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

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

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 Greatest Feeling Ever

The usual suspects, plus some new ones, are screaming bloody murder over Barack Obama's invitation to address Notre Dame's graduating class next month. You'd be excused for thinking he'd submerged a crucifix in urine for all the outcry it has aroused.

Obama is wishy-washy about abortion, a stance not good enough for the extremists among the right and the Catholic church. They want our elected leaders to equate abortion with the Holocaust and the genocide of Indians in the Americas, something Obama won't do. Of course, there are probably quite a few who are a lot less agitated about the latter two issues than the first.

I'll make one pronouncement about this whole tempest before I go on to the meat of the post. I'm all for people hollering their fool heads off about Obama's invitation. I hope they protest, stage prayer-ins, and wave placards as passionately as if an ND quarterback had been jobbed out of the Heisman. That's the strength of the United States - our freedom to tell the President to his face that he's full of shit.

I only wonder if these same right-to-lifers were as outraged when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush spoke at Notre Dame commencements months after their elections, considering their giddy infatuation with capital punishment, a practice the Church considers as evil as abortion. I think I know the answer already.

Anyway, I was raised Roman Catholic. My parents sent me to St. Giles elementary school and then Fenwick High School, both in Oak Park. My parents and I attended church every Sunday at St. Giles.

The mass lasted an hour, which to my seven-year-old brain was the equivalent of the Holocene Epoch. I spent that near-eternity resisting the urge to giggle, enduring one or more waves of nausea induced by a nearby worshipper's excessive perfume or body odor, kicking my legs, staring at the pew back in front of me, and waiting for the blessed end of the ordeal.

That was signaled by the glorious moment wherein the priest would announce, "The mass is ended, go in peace," to which the proscribed response was, "Thanks be to god." Sometimes I'd be sitting within yards of my school chum Albert DiPrima. The two of us after a while started responding Thanks be to god in loud voices of dramatic relief, after which we'd giggle surreptitiously to each other. One day, though, we must have gone too far because I received a sharp rap on top of my cranium from my father's knuckle and Albert's father led him out of church by the ear.

After mass, we'd come home, Dad and I would strip out of our jackets and ties and Ma would shed her girdle and begin frying up bacon and eggs. My brother Joey would join us for breakfast. He'd reached the age allowing him to skip mass, a passage I anticipated as deliciously as receiving my first drivers license.

We'd sit around the kitchen table as Ma served up the grub, my father busy buttering four slices of homemade bread, one of which I'd invariably snatch away from him, which - now that I look back on it - must have been his plan all along. Those breakfasts were among the fondest of my childhood memories mainly because the torture of church was over at least for another week.

I never could figure out this religion business. The nuns at St. Giles taught me in catechism class that my first duty as a Catholic was to love god. Hmm, love god - what the hell did that mean?

I'd seen pictures of Michelangelo's fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel portraying god and various other hallucinations. So I adopted that image of the old bird. I was still left with the question, How do I love him? I tried hard to make it happen when I went to bed at night and said my prayers. I didn't exactly know which prayers to say so I silently repeated the mantra, I love you god, I love you god, all the while imagining I was kissing the cheeks of Michelangelo's deity.

One day, the St. Giles principal, Sister James Mary (don't ask me why she'd adopted a male saint's name - suffice it to say that catholics are just whacked when it comes to sex), visited our catechism class and informed us that loving god was the greatest feeling we'd ever experience. This was at odds with my own empirical observations based on my tentative forays into more immediate gratifications under the covers.

That moment completed a process that had begun a few years earlier when Sister Jerome (another gender-ambiguous nun - it's a wonder I'm not even more sexually fucked up than I am) ordered us never to watch or listen to the Beatles because, well, just because.

I knew that Sr. Jerome had to be wrong because the Beatles with their long hair and Beatle boots and cool suits were, well, cool. And if Sr. Jerome was wrong about the Beatles, what else could she be wrong about?

So, by the time I was 12, I'd quit the party, er, the church. Thank Michelangelo's deity I did, otherwise I might be one of those blowhards hollering about Barack Obama's invitation to speak to the Notre Dame graduates.

Big Mike: What Are You Rebelling Against?

I was born and raised in a little neighborhood called Galewood, part of the larger, officially recognized Austin neighborhood on Chicago's Northwest Side. The residents of Galewood were Italian, Polish, Irish and Greek, with a Jew or two for good measure.  The men of Galewood were more white-collar than not - plant managers, insurance men, elementary school principals and so on. The women stayed home to vacuum.

We had a politician or two who lived nearby as well, including Benjamin Adamowski, former Cook County State's Attorney who challenged Mayor Richard J. Daley in the 1963 election, and Edward V. Hanrahan, another State's Attorney, who led the terror squad that whacked Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.

There were no blacks in Galewood. But the place was lousy with Outfit characters, from upper-echelon bosses to low-level juice loan collectors.

My old man, a shipping/receiving dock foreman, and my mother, a vacuumer, lucked their way into Galewood. Looking to buy their first home in the 1950s, they happened upon a comfortable bungalow on Natchez Avenue owned by an ancient dowager named Mrs. Alstead. Not sophisticated enough to squeeze every last penny out of her home, she offered it for a good deal less than $20,000. Ma and Dad snapped it up.

Even at that bargain-basement price, the house was too rich for my father's meager salary so Ma had to go to work, first at a sandpaper company, gluing abrasives onto heavy-gauge cards while I floated blissfully in her womb, later for Frank's Dime Store, and then for Sears. To this day, she brags about her magical way with money. She relies on a tried-and-true series of old financial saws guaranteed to make the eyes of her children roll like pinballs:

• I robbed Peter to pay Paul
  
• I made a penny do the work of a dime.
  
• I struggled to make ends meet.
  

When I was very young, I heard that last adage as "make ennsmeat," which I assumed was some old country dish that she didn't feel like preparing anymore.

Sadly, in part because Ma was a pecuniary tyrant, I rebelled and became a profligate spender. Oh, I won't blame all my debtor woes on her; I possess, after all, a wide streak of compulsive narcissism. But one of my primary goals in life has been to show Ma that actually buying stuff isn't fatal.

My Galewood neighbors attempted to impart many other lessons to me. Here's a compendium of Galewood's philosophies on black people:

• They wreck everything we give them.
  
• They're comin' after our daughters.
  
• Martin Luther King speaks with a forked tongue.
  
• JFK (or LBJ or any national Democrat) is a nigger-lover.
  
• The White Sox lose because they have too many niggers.
  
• They don't want to work.
  
• Better watch out or they'll take over.
  

Even as a dopey kid, I couldn't figure out how a group that didn't like to work would have the ambition or capability to "take over."

Galewood's actions were as alarming as its words. When, for instance, Ma refused to participate in an anti-busing school boycott, our house was showered with raw eggs. And after King's assassination, I took a schoolyard ass-beating after objecting to the prevailing opinion that he'd gotten what he'd deserved.

As mentioned here in previous posts, I had a hard time washing myself clean of Galewood's racial muck. Even though I mourned King's death and was outraged by those of Hampton and Clark, I still found myself uttering slurs now and again. It took me years to free myself of even unintentional racial loathing.

I compare my own growth in this matter to that of the nation's. Sure, we've elected a partially black man as president. Yet, as the inane "tea parties" of the past week demonstrated, we're not totally free of racial fear.

Too many people bandied placards and words decrying our new "tyranny" and comparing Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. They aren't just suggesting that taxation or government spending programs are the moral equivalent of the Holocaust or Saddam's gassing of the Kurds.

It's more cryptic than that. I suspect the "tea party" right-wingers are not as devoted to Ma's brand of thrift as they are enslaved to Galewood's old fears that "They'll take over."

The tea party-ites still have a lot of racial muck to wash off.

Randolph Street: This Business Is Full Of Hot Air

Photojournalist Jon Randolph takes us into a firm that boasts it has more than a million balloons in its warehouse. MK Brody Company has been selling novelties and party tchochkes since 1911. The company moved to the wholesale market district west of the Loop in 1960, when the area was a gritty, tough spot populated by men walking around wearing blood-soaked aprons.

The district, surrounding the CTA Green Line elevated tracks between Halsted Street and Ogden Avenue, still is home to meat, seafood, and floral wholesalers,

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but chic restaurants and clubs now dot the landscape there. And, of course, the area was granted its holy imprimatur when Oprah Winfrey opened her Harpo Studios on Washington Boulevard.

Brody sells everything from champagne glasses to breast cancer awareness pink ribbons to hand fans with Barack Obama's image emblazoned on them. But after the company bought out the giant 800-4-Balloons outfit in 2005, its business, well, soared.

See you here next Friday for another glimpse of Chicago brought to us by Jon Randolph. See you here tomorrow for more of Benny Jay, Big Mike Glab, and those all-too-rare Letters From Milo.

Benny Jay: Parent-Teacher Conference

I'd been on the phone for a half hour non-stop -- lost track of time -- when I looked up and noticed it was three. Had to hurry -- didn't want to be late for the parent-teacher conference.

Funny thing about parent-teacher conferences -- when my kids were young, they were mighty big deals. My Wife and I listened to every word the teachers said, as if they were special views into the souls of our children.

You learn as time passes -- they're just snap shots. Nothing more, nothing less. Glimpses of where a kid is at particular moments in life.

Still I gotta go. My wife's working so it's up to me. I zip up to the school and promise myself I'll be in and out -- just grab my Younger Daughter's report card, let `em see my face, and skedaddle.

But, you know how it goes. I walk in to the school and first thing I see is my daughter's friend Allory. She tells me she got an academic four-year full ride to Wash U in St. Louis.

"You mean full ride as in -- for free?" I ask.

"Yes...."

"Dang, girl -- when did you get so smart?"

She smiles and shrugs, as if to say: What can I tell you, Mr. Jay....

I turn the corner and bump into Jackie. Give her a big hug. Haven't seen her in ages. Her daughter, LaQuita, and my daughter played on the same basketball team. LaQuita had a deceptively quick first step. Freeze the defender with a short head fake and be half way to the basket before the defender knew what's up. Her father, Leonard, and I used to sit together at the games. Damn, he was good company. Cheered the team, teased the referees and laughed at my jokes. I loved watching basketball games with Leonard and Jackie.

"`Quita's captain of the team," Jackie tells me.

"You're kidding me," I say. "That's sensational. You tell `Quita congratulations...."

By now its over a half an hour and I still haven't met with one teacher. Got to pick up the pace. But Ms. Garcia, the physics teacher, has a little time on her hands and she's a good story teller. Starts telling me about the time she was teaching at Gage Park, this tough-as-hell high school on the city's Southwest Side, and some kid hit her in the face. Didn't mean to. Took a swing at someone else and caught her by accident. "It didn't hurt as much as it surprised me," she says. "I couldn't believe it."

I head over to see Mr. Loucks, the English teacher. It's hard to call him Mr. Loucks. I've known him since he was a 15-year-old high-school sophomore who refereed the itty-bitty basketball league my daughters played in at Welles Park. I take a seat at his desk and we start talking baseball. The man loves baseball. He plays it, coaches it, watches it -- even sells beer at Wrigley Field. We could talk baseball all day, except there's a line of parents waiting at the door.

Off I go to Ms. Reist-Jones, who teaches African-American History. The woman's a trip. Reminds me of me. Starts talking about A and winds up talking about B. Not really sure how she gets there, just sort of stringing stuff together.

She's telling me they're studying African rhythm and she mentions Bernard Purdie. I cut her off: "You mean, the Bernard Purdie?"

"Is there another one?"

"As in the Purdie-shuffle drum beat?"

"You've heard of him?"

"Have I heard of him?" I go into this whole thing about how I read this article in the New York Times about how Purdie played with everyone -- from James Brown to Frank Sinatra. How he used the Purdie shuffle on "Home At Last" by Steely Dan. One of my favorite songs. I start singing it: "Well, the danger on the rocks is surely past...."

She shows me a video of Purdie on the New York Times website. I tell her there's a better video on youtube. But we can't get to YouTube cause the Board of Education's got it blocked from the school computers. I tell her we should be able to figure out someway to get beyond the block. We bend over the computer. Then I notice parents waiting at the door. Maybe another time.

By the time I get out, it's been more than an hour. I go to my car and turn on the radio. I'll be damn -- they're playing "Deacon Blues." My favorite Steely Dan song of all time. From Aja, the same album with "Home at Last." Probably got Bernard Purdie playing drums. I turn it loud and sing along: "I cried when I wrote this song, sue me if I play too long...."

For some reason, it makes me think about a parent-teacher conference for my Older Daughter back in 2004, when she was a sophomore in high school. She was screwing up big time back then, making life miserable for her chemistry teacher. He let me have it when I came to talk to him. Told me she talks too much, is rude and a distraction. I just about dropped to my knees seeking forgiveness. I said she was going through a particularly difficult stretch of adolescence and I predicted that one day she would grow out of it. It was just a shame that he -- of all people -- had to bear the brunt of it. I profusely apologized for that.

I don't think I got through to him. He didn't smile. I understood. She was making his life miserable -- why should he care about what might happen down the road?

The thing is my older daughter did turn it around the very next year. She got her act together and never looked back. Found her way to politics of all things. Went to work for the Democrats and got hundreds and hundreds of white Iowans to vote for Barack Obama. Helped elect the country's first black president. How `bout that?

But that's the thing about parent-teacher conferences. They're just snapshots. They don't tell you what kids got in them.

I turn down the radio and put the car into drive. Man, I wish that chemistry teacher could see my older daughter now....

Letter From Milo: A Well Earned Rest

I went to a memorial service this past Tuesday for a dear friend who passed away at the biblical age of 101. His name was Morris "Morrie" Rosengard and he was the oldest man I ever knew.

How in the hell does someone live to be 101? I've read articles and seen news stories about people who have lived for more than a century and when asked about the secrets to their longevity they always say something like, Never had a drink in my life. Don't smoke. Went to bed early. Didn't eat red meat. Went to church twice a day.

That wasn't Morrie, not even close. Morrie liked to drink, smoke cigars, and eat red meat. For all I know he had impure thoughts, too. His favorite vice, however, was gambling - cards, horses, sports, casino games - he loved them all. That's how I met him, at a poker game, more than 30 years ago. His nephew, Bruce Diksas, was hosting the game. Bruce had been telling me stories about Morrie for years. I had expected to meet a colorful character and I was not disappointed.

Morrie was a pharmacist by trade. For years he had a drugstore in Bridgeport. Rumor had it that as well as filling prescriptions, Morrie ran a 24-hour, high stakes poker game out of the back room of his store. That may or may not be true, but it was true to his character.

Morrie was a wonderful man, but he was no angel. Some of the people he associated with were not candidates for sainthood either. He was friendly with people whose names you'd regularly see in the newspapers, and I'm not talking about the society pages. He knew "connected" people, bona fide members of the Chicago Outfit, guys who made their livings the hard way and often took long vacations at government expense.

Once, at a wedding, a short, stocky man came up to Morrie and chatted with him respectfully for a few minutes. When the man left, Morrie leaned over to Bruce and whispered, "That's the meanest man I ever met in my life." Coming from Morrie, who had rubbed shoulders with some of the toughest, most brutal men in Chicago, that was high praise indeed.

As a matter of fact, in the 1960s, Morrie had some legal problems of his own. But they were just bumps in the road. He took them in stride, just like everything else in his life. Not much fazed Morrie.

I was in my 20s when I met Morrie and he was already close to 80. He was born in 1908, the last year the Cubs won the World Series. He lived through World War I. He saw Ty Cobb play baseball. He roared through the Roaring 20s and survived the Great Depression. He served his country honorably in World War II. The US Army was in dire need of pharmacists, men trained and experienced in the phamacological arts. When I asked Morrie what he did during the war, he replied, "I passed out rubbers at Pizmo Beach, California."

Morrie lived through VE Day and VJ Day. He lived through the Korean War, the War in Vietnam and the wars of George Bush. He was born when Teddy Roosevelt was president and lived long enough to see Barack Obama inaugurated. He was around when horses were the main means of transportation and when Neil Armstrong took a stroll on the moon. He had, literally, seen it all.

I made it a point to call Morrie on his birthdays. I had a nice chat with him on his 100th birthday. When I called him on his 101st, his wife sadly informed me that Morrie was in the hospital. He had fallen down the day before and broken both of his legs. When I asked how he was doing, she said, "He knows what he's up against."

Morrie was a gambler, someone who knew the odds and understood probabilities. He knew what was coming. But even the most cold-blooded, experienced gambler sometimes relies on luck. Maybe, just maybe, he might spike an ace on the river. Unfortunately, Morrie's long run of good luck had finally run out. There was no miracle ace.

I was honored when Morrie's family asked me to make some comments at his memorial. Here is a transcript of my remarks.

I guess everybody here knows that Morrie enjoyed a friendly game of cards on occasion. I also understand he was very fond of horses, although I don't know for a fact that he ever sat on a horse. I met Morrie more than 30 years ago at a poker game. He was introduced to me by his nephew, Bruce Diksas, who was hosting the game.

Bruce told me a lot about Morrie over the years. I felt like I knew him before I ever met him. When I did finally meet Morrie, I was impressed. He was smart, friendly, a good conversationalist, and a real gentleman. I've considered him a friend ever since.

I didn't see Morrie as often as I liked. Usually it was just a few times a year, at card games, the race track or small gatherings. But every time I ran into him, he brought a smile to my face. Some people are like that, they just have a natural magnetism that draws people to them.

Anyway, I want to get back to our friendly games of cards. Despite being more than twice as old as most of the players, Morrie was usually the first to arrive and the last to leave. And when he left, he usually left with more money than he came with. I should know, a lot of that money was mine.

Now, some people will say that Morrie lived a good life, a long life, an interesting life. I agree. He had a good run. But as far as I'm concerned he left us too early, because now I'll never be able to win my money back.

I'd give almost anything to sit down at a card table with Morrie again, and watch him sip his scotch, smoke his cigars, laugh at a good story, or tell one himself. He was wonderful company and I'll miss him dearly. It was an honor and a pleasure to know him. Rest in peace, old friend, you deserve it.

Big Mike: A Kiss Is Just A Kiss

For the last 30 years, St. Patrick's Day has meant a lot to me. Not that I've ever given a shit about this quasi-religious bacchanalia per se, but something happened on March 17, 1979 that has stuck with me.

Back then I was an orderly in the surgery department at West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park. I'd been thinking that I'd work in the medical racket the rest of my life. I was already an Emergency Medical Technician and had taken EEG tech training. I figured I'd become a Physician's Assistant.

But life, as usual, got in the way of my plans. I was taking some science courses at Wright Community College in preparation for the PA program. I also took a composition course just for the hell of it. I discovered there that I was as superior to the rest of my classmates in the art of writing as Alex Rodriguez is to your seven-year-old T-baller. Quick as that, I decided to become a writer and have been one, come hell, high water, poverty, angst, bounced checks, and excessive navel-gazing, ever since.

I stayed at the hospital for about a year after making the decision, mainly due to the presence of a pretty young Operating Room Technician named Tami.

She was diffident and apparently as pure as the driven snow. She'd been raised in a born-again christian family but I sensed she'd be happy to throw off the chains of that peculiar madness. She had blonde hair, piercing gray eyes, a brilliant smile, and an hourglass figure that stood out even in her baggy hospital greens.

We started dating in the winter and by the time March rolled around we were madly in love. We both called in sick that St. Patrick's Day and rode the Lake Street el into the Loop to catch the parade. It was unseasonably warm so we were able to stroll slowly, hand-in-hand past the highrises and through the throngs. We were so smitten, we hardly knew anybody or anything else existed.

Tami and I jay-walked across Wacker Drive west of Clark Street and got stuck on the median island. As we waited for traffic to clear, we turned toward each other and kissed. Not a crazy mad kiss, but softly and slowly. As we pulled our lips away from each other, the sun shone gold around us. We were junkies on love.

That single moment, that kiss, became a touchstone for my life. Call me stupid, call me naive, but I thought from that moment on that love, true love, was that kiss. Months later, when Tami and I were breaking up, I pleaded, "But what about that kiss on St. Patrick's Day?" as if that could outweigh all the emotional craziness we'd laid on each other (alright, that I'd laid on her.)

Tami and I went to every St. Patrick's Day parade for the next few years, in homage to that moment on Wacker Drive. Fifteen and twenty years later, we'd call each other on St. Patrick's Day for the same reason.

For the next couple of decades, I took the fact that I'd never experienced that same high from a kiss as proof positive that Tami was the one true love of my life. I'd say this to myself even though I'd been married, divorced, and lived with a bevy of fabulous women in the ensuing years.

As I write this, I realize I sound like a junior-high girl with a Jonas Brothers fixation. And the truth is, that would perfectly characterize my outlook on love for most of my adult life. I saw it as a drug, a simcha, even a sacred ritual that would cleanse my conscience of sin and my heart of angst.

It took me until well into my 40s to realize that love has a tad more to do with things like commitment, compromise, understanding, mutual goals, forgiveness, and - shock of shocks - the ennui of everyday life.

Maybe I was lucky. Maybe, if I hadn't transformed love into a fix, I might have turned instead to some hard-assed drugs. I might be dead by now or have been a veteran of repeated stays in a rehab center had I not spent years trying to replicate the high of that kiss.

I like to think I'm better and smarter now. The memory of that kiss won't ever go away. I still talk to Tami on occasion. We're both married and as happy as clams with our respective mates. But I'll bet we can still turn each other into Jello merely by mentioning the median island on Wacker Drive.

But, as Barack Obama advised us in his inauguration speech, we must leave childish things behind. As soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to run over to Kroger and pick up a slab of corned beef. I'll boil it up tonight and have sandwiches tomorrow. That's how I celebrate St. Patrick's Day now.

Big Mike: I'm A Lucky Guy

The Great Gun Battle continued at Dick's Pizza last night. Oh, okay, I'm being overdramatic, as usual. Whenever there's an opportunity for me to be alarmist, panicky, hyperbolic - you name it - I'll take it. Ask The Loved One. Heck, even my nephew, Jittery Jimmy, had to reel me in the last time he was down here to visit. We were standing in the backyard and I heard a woodpecker.

"Quiet!" I commanded. "Listen to that! It's a woodpecker. Isn't that amazing!"

"Uncle Mike," Jittery Jimmy said, firmly, "it's not amazing."

So no shots were fired nor were harsh words even exchanged. But I like the sound of The Great Gun Battle so there it is. Last week, I recounted a log-rolling chat between Printer Bob and All-American Allen about guns. My point was, it's hard for us Chicagoans to understand how the rest of the country feels about firearms. The gun is as dear to many people in this great land as pizza or the Cubs are to me.

I felt self-satisfied for recreating their discussion fairly. I thought I'd acquitted myself well, not portraying them as loons or wild-eyed survivalists. I even closed the post with All-American Allen saying, with a hint of pride, that he'd never shot a human being and hoped he'd never have to.

Man, I thought, aren't I magnanimous?

The answer, I learned last night, is not so much.

Weatherman Loren and his pop, Bandleader Leo, came in to watch the Kentucky men's basketball team play a first-round game in the NIT. During an early timeout, Loren ambled by and patted me on the back.

"I read you're post about guns," he said.

Immediately, at least three nearby heads turned our way. One of them asked Loren what it was all about. He tried to be kind but as he hemmed and hawed through his explanation, it became clear he felt I'd wronged the good folk of Kentuckiana.

"Well," Loren finally said, turning toward me, "I gotta tell you. It read pretty much like you were telling us what a bunch of hillbilly rednecks we are."

I was crushed. I'd meant nothing of the kind. Loren said he understood that but still....

"Lemme put it this way," he continued, "if we were 60 miles south of here, youd'a got your ass kicked."

I felt lucky indeed. Even luckier as the night wore on. I chatted at length with All-American Allen, as Republican as a man can be. He feels about Barack Obama pretty much what I felt about George W. Bush - this is one lousy president. No matter. Rather than tear each other's throats out, All-American Allen and I made our respective cases without a hint of mayhem. Hell, our talk was so civil most people today wouldn't even consider it a political discussion.

All-American Allen is about my age but - damn him - he's tall, good-looking, strong, and trim. His imposing stature was on my mind as we tentatively waded into our conversation. All-American Allen appears capable of lifting even this pasta-stuffed bovine and hurtling me through a plate glass window.

Had I been sitting on a barstool next to a Goliath like All-American Allen 60 miles south of Dick's Pizza, I might have bit my tongue. The Bourbon Trail is about 60 miles south of these precincts. It's a gorgeous landscape with rolling hills, broad vistas, and the occasional passing Ford F-150 pickup in whose loadbed compartment is stored who knows what variety of ordnance. Even if a fellow from the Bourbon Trail lacked the sinew to heave me through the nearest window, it's a good bet he might use me for target practice.

So now I have a bond with All-American Allen. We're not going to convince each other of anything but we came away from our chat at least respecting each other. And I neither flew through a plate glass window nor took a round of buckshot in the ass.

Big Mike's Dee Brown Update

I met a man two weeks ago at Dick's who claimed to be former NBA all-star and 1991 Slam Dunk Champion Dee Brown. When the man and his partner, a woman named Natasha, departed, the citizenry in Dick's seemed skeptical he was who he said he was. I was as dubious as anyone. I did a little digging and found that the two were the real thing. Natasha is Brown's business associate and the two are in town to open a Louisville location for his The EDGE basketball training facility.

Letter From Milo: The Big Meltdown (Plus, another installment of Randolph Street - The Eds.)

Folks, it's getting pretty ugly. The vultures are circling. The hyenas are cackling with joy. Worms are getting fat. The Neptune Society has put in a huge order for firewood and propane. And it's all about the economy.

People who previously didn't know Dow Jones from Shinola have become experts in the stock market's fluctuations. Bankers have become objects of loathing. Bernie Madoff is America's new archvillain (worse than Hue Hollins in Benny Jay's opinion.) Detroit's Big Three, after arrogantly ignoring reality for years, are on the brink of collapse. Healthcare has...

continued below Randolph Street

Randolph Street

Richard Pegue (1943-2009)

Benny Jay wrote Saturday about attending the legendary Chicago radio deejay's memorial service. Jon Randolph shot this picture in May, 1998. The shot was used on the cover of the memorial service program.

Letter From Milo, cont'd

...become unaffordable for many of our countrymen. Unemployment figures are growing at a staggering rate. Retail sales are down. New home construction and the sales of existing homes are at their lowest rates in decades.

That's just the economic news.  I'll save global warming, rising sea levels, famine, drought, wars, pestilence, ethnic hatreds, religious intolerance, political instability, and nuclear proliferation for another post.

And guess what, folks. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

There isn't a reliable pundit who says the economy is going to turn around soon. Of course, these authorities never saw The Big Meltdown coming either, so we should take their predictions with a certain amount of skepticism.

It's inescapable. Everywhere I go, the economy has replaced everything else - sports, politics, the weather, movies, etc. - as the number one topic of conversation. Everyone has horror stories. Everyone knows people who've lost jobs, watched their retirement funds disappear, have to sell their homes, default on their loans, or declare bankruptcy.

I was at a potluck dinner the other evening with several friends, all witty, accomplished people who work in the arts, communications, advertising. Normally the dinner table conversation would have been stimulating. But this time it was nothing but gloom and doom.

"Moe lost his job."

"Damn."

"Yeah, and his wife got cut down to three days a week at her office."

"Damn, that's tough."

"They might have to sell their house."

"Did you hear about Curly, down the street?"

"What happened?"

"Lost his job, too."

"Jesus."

"Lost his health insurance, too, and then had a stroke worrying about it."

"Good lord! Is Shemp still working?"

"Yes. The world still needs good divorce and bankruptcy lawyers."

I'm beginning to wonder if Karl Marx wasn't right after all. There seems to be something inherently wrong with the system, some sort of dormant bug that's come alive and threatens to undermine the rotten foundations of capitalism.

"I'm just a hack writer, bright enough to know when there's a problem, not smart enough to provide a solution. That's why I'm so glad there's an intelligent man like Barack Obama in the White House. After eight years of Bush ineptitude, of pandering to America's worst instincts, the money men and the merciless corporate machines, the special interest pigs, and the rigid minds of the military bureaucracy, maybe now someone will stop and consider the plight of the rest of us. We can only hope.

In the meantime, I'm stocking up on canned food, bottled water, and I'm digging a bunker in my backyard. See you in 2014.

Milo's Smoking Update

In my first post for this blog, I promised never to lie to the American people. Well, it's been over a week since I started my latest quit-smoking campaign and, yes, I've cheated a few times. But I'm not giving up. I still see a light at the end of the smoke-filled tunnel. I'll keep you informed.

Big Mike: Aiming For Freedom

Startling fact: I'd never held a gun in my hand until I moved to Kentucky.

When The Loved One and I came down to Louisville two years ago, I found a massive outdoors store across the Ohio River in Clarksville. It bills itself as the largest of its kind east of the Mississippi.

What struck me first about the place, after I'd noted that it's only slightly smaller than NASA's Vertical Assembly Building, were the homey, ye-olde-shoppe-type signs on the front door directing customers to check in their weapons at the information desk. This policy, I'd learn after a few weeks in town, is rather liberal compared to those of grocery and liquor stores as well as government buildings here, all of which post prominent signs prohibiting people from carrying concealed firearms inside - period. Their policies regarding shotguns and rifles are left to the imagination.

Anyway, the outdoors store had a firearms department that would do for an NRA member what Viagra does for me. I'd never imagined that so many guns could be in one place outside of al Qaeda headquarters or the office of a hip-hop record producer.

I spent an hour and a half just looking at the guns. When I came to a case full of Glocks, the clerk asked me if I wanted to hold one.

"Oh, I don't know," I said nervously. "I've never held a gun before." The clerk's knees buckled. Once the shock wore off, he repeated his offer.

"In that case, you have to feel this," he said, pulling one out of the case. Gun aficionados seem to have a sensual relationship with their weapons. They talk about the feel of a gun in a way that makes it seem more like a sweetheart than a hunk of metal and polymer.

"Naw, that's alright," I said. "I don't have a license. I'm not a gun guy. I'd feel funny."

"C'mon."

"Really? Should I? You think it'd be OK?"

"Here."

He brought the Glock closer to me, like a pet shop clerk offering me a kitten. I tentatively grasped it. I actually curled my finger around the trigger and aimed the gun at a mannequin dressed in the latest camouflage.

"Isn't it beautiful?" he asked.

"Oh sure, " I replied, although I was lying. It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't anything at all other than a hunk of metal and polymer in my hand.

It took me moving to Kentucky to truly understand how deeply people in this great nation feel about their guns.

I listened in on a conversation between Printer Bob and All-American Allen at Dick's Pizza the other night. Barack Obama's face had appeared on the big screens and the two of them commenced lamenting the crumbling of our great nation. The talk got around to guns.

"I'll tell ya,"All-American Allen said, "when I went to the gun show in December, I never saw so much traffic in my life. You couldn't move."

"Oh yeah," said Printer Bob, who'd also attended.

"These people," All-American Allen continued, jerking a thumb toward the big screen, "they just don't get it. They don't realize that every time they say they're going to do something about guns, everybody goes out and buys more guns!"

"That's right," Printer Bob said. "Guaranteed. If they say the words gun control, the gun shows are packed for the next six months."

"Don't get me wrong," All-American Allen said, "I'm not like some of them. You see guys at the shows that have guns and ammunition buried in their backyards. I like guns but I'm not a nut."

"Same here. I only have the one gun," said Printer Bob.

"But look, if they come after my guns, they're never gonna get them. All I have to do is say I sold 'em to my friend. What are they gonna do about it?"

"You can never get rid of all the guns in this country."

"It's impossible! How are they gonna do it? The cow's out of the barn."

"This isn't France or Germany where they can just take 'em away."

"Whenever a country wants to take away your liberties, the first thing they do is take away your guns."

"We want our freedom," said Printer Bob.

"That's all," said All-American Allen. "That doesn't make us bad people. Believe me, I've never met a nicer, more caring group of people than gun owners. I mean it! If I had to take my wife to the hospital and I needed someone to take care of my kids, I'd call one of my friends - and they're all gun owners. All good people."

It's ironic that this exchange came a day after 26 people were killed in shooting sprees in Alabama and Germany.

"It sounds old but it's true," Printer Bob said. "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."

"I've never shot a person in my my life," All-American Allen said. "And I hope I don't have to."

Benny Jay: Walking And Talking To The Black Forest Gump

It's close to midnight and I'm walking the dog on a cold, cloud-free night. The moon's shining bright and there's no one around.

I take out my cell phone and call my buddy Johnny. He works the midnight shift as a security guard out by O'Hare. He's got plenty of time to talk, and no one can talk like Johnny. He calls himself the Black Forest Gump, on account of the fact that he's always manages to wind up in the right place when something big is gonna pop.

"My man, Benny," he says. "You see President Obama's speech to congress? Man, those congressmen were goin' crazy. White people too. I ain't seen so many white folks skinnin' and grinnin' since Lincoln was shot. They gave him 52 standing ovations. When Obama walked down the aisle everybody wanted to touch the hem of his cloth. Took him a half an hour just to get out of Congress cause everybody wanted to shake his hand. The man is Jesus. I say, let's vote him king. Forget president. King Barack."

I ask him if he saw the Republican response by Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana. "I saw it. That fool didn't say nothin'. The man's governor of one of the poorest states in the union and he talkin' about he don't want to take any of the stimulus money for Louisiana. That's easy for him to say -- he got a job. Man, I don't know what folks in Louisiana were thinkin' when they elected him governor. They should vote the man out. But you know how it is -- everybody say they want change, but really they lookin' to make some change. Everybody want to go to heaven, but don't no one want to die. We live in a ten-day democracy -- after ten days we forget all about it...."

I walk by the el track as a train roars by. By the time it's passed, somehow or other Johnny's made the transition to talking about a lady he knew a long time ago on the West Side. "We had a sister -- called herself Sister Udahwe. That's ooh-dah-we. She was so pretty we used to call her Sister Ooh-wee. Man, that woman was fine...."

I cut him off to ask about the passing of Norm Van Lier and he starts telling me about the time in "nineteen-seventy-somethin" when Billy "the Kid" Harris, the legendary South Side playground star, tried out for the Bulls. "Man, Billy the Kid lit them up in practice, but he was talkin' so much trash ol' Coach Dick Motta didn't like it. Norm took Billy aside and told him -- `Billy, all you gotta do is keep your mouth shut and you'll make the team.' But Billy wasn't about to close his mouth. I always liked Norm for that. Tried to help Billy the Kid. But the man wouldn't help himself...."

By now, I'm home. I open the door, and take the leash off the dog. Johnny's about to go on for another hour -- what the hell, he has all night. But I need sleep. I tell him I'll talk to him soon. Probably the next time I'm walking the dog at midnight....

Benny Jay: Can't Sleep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued....

Big Mike: My Head Hurts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trivia answer: India! Who knew?

Big Mike: The Spirit Life

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

Maybe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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