a hawk. Now she's always giving me the evil eye. Every time I turn around, I see her staring at me. After mass, she stands at the back of the church and I have to pass right by her. It's so uncomfortable!

"Mike, I would never come between a man and his wife. She looks at me like I'm a hoor! It's getting to be too much. Ever since your father died, I've never even wanted to see another man. Now this woman thinks I'm trying to steal her husband."

With that, Ma began to weep.

"Ma, Ma, you can't let this lady get to you. It's her problem if she's jealous."

"I know," she said between sobs. "But she's friends with everybody at church. I don't want her telling everybody I'm a bad woman.

"It's gotten so bad, I even stayed away from church for a few weeks."

That's bad. Ever since Ma started catching sight of the end, she's been hedging her bets with the putative creator of the Universe, praying like a monk and attending mass, well, religiously. Now she's afraid to go to church and beg her god not to banish her to everlasting hell. All because of some jealous wife.

Has anybody ever figured this stuff out?

Benny Jay: You Shoulda Seen the 800

2009-06-01T12:49:00.017-04:00

I drive all the way to Eastern Illinois University to see the boys high school track and field championship.

It's a three-hour drive -- all the way to Charleston, Illinois. Hit the road at 7, get there at 10. What can I say -- I love this stuff.

Bobby Gee, the track guru who knows everything about everything, tells me I absolutely, positively can not miss the discus. They got two behemoths -- Dan Block and Marcus Popenfoose -- battling it out.

I'm not really a discus guy, but the way he's talking about it, well, how can I resist? The problem is that the discus is held outside the main stadium for all the obvious reasons. I mean, those big boys throw it so far there's no way you can have it in the stadium without someone getting hit upside the head with a discus. And, man, that must hurt.

So I go over the schedule and I come up with a great plan: I'll miss the 800-meter run and check out the discus. That's my great plan.

I leave the stadium and join the crowd watching the discus competition. By the way, you'd be shocked by how many people were out there. I mean, there must have been -- I don't know -- over 200 people lined up around that discus field. And they were really into it -- never knew so many people were so serious about discus throwing. When a guy walks into the throwing ring, folks get really quiet, like it's a golf match and they don't want to disturb his concentration. And you could tell how far the throw goes by the crowd's reaction. If they go "aw" it's like they're disappointed and it means bad throw. If they go, "yeah," it's like they're all excited and it means good throw. Get it? And after every throw you got people marking the distance in their score books. I mean, keeping score at discus competitions -- who knew? Then they have all these incredibly intense conversations about each throw -- breaking down the approach, release, follow throw. I mean, to quote the great Brian Scalabrine: "This shit was ridiculous."

Anyway, I'm looking all around for Block or Popenfoose, but I can't see them anywhere. So I ask this girl, who's keeping score, and she tells me -- no, no, this is the 2A discus competition. You know, for throwers from mid-sized schools. And Block and Popenfoose are in the 3A competition -- for throwers from bigger schools.

"So I'm at the wrong competition?" I ask.

And just about as soon as I say it, I hear a roar coming out of the stadium like some major stuff is going down.

And instantly, I think: Uh, oh -- what did I miss?

Then these three kids from Oak Forest High School come racing up from the stadium, and they run over to their friends, who are standing by me. They're so excited, they're almost out of breath as they try to recreate the wonder they'd just seen.

"Oh, my God, you shoulda seen the 800...."

"It was fucking unbelievable, man...."

Turns some kid came out of the pack to pass the front-runner on the final stretch in record time.

And I'm thinking -- damn! There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- more exciting than watching one runner come from behind a bunch of other runners to win the race down the stretch.

So I run back into the stadium. Not sure why. I mean, the race is over, what's the point? It's not like I'm going to see anything. They don't do instant replays on the giant screen. They don't even have a giant instant replay screen.

It's like -- I don't know, I just have to be where the action was. And sure enough as I reach the main field all the reporters and photographers are still buzzing about that 800.

"Oh, my God...."

"Amazing...."

"Best race of the day...."

And so on.

A coach asks me if I saw the 800 and I tell him that, no, I was watching the discus.

He looks at me like I'm an idiot and says: "The discus? Why would you be watching the discus?"

"I wanted to see Block and Popenfoose...."

"They're not up for another thirty minutes...."

So rather than repeat this conversation with everyone who asks "did you see the 800?" I start to lie. Oh, don't hold it against me. It's not really a lie. Cause I don't actually tell people that I saw the 800. What I do is -- I sort of muddy the waters.

They go: "Did you see the 800?"

And I go: "Amazing race...."

And so on....

By the way, I did see Block and Popenfoose throw the discus. And they were amazing, especially Block. He threw that sucker over 200 feet -- and that's a long, long way. It went so high -- I swear, I thought it vanished in the sun.

When it's over, I race back to the stadium to tell all the photographers and reporters: "Did you see Block throw that discus?"

Do you think they care? Hell, no. All they want to talk about is the 800. Block coulda thrown that discus all the way to Kankakee, and they're still gonna be talking about the only freaking race that I happened to miss.

Well, whatever. I drive home and Saturday turns to Sunday and next thing you know it's Monday morning and I have an appointment with my doctor, who happens to be a big-time track fan.

He gives me a checkup and tells me I'm doing fine. And as I'm about to leave, I mention I saw the boy's state meet.

And he says -- "oh, my, did you see the 800?"

I wince and then I say: "Amazing race...."

Okay, okay, so I didn't really answer his question. But give me credit -- at least I told the truth.

Letter From Milo: The Time Luc Longley Chickened Out

2009-05-31T11:45:00.007-04:00

Back in the days when Jack Daniel and I were close friends, I used to do and say a lot of very stupid things. It wasn't my fault. I blamed it on the booze. As an anonymous old bluesman once sang, "I was high, baby, when I did you wrong and you know it don't count when you're high."

I remember staggering home one evening from my local swill-a-teria and passing my neighbor's house on the way. The neighbor, a lovely woman named Amy, saw me rocking and reeling and called out, "Milo, are you drunk again?"

"I am indeed drunk," I replied, in my usual gentlemanly fashion. "But tomorrow morning I'll be sober and you'll still be an ugly old whore."

The next morning Amy's husband, a big brute of a man who is 20 years younger than I am, confronted me. "Did you call my wife an ugly old whore last night?"

"Yes I did," I answered. "And I'm truly sorry about it. It was presumptuous of me to say that. You see, I don't know what your wife does for a living."

Instead of kicking my butt, which he had every right to do, Amy's husband laughed his ass off and invited me over for drinks later that day.

I used to hang out at a bar called Sterch's on Lincoln Avenue. It is far from a chic or trendy spot, just a local saloon that has been sensitive to the needs of drinkers since the early 70s. One evening, a little after midnight, a smartly dressed couple walked in, probably by mistake, or else they were just slumming, checking out the local wildlife. They reeked of class, probably had season tickets to the opera and made regular appearances in Kup's Column.

It just so happened that the gentleman sitting on the bar stool next to me, who I had been having a lively discussion with for the past few hours, chose that moment to pass out. He rocked back and forth a couple of times then fell forward, his head hitting the bar with a loud thump.

The society matron appeared disgusted by the sight of my friend dozing on the bar. The woman pointed a well-manicured finger and said, "He must be the local drunk."

"No, lady," I told her, "We all generally take turns."

I've mentioned my good friend Bruce Diksas a few times in my posts. Bruce spends most of the year out of the country, in places like Bali, Nepal and Australia. Due to his proclivity for traveling, and his astute sense of the ridiculous, the editors of this blog site have offered him the prestigious and highly paid position of The Third City's Foreign Correspondent. As of this writing, Big Mike, the Barn Boss of this site, and Bruce's agent, Moe Howard, are still dickering over the terms of the contract. The hangup seems to be the company car. Big Mike is offering a 1997 Ford Taurus while Bruce is still holding out for a late model Buick Electra 225.

Anyway, until Bruce comes on board and provides us with his own unique and informative brand of bullshit, I'm going to steal one of his stories.

Now, Bruce is a guy who enjoys a good drink once in a while. In fact, he has had the the great pleasure of ordering drinks on five different continents. When they open a saloon in Antarctica I'm sure it won't be long before Bruce is on a first name basis with the bartender.

One day Bruce was sitting in his favorite watering hole on the island of Bali when in walks the biggest man he has ever seen. Not only that, the huge man is accompanied by a six-foot tall blond that would make Stevie Wonder look twice. When the awesome couple took seats at the bar next to Bruce, he realized that the man was none other than Luc Longley, the Aussie who was the former center for the Chicago Bulls. Bruce, being a Chicagoan and a Bulls fan, introduced himself and offered to buy Luc and his companion drinks. Luc accepted and shortly afterward reciprocated.

A few hours and quite a few drinks later, Bruce was feeling pretty good. In fact, he felt bulletproof, like Superman. He felt so good that he challenged Luc Longley to a game of one-on-one.

Luc, who must have faced this situation countless times, graciously declined, claiming a bum knee.

We were having a few drinks, a few months later, when Bruce related this story to me. Maybe it was the booze, or maybe Bruce was just feeling feisty, but he put his own unique spin on the tale. He didn't outright say it, but he intimated that perhaps, just perhaps, the great Luc Longley chickened out.

"Can't say I blame him," I replied. "After all, why would any seven-foot tall former NBA basketball player with three chanpionship rings to his credit want to tangle with a drunk 60-year-old Lithuanian with a four-inch vertical leap."

"My point, exactly," Bruce said.

Big Mike: This Means War

2009-05-30T12:38:00.013-04:00

I was on the phone with my esteemed colleague, the renowned author Benny Jay, the other day. Somehow the conversation got around to the first concert I'd ever attended. I told him that I'd seen Parliament and War at the International Amphitheater in 1973. There was silence for a moment, then Benny Jay launched into hosannas about my coolness that led me to believe if we'd have been in the same room, he'd have begun salaaming me.

Now, Benny Jay is as wired in to the Brother Culture about as much as any white man ever has been. I assumed he'd been in the groove from childhood on. Sadly, he wasn't. Benny Jay later admitted that way back in 1973, he was still listening to Top 40 songs on WLS and WCFL.

In the 60s, these two seminal Chicago rock 'n' roll radio stations had introduced me to Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson and the Chambers Brothers as well as blue-eyed soul brothers like the Rolling Stones, Tommy James and the Shondells, the Young Rascals and others. I still listen to all of them to this day. But by 1973, the two radio titans had grown stale, reflecting the state of pop music at the time, and my radio dial never again came near either AM 890 or 1000. I refused to listen to the unbearable crap they were playing. To illustrate, here's a list of some of the top songs of 1973. Read it and try to refrain from retching:

"Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree," by Tony Orlando and Dawn
"The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia," by Vickie Lawrence
"Little Willy," by Sweet
"Half Breed," by Cher
"Wildflower," by Skylark
"The Morning After," by Maureen McGovern
"Diamond Girl," by Seals and Crofts
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," by Bette Midler
"Funny Face," by Donna Fargo
"The Twelth Of Never," by Donny Osmond

And some people think waterboarding is torture. Poor Benny. He says it wasn't until he went away to college that his musical horizons broadened. He became infatuated with Jimi Hendrix, among many others. Now, I can take Jimi Hendrix or leave him (well, to tell the truth, I'll leave him, period) but that's a matter of taste. At least he turned a youthful Benny Jay away from Tony Orlando and Dawn.

Our conversation got back to that first concert I'd attended. My pal Whitey and I took the No. 72 North Avenue bus from its western terminus at Narragansett Avenue seven miles east to Halsted Street, where we picked up the No. 8 bus and headed south another 57 blocks to Bridgeport and the Amphitheater. The ride took a good two-and-a-half hours but we both loved War. The song, "The World Is A Ghetto," was a brilliant, haunting, 10-minute-long masterpiece. Whenever it came on the radio (by this time, I'd become an habitual WGLD listener - the low-watt Oak Park station that later gave way to WXRT) I became lost in it, cranking the volume up to Nigel Tufnel's mythical 11. A bomb could have gone off next to me but I'd take no notice.

Neither Whitey nor I were familiar with Parliament but by the time its opening set was finished, we'd become diehard fans. Since we were a couple of half-broke Northwest Side teenagers, we could only afford cheap seats. We sat somewhere near the upper boundary of the troposphere and viewed the proceedings through a dense haze of legal and illegal smoke. We got back home to Galewood around 4:00am, proud of ourselves for our sojourn into the big, black inner city.

"How many white people do you think there were at the Amphitheater that night?" Benny asked.

"I'd say two - Whitey and me," I replied.

"So, you were the only two white guys in the whole place, and one of you is named Whitey!" Benny exclaimed, roaring. Then, he added a correction. "Three white guys - you forgot War's harmonica player, Lee Oskar."

I congratulated Benny Jay on his knowledge of War. Thank the gods, dumb luck or modern pharmacology, his listening to Donny Osmond hasn't resulted in brain damage.

Randolph Street: Rollin' Up The River

2009-05-29T09:48:00.011-04:00

While photojournalist Jon Randolph lolls the days away on a fishing boat in a Canadian lake, we're presenting pix from his trips up and down US Highway 61. Here's the second batch. - The Eds.

"Raccoon," Minnesota

"Celose" (note the sign in the window), Minnesota

"Merchant," Minnesota

"Country Kitchen," Iowa

"Yard Sale," Tennessee

"Mirror," Duluth, Minnesota

This is a personal look at mid-America that I shot between 1976 and 1985. At the times I shot these pix, the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 roughly followed the Mississippi River from New orleans to Minneapolis, then jutted northeast to Duluth and then along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.

This is the second installment - part three will run next Friday. There's a lot to look at. - JR

Visit The Third City every day for new posts, treats, surprises, words and pictures. We'll be moving soon! Our new home will be thethirdcity.net. We're building the site right now - knowing us and our meager technological talents, it'll actually be up sometime around the turn of the next century. Anyway, we'll keep you up to date. - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Modern Man

2009-05-28T11:25:00.013-04:00

I'm driving north on Southport, and my car dies....

I know there's no good place to stall in traffic, but this place particularly sucks -- in the left turn lane, just south of the intersection. I suppose it could be worse. I could, you know, be in the middle of the intersection. Guess I should count my blessings....

It's noon. Car's zipping by. Nothing I can do. I try to go through life without swearing. I really do. It shows a lack of discipline and creativity. But, every now and then -- FUCK!!!

Ah, now I feel much better....

I have a cell phone. But it's almost as useless as my car. The battery's low. The battery's been low for about two weeks. I need a new battery. As a matter of fact, I was on my way to the cell phone store to get a new battery when my car died. Can you believe this shit?

I figure I have just enough juice in my battery to make one quick call. So I call my wife, who's really busy at work. And I tell her: Can'ttalklongphonealmostoutofbatteriescardiedintrafficcalltriplea....

Which translates into: Can't talk long; phone almost out of batteries; call Triple AAA.

Message conveyed, I put on the blinkers, rush to the back of my car, and direct oncoming traffic to go around me. Some doofus in a Toyota honks his horn, like, you know, I'm standing in the middle of the street for some reason other than my car has died.

"My car is dead," I tell him.

"Fuck you," he says.

Ah, the compassion of my fellow man....

A guy on a bike pulls over and asks: "Need help?"

I want to hug him. Instead, I say: "Thanks, man...."

He gets behind my car. "We'll push it through the intersection," he says. "So you're not blocking traffic...."

We push, but the car won't budge. "You have to take it out of park," he tells me.

"Right," I say. "I knew that -- I really did...."

I hop back into my car. I'm about to switch gears when I see the keys dangling from the ignition. On an impulse, I turn the keys. It works!

"It's a miracle -- the car's on," I tell the biker. "Thanks for everything -- you're the man...."

I want to turn left and park on the side of the road. But the light's red and the car's quaking, like it's about to die at any instant. I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the light to turn green. Ever notice how long something takes when you're waiting for it to happen?

The light turns green -- finally. I make the turn. The car's like an animal who's been shot in the leg with a bullet, limping along in pain. I drive it past the no-parking, bus-stop zone. I pull it into an empty space, just as the car dies. Phew!

I get a call from an editor. I tell him I can't talk -- battery low. I get a call from my wife -- she tells me Triple A is on its way. My phone dies. All juice gone. What the hell good is it? I toss it on the seat. I feel like the main character from that Isaac Bashevas Singer story who's on a train from New York City to Montreal in the years just after World War II. It's modern times and he's a modern man. But he feels as though with a flip of the switch he'll slip back to the Dark Ages. That's how fragile our existence is....

The deep thought passes and I bide the time the way I usually do -- thinking about the Bulls. Today's paper had a picture of Ben Gordon wearing a Blackhawks jersey. I wonder if the Bulls will sign Gordon. I start to call Norm to talk it over, when I remember: My phone's dead.

The Triple A tow truck arrives. The driver's named Ed. He couldn't be nicer. He hitches me to his tow truck, tells me to hop on in and he drives me to the mechanic. Along the way, he says the problem is the alternator -- the thing that feeds juice to the battery. It used to be called the generator. He's giving me a whole lecture when -- wham! -- the tow truck hits a speed bump that he obviously didn't see coming.

It feels as though my car was dropped from the sky.

He hops out of the truck to see if my car is damaged. Oh, brother, just what I need.

"It's okay," he assures me when he gets back.

He drives me to the mechanic and we walk into office. "We're here," I tell the lady at the cash register.

"Now, who are you?" she asks.

"The Ford," says Ed.

"Oh," she says. "Your P's husband...."

"Yeah, the one and only...."

She fills out a form and says: "Who should we call?"

"My wife," I say. "She's the brains of the family...."

"Guess you're the beauty," she says.

I shrug with Elvis-like humility and say: "I guess that's what I bring to the equation...."

When I leave the shop, she's smiling. I'm feeling pretty good, like I'm still quick with a one-liner.

Gonna call my wife to tell her all about my witty exchange. And I remember -- the cell phone's still dead. Aw, man. That's the thing about technology. It's one step forward, one step back. Probably all better off without it....

I walk home, get my bike, and peddle on over to the cell phone store.

Letter From Milo: High On The Hog

2009-05-27T09:05:00.006-04:00

I'll eat almost anything. The word "omnivore" doesn't do me justice. If it walks, crawls, flies or swims - as long as it doesn't have opposable thumbs - I'll try it.

I'm not saying I'm as adventurous as Andrew Zimmern, the nutcase who hosts "Bizarre Foods" on the Travel Channel but I've eaten some pretty odd meals. I've eaten bugs, rodents, pig and cow testicles, raw beef and raw fish. I've tried fungi, mosses, weeds and leaves from trees. I've eaten food that looked great but tasted vile and food that looked disgusting but was absolutely delicious. I've had food that's gotten me stoned (hash brownies) and food that's sent me to the emergency room (tainted chicken).

That said, there is one meal that I prefer over all others. It is the meal I would order if I was on Death Row and it would be the last food I'd ever taste. I'd go to the gallows with a twinkle in my eye and a song in my heart as long as my face and hands were smeared with sweet, sticky and spicy red sauce.

Yes, folks I'm talking about barbecued ribs, God's gift to the human taste bud.

I've eaten ribs in rib hotspots all over the country - Chicago, the Carolinas, Memphis and Kansas City. Each of these places claims supremacy in the art of barbecue. And each has a valid claim. My good friend Bruce Diksas, tells me that there's even a rib joint on the island of Bali, where he lives part of the year. The place is run by an American ex-patriot and advertises Chicago-style ribs.

One day Bruce decided to try the Balinesian ribs. Now, Bruce grew up in Bridgeport and knows a thing or two about ribs. When he finished the platter, the bar owner asked Bruce how he liked them.

Bruce shook his head sadly and said, "Sorry, pal, these ribs would never make it in Chicago.

One of the first times I ever tasted great ribs was in a small storefront in Gary, Indiana, called Shoe's Ribs and Chicken. Shoe's specialty was a rib sandwich, which was nothing more than two or three rib bones slapped between two slices of Wonder Bread, drenched in sauce and served on waxed paper. I don't recall if napkins were made available. Anyway, those rib sandwiches were delicious. Man, a couple of those and a cold bottle of Blatz and you were set for the day.

When I settled in Chicago, I thought I found rib heaven. There were good rib joints everywhere. My favorite was a small spot off North Avenue by the Chicago River called Edith's. In my opinion, Edith's ribs were close to perfect. Edith used baby back ribs and the texture was just right. They weren't wussy ribs that fell off the bone if a slight breeze passed by. You had to work them a bit but it was well worth the trouble.

The best ribs aren't always found in restaurants. Some of the best ribs I've ever tasted have been at backyard barbecues. Two stand out in particular. One old friend, a college buddy named Way Out Willie Bauer, was and probably still is, a rib master. He took infinite care with his ribs, hovering over the grill like a card shark over pocket aces. He constantly adjusted the coals, carefully turned the slabs and watched for flare-ups as intensely as a California park ranger watches for brush fires. When it came time to add the sauce, Willie's brushwork was every bit the equal of Picasso's. And Willie would accomplish these magnificent rib feats while consuming huge quantities of booze and reefer.

Another rib master is my neighbor, John O'Connor, who works as an attorney in order to finance his rib habit. John prefers a dry rub to sauce. Although I'm a sauce man I have to admit that John's dry rub is the best I've ever tasted, spicy but not overpowering. He hosts a backyard cookout every summer. I always try to be on my best behavior at his cookouts because I don't want to get drunk and do something so stupid that he won't invite me back. His ribs are that good.

A while ago I wrote about visiting Kansas City with Bruce Diksas. We went for a reunion of our old army outfit. Now, Kansas City has a lot of things going for it. It's not Milwaukee or Indianapolis, for one thing. But in my mind Kansas City's greatest asset, it's municipal pride and joy, is Arthur Bryant's.

For years, Arthur Bryant's, along with the Rendezvous in Memphis and Lexington Barbecue in Lexington, North Carolina, has been ranked as one of the top rib joints in the country. There was no way on Earth we were going to Kansas City and not visit Bryant's. It would be like going back to your home town and not visiting Mom.

We were not disappointed. Bryant's served superb ribs, meaty, al dente and with a wonderful sauce. It was everything I'd hoped it would be. We each had a slab accompanied by French fries and a scoop of slaw. I doubt Bruce and I spoke a word while devouring those fantastic ribs. We just grunted, groaned, belched, slurped, licked our fingers and guzzled beer. When we finished, we leaned back in our chairs, patted our distended bellies and sighed with pleasure.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked Bruce.

"You know, Milo," he said, "I think those ribs would make it in Chicago."

Big Mike: A Stinging Refusal

2009-05-26T11:58:00.005-04:00

I have more phobias than I have fingers and toes. My phobic history has even evolved. For instance, I was pretty much incapable of going over a bridge in a car as recently as 15 years ago. In 1992, I essentially had a nervous collapse at the foot of the Second Street Bridge over the wide Ohio River because of my unbearable panic. Now, though, that particular terror has gone into remission. I drive the mile-long span as easily as ordering a medium pizza with sausage and green peppers.

But I still have a healthy (well, unhealthy) collection of hysterias. Probably the biggest of all is bees, wasps and hornets. No, it's not a sane person's reasonable caution concerning the sting-y buggers. I have nightmares about them. I can't even look at pictures of them. Should a nature show on TV suddenly zoom in on a beehive, I dash out of the room. As for those whackjobs who like to wear bee beards, well, they ought to be horsewhipped.

It's so ridiculous that even typing the word bee makes me jittery. That, my friends, is a phobia.

My lineup of shrinks and skull jockeys has urged me to unearth the genesis of this terror for decades. The best I can come up with is an incident when I was about four years old. It was a sunny summer day. I was fooling around in the backyard without any shoes on.

My father was mowing the lawn and I was pretending to help him. Apparently, my seemingly futile attempts to drag the bushel basket over to him when it was time to empty the grass catcher were actually of service. Who knew?

Anyway, at one point I took a step and felt a sharp pain. I looked down and saw beneath my pink big toe the mad, buzzing, wing-flapping bee who'd just planted his shiv in me. I shrieked louder than Janet Leigh in her Bates Motel room shower and ran inside. Dad either couldn't hear me or - more likely - chose not to. He didn't possess an unending reservoir of empathy for the anguish of four-year-olds.

Ma grabbed me and hustled me into the bathroom where she applied a variety of palliatives to my throbbing toe. She yanked the stinger out with a tweezers, washed my foot with soap and hot water, dabbed mercurochrome on the wound and, for all I know, sprinkled garlic powder on it. At some point during these ministrations, Dad must have called for his bushel basket and found me missing. He was hot.

Dad marched into the house and called my name in that loud, deep, father-voice that's meant to petrify anyone within earshot. I couldn't answer because I was still sobbing. He called my name again and the second ensuing silence enraged him. He stomped into the dining room, off of which was the bathroom, and found Ma operating on my foot. "I'll be goddamned!" he hollered. "When I call you, you answer!"

Ma hollered back: "For chrissakes, Joe! he was stung by a bee!"

What followed was one of their classic donnybrooks. My parents fought exactly as George Costanza's parents would on TV some three decades later. Every time I see Frank and Estelle screeching at each other on "Seinfeld" reruns, I alternate between convulsive laughter and painful grimaces. It's as though I'm watching my family's home movies.

At that age, such brawls scared the bejesus out of me. Ma and Dad would take positions at either end of the house and launch verbal salvoes at each other for what seemed hours. They swore, they called each other names, they goddamned each other and themselves countless times, their faces turned beet red and there was fire in their eyes. Normally, I'd hide in my room until they'd shouted themselves out.

I did so on this particular day, all the while telling myself it was my stupid fault for getting stung by a bee. As usual, after such open hostilities had ceased, my parents would then engage in a Cold War, refusing to speak to each other for days - even weeks - on end. I was, I told myself, a jerk for causing another such stretch of bad blood.

Cut to Friday afternoon. The Loved One announced that she'd discovered a hornets nest under the eave of our house. My blood turned cold. I didn't even respond, thinking that if I ignored her, the nest and her forthcoming suggestion that I do something about it would simply go away. Mirabile dictu, she didn't breathe another word about it for the rest of the day. Almost.

That night, about 11:00pm, I was sitting in my boxers and flip-flops at the dining room table, reading celebrity gossip on dlisted online and feeling my eyelids getting heavier by the minute. That's when The Loved One, who'd been snoring on the sofa, began to stir. I heard her pad around the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of milk and sneaking a piece of chocolate cake. She joined me in the dining room.

"Mike," she asked, "would you help me do something?"

"Certainly, my precious angel, light of my life and partner 'till death. What is it?"

"Help me take down the hornets nest. It's the perfect time; they're dormant for the night. It'll be easy."

My eyes, half-lidded 15 seconds earlier, now were saucer wide. My legs turned to jelly. I responded monosyllabically:

"No."

"But Mike, we have to do it!"

"No."

"I need your help!"

"No."

"You're so selfish," she snapped. With that, she stomped out of the room. She refused to speak to me at the beginning of the next day. She eventually warmed back up by noon. Thankfully, she hasn't brought up the hornets nest again.

For my part, I was prepared to fight a Cold War for days - even weeks - on end.

Benny Jay: Memorial Day

2009-05-25T16:05:00.019-04:00

The strongest memory I have of Donna Reed is as Jimmy Stewart's wife -- Mary Bailey -- in "It's a Wonderful Life."

I've seen that movie a hundred times -- watched it nearly every Christmas for as long as I can remember. I love that scene where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed -- young and in love -- are walking home at night from the dance. He promises to give her anything she wants in life. Just say the word and he's gonna "throw a lasso around the moon" and give it to her.

Yeah, yeah, I know -- I'm hopeless....

I was thinking of Donna Reed cause of a story in today's New York Times by Larry Rohter. Turns out that during World War II -- when Reed was still in her twenties -- hundreds of soldiers sent off to the battlefields of Asia, Africa and Europe saw her as a beloved reminder of the life, women and country they missed.

They'd write her letters -- hundreds of hundreds of letters -- "as if to a sister or the girl next door, confiding moments of homesickness, loneliness, privation and anxiety," Rohter writes.

"The boys in our outfit think you are a typical American girl, someone who we would like to come home to!!!!!" wrote Sergeant William F. Love. He wrote that letter on August 18, 1944 from the jungles of New Guinea.

Here's another letter quoted in the story: "Sometimes I wish I was back there with the old gang, able to go the usual rounds of the week. Occasionally, I will set on the fantail and look at the moon, wondering how many of our old friends were doing the same."

Then there's this 1943 letter from Lieutenant Norman P. Klinker: "One thing I promise you -- life on the battlefield is a wee bit different from the `movie version.' It is tough and bloody and dirty....quite an interesting and heartless life at one and the same time."

On January 6, 1944, Lieutenant Klinker was killed in action in Italy.

These letters would have been long forgotten. Except Donna Reed saved them -- kept them in boxes -- and her daughter discovered them. One thing led to the another and Rohter wrote it up in today's New York Times.

Here's the thing: Donna Reed "became an ardent antiwar campaigner" during the Vietnam War. She was co-chairwoman of "a 285,000-member group called Another Mother For Peace," and she volunteered for Senator Eugene McCarthy's 1968 anti-war presidential campaign, according to Rohter.

The story quotes her biographer, Jay Fultz, who writes: "She looked forward to a time when 19-year-old boys will no longer be taken away to fight in old men's battles."

Anyway, on Memorial Day, I'd like to offer a toast of gratitude to all the men and women who served -- my father; my uncles, Milo; my nephew Terry; and John Reeves, just to name a few.

And here's to all the other warriors -- Donna Reed among them -- who fought just as hard for peace.

Benny Jay: Now, That's How You Kill Somebody

2009-05-24T17:02:00.011-04:00

I'm in Charleston, Illinois for the girls high school track championship. Me and the gang: Bobby Gee, Casey, the CPA, and Caldow. Super track freaks every one.

We broiled for hours in the sun, watching the qualifying rounds and now we're at a restaurant for dinner. I'm famished. Eating like a buyer -- like I ran the races....

Caldow is talking about a track meet that happened two zillion years ago.

Did I tell you I love talkers? Well, I do. I'm drawn to them like a moth to a flame. I'm thinking of getting them together for a party. You could charge people to attend, it be so entertaining. Just off the top of my head I'd have to invite Daddy Dee, Alonzo, Johnny (the black Forest Gump), and Lavinia's Uncle John. And Caldow -- gotta have Caldow. Of all the talkers, he may talk the most. I think the man was born talking....

Afterwards, we head over to Wal-Mart to by some stuff. I'm wandering around the big, old store with Bobby Gee and Casey.

Casey says: "I need a pillow...."

This being a Wal-Mart, there's about a million to pick from. She can't make up her mind.

Bobby Gee plucks one from the pile and says: "Get this one. It's only five bucks -- plus it's red...."

I don't have anything to buy. But I pass the school supply section and I see they have notebooks on sale. They're the little, itty-bitty flip-over kind that fit into your back pocket. It's like four for $1.29. I can't resist. I buy three packets. Then I see a pack of pencils. I don't need pencils. I don't even use pencils. But, there's twenty-five to a pack. Plus, they have all sorts of brightly colored erasers. Again, I can't resist. I take a pack.

We go to the self check out line. I'm not sure what to do. I'm standing at the machine, looking at it. Big Mike was right -- I have this phobia about machines. I have this fear that if I make the wrong move something terrible will happen. I make a mental note to myself: Gotta get some psychological assistance for this machine thing....

But Jamika, one of the girls on Bobby Gee's team, steps up to show me how to use the machine. She wipes the notebooks and pencils across the scanner. Pushes the right buttons. Inserts credit card. The whole thing. The girl's a freaking genius. Just call her Wilma Gates....

I'm so grateful I give her a pencil. Throw in an eraser too -- you know, as a bonus.

We're in the car, backing out of the parking space. Bobby Gee says: "Let me know if I hit anyone...."

"Just a small child," says Jamika.

I'm really impressed. First the machine. Now comedy. The girl's got jokes. Who knew?

I wind up with Caldow in Bobby Gee's dorm room -- yes, we're staying in a dormitory -- watching a movie on Bobby Gee's computer. It's the movie "Taken," starring Liam Neeson. Here's all you need to know about "Taken." It's really stupid. I mean, really, really, really, really stupid. Neeson plays this super-strong, super-smart ex-CIA agent whose 17-year-old daughter gets taken (hence the title) by a bunch of Albanian thugs who plan to sell her as a sex slave. I'm not making any of this up.

Did I tell you the movie's really stupid? Well, it is. But here's the thing. I get into it. I mean, way into it. I can't help myself. It moves really fast as Neeson goes after the bad guys to save his daughter. And here's the best part of all. I got Caldow doing the commentary. Everything that happens he's got something to say. Neeson shoots someone, Caldow says: "Those CIA guys are good shots. That's all they do -- practice shooting all day."

Neeson kills a guy with a karate chop, Caldow says: "Now, that's how you kill somebody. Crack. Split their neck. It's over...."

This bad guy drives a car into a bridge that knocks his head off his neck, and Caldow says: "You're dead. Next...."

Neeson kills a ton of bad guys while trying to save his daughter. Caldow's got something to say about each death. I never knew the guy knew so much about murder.

Plus, he's giving Neeson advice -- like the guy, you know, can hear him. Stuff like: "Look out." Or, "his gun needs a silencer. Use a silencer." Or, "duck." Stuff like that.

The climactic scene occurs on a boat that's running down the middle of the Seine. It's not really a boat so much as a super big yacht that's owned by this sheik who has a thing for virgins. So the movie boils down to this: Can Neeson save his daughter before the sheik deflowers her?

There's got to be -- oh, conservative guess -- fifteen bad guys protecting the sheik. Each one has at least two guns. Neeson doesn't even have a pistol. Yet he manages to mow them all down. He kills a guy with a karate chop, takes the dead guy's gun and shoots the other bad guys. You get the idea.

Eventually, it comes down to Neeson and the sheik, who has a knife to the throat of Neeson's daughter.

Bam, Neeson shoots him. The bullet whizzes past his daughter's head to splatter the sheik's brains. "I told you those CIA guys can shoot," exclaims Caldow. Like what we saw, you know, really happened.

The daughter hugs Neeson. But Caldow's one step ahead of us. "Look out," he says.

"What?" I ask.

"Who's driving the boat?"

"Huh?"

"They killed everyone. So who's driving the boat?"

"You're right," I say. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Cause you're not Yoda," he says. "The all-powerful one...."

Apparently the movie maker felt no need to address the all-important question of who's driving the boat. Because the movie ends a few minutes later and they never tell us how they got off the boat.

"Neeson must have killed two dozen people," I say.

"Let's count `em," says Caldow. He starts tallying up the carnage, scene by scene. The guy's like a machine. He remembers murders from the movie that I had long forgotten. He's breaking them down by categories: decapitations, shootings, blows to the brain and so forth.

He loses count at twenty-something. But it's late. We're tired. We go to bed.

The next morning at breakfast, we're feeling refreshed. Caldow and I pick up where we left off, trying to count up exactly how many bad guys Neeson killed.....

Big Mike: I Rebel Against Guy Nation

2009-05-23T12:46:00.007-04:00

I've never been terribly comfortable being a guy. It's not that I've ever thought about changing my sex. I'd be equally - if not, more - uncomfortable being a woman, what with how they've been treated by the guys of this world. So don't worry, this isn't a confessional about my hitherto undisclosed desire to become the next RuPaul (RuBig Mike?)

It's just that guys are jerks. And the more guys who gather in a room, the more the jerk factor shoots upward. In fact, with the addition of each single guy, the jerkiness factor increases exponentially.

Want proof? Go to a bachelor party. Walk into a cop bar. Peek into a men's locker room. Hell, the jerkiest religions in the world are those that relegate woman to the status of quadrupeds. Ever hear of a Catholic priest named Mary (outside of Halsted Street, that is)? Orthodox Jews say a prayer every morning thanking god that they weren't born women. And, of course, in the strict Islamic world, women would be taking a giant step up to achieve the status of sheep.

Guy-ness even pervades art. I usually keep my utter distaste for hip-hop and rap music quiet. To be honest, I don't want to open myself up to the charge that I'm a bitter old prick who hates anything the kids are listening to nowadays. While it's true I am a bitter old prick, I love a lot of new music. The Decemberists. Feist. My Morning Jacket. Radiohead. The list goes on. But I loathe hip-hop and rap because it's so guy. Hip-hop guys are always getting laid, drinking expensive Champagne, wearing precious metals, rolling in dough and calling every female on the planet up to and including flowering plants that contain the ovule-bearing structure, the pistil, bitches. Hip-hop and rap are way too guy.

I found myself surrounded by guys at Dick's Pizza the other night. One of those things. For some unknown reason, there wasn't a single woman in the house. There were the two bartenders, Hank and Rock-star Zach. There were Old Gus, Dinesh, All-American Allen, a couple of strangers and your faithful reporter. It was a sausage fest.

Old Gus is the epitome of senior guy-ness. He drives an aircraft carrier-sized Buick. He carries a came with an ornate gold knob. He was married a long, long time ago but he left his wife after a month and has remained a happily dispeptic bachelor ever since.

Dinesh comes from India. Once I asked him how the average Indian views Pakistanis. Normally a reserved man, Dinesh became an orator. He launched into a half-hour examination of the many socio-political, cultural and religious issues that divide the two nations. But as he went on, his anger mounted. He finally concluded with the statement, "D'ey are no goot! D'ey are pieces of sheet!" He couldn't resist, in other words, being a guy.

All-American Allen, whom I've introduced previously in this space, is a staunch Republican. You know, the party of white guys.

Bartenders Hank and Rock-star Zach are reasonably decent fellows although Zach plays lead guitar for a local band that gets a lot of radio airplay around these parts. Ergo, guy.

On the evening in question, the jowly, ever-outraged face of Lou Dobbs loomed above us on the three giant flat screens over the bar. Lou Dobbs is a king among guys. As if there weren't enough to send Dobbs's blood pressure skyrocketing, he'd found a video of an unfortunate incident on some big city bus. As captured on the bus's security cameras, a young man walked on, paid his fare, took two steps toward the handicapped seats and suddenly, without provocation, began whacking the shit out of some poor blind woman. Oh, the steam was pouring out of Dobbs's ears.

The gang of guys at Dick's was transfixed. We watched as several fellow riders tackled the assailant and threw him off the bus. Dobbs called them heroes. But my barmates weren't in a mood to laud heroes.

"They shoulda held him and called the cops," Rock-star Zach announced. "I hope they put him in jail and show that video to all the other guys in jail every morning. Then he'd get what's coming to him!"

"They shoulda beat him bloody!" All-American Allen proclaimed.

"I know what I would have done to him," Old Gus said in a loud voice, "I would have stuck my cane up his ass right then and there!"

"D'at guy ees a piece of sheet," Dinesh said in a louder voice. "D'ey should shoot him in d'e forehead!"

There followed a three-minute orgy of can-you-top-this with the two strangers joining in. I listened patiently until the orgy died down a bit, then spoke.

"Has it occurred to anyone that maybe, just maybe, the guy's mentally ill?"

The bar became silent. Either the guys were wowed by my intellect and sense of compassion or they'd exhausted all their rage. Aw, I'll stop kidding myself. They'd spewed all the bile they could muster. They were spent.

Hank sidled near me just as a different video of some thugs pummeling an old man in a playground flashed on the screens. "What's wrong with people?" Hank asked.

I pondered for a moment. "People?" I responded. "Or guys?"

Randolph Street: Highway 61 Visited

2009-05-22T08:48:00.012-04:00

This is a personal look at mid-America from north to south that I shot between 1976 and 1985. At the times I shot these pix, the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 roughly followed the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minneapolis, then jutted northeast to Duluth and along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.

The work documents the people, towns and fields along...

continued below pix

Greyhound bus at the Missouri/Arkansas border.

Nybo's bar & cafe, Minnesota.

Table, Mississippi.

TV, Arkansas.

Umbrella, Keokuk, Iowa.

Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

continued from above pix

... the way in more of a personal sense than a journalistic one.

This is the first installment - part two will run next Friday. There's a lot to look at. - JR

Visit The Third City every day. Randolph Street, camera candy from photojournalist Jon Randolph, runs every Friday. - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Hacking Like A Mug

2009-05-21T11:44:00.012-04:00

Got a cold. Came last week. Thought it would go away. But it only got worse. Burrowed in my chest. Now it sounds like it's here to stay. Fuck....

Got me hacking like a mug. Sounds like I've been smoking two packs a day for the last twenty years. I should be up and at `em, working the phones. But all I wanna do is sleep....

I lie in bed. Tell myself -- this will only take five minutes. Just need a little rest....

Thirty minutes later I wake up and look around. Where the hell am I? In bed. Ugh. Start coughing. That leads to hacking. My stomach muscles ache. I feel sorry for myself.

I call my wife at work. "Do you have the swine flu?" she asks.

The swine flu! Damn. I hadn't thought of that.

"Take your temperature," she says.

I find the thermometer buried behind the Band-aids in the bathroom cabinet. I shove it in my mouth: 98.3. I feel better. Then I think: What if I didn't take it right? What if my mouth was open too much? I have this notion that somehow or other keeping my mouth open lowers the temperature. I take it again. And again. I become obsessive about my temperature. It's like the Bulls versus Boston one more time. I'm losing my freaking mind....

I go back to bed and look up at the fan. I turn to my right. There's a Reader's Digest on the night stand. Reader's Digest? How did that get here? I haven't seen a Reader's Digest in years.

I wind up reading an article called, "America's Funniest Jokes." Sid Caesar and seven other comics are sitting around a table in the back room of a deli, swapping jokes. Here's the first joke: "A man, shocked by how his buddy is dressed, asks him, `how long have you been wearing that bra?' The friend replies, `Ever since my wife found it in the glove compartment.'"

It must be the illness. But I find that hilarious. I can't stop laughing. I laugh so hard I start to hack. Then cough. Uncontrollably. Finally, I settle down. I'm lying on the bed. The dog's looking at me.

I start calling friends: Milo, Big Mike, Norm, Daddy Dee. I gotta talk to someone. Let the world know I'm still alive. They're all healthy. Busy. Doing shit. Big Mike's making bread, for Christ sakes. I'm not kidding. He's rolling out the freaking dough himself. Jesus. The whole world's doing stuff and I'm lying in bed.

I pick up Reader's Digest -- need another joke. I read about the priest, the minister and the rabbi who want to see who's best at their job. So they go into the woods, find some bears and attempt to convert them. The priest's so good he gets his bear to its first communion. The minister talks his bear into getting baptized. "They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on gurney in a body cast. `Looking back,' he says. `Maybe I shouldn't have started with the circumcision.'"

I think that's hilarious. The rabbi cut the bear's dick -- get it? I'm roaring. Then I'm hacking and coughing. Aw, hell....

I roll on my back. I drift off. I hear a phone ringing. It's way off in the distance. I'll answer it later. When I get better....

Big Mike: Brainy Brian Learns A Lesson

2009-05-20T12:05:00.011-04:00

A couple of guys I know are trying to start their own web site. One of them - let's call him Barney Kay - is an admitted dope when it comes to technology, the Internet, electronics, machinery and, for that matter, chewing his food. He wears his ignorance as a badge of honor. He leans on friends and acquaintances to help him through crises like computer crashes and those rare occasions when he gets a bit of celery stuck between his teeth. He has lent one ear each to his friend the track coach and his college-student daughter, who guide him through modern life's puzzles. Barney sings their praises as if they are the second coming of the Steves, Wozniak and Jobs.

The other fellow - call him Brainy Brian - tells his pal Barney that he knows this computer business like the back of his hand, that the two of them have no need for such self-proclaimed experts as track coaches and college-student daughters. He holds Barney Kay's hand through countless phone conversations wherein the two try to navigate the treacherous waters of the cyberworld.

Barney Kay and Brainy Brian made the decision to go online with their rants and flights of literary fancy early last fall. First, they honed their voices on a free blog site. Once they became good at it, they told each other, they'd create their own free-standing site. By Christmas, they knew they were ready to strike out on their own. They'd never missed a day of posting and kept each other entertained throughout.

As any schoolchild knows, it takes the click of a Buy This Package Now! button to start a web site. But Brainy Brian has convinced Barney Kay that they should study web hosts, web builders and the like with all the zeal of Marie and Pierre Curie trying to decipher the mysteries of radium.

"We must do this the right way," Brainy Brian proclaims.

"Yeah sure, but how do we know what's the right way?" responds Barney Kay.

"Don't worry," Brainy Brian says, giggling at his dear friend's timidity. "Leave it to me. I'll get you all the information you need so we can make a rational, considered decision."

At which point, Barney Kay shrugs and says, "Well, you know me. I'm a dope when it comes to technology, the Internet, et cetera. In fact, I'm proud of my ignorance!"

"Hah," says Brainy Brian. "You're lucky you have me as a partner. My knowledge of the topic is second only to that Gates guy, and he only knows about a few more details that I consider extraneous."

The preceding conversation has taken place, in one form or another, at least a dozen times since early last fall. Since then, Brainy Brian has immersed himself in the world of web sites. He's even written up a glossary for Barney Kay so the two can chatter in geek language.

Here's an example of one such conversation:

Brainy Brian: "Let's look for a company that offers 10 or 15 gigabytes of disk space and guarantees 99.9 percent uptime."

Barney Kay: "What's disk space?"

"Jesus Christ! I sent you the glossary. Didn't you read it?"

"Yeah, I read it, but I don't remember disk space."

Brainy Brian again explains disk space.

"Okay, got it," says Barney Kay. "Now, what's uptime?"

"Aaaaarrrggghhh!"

So, Brainy Brian returns to his lonely task of finding the perfect web host for the pair's new web site. He reads countless web host reviews. He thumbs through Wired and PCWorld at the Barnes & Noble magazine rack. He visits every conceivable web host's site, comparing prices, features and options.

Brainy Brian has contemplated MySQL, POP3/IMAP/STMP, Box Trappers, Coppermines, PHP-Nukes, Mambo and Joomia, Zen Carts, Apache Watchdogs, Pythons, PERL 5, CGI-BIN, AWStats, SSI, SSH, and ASP.NET AJAX.

Brainy Brian has also mulled the attributes of Red Hat ES Linux 4 OS, RAIF functionality, the EXTJS control panel and Putty. When he encountered this last feature, Brainy Brian sat back in his chair and let out a mighty sigh. He shook the cobwebs out of his head and yelled:

"WHAT IN GOD'S HOLY FUCKING NAME ARE THESE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!"

As the cats ran for cover, Brainy Brian banged his head against the dining room wall. Then he went into the den and banged his head against three of the walls in that room. Finally, he collapsed into his bed and cried himself to sleep.

If any of you can guess who these two fellows are, please don't tell Barney Kay what Brainy Brian has been going through. See, Brainy Brian has sent Barney Kay a monograph explaining precisely why they should choose a certain company to be their web host. It's chock full of all the aforementioned arcana. When Barney Kay reads it, he'll think that Brainy Brian has made a momentous choice based on all the available information at hand. It is the model of a rational, considered decision. Now, Barney Kay and Brainy Brian's web site can be up within days.

Try as he might, though, Brainy Brian has no more familiarity with MySQL than he does with the inner workings of the Illuminati. He made his web host choice based on Barney Kay's offhand mention that that is the company his track coach friend uses for his successful web site. Brainy Brian secretly hopes Barney Kay's college-student daughter approves.

Letter From Milo: Keeping Secrets Isn't Healthy

2009-05-19T07:56:00.009-04:00

A long time ago I discovered that a married man has to keep some things to himself. For example, I never tell my wife about my affairs, gambling debts, opium habit, prison record, or the child support payments I've been making for the past 30 years. Its not that she wouldn't be totally supportive, you understand, its simply a matter of not wanting to worry her needlessly.

For the last six weeks, however, I've been keeping a secret from her and it's been eating away at me.

If you recall, I recently enrolled in the VA hospital health care system. One of the first things they wanted me to do was take a physical. I thought it was a good idea. I haven't had a physical in years, which is stupid, considering my somewhat advanced age.

They put me through a battery of tests - blood, x-rays - the usual shit. The doctor told me that I seemed to be in pretty good shape, considering that I'm a smoker, drinker and eater of red meat. He'd have to wait until the test results came back, however, before he was prepared to give me a clean bill of health. I made an appointment to see him again the following week.

When I met with the doctor again, he had a grim look on his face. He had one of my x-rays on his desk. He held it up, pointed to it and said, "It looks like you've got an enlarged heart."

I think I can speak for most people when I say that the last things you want to hear from your doctor are the words cancer and anything having to do with the heart.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, nervously.

"I can't tell until we do a couple of more tests. But if it's an enlarged heart it's not good."

We made an appointment for six weeks later for more extensive testing.

When I left the VA hospital, I decided not to tell my wife about my possible enlarged heart. She's a worrier and right now there's a lot of stress in our lives. I didn't want to add another layer on the shitcake. Besides, I wouldn't know for sure whether I did, indeed, have a heart problem for another six weeks. I decided that the only person that should be worried during that time period was me.

It was a long six weeks. I tried to carry on normally, but my family sensed something was amiss. One day my wife said, "The girls think there's something wrong with you."

"Why would they say that?"

"Because you're acting weird."

"Shit, honey, I'm a weird guy."

"Yeah, but you're acting weirder than usual."

"Heh, heh, I'll have a talk with them later."

I'll admit I was nervous when I went back to the VA hospital for the additional testing. I've always taken my health for granted. I come from hearty peasant stock. I figured I was like Keith Richards, someone who defied the laws of nature. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe my time was up. Maybe I had just made a down payment on 40 acres. Maybe I was on my way to Graceland and didn't even know it. All sorts of odd thoughts went through my mind, the majority of them gloomy.

I went through a whole series of tests. One of them was, I think, called an echocardiogram. It involved me lying flat on some sort of conveyor belt while I was slowly fed through a contraption that looked like an iron lung on steriods. All in all, I spent about two hours at the hospital, being poked, prodded, bled, x-rayed and magnetically imaged.

"I'll let you know the results as soon as they come in," the doctor told me.

The doctor called the next morning. "I've got good news for you," he said. "You don't have an enlarged heart. You have an enlarged artery and that's not really anything to worry about."

As soon as I got off the phone, I told my wife the whole story. She looked at me in disbelief.

"You ASSHOLE! Why didn't you tell me right away?"

"I didn't want you to worry. Besides, I wanted to know for sure if there was a problem."

"So, that why you've been acting like an idiot for the last few weeks."

"I thought I was acting normal."

"No you weren't. You've been moping around like a 10-year-old. Plus you've been drinking way too much."

"Honey I was a little out of sorts. A little wine helped me sleep better."

"No it didn't. The wine just made you drunk."

"Well, yes, that too."

"Promise me you'll never keep secrets like that from me again."

"Sure thing, honey. Whatever you say."

"Liar."

Milo Samardzija's great American novel, "Schoolboy," is on sale now. If you haven't bought a copy yet you are a cheap illiterate. Is that how you want people to think of you? - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Who Raises Gorillas?

2009-05-18T10:32:00.011-04:00

I'm sitting at a table on the corner outside Starbuck's -- my dog at my feet -- drinking my coffee and reading my book, a Graham Greene novel about an English double-agent.

I'm enjoying the moment. The sky's blue -- the day warm, but not hot. The plots got me hooked. I'm eagerly turning the pages -- something big and bad's about to pop.

My cell phone rings. It's my mother.

"Did you see the story about the lady who raises gorillas?" she asks.

"No...."

"She raises gorillas in her front yard. Who raises gorillas?"

"I didn't see it...."

"It's in the paper...."

"I haven't seen the paper yet?"

"You haven't read the paper? It's almost noon and you haven't read the paper -- did you just get up?"

"I've been reading a book...."

"I'm about to eat lunch and you haven't read the paper...."

I sip my coffee. This could be awhile.

"She went to your college...."

"Who?"

"The lady who raises the gorillas...."

"Oh...."

"It says she's two years older than you, so you would have been there where she was there. Did you know her?"

"What's her name?"

"I can't remember...."

"How do I know if I know her if I don't know her name?"

"Well, she went to your college...."

Pause. I'm not sure what I can say.

The phone beeps. "I got another call coming in -- hold on." I put her on hold to take a call from Merlin, the computer wizard, who tells me he's coming by to fix my computer. I come back to my mother and I catch her mid-sentence. I don't think she realizes I put her on hold.

"She keeps the gorillas in her front yard. Can you imagine liking gorillas so much you raise them?"

"No...."

"She said she used to go to Milwaukee and visit the zoo. Ever go to Milwaukee?"

"Yes...."

"I can't imagine anything worth seeing in Milwaukee...."

I fight off the urge to defend Milwaukee. My phone beeps. "Hold on." I put her on hold to take a call from my oldest daughter who tells me she and my wife will be home soon.

I come back to my mother who, again, not aware that she was on hold, has moved on to another subject -- the Preakness horse race.

"The filly won...."

"Yes, Rachel Alexandra...."

"A filly is a girl horse...."

"I know...."

"A gelding is a horse that's fixed...."

"Right...."

"A colt is a male horse -- did you know that?"

"Yes...."

"You didn't know that...."

"I did know that...."

"I'm just tweaking you...."

A lady walks by with a dachshund. My dog, who had been resting, rushes out from under the table. My coffee spills. No more left. I think about buying a new one. But, nah, Merlin's on his way. Time to get home.

I gather my stuff and cross the street. Got the book and the leash in one hand and the cell phone in the other. My mother's telling me about her friend's illness. Guess I'll read my book later....

Big Mike: A Tale Of Eternal Love

2009-05-17T10:24:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I think my history of love and marriage is downright weird. Thankfully, I keep my ears open so I can hear other people's tales and I don't feel so odd. I heard one from a woman at Dick's Pizza last week.

Let's call her Tammy. She's not exactly a regular but everyone knows her and the bartenders know what she likes to drink. She's short with flashing blue eyes and is smartly dressed like, oh, a real estate agent. In fact, she's in the house-trading racket, working for a mortgage company.

It was a perfect May evening. With the sun setting gold beyond Goose Creek Road, I sat out in the patio with Tammy, Mayor Janey and her husband Tim, and Old Gus. As Tim and Old Gus studied their respective cocktails intently, Tammy and Mayor Janey regaled me with tales of Tammy's home life. Mayor Janey and Tammy are fast friends. Mayor Janey is the garbage commissioner of the town of Goose Creek. She runs for the post every year and wins in a landslide each time. One year, her vote total almost hit a hundred. I like to call her Mayor. She gets a kick out of it.

Tammy held a cell phone and peered at the screen. She told us she'd grounded one of her two teenaged daughters for some hijinks at a party over the weekend. She'd also seized the teen's cell phone, a torture on a par with waterboarding. Now she was monitoring the messages that came in one after another.

"Oh," Tammy said, "look at this! 'Big party Friday night. Maybe. If you're not there, you're square - ha ha ha!'"

"'Maybe' huh?" I said. "Sounds like code for, 'As long as my parents aren't around.'"

"Right. 'Maybe' is capitalized," Tammy said. "Well, looks like she's gonna be square."

The conversation got around to marriage. I told the group that I make a stellar ex-husband. Tammy raised her hand for a high five. "Oh yeah! Same here!" she crowed.

Tammy has a boyfriend now. She has no plans to wed. "He has his job and his kids, I have my job and my kids. We see each other when we can. Listen," Tammy confided, "it's better this way. If we had gotten married, we'd have been separated and divorced already."

With that, she launched into the tale of her first and only marriage. "He's really lucky he has me as an ex-wife," she said. "Any other woman would have killed him."

Tammy and her husband separated about ten years ago. For the first few months of the separation, he remained in the home with her for the sake of the kids and because, apparently, that perfect job seemed to elude him.

"Then, about six months later," Tammy recounted, "I found out he was having an affair with the woman who lived two doors down. It was funny because she'd been our babysitter. And my best friend!" All of us sitting around the table dutifully clucked our tongues.

"Oh, was I pissed! I told him to get out. Two days later, I see the woman's husband pulling out of the driveway to go to work. I chased him down. He stopped, rolled down the window, I leaned in and said, 'Did you know your wife and my ex-husband are fucking?'

"Of course, he didn't believe me at first because his wife was already poisoning his mind against me, saying things like I was delusional. But he found more evidence over the next couple of days and he couldn't deny it anymore. He moved out a week later. My ex-husband moved right in - shoom!"

Tammy followed this with a laundry list of her ex-husband's failings, a bill of particulars that would make Bernie Madoff blush. He lost money, he wasted money, he gambled money away, and he rarely, if ever, made money. He was, said Tammy, the classic Peter Pan. She felt as though she'd been raising three kids rather than two. He lied, he philandered and he left his underwear and socks on the floor.

"Still, I treated him with respect even after we split up," Tammy said. "It's for the kids. But it's really about me: I take the high road. I never say anything bad about him. If he had another ex-wife, she'd be talking about him all over town! Not me. I get along great with him."

Tammy then iterated that she never speaks ill of the man in front of the kids. Never has, never will. "But, man, the things I could tell them. Him and that woman."

Mayor Janey laughed. "Tell them about the time in the car," she said.

"Oh, yeah! Janey and me are in the car going out to dinner. The kids are in the back seat. I'm telling Janey about this woman, what a witch she is and how she deserves my ex-husband. All of a sudden, we get into an accident. The woman put a hex on me - she knew I was talking about them!"

Tammy took a sip out of her can of Coors Light and dragged on her Salem. "I took the high road. I had to work three jobs as a single mother just to put food on the table for my girls. I was only 30 years old. I don't know how or why I did it but I chose to be the better person. I took the high road.

"The only thing I regret is that he's such a no-good asshole. His daughters can't even respect him. They don't respect him. He doesn't give them any reason to respect him. He ought to grow up. But I've never said anything bad about him. I took the high road."

Tammy then told us that a couple of years after the divorce, her ex-husband and ex-best friend now were both unemployed and unable to keep up with the mortgage payments on the house two doors down. "As soon as I saw the bank's for sale sign on the front lawn, I called my mortgage company and bought the house. I waved bye-bye to them the day they moved out.

"She got my ex-husband and I got the house. I got the best of that deal."

It was getting late. Tammy stubbed out her last cigarette and drained her final can of Coors Light. She stood up. "That's my story," she said, exhaling menthol smoke. "I have to go now. But really, don't get me wrong - I love my ex-husband. I'm just not in love with him. But I'll love him till the day I die."

Benny Jay: Here Come The Hawks

2009-05-16T02:11:00.015-04:00

At the bowling alley, they got the Blackhawks game on TV -- all five of them, to be exact. It's game six of the playoff series against Vancouver. If the Hawks win, they move on to the next round.

I couldn't care less. I wouldn't even be paying attention except there's a dozen or so Hawks fans hanging around the bar, making so much noise.

I stand between Bob and Pat -- two stone-cold, crazy Hawks fans. They're standing still as statues. Eyes stuck on the tube. I'm not even sure they're breathing.

I turn to Norm. "They never put the Bulls on all the TVs," I say.

"Don't hate," he says.

"I'm just saying...."

"No, you're hating...."

I watch the Hawks skate round and round and round. Truth is, Norm's right. I am hating. I know I should be happy that they're doing so well after so many dismal seasons. But, hell, I don't care about the Blackhawks. Don't know any of their players. Can't remember the name of their coach. And my not caring has turned to hate cause I'm jealous. Every one's paying attention to the Hawks and every one's forgotten about the Bulls. I mean, this is even weirder than my normal weirdness, which is pretty weird.

"I used to like the Hawks," I tell Norm.

"Yeah...."

To prove it, I sing a snatch of their ancient fight song: "Here come the Hawks, the fighting Black Hawks/take the attack and we'll back you Black Hawks...."

Norm's laughing.

"But then they dumped Bobby Hull," I say.

"That was forty years ago, dawg...."

"Yeah, but he was the Golden Jet, man -- they dumped the Golden Jet...."

"You gotta get over that shit, dawg...."

"I hope they lose...."

"Aw, that's terrible, Benny. How can you say that, dawg? That don't make no fuckin' sense. They Chicago, Benny. As long as they from the Chi, you got to be goin' for them...."

"I can't...."

"Try...."

"Okay, man -- for you...."

So I try. I really do. I ask Bob for the name of the guy who scored a goal and he says that it's Pat Kane. I ask him who's the goaltender and he tells me -- something. I don't know. The name's a jumble of vowels. When the Hawks tie the game at five, I cheer. But it's an empty cheer. I just don't care.

I'm starting to worry about Pat. He looks pale. I'm watching him watching the Hawks and I'm thinking -- so this is what I must look like when I'm watching the Bulls on TV. All hunched over, a nervous wreck. Pat's a grown man, too -- past fifty. He's wearing a team jersey with Pat Kane's name an number on the back. Man, he's got it bad -- maybe even worse than me. At least I never wear a Derrick Rose team jersey.

Bored with the game, I go to the bar and order a coke. I page through the Sun-Times that's lying on the counter. I'm looking for a story about the Bulls -- any story will do. Turn page after page. Nothing. Nothing but Hawks this and Hawks that. I don't want to hate, but....

Roar! I look up to see the Hawks have scored. They're up six to five. Folks at the bar are cheering. Except for Pat. He looks even worse than before. Lips clenched. Hands tight. Whiter than white. I recognize the symptoms. I know what he's thinking -- he's dreading the worst. He's thinking if he cheers too soon -- if he counts those proverbial chickens before they proverbially hatch -- he'll blow it for his boys. As though anything he does can ever impact the game. I can related. If it were the Bulls, I'd be thinking the same stupid thing....

"Maybe you should take a walk," I suggest to him.

"Fuck," he says.

Clearly, he's in no mood for conversation. "They're gonna win," I tell him.

"Shut the fuck up -- don't jinx `em...."

"What do you mean jinx them? I got nothing to do with them. They're up one and they're playing at home. They have the home-court advantage...."

"Ice," says Bob.

"Huh?" I ask.

"Home ice advantage -- it's hockey, not basketball, dickwad...."

"Ice, court -- whatever...."

I walk to the jukebox. The younger guys have taken it over, playing shitty `80s rock. Is it just me or did the `80s suck when it came to rock `n roll?

Another roar. Hawks score -- up two. Vancouver looks devastated.

"It's over," I tell Pat.

"Not yet," he insists.

The game ends. The bar erupts. Bob and Pat are pounding each other on the back and talking about the next big series.

Aw, hell, it looks like it's gonna be at least another two weeks of this crap. If I were a drinking man, I'd have to have another....

Randolph Street: The Secret Chicago River

2009-05-15T10:53:00.012-04:00

"I did these pix in 2007. The idea was to shoot along the North Branch of the Chicago River from Belmont Avenue, just west of Western Avenue, north to the Sauganash neighborhood." - Jon Randolph, photojournalist.

Just north of Belmont Avenue.

4100 North at the river.

A river house, 4500 North.

Between Wilson and Lawrence avenues.

A river house porch, looking across the river toward Horner Park.

The Ravenswood el (Brown Line) from the Wilson Avenue bridge.

West River Park between Argyle and Foster avenues.

West River Park at the confluence of the North Branch and the North Shore Channel of the Chicago River.

Join us every Friday for more peeks at Chicago through the lens of photojournalist Jon Randolph. The Third City is here with a new post every day. - The Eds.

Big Mike: My Horrors Are Bigger Than Your Horrors

2009-05-14T13:04:00.009-04:00

The woman appeared to be boiling over. Let's call her Fatima. She seemed to be dying to say something but knew it might ignite a verbal melee. She found a roundabout way to say it, though. What followed was not an explosion but a simmering huff. The explosion would have been better.

Let me set the scene. The Loved One and I participated in a gallery exhibit at the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park the week before last. Entitled "Snap Out Of It..., Don't You Hate It When They Say That?" the show focused on clinical depression.

The show's barn boss was a visual artist named Sophia, a dear old pal of mine. She's fought a lifelong battle to get people to take clinical depression seriously. She suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a symptom of which is depression. Too many people have implied that she's merely being lazy. Some have come right out and said so. With the show, she created a constructive public outlet for her frustration.

I did a reading of a piece entitled, "I'm Slipping." It recounted a bit of my own lifelong battle against depression. Here's how it started:

I'm slipping.

Again. Same old thing. My life becomes very simple when I'm in the big slip. Sleep. Eat as many carbohydrates as the world's farms can produce. Tell myself what a lousy, lazy bum I am. Go back to sleep. Wake up. Eat more carbs. Insult myself. Do it all over again.

A lot of people love the simple life.

What's to love?

Later, I write:

I'm alone.

There must be some outward sign that warns people I'm toxic. Stay away! Don't touch, don't inhale, don't catch it!

When I'm slipping, people find ways to sidle away from me. And I think, "Those jerks. Couldn't get enough of me six months ago, now they wouldn't pour their drinks on me it I was on fire. What's wrong with them?"

But something's wrong with me. I radiate something. I've heard that if you walk near a big radio station's transmitter, you can hear the broadcast in your head, as if the metal in your fillings has received the signal and now is treating you to the Jonas Brothers in the caverns of your cranium. Maybe that's how powerful this depression is - 50,000 watts-worth of misery pouring out of me like the WGN signal.

I even delve into my wrangling with the ultimate solution:

Gotta find a way out of this mess.

Suicide. I've thought about it every day for most of my life. Sometimes, every hour....

... People become angry when they hear about a suicide. They say the person who did the dying was - take your pick - selfish, sinful, weak, or even all three. As if the cutting, the hanging, the ingestion of poison, the inhalation of toxic gas, or the submersion in frigid waters was the moral equivalent of having an office fling or eating the last of the ice cream.

In true Hollywood fashion, I end on the upbeat:

In a never-ending attempt to right my listing ship of sanity, I've tried talk therapy, group therapy, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, Freudian analysis, four different antidepressants, Valium, Xanax, Buddhist chanting, prayer, St. John's Wort, exercise, gin, vodka and beer, promiscuity, abstinence, pot, and at least a half dozen other panaceas I've forgotten or am too embarrassed to mention.

Trial and error. If at first you don't succeed, yadda yadda yadda. I hit on Zoloft when I was 46. Seven years ago. Hmm. I think this might work. I don't feel too much like killing myself anymore. Zoloft. And hope. They're all I've got.

I promise you - I swear to you - I'm gonna snap out of this. Because that's how easy it is. I made the decision and set out to complete this task and I'm almost finished. And it's only taken..., let's see now..., 36 years. It's a snap!

The fun thing about doing a staged reading is that, for a few minutes at least, I'm a rock star. A sculptor ran up to me after I was finished and lavished more praise on me than I could possibly merit. As she gushed, Fatima approached.

Fatima was born in a country that's notorious for its history of violence and unrest. She's made it clear many times that this whole business of depression is the bunk. According to Fatima, depression is easily conquered through prayer and a stiff upper lip.

Antidepressants? Hah! Shrinks and support groups? A couple of rackets.

Her's is precisely the attitude "Snap Out Of It..." was intended to address.

Exuding tension, Fatima waited for an opening. When the sculptor said that today's economic woes may set off an epidemic of depression, Fatima couldn't hold herself back. "You know, people have no idea what problems really are," she began.

Her eyes flashed wide. Her jaw jutted. "I've seen people shot on street corners. I've had to take cover for my life. Americans don't have any problems yet they're always talking about how horrible things are. It's sickening! Maybe people should experience real horror."

I sensed immediately that she was really referring to my tale of woe. Yet, wishing to avoid a scene, I found myself nodding. "Oh yeah, I know what you mean," I replied in my oiliest salesman voice. "We're richer and healthier than 98 percent of all the people in the world...." And so on.

What I should have done is tell Fatima to go fuck herself. It would have made me feel a lot better. When you're clinically depressed, you should always try to make yourself feel a lot better.

Letter From Milo: Professional Bullshitter

2009-05-13T08:27:00.009-04:00

For the past 25 years years I've made my living in the advertising business. I've worked for mainly small- to medium-size agencies and for the last 10 years I've run my own small company, called Big Sky Studios.

When I tell people I'm in the ad business, they sometimes ask me what I do. Am I a designer, account exec, media buyer? "No, " I answer, "I am a professional bullshitter."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I'm an advertising writer, the person who comes up with catchy headlines and informative copy that are supposed to convince you that the products or services I'm writing about are things you can't live without. In essence, I'm a salesman with a keyboard."

I've met a lot of interesting people in the ad business. On the creative side - meaning art directors, designers and writers - the business is filled with very talented people. Many of them could be very succesful in other creative endeavors. I've also met some very nice people from the business side of advertising - account managers, media buyers and upper echelon executives. Many of these people could also succeed in other business environments and often do.

On the other hand, I've also met a lot of raging assholes, unscrupulous and unethical people, some who are borderline psychotics and others who are shameless thieves. Sadly, the ad business seems to attract nutcases. It is an industry driven by creativity, the almighty dollar and merciless deadlines, a combination guaranteed to bring out the worst in people.

One of the most unscrupulous and unethical people I ever met in the business was a guy I'll call Lou, who owned a mid-size agency that specialized in direct mail, or what some people refer to as "junk mail." Lou had the trifecta of despicable character traits: he was an ego-ridden maniac with a penchant for screaming at his employees; a thief who cheated clients and vendors alike; and - worst of all, in my opinion - he despised the business that made him a wealthy man. He hated his clients, loathed his vendors and mistreated his employees. One of his favorite sayings was, "All clients are pigs."

He was also insanely jealous of anyone in the business who was more successful than he was. Just mentioning the name of of someone like Leo Burnett or David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy & Mather, would set Lou off.

"Leo Burnett was a rotten old bastard, stole his best ideas and ended up with a billion-dollar agency. I make it a point to piss on his grave a couple of times a year. And don't get me started on Ogilvy. He's nothing but a Limey faggot who came over here and bullshitted everyone with that greasy English charm. What the fuck did either of those cocksuckers ever accomplish other than stick their noses about a foot and a half up their clients' asses? You tell me."

If you were foolish enough to point out that Burnett and Ogilvie were part of a small group that virtually invented modern advertising, Lou would turn on you. He would call you vile names and probably cut your Christmas bonus in half - that is, if the cheap bastard planned on giving out bonuses at all.

I saw Lou do a lot of underhanded things, but the most outrageous was when he cheated our biggest client. It was a case of blatant theft and the funny thing was he could have gotten away with it if he had not been so stupid.

The client put in an order for thousands of ball caps with its company logo on them. Lou immediately called the most expensive vendor in town and got a quote of $16,000. He then marked up that price $4000 and presented the client with a quote for $20,000. The client agreed to the price.

That's when Lou went to work. He immediately began searching for a vendor who would provide the ball caps at a lower price. After talking to dozens of suppliers, he finally found a small mom and pop shop that would do the job for $3000.

Despite the new rock bottom price, Lou stayed true to his nature and refused to pass on the savings to his client. When the mom and pop shop invoice arrived, Lou let it sit on his desk for months. That was his style. He hated to pay vendors. He would string them along for months, waiting until they threatened to sue, then send them a pittance, just enough to satisfy "legal good faith" requirements. Then the whole dragged-out payment process would begin again.

In this case, the mom and pop shop got tired of waiting and pulled an end run. They sent a copy of the invoice directly to our client. Shortly afterwards, I got a call from Jeff, my contact at the client.

"Hey, Milo, I've got an invoice sitting on my desk from the ball cap company."

"That's strange."

"They sent it here because you guys haven't paid them and the invoice is six months old."

"Heh, heh. Must be some sort of mistake."

"Perhaps. Oh, and by the way, can you explain why were were charged $20,000 for a job that you paid three thousand for?"

I may be a professional bullshitter, but I didn't even try to bullshit my way out of that one. The client fired us a week later. And a few weeks after that I gave my two week notice. After all, there's only so much bullshit a pro can take.

Benny Jay: Mother's Day

2009-05-12T02:07:00.017-04:00

We go to our favorite Italian restaurant for Mother's Day. Nobody gets plastered, but we have a few drinks. Manhattans for my parents, beer for me. My sister and wife are drinking something -- can't remember what.

By the end of the dinner no one's feeling any pain. My younger daughter orders tea -- Earl Grey. "I don't like Earl Grey," my sister says.

"You're not drinking it," I tell her.

My mother tells a story about a girl she knew in college who stole a towel from a hotel: "They found the towel in her suitcase. I said, `You don't need that towel.' She said, `I always wanted that towel.'"

The conversation moves to a discussion of Key West in Florida. My father talks about the writers who have lived there. "Hemingway and Wallace Stevens once had a fist fight," he says.

I shouldn't say anything, but he has to be wrong. Wallace Stevens is too old to be a contemporary of Hemingway. The old man's slipping -- he's getting his poets mixed up.

"Stevens broke his fist when he hit Hemingway in the jaw," he continues.

I shake my head. "That didn't happen," I say.

"Yes, it did...."

"It couldn't. Stevens is twenty years older than Hemingway. That's like you having a fight with...." I try to think of a colleague or a friend who is twenty years younger than my father.

"They had a fight," he says. "You can look it up...."

The conversation moves to Pete Seeger. My sister says they just had a concert in New York City, celebrating his 90th birthday. "Bruce Springsteen was there," she says.

"But your friend didn't show," my father says to me.

"Which friend?" I say.

"Dylan...."

I think -- don't fall for it.

"He is your friend?" says my father, as if I've ever even met Bob Dylan.

"Dylan snubbed Pete Seeger?" asks my mother.

I fall for it. "We don't know if he was invited...."

"Why wouldn't he be invited?" says my sister. "You know he was invited. He's still mad at the folk singers for things that happened forty years ago...."

"We don't know he was invited," I say.

"He should get over it," says my sister.

I stop. Why am I falling for this? I'm a thousand years old and I'm still falling for this.

"The point is that one of them is a leftist and the other is a religious rightist," says my father.

I fall for it again. "Okay, Dylan's not a religious rightist," I say.

"But didn't he become a Christian?" asks my mother.

"That doesn't make him a religious rightist," I say.

"But why didn't he go to Pete Seeger's party?" asks my mother.

"Maybe he wasn't invited," I say.

"Of course, he was invited," says my sister.

"How do you know?" I say. "Did you make the invitations?"

Ah, weak response. I'm not up to my usual game. I should drink more. Maybe I'd be wittier if I drank more.

Later that night I go to my computer and look up Wallace Stevens and Ernest Hemingway. I'll be goddamn -- there it is. They quote a letter that Hemingway wrote, and it's just like my dad said: "Mr. Stevens hit me flush on the jaw with his Sunday punch bam like that. And this is very funny. Broke his hand in two places. Didn't hurt my jaw at all."

What an arrogant ass Hemingway was. Makes me want to hear Stevens' side of the story.

Oh, well -- I should know better. There are four arguments you will never, ever win: A baseball argument with Big Mike Glab; a basketball argument with Norm; an argument about The Beatles with my sister (she knows freaking everything about The Beatles); and an argument about poets and/or poetry with my father.

No matter how old he is....

Big Mike: A Little Note On A Big Deal?

2009-05-11T08:50:00.004-04:00

This long distance romance deal is losing some of its, well, romance. Spending her weeknights holed up in the bedroom of a sublet apartment has begun to turn The Loved One into a irascible thing. She certainly was no Perle Mesta this weekend back home at the Murray Hill Pike ranch and it's hard to blame her. On the other hand, I nominate myself for sainthood for bearing without complaint (oh, alright, I complained a little..., scratch that - a lot) her tight-lipped mien, snippy replies and overall spleen.

So I suppose the prospects of my beatification hinge upon the fact that we didn't actually engage in hand-to-hand combat from Friday evening through late Sunday afternoon, the length of this week's reunion.

Imagine that - St. Big Mike!

We did get some good news Friday when the owners of a terrific country home took us up on our offer to make a contingency offer (is that an offer once removed?) They've found a new place but, like everyone else in the United States, are stuck waiting for someone to take their current home off their hands. It's a nation of time-biders right now. I get the feeling that some family, somewhere - say, Enid, Oklahoma - will get a solid offer on their home Wednesday afternoon, setting in motion the domino fall of several million sales that will cause real estate agents everywhere to swoon in delirium.

Not to mention The Loved One and me. We haven't got a single offer yet, even though our home has been on the market for more than two months and, if I do say so myself, is quite a joint.

That's all for now. Gotta shave (head and face) and dress like an adult. I'm headed up to Bloomington, Indiana later this morning for an afternoon chock-full of interviews with people from a gigantic corporation who seem interested in my services as a copywriter. Hmm.

The last of the great free agents trading in his normal workaday attire (boxer shorts, coffee-stained T-shirt and flip-flops) for a collared shirt and pleated trousers? Can it be? Stay tuned.

Benny Jay: My Time Of Year

2009-05-10T13:17:00.028-04:00

It's Daddy Dee who tells me about the concert at Martyrs. He says he's singing with Tributosaurus, this cover band that sings the songs of the legends, and on this particular night they're singing War.

For a minute I think I'm not going cause it's raining, number one; and, number two, I don't want to play the part of the old timer gathering with other old timers to sing old songs from the past.

But forget that. I am old -- no use sitting at home about it. And I love War. Always have. Always will. Plus, my wife got me this new umbrella -- cherry red and everything -- which covers up the whole sidewalk, it's so big.

So my wife and I go. And they knock us out. There must be ten guys in the band, including a horn section, a keyboardist, a bass player, a drummer and a percussionist. One of the singers is a big feller named Matt Spiegel, who's deceptively nimble. Moves like a cat. Reminds me of Nathan Lane. And he's got almost operatic range -- he really sounds like the singer in War. The trumpet player is, of all people, Mike Cichowicz, who happens to be the older brother of The Tit, the kid who snuck me into see "The Godfather" about, oh, two billion light years ago. And the coolest of the cool is the guitar player, who sits on his stool and barely blinks an eye. Daddy Dee calls him Big D, but I think of him as Baby Buddha cause he radiates a peaceful kind of mellow.

Daddy Dee and Matt are trading solos, singing every song in the book -- "Spill the Wind," "The World is a Ghetto," "Why Can't We Be Friends" and so on. I'm on the dance floor, not so much dancing as tapping my umbrella to the beat. Got a couple of beer-bellied old timers in Hawaiian shirts standing behind me. They know every word and they're singing along, bringing back phrases I haven't thought about in years: "Let's have a picnic go to the park, rollin' in the grass `til long after dark...."

The band does an off-the-charts version of "Slippin' Into Darkness." In my mind, it's the summer of `78 and we're down by the boathouse on the North Avenue beach around midnight. Some one's passing the wine and the weed -- must be two dozen people crowded around a boom box that's playing this song. A police car cruises up and everyone scatters cause it's after curfew. I run all the way to Fullerton and double back after the police car's gone. Every one's returned. Got the song playing right where we left it -- "Slippin' into darkness, takes my mind beyond the trees." Didn't miss a beat....

The band moves into "Summer," one of my all-time all times. Now I'm singing with the boys in the Hawaiian shirts: "Ridin' round town with all the windows down, eight track playin' all your fav'rit songs...."

The concert ends and we head outside, walking down Lincoln Avenue in the dead of night. Rain's stopped. Clouds gone. Seems warmer. I take off my jacket. A cool breeze strokes my arm. I'm tapping my umbrella against the ground like it's a cane. Feeling all sprightly -- like Fred Astaire. Summer's coming. I can feel it. Gonna ride my bike up and down the lakefront. Check out the outdoor concerts in Grant Park. Dance under the stars `n everything. From the corner of my mind the refrain returns: "Yes, it's summer, summer time is here/yes, it's summer, my time of year...."

Randolph Street: Bob Dylan In Chicago

2009-05-09T10:52:00.017-04:00

Jon Randolph is alive! Randolph Street is a day late but well worth the wait. Chicago's finest photojournalist tells the tale of today's pix in his own words. Take it away Jon. - The Eds.

I took these photos in September, 1975, when I was working for WTTW Channel 11 in Chicago. I'd loved Dylan since the Freewheelin' album was released in May, 1963. It was a dream come true that he was scheduled to appear on Soundstage for a tribute to John Hammond....

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I'm not sure Dylan was even the biggest star of the show - after all, Hammond had played a key role in the careers of Marion Williams, Helen Humes, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, George Benson, Red Norvo, Philly Joe Jones, Milt Hinton, and even John Hammond, Jr.

With Scarlet Rivera playing violin, Dylan sang "Hurricane," "Simple Twist of Fate," and "Oh, Sister." It was well after midnight when Dylan finished his set. I was standing next to a young hipster record producer when he said to his pal, "He's still got it. Goddamn, I thought he was through."

Amen.

Big Mike: This Depression Ain't So Great

2009-05-08T12:18:00.016-04:00

Visual and spoken word artists have joined forces for an exhibit on depression (the skull-jockey variety, not the economic kind) in the Dole Gallery at the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park in Crystal Lake, Illinois. The show, "Snap Out Of It... Don't You Hate It When They Say That?" which runs through May 15th, features deeply personal ruminations on the illness, which some 20 million Americans grapple with.

May is Mental Health Month in McHenry County. Lakeside Legacy Arts Park this month also features "Voice - Adolescent Allies," in the Sage Gallery, featuring works by teens exploring relationship power dynamics and sexual violence.

Here are images of some of the works from "Snap Out Of It."

"Social Phobia," acrylic on canvas, 2009,

by Sophia Anastasiou-Wasik

"I Would If I Could," computer graphics, 2009,

by Karen Roszkowski

"Addiction" (left) and "Obsession," both mixed media on Masonite, 2009, by Sophia Anastasiou-Wasik

"I'm Falling," prose poem performance, 2009, by Michael G. Glab

In case you're looking for this week's installment of Randolph Street, photojournalist Jon Randolph is missing in action today. To the best of our knowledge, he had pressing social and convivial responsibilities last night which kept him from his cozy bed until the wee hours. We trust he has an ample supply of aspirin on hand for when he greets the day.

Check in with us tomorrow. Hopefully, good old Jon will have rejoined the living by then. Come to The Third City every day for top-notch writing and terrific pictures.

Letter From Milo: The Fortunes of War

2009-05-07T08:22:00.012-04:00

As I mentioned in a few earlier posts, I am a veteran of the war in Vietnam. It was an ugly meat grinder of a war, fought for the wrong reasons, against the wrong people, and, predictably, it all went terribly wrong. I'm not smart enough to explain the the political, ethical or fiduciary reasons for the war, I'd just like to relate a few odd incidents that you might find interesting.

Incident #1

We had a 2nd Lieutenant, let's call him Lt. Smith, who served as my platoon leader for several months. He seemed to be a nice enough guy, considerate of his men, easy to talk to and not too eager to cover himself in glory. He was an educated man, with a degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and when we had some downtime he would usually spend it reading paperback books. He seemed like a completely normal guy.

If Lt. Smith had a quirk it was that he was madly in love with his college girlfriend. Whenever I talked to him the discussion would invariably turn to the love of his life. He carried a photo album of her and would whip it out at the slightest sign of interest. The photos depicted an attractive young woman in a variety of settings, on campus, at the beach, on the ski slopes.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" Lt. Smith would always ask me, after showing me her latest pictures.

"Yeah, she's a real looker."

"We're going to get married when I get back to the world."

"That's great, sir."

"We were going to get married before I came in-country, but I thought it best we wait, just in case."

"That's real sound thinking, sir."

One day Lt. Smith got a letter from his beloved, which contained a couple of more photos and mentioned that she and a few girlfriends were going to spend the weekend in upstate New York attending an outdoor music festival. As it turned out, the festival was Woodstock.

Just to remind those of you whose memories are shot, whose brain cells are fried, or who are in the early stages of Alzheimer's, Woodstock was the blow-out party of the 20th Century. It was a life-changing event for many people, changing their attitudes, redefining their reasons for existence and altering the trajectory of their lives. Apparently, Lt. Smith's girlfriend was one of the people who went to Woodstock and never looked back. Lt. Smith, who used to get a letter from his girlfriend every other day, never heard from her again, at least while he was in Vietnam. I doubt I've ever seen a sadder or more forlorn man.

Incident #2

Packages from home were always a welcome treat. We called them "Care Packages" and they usually came from parents, grandparents, wives or girlfriends. The packages contained everything from homemade cookies to bottles of whiskey, porn magazines to editions of hometown newspapers. My father once sent me a wicked-looking Buck knife with a fine leather sheath. I lost it a couple of months after it arrived.

There was a guy - let's call him Freaky Joe - who received a package from his girlfriend that contained a DayGlo paint set. Readers of a certain age will remember that DayGlo paints were all the rage for a time, especially with the psychedelic set. The paints glowed in the dark and were used for decorating t-shirts, making posters and face painting. I knew a guy in college who liked to get stoned, use Day-Glo paint to paint all of his teeth different colors and then go out at night and smile at people.

Anyway, Freaky Joe spent one afternoon smoking reefer and painting a Claymore mine with his newly-arrived paint set. A Claymore mine is a plastic shell filled with C-4 explosives and packed with hundreds of BBs or ball bearings. It was attached to a 50-yard-long cord that had a manually activated detonating device at its terminus. When the device was set off, the Claymore exploded with devastating power, shredding everything in its range.

Freaky Joe was sitting with a goofy smile on his face, a Claymore in his lap, painting stars, half moons, polka dots and stick figures all over the mine's outer shell. When asked what he was doing, Freaky Joe replied, "Just fucking around."

That night Freaky Joe's squad went out on night ambush. This was an exercise where a squad of eight men went out in the evening and set up an ambush along a well-traveled trail. Anybody who came walking by was in trouble. To be fair, the other side did the same thing.

Freaky Joe had his own idea of how to run a night ambush. He hung the painted Claymore mine in a tree, about head high. Then he went off about 40 yards, found a good place to hide, and , using his night vision goggles, waited for some poor soul to come by.

A while later, a lone Vietnamese came strolling along. He might have been an NVA regular, a Viet Cong or just a luckless farmer. The man saw something odd hanging in a tree, something unexplainable. It was a group of stars, half moons, stripes and stick figures, all twinkling and glowing in the dark. His curiosity obviously piqued, the man walked up to the glowing vision and pressed his face close to see what it was. At that point Freaky Joe activated the Claymore and blew the man's head off.

"Curiosity killed the gook," Freaky Joe said. The boys got a lot of laughs out of that one.

Incident #3

Every couple of months my company would be taken out of the field and taken back to Division Headquarters in Chu Lai for three days of rest and relaxation that was known as "standdown." There was plenty of relaxation but very little rest. It was basically a three-day beer bust, with lots of reefer and opium to grease the skids.

One of the best things about standdown was that Division HQ provided live entertainment, in the form of rock, country or R&B bands. The bands were generally from Australia, South Korea or the Philippines. I don't remember if they were any good, but they were always fronted by attractive female singers.

One of the rumors going around was that these singers also doubled as whores. We had just finished watching a performance by an Australian group that featured three very good looking singers. They played mostly Motown stuff and did a credible imitation of the Supremes. When the show was over, I huddled with a guy named Duffy and a 2nd Lieutenant, whom I'll call Bruce Diksas to spare him any undue embarrassment. We decided to take a shot at the the Aussie Supremes.

Lt. Diksas, being an officer and a gentleman, was able to commandeer the company jeep. Then he, Duffy and I went in search of the women.

"Oh, man, round-eyed women."

"Yeah, and two of them are blondes."

"Shit, man, I haven't seen a blonde in eight months."

"Did you bring the weed?"

"Brought a bottle, too."

"Oh, man, this is gonna be great."

"Fucking blondes, can you believe it?"

We finally located the entertainers' compound. It was a heavily guarded area of Airstream trailers enclosed by barbed wire. The only reason we were able to get inside was that Lt. Diksas pulled rank, telling the MP at the gate that we in search of an AWOL and had information that he might be in the area.

When we located the Aussie Supremes' manager, a greasy looking guy who resembled a debauched Oliver Reed, we made our offer.

"We'll give you a hundred and fifty dollars each for the three girls for the night."

The manager lit a cigarette - I remember it was a Salem - and considered our offer. He pursed his lips, rocked his head from side to side, squinted his eyes, and then finally broke our hearts.

"I'm sorry, lads. That's a nice offer, but the girls are playing the Field Grade Officers Club this evening and I'm sure we'll get a better deal."

I guess the old adage is true - rank does have its privileges. With apologies to General Sherman, war is, indeed, hell.

Big Mike: The Good, The Bad, And The Repulsive

2009-05-06T10:36:00.012-04:00

Ah, back in good old Louisville, where the magnolias are deep green, the grass awns wave blue in the breeze, and my nasal passages are packed with concrete, thanks to all the Ohio Valley allergens fighting to get a crack at me.

My four-day sojourn in Chicago brought about the usual love-hate reaction. The bad: the crush of traffic, the brusque - almost hostile - manner of passersby and check-out clerks, and the phallic prominence of Donald Trump's new monument to himself on the site of the old Sun-Times building. As I understand it, the condominiums of his Trump International Hotel and Tower are largely empty and he's being sued by his creditors. Come to think of it, maybe this isn't such a bad thing - it's always a pleasure to see a confidence man get his comeuppance. Still, that soulless 1300-foot sex toy on the Chicago River has marred a mostly magnificent skyline.

As for the good, well, there are my pals Sophia and Danny and their two kids, Arianna and Matty, with whom The Loved One and I stayed, Benny Jay and Milo, of course, Chinatown and Ricobene's pizza joint on 26th Street, and Wrigley Field - which I always drive circles around when I visit. The ballpark looks gorgeous, even with the commercialization of the bleacher entrance (good god, the Cubs have essentially sold naming rights to a doorway - what's next, the Michelob Pale Ale Urinals? The Vagisil Medicated Anti-Itch Ladies Room?)

I love Chicago and I hate it. I suppose that puts me in the good company of some 2,896,016 people (according to the latest official census.) A dozen or so of those citizens were gathered at the access road away from McCormick Place Monday afternoon as The Loved One and I drove past, giving us a remarkable send-off. I mean, I assume they were Chicagoans but, then again, given the reason for their jarring presence, they might well have been from distant points on the American map (as well as the American psyche.)

The Loved One had just attended a convention of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists at the Lakeside Center. Now that she's drawing pretty pictures for reproductive technology products for her new employer, she has to rub shoulders with medicos who specialize in women's plumbing.

Our plan was to begin the long drive back to Kentucky as soon as her Monday convention session was finished. The Prius was packed with all our luggage, as well as a sizable Ricobene's pizza - much of which we demolished by the time we got to Indianapolis. The sun shone, the temperature hovered around 70, the Cubs were in the midst of a four-game winning streak - what could tarnish the mood?

How about a seemingly endless string of enormous, full-color placards of human fetuses in various states of destruction? There were images of half skulls, bloody limbs, gooey guts, and all the rest of the emotional pornography that anti-abortionists wallow in. The dubiously self-described "right-to-lifers" had chosen this spot to attempt to shock us into agreeing with their selective love-of-humanity philosophy, figuring, I'm sure, that at least some of the conventioneering doctors have performed an abortion or two.

Fair enough. I love being an American and support the right of anyone to carry a placard, even if it compares Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler or posits that George W. Bush and his boys engineered the 9/11 attacks. Lunatics have as much right to shout from the rooftops as I do. Only I don't shout from rooftops nor do I much care to tote a picture of a fetus's severed arm.

So rather than drink in that last glorious glimpse of the Loop, Navy Pier and the Ferris wheel, the blue lake, and the lovably pretentious neo-Grecian architecture of the Field Museum, we were forced to peer at some religious fundamentalists' macabre messaging.

The jerks.

Benny Jay: Talkin' Tony The Teeth Cleaner

2009-05-05T13:12:00.026-04:00

It's dentist day. Damn. I hate everything about it. Can't stand sitting in the chair with the teeth cleaner hovering over me. Can't stand the sound of the drill. Can't stand the scratchy sound the scalpel makes when it scrapes across my teeth....

Plus, it's raining. Got wet running from the car. Sitting in the lobby reading an old copy of The New Yorker. Must be from March. I hear a drill in the distance. I feel a headache coming on....

I hear my name. I look up. It's Tony! The world's greatest teeth cleaner. He leads me to the chair and already I'm feeling brighter. Haven't had him in years. Forgot he even worked here.

He's not like most teeth cleaners who don't say anything until your mouth's open wide and then they ask you a question. Like they really care about what you have to say even though they know you can't possibly say anything intelligent with your mouth open wide. Is this passive aggressive or what?

But Tony doesn't ask questions. He talks. He's this gay guy from a small-town in Michigan and he has a sixth sense for the inconsistencies in life -- like how we say one thing and do something else. It's like having a stand-up comic chatting away while he cleans your teeth. Not a Rodney Dangerfield comic, more like a Jerry Seinfeld. You know, situational humor....

"I used to have a dog, but I gave her away...."

"Why?" Only it comes out "ahy" cause my mouth is open.

"She hated me...."

"Ril-ly?"

"I never heard of a dog who hates its owner. Usually, they love whoever feeds them, right? But this dog hated me. She used to leave the room when I came in. She would sit on the other end of the couch when I was watching TV. I could have grown beef jerky for armpit hair and she still would have hated me...."

"Goo' wah....."

"The funny thing is -- she loves the people I gave her to. They call me up, `oh, she's the sweetest little dog. Cuddles with us at night.' She never cuddled with me. She wouldn't even get in bed with me...."

I spit. He starts talking about his family -- not sure how the topic comes up. He has two brothers in the Army. Both overseas -- Iraq, Afghanistan. For awhile one of his brother was stationed in Kuwait: "I sent him a guide book -- things to do in Kuwait. Art museums to go to, restaurants to eat at. He calls me, `Tony, I'm not on vacation -- this is war.' I'm like -- `well, you still have to eat.....'"

He turns on the drill:"I'm the only boy in my family who didn't join the military. My father was a Marine. He used to wake me up early. `Get out of bed, soldier.' I mean -- soldier? Good God, I'm like 12 and he's calling me soldier. If I did something wrong, he'd make me rake the leaves. `You're gonna rake the leaves until I'm tired.' I was so literal minded. I'm thinking -- `how can that be? I'm raking the leaves -- not him.'"

He turns off the drill: "When I was 17, I told my father I wasn't going to the military. It devastated him. But there was no way -- just no way -- I was going to the Army or the Marines. Especially the Marines...."

"Is he still in the Marines?"

"No. He left the Marines and became a computer programmer. He works at a hospital. He's big time in the union...."

"So he's a Democrat?"

"Are you kidding me? He voted for McCain. I'm like -- hello! You're in a union. You work in a hospital. Why are you a Republican? It's all that Marine in him. He's incapable of being a Democrat. He still can't pronounce Obama's name. He calls him Obamba -- like the song. Does this make sense? None of this makes sense. But since when did life make sense...."

Big Mike: The Kidney Stone Kids

2009-05-04T15:38:00.006-04:00

I've been chewing my fingernails for the last hour and a half. Jeez, I'd better watch out or I'll draw blood. I'm tense, edgy. The guy driving the black BMW in front of me is going about 12 miles an hour, leaning over and checking addresses. I honk. He turns around and flips me the digit. I pull around him to pass and yell, "Get the hell outta my way!"

As I pass, I see him shouting a response. Most of the words begin with an F.

I'm back in Chicago.

The reason for all my nail-chewing and overall angst is the city's unbearable traffic. I've been in Louisville more than two years now and people down there consider five cars stopped at a red light to be a traffic jam. I don't know how I survived 50 years in Chicago with my sanity intact.

I'm heading over to Benny Jay's estate, hard by Lincoln Square, a hop, skip and a jump from Wrigley Field. How long has it been since I laid eyes on my literary colleague and business partner? It becomes obvious the first time we see each other as Benny answers the door. He shushes the dog and wrestles with the front door lock. My technologically challenged old pal. He's stuck - the lock has baffled him. He literally has to run out the back door, around the house via the gangway, and out to the front to greet me.

We seem to freeze for an almost imperceptible moment, assessing each other after we hug. There's a hell of a lot more gray on both our heads, some three or four more belt notches around my waist, and -believe it or not - a good decade of living separating this moment from the last time we saw each other.

"Honestly," Benny asks, "how long has it been?

I ponder a moment. Then it hits me. I remember that memorable early October evening when we watched the festivities on TV in the Irving Park Road bowling alley after Rod "The Shooter" Beck had snuffed out Dusty Baker's San Francisco Giants, vaulting the Sammy Sosa Cubs into the 1998 playoffs. As Sammy himself body-surfed over thousands of delirious bleacherites, some now-forgotten glamorous TV reporter shoved her microphone into the faces of blotto revelers and asked, "How do you feel?"

Some nameless bowling alley employee turned to Benny and me and shouted, as if it were he she was pumping for a sound bite, "Nice tits, bitch!"

Benny and I doubled over in laughter even though we we're both smart enough to be disgusted by his ridiculous, benighted, antediluvian outlook toward women. Why? Who knows? Maybe we were giddy over the Cubs' rare success. Maybe we felt we were suddenly 12 again, giggling over some classmate's use of dirty words.

Whatever. I'm sure we'd seen each other since then but that episode will do for now.

Benny shows me a recent picture of his daughters, who, if I recall correctly, had spaghetti sauce and jelly stains, respectively, on their T-shirts the last time I saw them. They are now grown women. Ouch! What does that make me? The living dead?

Milo calls. "Glab's here!" Benny shouts into the phone. "He's in town! He just dropped in!" And, like that, Milo hops into his car to join us.

Handshakes and hugs abound. Three old goats stand around staring at the ravages of time on each other in Benny's cramped office garret. Before we know it, we settle down to discuss the things that really matter to such venerable figures.

"My doctor says I'm doing good," Milo says. "Blood pressure's good. My weight's good." (At which point I think, The bastard.) "All in all, not bad for a geezer."

I congratulate him on his good fortune.

"But, he did say my kidneys are a little iffy," Milo adds.

Uh oh.

"Yeah, I had kidney stones and they left some scarring."

At this very moment, Benny lopes up the stairs. He'd been downstairs taking a phone call.

"Whaddya guys talkin' about?" he says with the air of a 12-year-old expecting to jump into a chat about the Cubs or the Bulls or the Monkees.

We ain't 12 anymore. Kidney stones, we inform him.

"Oh yeah, I had 'em," Benny crows, almost like a 12 year-old bragging that he's kissed a girl. "I never felt such pain! I remember, it was 2003. I was coaching my daughter's baseball team. It hurt so bad I was nauseated. After the game, I was walking home through River Park and I had to stop to throw up. One of the kids was passing by as I'm bent over and I'm thinking, 'Oh great! What's this kid gonna tell her parents?'"

Milo and I agree that the kid'll probably grow up to be an eminent blogger. One of her posts will be about the time she saw her drunken old baseball coach puking his guts up in the park after a game.

We laugh. Deep, basso, raspy laughs. Milo coughs a bit. I try to catch my breath. Benny says, smiling sagely, "Ah, these kids!"

It's good to be home.

Benny Jay: Winning The War

2009-05-03T04:40:00.018-04:00

After the Bulls ended their season by losing game seven to the Celtics, I took the dog for a walk.

I thought I'd get away from the disappointment, but the details live in my mind. We race to the early lead, but the Celtics go on a run that turns a six-point deficit into a 14-point lead. The Bulls scratch and claw to get back. Cut it to three late in the fourth. Ben Gordon has the ball. Can tie the score and really turn things around. Should take his time, and work it around the perimeter to find a better shot. But, c'mon -- you know Ben. That's not his style. He's been a chucker all this season. He's not about to change now. Especially with the game on the line and no one else ready to step up....

The man throws up a prayer from the other side of Mongolia. It bounces out. Boston gets the rebound. And, well, here I am. Walking the dog....

After the game the TV shows Vinny Del Negro's locker-room talk to the team: I'm proud of you. You never quit. No one expected us to even be here. And so on and so forth....

It sounds like everything I ever told any little league team I ever coached after a disappointing loss. You'd think they'd come up with something more profound to say in the pros. But, really, what else is there to say?

The phone rings. It's my older daughter. She sounds like she's about to cry. Says she feels so bad cause she's really fallen in love with the Bulls in this playoff series.

I think back to a scene in my parent's house over 40 years ago after a playoff series between the Bulls and the Atlanta Hawks. I was crying in front of the TV set. I was in what -- sixth grade? My mother comes in and asks: "Why are you crying?" I tell her, "the Bulls lost." She says: "so, is that a reason to cry?" I tell her: "you wouldn't understand...."

Somehow or other I must have passed this lunacy onto my daughter.

I walk to the corner where months ago I howled at the moon. That was after Miami beat the Bulls on a last second shot by Shawn Marion. Remember? The shot came after Thabo Sefalosha threw the ball away. Thabo Sefalosha! The dude doesn't even play for the Bulls anymore. They traded him to Oklahoma City for a draft choice. Probably figured he'd never come to anything after watching him throw away that pass. Just thinking about that play makes me groan. Freaking Bulls....

I can't believe the season really ended. Feels like it just got started. They say it's too long, but I don't think it's long enough. Now I have to wait `til October -- another five of six months -- for the start of a new one.

This is too damn depressing. I call Johnny, the black Forest Gump, the wisest man I know.

He says he's at work, sitting in his patrol car out by O'Hare Airport. He heard the game on the radio. Tough game to take.

I tell him my daughter was just about crying. He tells me to tell her that "the Bulls lost the battle but they won the war."

How's that?

"They're stronger from this -- they'll come back stronger next year. You tell your daughter that what can't kill you only makes you stronger. It ain't even about the basketball game. For me `n you, the greatest thing in the world is to watch the games with our daughters. I watched game six with Taaj. She was telling me -- `Bulls gotta switch up their defense.' `The Bulls ain't blockin' out.' Tellin' me all kinds of stuff. The girl really knows her stuff. You `n me, Benny, we got to be the luckiest guys alive. Get to watch the games with our daughters.

"Make sure you tell your daughter that we lost the battle but won the war. And tell her that if this is the worst thing that ever happened to her, she's doin' all right...."

Letter From Milo: The Bum Gene

2009-05-02T07:54:00.013-04:00

Some people inherit great wealth. A select group of inbred Europeans inherit noble titles and vast estates. Some people inherit beauty, brains or great physical skills. Hair color, eye color, freckles, height, weight, even some diseases are embedded in the DNA. Every generation inherits something from the previous generation.

In my case, I inherited the Bum Gene.

The Bum Gene, as my similarly afflicted friend, Bruce Diksas, explains it, is the component in the DNA that compels a person to make stupid choices, opting for instant gratification over delayed satisfaction. Faced with a choice between a brief moment of pleasure or doing something constructive, a person with the Bum Gene will choose fleeting pleasure, every time. Faced with a choice between being a productive member of society or giving in to your worst instincts, the Bum Gene-afflicted will always opt for the latter, no matter the consequences. In Aesop's fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper, the grasshopper was the one with the Bum Gene.

My father used to enjoy the old Rip 'n Roar. He drank, smoked, gambled, ate red meat, cursed freely and, for all I know, had impure thoughts. If the stories I heard are true, so did my grandfather. And I, to borrow a line from Hank Williams, Jr., am carrying on the family tradition.

I started smoking at about the age of 13. I remember my first drag from a cigarette very clearly. It happened in Jefferson Park, in Gary, Indiana. There was an older kid, maybe 15, named Pete, who offered me a puff from his smoke. It was an unfiltered Lucky Strike and he handed it to me with the admonition, "Don't niggerlip it."

I took a drag, held it in my mouth, then quickly blew it out.

"No, man, that's not how you do it," Pete told me. "You gotta suck it into your lungs. Like this."

Pete showed me how to inhale. and in a moment I was hacking, couching and gagging, while Pete was laughing his ass off. It tasted terrible, burned my throat and made my eyes water. Within a week I was a confirmed smoker.

I started drinking a couple of years later, along with a few of my buddies who had also inherited the Bum Gene. It's funny how people with that particular gene seem to find each other. Anyway, since the drinking age in my town was 21, we had to find older people to buy our booze for us. Then we heard about Mr. Lucky's.

Mr. Lucky's was a bar and liquor store in Midtown, which was the black section of Gary. It was rumored that Mr. Lucky's would sell booze to anyone of any age. Since we were paying a premium to obtain alcohol from older folks, who sometimes marked up our purchases 100 percent, we made the fiduciary decision to try Mr. Lucky's. Since I looked the oldest, easily passing for 17 or 18, I was chosen to make the buy.

There was a large black man behind the counter when I walked in. He smiled when he saw me and asked, "What can I do for you, boy?"

"I'd like two sixpacks of Blatz and a pint of cherry vodka, please."

"You 21?"

"Yes sir."

"Any ID?"

"Darn, I left my wallet in my work clothes, in my locker, at work."

"You a workin' man, are you?"

"Uh huh."

The man regarded me suspiciously for a moment, then said, "Next time bring your ID. We can't be breaking no laws here."

"Sure, no problem. Oh, and can I get a pack of Lucky Strikes, too?"

When I started college, what do you think was the first thing on my agenda? Did I spend my time productively, buying books, sharpening pencils, scoping out my professors, figuring out where the library was? No! My first day at college was spent cruising the local liquor stores, trying to find one that would sell booze to my thirsty, underage ass.

As the years went by I went along my merry way. I was a child of my times, subject to the illicit enthusiasms of my age. I smoked, drank, toked and joked my way through life. The Bum Gene would not be denied.

If there was a party, I was in the middle of it. If there was a card game I had a seat at the table. If there was a joint being passed, it usually passed in my direction. If there was a way to avoid honest work, I found it, most of the time.

Don't get me wrong. A lot of people inherit the Bum Gene and still succeed in life. Ulysses Grant was a drunkard. Bill Clinton was a serial womanizer. Dostoevski was a degenerate gambler. Keith Richards, well, let's just say that he must have inherited Bum Genes from both sides of his family.

In my opinion, the main problem with the Bum Gene is that no matter how much you personally enjoy the condition, the last thing you want to do is pass it down to your children. I've got two lovely daughters and both of them seem to have avoided their father's propensity for the high life, or, more properly, the low life. They are two hard-working, responsible young ladies. I'm very proud of them. But if I ever catch them with a pack of Lucky Strikes...

Editor's Note: Still haven't purchased Milo Samardzija's masterpiece, "Schoolboy"? Whaddya waiting For?

Randolph Street: The Real World of Wicker Park and Bucktown

2009-05-01T05:35:00.022-04:00

Photojournalist Jon Randolph travels to the Wicker Park/Bucktown area for this week's installment of Randolph Street. Nelson Algren, the author of "The Man with the Golden Arm," prowled these streets and carried on his torrid affair with Simone de Beauvoir here.

For much of the 2oth Century, Wicker Park/Bucktown was home to newly-arrived Polish immigrants. Puerto Ricans settled here in the 60s and 70s. The artists and hangers-on took over in the 80s and 90s. Now, people who drive Toyota SUVs while sipping five-dollar Starbucks drinks hold sway.

continued below images

The Flatiron Building

at the intersection of North,

Milwaukee and Damen avenues.

Letizia's Natural Bakery, 2144 W. Division St.

The Chicago Moving Company

performing at the Bucktown Arts Fest.

The fountain in Wicker Park.

Psycho Baby, 1630 N. Damen Ave.

Flash Taco, 1570 N. Damen Ave.

A woman crosses the street at

North, Milwaukee and Damen avenues.

The bouncer at Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee Ave.

continued from above images

We'll see Randolph Street here next Friday. Look for a Letter From Milo tomorrow and more from Benny Jay and Big Mike Glab everyday.

Big Mike: It's Rocket Science To Me

2009-04-30T09:32:00.005-04:00

Ah, love and marriage.

The Loved One looked up from her laptop, removed her glasses, and asked me, accusingly, "So, you bought a book today? How much did it cost?"

I was ready with the snappy comeback: "Huh?"

"You wrote in your post today that you bought a book."

"Oh." Clearly I was at the top of my repartee game.

It took a few beats for me to get her drift. In Tuesday's post, I wrote about what an intellectual titan I am. I stood on my head to separate myself from the common clay, illustrating this by pointing out that the radio and television banality I'm being bombarded with during my stay at the Holiday Inn is so, well, weird - at least to me. My concluding line was that I was going to jump up and rush to Barnes & Noble to buy Isaac Newton's "Principia."

I was, of course, being a smartass. I bet I'll never actually purchase a copy of one of the two or three most important scientific works ever written in any language. In it, Newton lays out his Law of Universal Gravitation and explains his Laws of Motion. I mean, for gosh sakes, who hasn't heard the line, For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction? That isn't exactly how Newton wrote it, but it'll do for us here. Suffice it to say that the physics of everyday life are laid out tidily in this three-volume set.

A quick search on Amazon reveals that used sets of the Principia start at $337, and therein lies today's tale.

A good marriage, I am discovering after having experienced a bad version or two, mixes two people whose strengths and weaknesses dovetail nicely. It would be impossible for me to illustrate this better than to admit that The Loved One handles the checkbook and I do not.

In earlier posts, I've revealed that my mother was a fiscal tyrant. She was the type of person who looked out the front door in search of the mailman because the electric bill was due. Long before things like online banking, Ma kept a stack of envelopes - marked electric, gas, car insurance, and so on - into which she'd parcel cash from each of her and Dad's paychecks throughout the month. She kept such a close eye on these envelopes that when I, at the age of ten, began feeling aggrieved that my baseball card addiction wasn't accounted for in them and decided to help myself to some of their contents, she knew immediately what was going on. The next time I went in for the dip, I found a note written by her saying, essentially, Gotcha!

Ma became a paragon of bill-paying in reaction to her mother, who was not. I, in turn, rebelled against Ma's ways. And so it goes. Had I chosen to spawn, my daughter or son would probably have become a CPA. Thankfully, I've spared at least one poor soul that cruel fate.

Anyway, I've lived most of my life like a drunken sailor. I've suffered more third-degree burns on my right thigh than I'd care to admit. Poor old Pat Arden, my former editor at the Chicago Reader - the microsecond after any of my stories ran in his paper, I'd be banging on his door to find out when he could cut me a check. And god forbid I should spend that check on anything as silly as bills - not when there were motorcycles to buy, rounds to pick up, women to impress and, yes, books to accumulate.

Whereas Ma couldn't mail the check to the electric company fast enough, I looked upon utility bills as mere suggestions. The real bill, in my warped view, was the disconnect notice. This system worked well except for those times I forgot to open the disconnect notice. Trying to read in the dark is such an ordeal.

The Loved One was aghast at my pecuniary discipline, or lack thereof. Fortunately, she was drawn in by one or two other facets of my character and so we became a going concern. Only she made it clear from the start that she would be the Chief Financial Officer and if she caught me thumbing through the checkbook, she'd cut said digits off clean.

Now that's a system that really works. Rather like Newton's everyday universe.

Benny Jay: Blows To The Head

2009-04-29T01:21:00.020-04:00

For game five of the Bulls-Celtics playoff series, I go to Plan B -- or is it C? -- in order to keep myself from losing my mind: Inebriation.

If you recall, my first plan -- not watching the game -- didn't really work. I wound up making a fool of myself in front of a bunch of track-and-field fans. My second plan -- reading while watching -- was a complete failure. I came close to going insane.

I figure this time I'll get drunk. That ought to do the trick. I mean, it's done wonders for so many other people down through the ages.

So I go over to Norm's house and his lady friend, Sandy, couldn't be nicer. Feeds me pizza and bean dip -- uhm, that stuff is dee-li-cious! And I bring over an 18-pack of Budweiser, cause that's Norm's favorite beer.

I down one and then I down another. And by the third quarter I'm into my third -- which for me is serious boozing. I'm feeling no pain. Feeling groovy. Definitely enjoying the company. It's me and Norm and his daughter, Audrey, and his friends, the double Bs -- Brian and Brian. After the half, Milo comes by. What a great game. Back and forth they go. Up one, down one, up three, down three and so on and so forth.

At the start of the fourth the Bulls go on a mini run and take an eleven-point lead. But you know how it goes with the champs -- they make their own run. Cut the lead to eight, five, three. Next thing you know we're in overtime -- again.

They go up and we fight back. But we can't stop Paul Pierce. He hits one, two, three -- four cold-blooded, killer shots in the O.T. We're down two with three seconds left and coach Vinny Del Negro calls a time out and sets up this play. They fake an inbounds pass to Ben Gordon, but they throw it to Brad Miller, the back-up center. Is that brilliant or what? He's the last guy Boston thinks will get the ball. They probably forgot he was even on the court -- probably think I'll get the pass before Brad Miller.

Miller's got an open lane to the basket, just like Vinny planned. All he has to do is run in and slam it home and the game's tied and we're going to double overtime -- just like last game.

And he's running. At least, I think he's running. I mean, that is running -- isn't it? It's hard to tell cause he's so freaking slow -- Brad Miller has got to be the slowest man in basketball. And by the time he makes it to the basket the Celtics have closed in on him and as he rises to lay it in Rajon Rondo whacks him across the face. I mean, we're talking solid punch to the face. Knocks him down. It should be a flagrant -- two free throws and the ball on the side. But the refs don't call flagrant. They call a regular foul. Which means Miller's got two free throws to tie the score with two seconds left.

"How can that not be a mutha-fuckin' flagrant foul?" says Norm.

"He popped him in the face!" says Brian.

Miller goes to the sideline to wipe away the blood. And they stitch him up to stop the bleeding. And he staggers back to the line and he misses. Of course, he misses. You try shooting a free throw after getting smacked in the face. And the Bulls lose.

There's not much to say. We just stare at the TV. We've devoted over three hours of our lives to this gut-wrenching basketball game and now it's over and we've lost. There's nothing we can say cause what can you say. I feel like a boxer who's been through fifteen rounds with the champ. Too stunned to talk, too exhausted to cry. Too many blows to the head.

Milo leaves. Audrey goes to her computer. But Norm, Brian, Bee and I just keep staring at the tube. They're replaying the footage of Rondo whacking Miller in the head -- over and over and over.

"Can you believe this shit?" says Norm.

"No," I say.

"He fouled him," says Brian.

"Just smacked him in head," I say.

"Ain't that a bitch," says Norm.

I get it together to get on up and get my coat and head out to my car. On the radio, they're playing "Purple Rain" by Prince. I crank up the volume so it's blasting out of my brain: "Purple Rain, Purple Rain, I only want to see you in the Purple Rain...."

I've watched so many basketball games for so many years, you'd think I'd get tired of it. But I don't. Just the opposite. The more I watch, the more I want to watch. Just keep coming back. There's something about the way they go at it. I think of Brad Miller. The man took a fist to the face. Hit me like that and I'm in the hospital for a week. But Brad Miller? He just wipes off the blood and takes his free throw. Yeah, he missed it. But he took it.

Keep coming back. Never quit. Bulls got game six on Thursday. Win that and it's game seven on Saturday. Lose either one? Well, take the summer off and come on back next year.

Big Mike: Rachael Ray, What Am I To Do?

2009-04-28T11:05:00.010-04:00

Sometimes I forget how tight a cocoon I've woven for myself. I like to think of myself as being much smarter than the average bear. Toward that end, I've sworn off broadcast TV, commercial radio and other artifacts of the illiterati such as USAToday.

Oh, I'm as smart as an extraterrestrial visiting Earth. With rare exceptions, I don't even argue with people about politics or social issues, preferring instead to roll my eyes and bury myself in my New York Times when guys insist on buffeting me with their uninformed opinions. Yeah, I'm smart.

I play chess rather than poker (although I shouldn't be too hard on that game - a university professor I know paid for his doctorate studies as a professional poker player.) I don't just root for the Cubs; hell, I pore over the most minute baseball statistics and analyze trends with all the zeal of an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health.

For laughs, I read P.G. Wodehouse rather than watch Jimmy Fallon. My car is a Prius. I cook with olive oil rather than butter. I do the laundry in cold water to conserve energy. I'm typing this on a MacBook, not - puh-lease! - a PC. I even wear horn-rimmed glasses.

I'm so smart smoke ought to be pouring out of my ears.

My constant efforts to cultivate this streak of elitism in me - and let's be frank, that's really all it is - have cut me off from, well, American life.

A great way to submerge one's brilliant self in the normal world is to stay at a Holiday Inn. The Loved One and I are spending a week in Bloomington, Indiana so we can look at homes. In our cramped room, the TV dominates. Even the lobby, with its plush leather sofas and cushiony armchairs, is dominated by an enormous flat screen tuned to whatever peppy talk show is on at the moment.

And since The Loved One forgot to bring her alarm clock, she's had to use the radio alarm that comes with the room and seems permanently tuned to the local oldies station.

Here's what I've gleaned thus far in my descent into reality. The radio, first. I was in that delicious few minutes of half-sleep this morning when suddenly the radio alarm began to blare the Beatles' "Back In The USSR." Only it sounded as though the Fab Four had swallowed a jugful of amphetamines before they recorded it. I realized that a lot of commercial radio stations still use that speed-up technique to quicken the pace of records so they can sound more "energetic" than the competition. I was transformed from sleepily serene to jaw-clenchingly tense before Paul McCartney could sing "Man, I had a dreadful flight."

Unfortunately for me, The Loved One had gotten up before the alarm and was already in the shower. I would have had to roll all the way over to the other side of the bed and stretch out to hit the snooze button. Horrors! So the speeded-up blaring continued.

Next up, the news. I guessed, correctly, that the lead story - the only story - would be the impending termination of the human race by swine flu. It was the kicker at the end of the newscast that informed me radio news readers still employ that stale old format of ending on a wry (read: stupid, dull, and guaranteed to make the brain dead titter) story. This one was about a Chicago guy who wants to open up a hot dog stand called Felony Franks. He wants to staff the joint with ex-cons. Now, that might be a sort-of interesting tidbit but the news reader found the names of the entrees to be the meat of the story. "He wants to serve Pardon Burgers and Misdemeanor Weiners," came the voice over the radio, "this is ABC News."

I suppose the news reader intended me to respond he-he or ho-ho. Instead, I moaned "Shut the fuck up!" which elicited the query from the shower, "What's wrong?"

I decide to go down in the lobby for a cup of coffee and write this post. I'm immediately overwhelemed by The Early Show on CBS. Well, whaddya know - the big story is the coming collapse of civilization due to swine flu. A jittery couple at home wearing surgical masks answer the host's questions. Their teenaged son has developed flu-like symptoms and was tested yesterday for the virus. While awaiting the results, they're doing what comes naturally to Americans - panicking. The kid is off-screen somewhere, coughing occasionally, as if on cue. The host asks them, "Is this the worst day of your life?"

Man, this human-race terminating, civilization-collapsing swine flu couldn't have come a moment too soon, for my money.

After a commercial for a lawyer ("If someone you love has died after using a pain patch containing fentanyl, call...,) The Rachael Ray Show comes on. The maniacally grinning face of Rachael Ray has infested more grocery store aisles than all the ants and mice that have ever lived. Now, apparently, she's a life coach, too. Today's show features a segment on The Recession (that will, of course, collapse civilization.) A woman calls in to say she'd recently lost her job and asks what she should do next.

Again, she called Rachael Ray for this vital advice!

I can't take it anymore. I dash over to Barnes & Noble to buy Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica." I have to hurry up and read it before civilization collapses.

Benny Jay: Fit Me For A Straitjacket

2009-04-27T01:05:00.017-04:00

I wanna try something different for game four of the Bulls-Celtics playoff series.

As you may recall, last time I didn't watch it. This time I'll watch it but I won't care. I'm serious. I'll be indifferent. I'll lie on the sofa and half watch while I read a book. Yeah, that's it. I'll catch up on "Clockers," Richard Price's novel. Every now and then I'll look up just to, you know, check on the score....

I get through exactly one paragraph as the Bulls race off to a strong start. I'm too excited to read. I'm on my feet, clapping and cheering and talking to the TV. I'm telling the Bulls to calm down, like they can hear me. Or like they would listen to me if they could. I'm working the refs, telling them to call it both ways -- "he hacked, ref -- he hacked" -- and not just against the Bulls....

I'm alone in the house. Just me and the dog. And she's sleeping....

Near the end of the first quarter, I call Milo. He says he's not watching, like he's got more important things to do. Ha! I know different. I bet he's watching. I bet he just wants me to think he's not watching. I bet he just wants me to think he doesn't care about the Bulls as much as I care about the Bulls because he doesn't want me to know that he's as big a loser as I am. But, I'm on to you, Milo. I know you're watching. Oh, yes, I know....

At the end of the first half, the Bulls, up by two, leave Ray Allen wide open -- and I mean, absolutely all alone -- behind the three-point line in the corner. He drains the three, and I throw up my hands. Ray Allen is simply one of the greatest three-point shooters in the game. Why oh, why, oh, why would you leave him -- of all people -- open for a three?

That's it. I can watch no longer. I walk to the video store. I tell the video store guy how much I love Roman Polanski. He tells me a good Roman Polanski movie to watch. I can see right away that he's one of those guys who doesn't care about sports. Probably thinks that anyone who cares about sports is weird. Which we are. Talking to him about Roman Polanski is my way of proving to myself that I'm really not some weird guy who's obsessed with the Bulls. Except, of course, I am....

On the way home, I duck into a corner bar to catch up on the score. Bulls up one. Good! On I walk, enjoying the foliage and the twittering birds. Cause that's what normal people do on a nice spring day. They don't sit inside and watch the Bulls on TV. They enjoy nature....

When I get home, I think -- I'll just take another peek. Bulls up by five. Oh, that's good. Then Boston scores a bunch in a row. Glen `Big Baby' Davis hits a basket. I used to like Big Baby -- cause he's fat. And, generally, I like fat basketball players. But now I curse him -- the big fat pig. What can I say -- it's the playoffs....

It's a back-and-forth affair: Bulls up one, down one, up two, down three. At commercials, I pretend I'm Derrick Rose and I've just intercepted a pass. I imagine that I score a bunch of points in a row and that we -- the Bulls -- are running away with the game. I know I need help. I'm sure there's a doctor I can talk to or pills I can take. Maybe I should try a different hobby....

Bulls up three. Seconds left in the fourth quarter. Rajon Rondo has the ball for Boston. He dribbles right. He passes back to Ray Allen, who -- no! -- is open. I mean, wide open. I mean, so freaking wide open that he has enough time to shower and shave before the closest Bull can run to him. He shoots. He hits. All net. What do you expect? He's open. Why would the Bulls leave Ray Allen open -- again? Noooooooo....

In the first overtime, Boston goes up. I can't bear to watch. I settle on a new strategy. I'll run out of the room when Boston has the ball and I'll come back when I think the Bulls have the ball. That way I minimize the bad things and maximize the good things that I see. Great idea. Can't believe I didn't think of this before. And so I go -- in the room, out of the room, in, out, in, out....

Bulls down three. Seconds left. John Salmons to Ben Gordon. He dribbles right. He fires up a three -- good! Yes! Yes! Yes! Double overtime....

The Bulls score first. They score again. There's a commercial. I pick up the clutter in the living room. I empty the dishwasher. I gather up newspapers and dump them in the recycling bin. If there were a Bulls game every day, the house would be spick-and-span....

Bulls up three. Seconds left. Paul Pierce shoots. John Salmons blocks the shot! Game over. Bulls win! Bulls win! In double overtime. Playoff series tied at two. Next game in Boston....

I jump up and down. I sing, "Go Bulls, go." A song, by the way, that I made up. A song that only I know. I call Norm. I call Milo. I call Johnny. I call Daddy Dee. I suddenly remember that after every Bulls home win the radio interviews a player on the court. I rush to the radio just as they're finishing their interview with Joakim Noah.

"Finally, Joakim," the announcer is saying, "what about these fans?"

"Off the hook," says Joakim. "Off the hook."

If he only knew -- lord, lord, lord, if he only knew....

Big Mike: Can I Get A Crutch Here?

2009-04-26T08:45:00.007-04:00

There are two things in this life I've tried to get into time and again but have failed at, miserably: smoking and religion.

Let's start with smoking. I tried my first cigarette when I was 16. Many of my Amundsen Park pals had already begun smoking, Kools mostly. Those menthol cigarettes seemed more candy-ish than, say, unfiltered Camels and so were more tasty to my fellow teens.

One day I lit up a Kool. The sickly sweet smoke curled into the upper reaches of my nasal passages, causing me to reel. I regained my balance and surreptitiously dropped the smoke before I could even take a second puff.

A fellow named Carl started hanging out at the park. He was a poet, rather delicate of nature and appearance, and seemed to be attuned to the outside world. The rest of us were a more provincial collection of lunkheads - we thought the world began at Schmidt Drugs at Austin Boulevard and ended at the Sears on Harlem Avenue, a mile and a half away. Carl had travelled to Europe with his family and he knew lines of Shakespeare. Naturally, I was drawn to him.

One fall Friday night, he asked me if I wanted to get high very cheaply. It was a high, he claimed, that was every bit as good as that of pot - perhaps even better - and was virtually impossible for tyrants such as parents and the cops to detect. Why sure, I responded. He handed me what appeared to be a normal cigarette and directed me to light up. I shrugged and inhaled the tiniest of drags, remembering what had happened the last time I tried to smoke.

Within a few seconds it felt as though the top of my skull had blown off and my head was now spewing steam like a nuclear power plant's cooling tower. Carl sat staring at me, a smug smile on his face, as I attempted with all the might I possessed not to topple over.

Finally, I rediscovered the ability to speak. "My god," I gasped, "what was that?"

"Just a Newport dipped in paregoric. Quite a pleasurable high, isn't it?

I nodded perfunctorily.

"Try some more," he said.

"I will, but I have to do something first."

With that, I dashed home and hid in my bedroom for the rest of the night. I never was any good at partaking of the more exotic drugs. Later, I'd learn that paregoric, in addition to being a strong analgesic, is an old-fashioned remedy intended to slow down peristalsis. It's main use through the years has been as an anti-diarrheal. Gee, thanks, Carl.

I didn't think about smoking again for the next five or so years until I started hanging out at dance clubs like La Mere Vipere, Neo and O'Banion's. Everybody wore black at those places. My friends and I would dance all night long to Bowie, the Vapors and New Order, emerging from the clubs with our clothes streaked white from evaporated sweat. Everybody smoked but me so I had to try it again.

I looked good with a cigarette in my hand. Conversation becomes an art form when the speaker can punctuate his utterances with the jab of a cigarette. I bought the mildest cigarettes I could find, Parliament Lights, and I still couldn't inhale, an act guaranteed to induce not only the old dizziness but now also headache and nausea. I'd light up a pack a night without inhaling once. Finally I threw in the towel. Sadly, my punctuation props cost several dollars a pack.

As for religion, I never could quite get the hang of having a personal relationship with god, as mentioned in my previous post. The old bird has never seemed interested in my dramas and if there's one thing I won't stand for, it's being ignored.

Hundreds of millions of people smoke. Billions worship one god or another. Both cigarettes and religion are addictive. What's wrong with me that I can't seem to get hooked on either?