Letter From Milo: Keeping Secrets Isn't Healthy

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.

Letter From Milo: A Good Pimp Is Hard To Find

I haven't been sleeping well lately. I've got a lot of things on my mind - the nation's economy, my economy, the Bulls playoff chances, the White Sox playoff chances, my dog's health, the undeniable fact that I'm not the #2 pencil I used to be - just to mention a few things. But the one thing that is driving me crazy, the thing that starts the snakes squirming in my head, is trying to find a literary agent.

I've written two books in the past couple of years and am in the process of writing a third. The first one, a poker-themed novel titled "Schoolboy," I had to self-publish as an ebook because I could not find an agent to represent it. It did very well as an ebook, lingering at the top of the best seller list for more than a year. The second book is now being considered by two different agents, one who wants to give it "further consideration" and another who says it's interesting and will get back to me soon.

Athough this may sound like a promising situation, it's basically the same shit I heard about the first book, so I don't have great hopes that either one of them will take me on as a client.

The problem with trying to publish a book is that most publishers will not look at a manuscript unless it is represented by an agent. Go to the web sites of the major publishers and right there on their home pages they state, "We do not consider unagented manuscripts." In other words, no agent, no publisher.

I can understand this on an intellectual level. Publishers are deluged by manuscripts. They need some sort of screening process to weed out the bullshit from the even worse bullshit. So they use agents to do their triage work. The thinking is that if legitimate agents, who work strictly on commissions, are willing to put in their precious time trying to sell a manuscript, then there must be some value in it. After all, why would an agent waste time on something unsalable.

Despite the fact that I hate leaving my fate in someone else's hands, I had no choice but to play by their rules, So, when I finished my first book, I spent a long time sweating over a query letter and began sending it out to agents. In due time I began receiving replies, both email and postal. I had a few good responses, agents who wanted to see the first few chapters or a synopsis. The majority of responses, however, were flat-out rejections.

I haven't been shot down so much since I was a single guy trying to pick up chicks in bars.

Initially, I took the rejections in good humor. I took consolation in the fact that even the greatest writers suffered their share of rejections. After a while, though, I started getting pissed off.

It wasn't the rejections that were getting to me, it was the way I was being turned down. Some agents were clearly sympathetic to my plight, writing personal notes expressing their sincere regret that due to their heavy consumption of martinis, their long weekends in the Hamptons and their incredibly convoluted sex lives, they simply didn't have time to read my manuscript. That sort of rejection I could understand.

The agents that got my goat were the ones that waited months to respond and then replied with an automated response, like this one:

Dear Author:

Please forgive the impersonal nature of this rejection. Due to the overwhelming number of manuscripts we receive, we are simply not able to reject each author personally. This is in no way a reflection on the quality of your work. We wish you the best of luck in the future.

I immediately replied:

Dear Agent:

Please forgive the impersonal nature of this reply to your rejection. Due to the overwhelming number of rejections I receive, it is impossible to personally reply to each rejection. This is in no way a reflection on the quality of your rejection. I wish you continued success in rejecting authors in the future.

Needless to say, I did not hear from that agent again.

And then there was this snide reply to my query letter from some arrogant bastard of an agent:

Sorry, I never consider first novels. But I will say that your query letter is one of the best I've seen.

I stewed a while, then replied:

You cocksucker, if you like the query letter so much, why don't you try selling it and picking up an easy 15 percent on that.

Needless to say, I never heard from that agent again, either.

Author's Note: I don't want to give the impression that all my dealings with agents have been problematic. There have been some very kind and helpful ones, who have offered advice, referrals, and digital pats on the back. Among the good ones are Jim Fitzgerald, Steve Gregory, Henry Morrison, Laura Strachan, Jeff Kleinman and Bob Mecoy. If any of you writers out there fall into their hands, you should consider yourselves fortunate.

Benny Jay: A Couple of Old Goats from Gary

It was Milo's idea to get together with Monroe -- I merely set it up.

I've known Milo since forever and I've known of Monroe for at least as long. When I moved to Chicago back in 1981, Milo and his wife, Sharon, lived in the downstairs flat. Monroe was writing for the Tribune.

They both come from Gary, Indiana, which to me was nothing more than a stinky stop on the train going east to Washington, D.C. In fact, pretty much everything I know about Gary, I learned from Milo. He told me all about it, while we sat on the front porch watching the people walk by. He'd be smoking cigarette after cigarette and telling me story after story. He had dozens of stories about Gary's quirky characters and the oddball things they did. I loved listening to Milo's stories about Gary -- though I didn't care for the cigarette smoke. I'd tell you a few of them, but I'll leave that to him. He tells his stories better than I can.

Anyway, Milo wants to meet Monroe, and Monroe's game. So we get together at this restaurant in Lincoln Park. I order chicken -- 'cause that chicken is good. I'm trying to eat slow, to make it last longer. But it's hard to do cause it's so tasty -- all juicy inside. Man, I love that chicken.

Milo's explaining how he went to Horace Mann High School back in the mid 1960s. The school board integrated it when he was a freshmen -- he's not sure why -- and all these black kids came in. There were daily fights 'cause, you know, what else are black and white kids gonna do but fight?

And Monroe says the idea of fighting white people never crossed his mind -- even though he came out of Gary at roughly the same time -- mainly because there were no white people to fight. He went to Roosevelt High School, which was on the black side of town -- across the railroad tracks, the racial line of demarcation. (I guess the Gary school board wasn't about to send white folks into Roosevelt High.) Monroe says he never even saw white people -- at least up front and personal -- until he went off to college.

Somehow or other they start talking about the Patterson sisters. Turns out both of these old goats lusted after them. "The prettiest girls in Gary," says Milo.

"They were fine," says Monroe.

They also discover they both knew another pretty girl -- named Hirsch. I think they lusted after her as well. They also knew Dr. Yokum. They didn't lust after him -- but his brother is a character in "School Boy," one of Milo's finest novels.

"How can you know the same people if you live on opposite ends of town?" I ask.

"Gary's a small town, Benny," says Milo.

Right there and then the whole notion of blacks fighting whites just because, you know, that's what they do, never seemed so strange.

It reminds me of a street party I attended a few years ago at Cabrini Green. A bunch of old gang bangers from rival gangs got together. They called it Old School Monday -- 'cause it took place on a Monday night.

"Twenty years ago we'd be trying to kill each other," they said, as they hoisted beers and listened to Marvin Gaye blasting over the loudspeakers.

The notion seemed so bizarre they wondered why they ever let it happen.

Big Mike: Loneliness And Marriage

My visitors of last week - my oldest pal Sophia, her husband Danny, and their two kids, Matty and Arianna - left yesterday afternoon. While they were here, the place was a madhouse. From Sunday to Sunday, only the Louisville Zoo hosted a more cacophonous symphony of barking, roaring, whining, giggling, guffawing, meowing, and flatulence.

The Loved One was only able to take part in the distemper for one full day and parts of two others. As noted here previously, she drives in from Bloomington, Indiana on Friday nights and leaves on Sunday afternoons.

Now I'm alone.

Solitude is more indicative of the writers' lot than all the pens, pencils, word processing programs, or alcohol in the world. Good old Benny Jay has constructed a book-lined garret in his North Side manor. He pounds out his political pieces and books there as well as opuses for this communications colossus. He's tied in to all corners of Chicago, taking calls on separate phones like a bookie with two minutes to go before the starting bell. He's greeted every morning by an avalanche of emails. He's constantly communicating with the outside world. Yet, he's pretty much alone all day long.

Conversely, Milo, Gary's Greatest Writer, does his work in the basement. He's banging on doors constantly (and electronically,) trying to convince business owners that his advertising copy will make them jillionaires. Again, by the end of the day, his throat is sore from all the yakking he's done. And again, he's been all alone.

Me? I pound away at the keyboard in the basement, just like Milo. Except for last week, my Murray Hill Pike ranch house is normally as quiet as a Chrysler showroom. Every couple of hours or so, one cat or the other will steal into the litter box positioned behind my office area. The sudden sound of scratching usually makes whatever hair I have left stand on end.

We've all learned the last few years that one of the most pernicious methods of torture is the imposition of solitude. Enforced, extended loneliness makes human beings crazy. Some of the effects include visual hallucinations, the hearing of voices, self-mutilation, and a grab bag of other psychoses.

Yet guys like Benny Jay, Milo, and I have elected to sequester ourselves all the live long day to gather the pennies that society showers on us literary craftsmen.

Solitude won't make us crazy; we already were crazy.

Big Mike's Marital Bliss Update

Last week, if you recall, I opted for domestic tranquility over the First Amendment. I concluded my Saturday post by writing that the question of whether The Loved One would be compelled to revisit our dispute over my Tuesday post (not linked because it no longer exists) was one of those definitive challenges of marriage. In essence, I was holding my breath as I signed off on Saturday.

You'll all be happy to know (although not in a million years more so than I am) that The Loved One didn't utter a peep about the affair while she was home for the weekend. Whew - I finally get to exhale.

Allow me to crow. I would have had neither the smarts nor the discipline to finesse the situation as I did had it happened even as recently as ten years ago. It's a good bet The Loved One wouldn't either. Sometimes I wonder if marriage isn't an operation best undertaken by those past the age of fifty. And why isn't a written and practical test mandatory before a couple gets a marriage license? We do it before people get drivers licenses. I'm willing to bet that lousy marriages have caused more death and destruction than all the auto accidents since World War II.

Anyway, I feel that The Loved One and I both aced our own test. Congratulations, Kitty - we did it!

Letter From Milo: Gambling Men

I used to enjoy gambling. Poker, craps, sports betting, the horses - I played them all. You'll notice I didn't say I was a good gambler. The sad fact is that I lost a lot more money than I won.

There was a group of us who hung out at a tavern on Lincoln Avenue near Dickens Street and we liked to shoot craps. The group consisted of my good friend Bruce, Dino, Wayne, Carlos, Mike the Drag, Brooks, Dirty George, Roy, Irwin, and Pope Carl, a truly devout man who muttered a prayer every time he tossed the dice.

Hail Mary, full of grace, first the six and then the ace.

Once or twice a week, after a few hours of social drinking, we'd all head out to the gangway behind the bar and get a crap game going. I remember one time when Wayne made seven straight passes. What are the odds of that happening?

One idiot, we'll call him Milo to save him any embarrassment, bet against Wayne every time. When Wayne made the seventh pass, busting Milo in the process, Milo angrily hurled his beer bottle across the alley. Living across the alley at the time was the great film critic Roger Ebert. The bottle landed on Ebert's deck and shattered noisily. It may have even broken a window. We didn't stick around to find out.

We also used to have some hellacious all-night poker games. Except for Bruce, it was a different cast of characters than the crapshooting crowd. There were three or four attorneys, Pat the Math Professor, Joe, who preferred to be called Monte when he played poker, and Bruce's Uncle Morrie, who was in his 80s at the time and recently passed away at the biblical age of 101.

The attorneys were a pain in the ass. Whenever a question of rules or procedure came up, each attorney had to have his say, interrupting the game for ten minutes at a time. The attorneys argued, brought up precedent, cross-examined, rebutted, and made closing arguments. I'm surprised they didn't try to call witnesses. I suspect that the copious amounts of booze and reefer might also have had something to do with the lengthy delays. To this day I refuse to play in a poker game that includes more than two lawyers.

Pat the Math Professor was a degenerate gambler. He played in as many as five poker games a week. He claimed it was his wife's fault. He hated her and she despised him. He said the only reason he played so much poker was that he couldn't stand being around his wife.

"I don't even know why I gamble," he once told the table. "I've got the worst luck in the world. I fucked my wife twice in 10 years and she got pregnant both times. What are the odds of that happening?"

The attorneys immediately began debating the odds.

My favorite gambling activity, however, was betting on thoroughbred race horses. Bruce and I and our friend Dino spent a lot of time at the local ovals, Arlington Park, Hawthorne and Sportsman's. Bruce would usually drive. He always drove clunkers that would be eyesores at demolition derbies. I doubt he ever paid more than $200 for one of his rust buckets. Still, somehow those cars always got us to the track. Getting back was another matter.

"Damn, Bruce, you got any gas in this thing?

"Plenty of gas, my man."

"Looks like it's on empty to me."

"Don't worry about it. The gauge is just fucked up."

(The car finally starts on the eighth or ninth try.)

"What's that rattle? It doesn't sound good."

"Nothing to worry about. It always does that."

"Jesus fucking Christ! What was that?"

"Backfire, I think."

"You oil light is on."

"Fuck it. Pass me the joint."

My luck wasn't much better at the track than in my other gambling ventures. But every once on a while I'd get hot and win a few hundred dollars. That's the thing about gamblers. They tend to forget their losses fairly quickly but they remember their wins forever.

I recall one day at the track vividly. Both Bruce and I won a decent amount of money and were heading back to the city to celebrate. Bruce's dog, Rocky, was in the car with us. We were on the Eisenhower, a few miles from downtown, when there was a loud explosion and smoke began billowing from under the hood of his clunker. I looked back and saw that most of the engine was scattered across across the highway behind us. Bruce managed to wrestle the car to the side of the road. Acting quickly, Bruce grabbed all of his documentation out of the glove compartment, then went to the back of the car and tore off the license plate. We abandoned the car to the mercy of the towing companies and wreckers and started walking toward the exit ramp. We walked about 25 yards when a cab pulled up. The driver rolled down his window and said, "You boys look like you need a ride. The dog does, too."

Later, in a bar on Lincoln Avenue, I said to Bruce, "Good thing that cab came along."

"Yeah," he replied. "What are the odds of that happening?"

Want more gambling literature from the fecund pen of Milo Samardzija? Buy his book, "Schoolboy," right now. Hurry, you fool!

Letter From Milo: My Life of Crime

I've been a criminal my entire life. I've lied, cheated, and stole. I've broken municipal laws, state laws, federal laws, God's laws, and, for all I know, every section of the Napoleonic Code. I've broken most of the 10 Commandments. If there were 15 Commandments I would have figured out a way to break them, too.

Like most career criminals, I began exhibiting antisocial tendencies at a young age. I can't remember when I first began jaywalking, using bad language, and keeping library books past their due date. I do recall my first heist, however. I stole a Yo-Yo - I believe it was a Duncan - from the toy department at Goldblatt's when I was about 10 years old. Don't laugh. My criminal career had to start somewhere. You don't think Dillinger started his career by robbing banks, do you? He probably got his start just like any crook: shaking down school kids for lunch money.

My behavior got progressively worse as I got older. I started drinking and smoking before it was legally permissible. I flouted curfews and truancy statutes. I gambled on sporting events and played quarter-limit poker with other young hooligans. At the time, poker was sleazy and illegal, as opposed to the game now being legal but still sleazy.

At the age of 15 I got caught riding in a stolen car. I didn't actually steal the car, abet the theft, or even know it was stolen. I was a victim of circumstance, as Curly Howard used to say. All I did was accept a ride from a kid I knew, also a young criminal, who had committed the theft. Everything was straightened out at the police station and I was released. The car thief got off with probation. I heard he prospered in politics later in life.

Every few years I discovered new laws to break. In the late 60's I started smoking pot then moved on to the joys and sorrows of LSD, mescaline, and peyote, all of them illegal. On occasion, I trafficked in those substances, more to ensure a steady supply than to make money.

At roughly the same time I discovered that certain loving acts between consenting adults were illegal in several states. I took particular pleasure in promptly breaking those laws, too. I especially enjoyed #*$%(@!^# (Sorry, Milo went too far this time - The Eds.)

I was probably stoned on some illegal substance at the time, so I don't recall if the following conversation actually took place.

"Come on, honey, try it. You might like it."

"I don't know. Sounds kind of weird to me."

"It'll make you feel good."

"You mean it'll make you feel good."

"Loosen up, honey. It's very popular in France."

"It just seems dirty."

"How can it be dirty? It's an act of love."

"I'd like to. I really would. Just let me make a quick phone call first."

(She returns)

"Sorry, Milo, I called my attorney and he said it's illegal in this state."

"Shit. How far away is the Indiana state line?"

By my middle 30's I had committed every crime in the book, except for murder, rape, arson, treason, armed robbery, burglary, fraud, kidnapping, forgery and a few others. Instead of mellowing with age I became even more depraved in my 40's, sometimes committing two or three brazen crimes a day, like parking in no parking zones, littering, and having an open container of liquor in my car.

I don't know what the future holds, but I expect that my criminal actions will just get more egregious. The sad thing about my long life of crime is that I feel absolutely no remorse. My only regrets are for acts I didn't commit. But I still have time. There's plenty of rip and roar left in this old dog. Don't say you haven't been warned. If you see me coming you better get out of the way.

I'm a bad, bad man.

Buy Milo Samardzija's book, "Schoolboy," now!

From The Editors: Milo's Down Below

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

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

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

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