Tuesday, October 31, 2006

A Decision I'm Glad I Made

A couple years after my son's mother and I split, in the midst of our fight over custody, she made the odd decision to move from North Center, the very stable, safe, then-inexpensive Chicago neighborhood that she and I had lived in when he was a baby, to Humboldt Park, a not-so-safe, crime- and drug-ridden neighborhood. She's a physically tiny Chinese-American woman who grew up in the suburbs-- she didn't exactly fit in to the neighborhood. She claimed that she needed to live close to downtown for her work-- she did legal transcriptions, which often needed to be delivered by courier. I'm not sure I bought that. My theory is that she wanted to prove she could be as "urban" as me-- I'd grown up much of my childhood in the city.

At first, it wasn't too bad-- she lived near Norwegian American Hospital, which is kind of a stable, pretty safe "island" in that neighborhood. However, her landlord renovated and jacked the rent up, and she had to move.

She ended up moving in to a series of bad apartments. In one in particular, drunks would hang out on her front steps; I suggested a solution I'd heard someone else tell me-- to pour ammonia on or near the steps. It worked. There were still regularly problems right outside her apartment. One night I had to race over there when a drunk tried to break through the front window (why the ex-boyfriend got called instead of the police I don't know).

She finally ended up living in a big block of apartments near Kedzie and Augusta. It was a marginally safer neighborhood, but the overall problem was there-- my son's life sucked-- he couldn't play outside at his mother's house, where he spent most of his time. He had no friends outside of school and was developing a weight problem.

A couple of years ago, Adam's mother started expressing discontent with her neighborhood. I was puzzled-- the neighborhood hadn't changed. Suddenly, she hated living there, with the crime and drugs and menacing guys lurking that had always been there. Sensing an opportunity, I suggested that she could find some good apartment deals on the northwest side-- Jefferson Park, Norwood Park, etc. I told her that she wouldn't pay much more, probably, than what she's paying now.

She checked into it and found a place in Norwood Park, a Chicago neighborhood that many police and firemen live in, that was $150 more than what she was paying in Humboldt Park. She told me, however, that she couldn't afford that-- she wanted to continue working part-time so she could bring our son to and from school, a goal I could agree with. $150 is about how much I make in a single shift at the resturant, my second job. It would mean picking up a single extra shift a month. I told her I would gladly pay the difference.

I helped her move-- the worst move I've ever participated in. The big stuff got moved in a Uhaul, with some friends helping, but I had forgotten from when I lived with her that she has zero concept of packing. We moved the smaller stuff in about 100 small boxes, grocery bags, garbage bags-- whatever we could get our hands on-- in like 15 trips in our two tiny cars (this was before I had my truck). It took two evenings of this. I had to laugh, thinking that about 6 years earlier, we'd been in a bitter custody fight, and here I was helping her. Of course, it was really about helping my son.

As much a pain as the move was, it was worth it. At first my son struggled in his new school; his supposedly "gifted" program in his old school had left him behind at a better school. It took him a couple of years, but he caught up. He started to lose weight, and got much more athletic. This summer, his old baseball teammates noticed how much slimmer he was and how much faster he ran. He can go to school or a friend's house alone. He even has a dog and a paper route. His life has become, finally, years after it was turned on it's end by the split of his mother and I, wonderfully normal. His grandparents, my wife, old friends-- everyone-- have noticed how happy he is these days. And his grades have improved dramatically.

Last night at work, the televisions in the restaurant were playing in the background. Since the football game was over, the news came on. My attention was drawn when I saw footage of a bunch of cops at an intersection that I recognized--Kedzie and Augusta-- right by her old apartment. The cooks told me there'd been a huge dustup at that intersection earlier in the day. This morning I checked the news and found that at 3:45 in the afternoon yesterday, some cops stopping a gang "hit" got into it with some gangbangers armed with an AK-47-- a frighteningly powerful military assault weapon. It's a miracle that the policemen are alive-- their vests wouldn't have even slowed the bullets down-- thank god for good police marksmanship and poor hoodlum shooting. My blood chilled as I thought of this firefight erupting as my son and his mother were getting out of the car after she'd picked him up from school. Her apartment was about 150 feet from where the shoot-out was. You could see the building in the background in the news shots. Even if they'd have been inside, I know he wouldn't have slept a wink that night if they were still there-- the intersection is within sight of his old bedroom window (their building was the the 6th or 7th one from the corner in the picture-- 150 or 200 feet away). It must have been a horrible thing for the people in that neighborhood.

Later today I did the math and figured out that above the child support I already pay, plus the money I spend on clothes, haircuts, little league, winter floor hockey, and all the other things that I always seem to have the money for, that I'd spent about $4000 above that in the last two years solely for him to live somewhere other than that apartment.

Just for him not to have the childhood memory of a machine gun going off outside of his home-- that alone was worth the $4000.

Last year my ex-girlfriend, in a rare and uncharacteristic moment of gratitude, thanked me for what I've done for our child-- particularly the extra money. What else would I have spent it on, I asked? To my surprise, she rattled off a list of what I could have spent it on, including a new car (I drive a battered, but beloved 12 year old Blazer).

As I read the news story this morning, I knew that nothing I could have spent money on was worth more than what I got-- my son's safety and improved life, and my own peace of mind.

In the past year, in addition to being a parent, I became a step-parent. A few weeks ago, my wife and I took our kids to the Dells. They had a marvelous time. It was something I would never had dreamt of doing when I was a younger single guy. It was something that neither of their other parents would do with them, for various reasons.

Between that, and talking to a friend recently, I had an epiphany-- or maybe realized something that I'd known, but had never thought out conciously-- that as parents, our job is to create good memories for our children. Our children's ability to deal with adult life is a direct factor of having a stable, relatively happy childhood-- a childhood filled with good memories. And it's our job to give things up, if we need to, to provide those good memories.

It's funny, as my son is getting older, what he remembers as being fun. When I'd just settled the custody fight, just as I was finishing student-teaching, I was the brokest I've ever been in my life. I mean broke-- cashing in my change jar to buy groceries for my kid broke. What we did a few weekends was take the Blue Line el, which ran by our house, to O'Hare airport; there was a little airport-themed play area he just loved. He would wave to pilots preparing to depart, and they would wave back. What was funny was that the reason we did it was that I could ride on the el to the airport and back for $1.75-- paid entirely in small change-- and he rode free. That's how broke I was-- that's all I could afford. But I apparently succeeded in creating a good memory-- eight years later, he talks glowingly about it all the time. It was the worst time in my life, but he was having a ball.

Whether it's $1.75 for the el, or regularly getting only 4 or 5 hours of sleep at night to work a second job, it's all the same-- it's about them, and making sure they have memories of a rich, creative and fulfilling childhood to fall back on when the tough times in life hit in their adulthood.

I teach young adults whose lives have been an unending run of instability, disappointment and lack of adult role models. I never cease to be galled every day at the result-- young people who are clearly not yet ready to function in the real world, though many are already parents. They're in the process of creating another generation who will not be ready. I go to work every day and do the best I can for them, and feel bad every day for them that there was no one who helped create those good memories. They live in the type of neighborhoods that I got my kid out of, and are paying the price in their lives and futures.

I sure am glad that I made the decision I did two years ago-- especially today.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

An Ipod Disaster Averted

Last year, my wife and I bought a new Mac Mini. We love it-- it fits nicely, with a 17-inch flat screen monitor on the desk my great-grandfather made 70 years or so ago. We got all the bells and whistles, so we can do just about anything with it-- including burning DVD's.

My step-daughter has become quite the little auteur, creating videos for her favorite songs. Being a nearly-ten-year-old, her music taste is pretty much what you'd expect of an almost-ten-year-old, heavy on Kidzbop, Jesse McCartney and Hillary Duff.

My wife wisely created four "desktops" for the four people using the computer in our house, which we thought would avoid any problems. We avoided most-- but not all.

We ran into all kinds of problems with songs that my step-daughter had legally downloaded from itunes, including having the songs show up mysteriously in my dvd projects. We found out that this is a known problem with itunes, but not until after many hours of aggravation on my part. I began to really, really hate a couple of tunes that would show up repeatedly.

My wife has searched the net and found the solution to the problem. I did, however, almost have one more tragic run-in with the reviled songs.

My step-daughter was trying to make a cd of her favorite songs, and could not get the cd to run on her cd player. In trying to figure out the problem, I ripped the songs from the cd onto my imac's itunes as a playlist. I figured I could just delete the playlist when I was done.

A couple of days later, I discovered that a song from another previous playlist was still on my itunes (I use my imac to load my Ipod), and it dawned on me that deleting a playlist still left the songs in the library. To my horror, I discovered that the Hillary Duff, Kidzbop and the other songs were still there, lurking on in my library, waiting to torture me on a drive home after a hard day at work. I thanked god for whoever thought up the "Recently Added" function in itunes-- otherwise I might have missed one of them when I deleted them.

Okay-- I do cop to leaving "Chim-Chim Cher-ee"-- the original Julie Andrews/Dick Van Dyke version-- in my library.



And there is hope for future salvation from Kidzbop and Hillary: this morning, my step-daughter was practicing "Werewolves of London" for her guitar class.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Group Tagged



Okay, I was part of a group tag by Dale. It's Five things you don't know about me.

1. I have a tattoo. The words on it are "Pan y Rosas Tambien." It's the Spanish translation of "Bread and Roses Too." It's the banner the workers in the successful 1912 Lawrence, Massachussets textile strike marched under. The mill owners tried to divide them by race and ethnicity, but with the help of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), or "Wobblies" they unified and won every one of their demands. I'm a big fan of their history. I got the tattoo in 1992.

I've since found out in recent years that my great-grandfather on my father's side and my grandfather on my mother's side were Wobblies. Very cool.

My students discovered that I have a tattoo. I think it bumped me up a notch on the "cool teacher" scale.

2. I have been arrested Me and a co-worker were rooming together for a couple of months while I looked for a new apartment. We decided to share an el pass. We got caught. We had to call our boss (this was bad--we were clerks in a law office) to come bail us out.

Our big boss came to court with us a few weeks later; charges were dropped. That was the end of my criminal career, but my days as an outlaw live on.

3. My great-grandfather spent the majority of his life on the lam, living under a pseudonym. My great-grandfather, the Wobblie, came here in the early 1900's, through Ellis Island, probably just a year or two after the Wobs formed (they started here in Chicago). He was a baker, and apparently, if a bakery would not allow his union in, he would drive through the front door on a motorcycle, drop a molotov cocktail on the floor and drive out. The New York authorities took a dim view of this, and indicted him. He changed his name (we still don't know his real name for sure), went underground, and ironically ended up owning bakeries here in Chicago.

I wonder if he allowed the unions into his bakeries.

4. I like country music. This drives my wife nuts. On a recent trip to the Dells with our kids, I caught her serrepticiously-- or so she thought-- clicking past Ricky Skaggs' "Highway 40 Blues" on the ipod. Obviously, I caught her. Her punishment was having to hear it again, this time all the way through.


5. I love tabloids. I am the worst gossip in the world, and that includes celebrities. I want to know all the dirt.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

More Questions



I didn't get tagged for this one, but I liked the questions.


1) Would you bungee jump?

No, but I'd like to skydive.


2) If you could do anything in the world for a living what would it be?

A Writer.


3) Your favorite fictional animal?

The Pushme-Pullya from Dr. Doolittle.


4) One person who never fails to make you laugh?

My son Adam.


5) When you were 12 years old what did you want to be when you grew up?

A physician.


6) What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Pour a glass of iced tea and add some lemon juice. I like my caffeine cold in the morning.


7) Have you ever gone to therapy?

Yes, twice; once when my relationship with my son's mother started going south, and a second time when wife #2 and I started having problems. Marriage #1 was too short to have much angst.


8) If you could have one super power what would it be?

Time travel.


9) Your favorite cartoon character?

Wile E. Coyote


10) Do you go to church?

I don't-- My family were athiests. I did enjoy going to my grandparents' Methodist Church in Mountain Home, Arkansas when I would drive down there to visit them. Their minister was a very cool guy.


11) What is your best childhood memory?

Walking to Lincoln Park Zoo on Sundays with my dad and two brothers. We'd make sure to stop and see Mike the polar bear and Sinbad the gorilla. When I grew up, I found out that he did this to give my mother a break from having three little boys under foot all the time.


12) Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?

No. It's not for everyone, but I think everybody should have the chance to have that bond, including my best friend Jim, who is gay and was best man at my wedding last year.


13) Do you own a gun?

Not anymore. When my parents moved out of state while I was in grad school, my father asked me to take care of a .22 rifle he had (he used to take my brothers and I to a target range and shoot it). I ended up giving it to my roommate Curt, who himself kept a shotgun in our trailer (he grew up on a farm).


14) Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?

No. I have, however been hit by members of the opposite sex. Usually there was drinking involved on their part.


15) Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?

Yes, frequently-- I'm a total Karaoke whore. My step-daughter doesn't know it yet, but I got her a Karaoke machine for her upcoming birthday. We'll have one in the house soon. It'll be ridiculous. I'm very excited.


16) What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?

Eyes. I'm a fool for smart and funny and mischievous. I knew the first time I laid eyes on my wife, as we met in front of a restaurant (we met through a Match ad) that I was in trouble. As far as the mischievous, I found out yesterday just how mischievous she is.


17) What is your biggest mistake?

Not having my son's mother arrested when I had the opportunity when we were fighting over custody nine years ago. I couldn't bear to have her arrested in front of him, though it would have made my life a lot easier. I still feel like I probably made the right decision.


18) Say something totally random about yourself.

My cholesterol was 177 last I had it checked. I attribute it to red wine consumption. Of course, I've been fanatical about eating healthily since I was 15, but I'll still give red wine the credit.


19) Has anyone ever said that you looked like a celebrity?

Yes-- Bill Clinton. All the time. I could do worse.


20) What is the most romantic thing someone of the opposite sex has done for you?

Marry me.


21) Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?

Yes.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

The Boys of Autumn

This picture was taken this afternoon in my backyard. The pitcher is my son Adam and the batter is his friend Julian, who lives down the street. In the summer, they both play hardball at leagues near here. They play catch with a regular baseball, but Adam still loves playing whiffle ball in our backyard, like he and I have done since we moved into this place eight years ago. When Julian comes over, I get a break.

Here's an actual father/son exchange from last winter:

Adam: Dad, can we play some whiffleball?
Dad: No, not right now, Adam.
Adam: Why not?
Dad: Well, for one, it's night. And two, it's snowing.
Adam: It's not that dark. Or snowing that much...

He and Julian (Adam's the one by the imac) have been buddies since Julian's family moved in down the block a few years ago. They have a lot in common besides playing baseball. They are both wonderful little nerds. They share of love of Star Wars, Playstation, music and most importantly fanatical devotion to the Cubs, no matter how badly they do. Adam's favorite musician these days is Jimi Hendrix. Julian loves Grand Funk Railroad-- I'm not making this up. He has an encyclopedaic knowledge of the group. They both love bowling. They are both half Asian-- Adam's mother is Chinese-American and Julian's dad is from Bangladesh. And both of them have a parent who is a teacher (I'm a teacher and Julian's mother is a teacher).

When I moved into this neighborhood (North Center, in Chicago), it was still a little rough around the edges, but the kids could play outside safely even then; parents are always around. And it was cheap. My apartment is still cheap, but I'm nervous. There have been about a dozen tear-downs on my block, including a $1.4 Million, 5,000 square foot one next door. The neighborhood is still great-- the new neighbors are actually pretty nice-- in fact a couple of problematic neighbors have been the ones who sold and left. I don't think that my landlord is going to sell, so I think we're okay for a long time. It's the longest I've lived in one place in my life.

My son thinks of it as home. His mother has moved often; it's been good for him to have at least one of his homes be steady. He was telling me recently how much he likes living here. I'd like to stay here at least until I get him off to college. I hope I can continue to afford it, so we can keep playing whiffleball.

Friday, October 20, 2006

An Unhappy Convergence

"A few years ago their guns were only toys..."


--Phil Ochs, Here Comes the Parade


Some time in the next few months, there is going to be an unhappy convergence coming up.

About a year ago, as it was clear to everybody but right-wing nutjobs that the Iraq war has become a quagmire with no clear exit, I had a terrible thought: that the American military deaths in Iraq were going surpass the number of Americans killed on 9/11, the ostensible excuse for the war.

Including those who are missing, presumed dead, there were 2,997 killed in the 9/11 attacks. According to the website of the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, as of today there were 2,788 American soldiers killed in the Iraq debacle. There certainly will be at least another 209 deaths before this is over.

Divine Intervention


Back in 1996, there was a fire in the middle of the night at the Gato Negro, the latino transvestite bar that was next door to N.N. Smokehouse, where I worked back then. The fire department was called, and arrived, of course at first assuming that it was the restaurant on fire. After breaking out the front windows, the firemen realized that the fire was next door, and quickly entered the Gato and extinguished it.

It was a bad news/good news thing. The bad news was that a good chunk of my income disappeared for a few weeks while they repaired the damage and got the restaurant open (I also worked as a substitute teacher). The good news was that for the first time in several years, I had a couple of weekends off.

One of those weekends, on a Saturday, I got a call from Dan, my friend since college. He was going down to Charleston, Illinois, our old college town, and wanted to know if I wanted to tag along. Since I had a rare weekend off, I took him up on it.

Everything went well until we got past Champaign. The tranmission on his car started to act up. It was time to make a decision; do we continue on to Charleston, our destination, or double back to Champaign. Dan had to work the next day, and we figured we'd have a better chance to rent a car in Champaign, so we limped back there.

We looked for a transmission repair place. We found, to our chagrin, that most everything was already closed-- it was around 4 pm. We finally found an oil change place that was open, and hoped they would know of a place we could leave his car for repair as well as a place to rent one to get home.

The manager of the oil change place, who was a great guy, was able to help with the first part-- he knew the people at the car repair place down the road. He told Dan to leave the car in their lot, drop the keys in the mail slot, and he would talk to them. The second part, securing a rental car, was problematic. He kindly let us use his phone. I spent a half hour calling around trying to get a rental car. Most places were closed. One idiot told me that if I could get to Chicago, he could rent me a car. Through gritted teeth, I pointed out that if I could get to Chicago, I wouldn't need to rent one.

It seemed we were out of options. The manager came up with one more idea, though: he had a friend who worked for a place that rented out loaner cars to people getting their cars repaired. If he could get ahold of his friend, he might be able to persuade him to rent us a car.

He called his buddy's house, and found, unfortunately, he was not home. It wasn't looking too good.

Then, the incredible happened. The manager's jaw dropped and he shouted "Oh my god, there he is!" His friend happened to be driving past the place at that moment. The odds of this happening were astronomical. But there he was.

He ran to the road and flagged his friend down. His friend pulled his car, a Lincoln Continental, into the lot and it was then we noticed: the license plate read "ELVIS 7." As the car rolled to a stop, the door opened, and out stepped Elvis.

This was not the young, slim 1950's and '60's Elvis. This was the portly, porkchop-sideburned, gold-"TCB"-necklaced Elvis.

Dan and I looked at each other incredulously, but seeing as how this guy was our last hope for getting back to Chicago, we kept our mouths shut.

The manager explained our situation to Elvis and asked if he could rent a car to us.

He answered, in his best Elvis drawl, "Yes, I believe I can help y'all."

I was biting my lip to keep from laughing out loud. I'm glad I did, because this guy turned out to be a swell guy. The car rental agency was not near-- it was about five miles outside of town. He drove us there, filled out the paperwork and rented us the car. But on the ride out there, I could no longer stand it. "So," I said, as I listened to the Elvis Presley songs playing his car stereo, "it seems like you're into Elvis."

"Why yes, sir. I took 3rd in the state finals last year."

"Third in the state finals?" I asked, puzzled at first. Then it dawned on me what he meant. "Oh-- you're a professional Elvis Impersonator."

In his most polite and Elvis-like voice he gently corrected me: "Actually, sir, we prefer to be called 'Elvis Tribute Artists.'"

Good lord, I thought-- Political Correctness has finally run amok; there's now a PC term for Elvis Impersonators.

"Oh. Thank you for pointing that out to me. I'll have to remember that."

At this point, Dan was struggling not to laugh out loud at hearing this exchange. I thought he was going to pee his pants.

Elvis proceeded to tell us about last year's finals; the winner was a guy who was nearly 7 feet tall. The second place winner was a guy from India who wore a turban. He had hopes of doing better this year, he told us.

We filled out the paperwork and got the car, thanking Elvis profusely. We drove back to Chicago, and nine hours after leaving, we ended up eating and drinking at the Duke of Perth, about two miles from where we'd started. We ran into friends and regaled them with our story of how Elvis had saved the day. I'm not really sure if they believed us, but every word of it was true.

Not long after this, my son, then not quite three years old, suddenly and mysteriously decided Elvis' "Kentucky Rain" was the best song ever, ending the long reign of Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side." I wondered if our adventure had had anything to do with it.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

The Return of "Leo the Lip"

Good news yesterday-- the Cubs signed Lou Pinella as manager of the Cubs.

Ever since the movie Bull Durham, it's been all the rage to have retired catchers as managers-- Joe Torre, Bob Brenly, Joe Girardi are examples of this. Lou was a catcher too.

But this isn't why I'm excited. I'm not even excited any foolish notion that this may signal a reversal in the Cubs' fortunes. No, I've been a fan far too long to be fooled again. What I'm excited about is the return of fun to Northside Chicago baseball. I'm talking about the return of "Leo the Lip."

I was living on the North Side of Chicago in 1969, when the Cubs were going in to August 13 games into first heading straight for the World Series. One black cat and a horrendous August and September later, the New York Mets were on their to the World Series. Somehow that did not deter me from being a lifelong Cub fan, a trait my son has unfortunately inherited from me.

But with the Cubs, it was not about winning. In fact, after 1969, they proceeded to put together a series of laughable teams, filled with forgettable players like Steve Swisher, Ken Rudolph and Steve Ontiveros.

What made the Cubs fun was their fiery manager, Leo "The Lip" Durocher.

Durocher had been a legendary player. He continued that legend into his old age, but not with his skills as a winning manager. Cub fans looked forward to a disputed play like hockey fans look forward to a fight. It meant Durocher would saunter out on to the field to argue with the umpire. My brothers and I would sometimes take bets on whether he was going to get thrown out.

Spark plug Lou Pinella has the modern record for being thrown out of games. He's a proper heir to the Durocher legacy. With a three year contract, he'll lead the Cubs in to their 100th year without a World Series victory. I bear no naive fantasies that they'll break their curse; at least watching the Cubs will be fun again.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

My Favorite and Least Favorite Moments Today

Today, as I drove down North Avenue on the way to work, I remembered to snap a shot of my favorite guy (I'd brought my camera to snap a picture of my school-- I forgot to, for reasons that will become apparent). He's the crossing guard on North Avenue and Kedvale (just west of Pulaski). I see him every day on my drive to work. I frequently have to wait as he pauses four lanes of traffic at a spot where there is no traffic light. I'm always impressed, and a little worried as he walks out into traffic and patiently, but assertively stops traffic for the children and their parents.

Every time I see him, I wonder about him. He's got to be nearly seventy. What did he do during the main part of his working life? Maybe someday I'll stop and chat him up.

My afternoon was less pleasant. Right as sixth period was about to start, an altercation erupted in the hallway right outside my room. It was started by Melvin. Melvin stands out in the school; he's about six foot six. With his height and the braids in his hair, he looks like a handsomer version of the alien in Predator. He's huge, but isn't intimidating. At least not to me.

He and I got off to a rough start. I used to look forward to the days he was out. He was surly, defiant and refused to work. Talking to a teacher who taught there last year, I found out that he has an IEP (teacher talk-- an Individualized Education Plan, for kids with learning disabilities). Some of the hallmarks of kids with learning disabilities are low frustration level, disengagement and shitty attitudes. I buckled down; I made some classroom accomodations, and began making a point to say hello to him whenever I saw him. At first, he ignored me. Then he began acknowledging my greeting with a grunt. Now, he says a friendly "Hello." He's still having trouble with other teachers, but he comes to my class and works hard and behaves.

In any event, something happened between he and Janetta, a super-annoying girl who, in addition to doing zero work in her classes, is always all over about a half dozen guys in the school all the time. I don't know how it started, but Melvin apparently said, at some point, that she was a slut. She took offense, mainly because, well, she apparently is. Mel was wrong to say it, but what she did was just as wrong-- she spent the next ten minutes screaming and, absurdly, threatening Melvin.

Our school is tiny-- eighty students-- to say it caused an uproar is an understatement. I tried to quietly get Melvin into my room-- he has class with me sixth period. Security tried to defuse it by escorting her out, but she 1) stood screaming out in front of the school, and 2) called 3 or 4 or her male "homeys" to kick Mel's ass. I couldn't believe that a girl as small as her could yell as loud as she could. The assistant principal had to call the police.

The rest of the afternoon was, of course, lost. The school was in an uproar, and none of us were able to teach. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. The other teachers and I were drained. The "homeys" showed up again as soon after the cops left, but were fortunately gone by the time we went home.

I did get some amusing moments on the way home, which I was unfortunately not quick enough to capture on camera. First was the lady waiting to turn left in front of me; I don't know how she was steering the car, because she was holding the cell phone she was talking into with one hand and her cigarette in the other. A few blocks down North Avenue, I looked over and the middle-aged crossing guard in front of Maternity B.V.M was singing and dancing. It put me in a better mood by the time I picked up my stepdaughter at afterschool.

Tomorrow, both kids will be suspended. Three weeks ago, finding out that Melvin would be suspended for three days would have drawn a sigh of relief. Now, I'm upset about it. Things change.

More Questions



I didn't get tagged for this one, but I liked the questions.


1) Would you bungee jump?

No, but I'd like to skydive.


2) If you could do anything in the world for a living what would it be?

A Writer.


3) Your favorite fictional animal?

The Pushme-Pullya from Dr. Doolittle.


4) One person who never fails to make you laugh?

My son Adam.


5) When you were 12 years old what did you want to be when you grew up?

A physician.


6) What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Pour a glass of iced tea and add some lemon juice. I like my caffeine cold in the morning.


7) Have you ever gone to therapy?

Yes, twice; once when my relationship with my son's mother started going south, and a second time when wife #2 and I started having problems. Marriage #1 was too short to have much angst.


8) If you could have one super power what would it be?

Time travel.


9) Your favorite cartoon character?

Wile E. Coyote


10) Do you go to church?

I don't-- My family were athiests. I did enjoy going to my grandparents' Methodist Church in Mountain Home, Arkansas when I would drive down there to visit them. Their minister was a very cool guy.


11) What is your best childhood memory?

Walking to Lincoln Park Zoo on Sundays with my dad and two brothers. We'd make sure to stop and see Mike the polar bear and Sinbad the gorilla. When I grew up, I found out that he did this to give my mother a break from having three little boys under foot all the time.


12) Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?

No. It's not for everyone, but I think everybody should have the chance to have that bond, including my best friend Jim, who is gay and was best man at my wedding last year.


13) Do you own a gun?

Not anymore. When my parents moved out of state while I was in grad school, my father asked me to take care of a .22 rifle he had (he used to take my brothers and I to a target range and shoot it). I ended up giving it to my roommate Curt, who himself kept a shotgun in our trailer (he grew up on a farm).


14) Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?

No. I have, however been hit by members of the opposite sex. Usually there was drinking involved on their part.


15) Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?

Yes, frequently-- I'm a total Karaoke whore. My step-daughter doesn't know it yet, but I got her a Karaoke machine for her upcoming birthday. We'll have one in the house soon. It'll be ridiculous. I'm very excited.


16) What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?

Eyes. I'm a fool for smart and funny and mischievous. I knew the first time I laid eyes on my wife, as we met in front of a restaurant (we met through a Match ad) that I was in trouble. As far as the mischievous, I found out yesterday just how mischievous she is.


17) What is your biggest mistake?

Not having my son's mother arrested when I had the opportunity when we were fighting over custody nine years ago. I couldn't bear to have her arrested in front of him, though it would have made my life a lot easier. I still feel like I probably made the right decision.


18) Say something totally random about yourself.

My cholesterol was 177 last I had it checked. I attribute it to red wine consumption. Of course, I've been fanatical about eating healthyily since I was 15, but I'll still give red wine the credit.


19) Has anyone ever said that you looked like a celebrity?

Yes-- Bill Clinton. All the time. I could do worse.


20) What is the most romantic thing someone of the opposite sex has done for you?

Marry me.


21) Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?

Yes.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Goodbye to CBGB's



One night in the late seventies, in Chicago, this exchange took place at a Patti Smith show:



Audience Member: "They burned down 'Le Mer'!"
Patti Smith: "Yeah? Build another one."

It was funny this morning reading about Patti crying at the last show at CBGB's, generally considered to be the first punk club. "I'm sentimental" she said.

Sentimental? Patti Smith?

How things have changed. Patti is sentimental and punk is celebrated. Punk was scorned in its early days. Now, CBGBs' closing was on the front page of the New York Times.

A few years ago, Patti Smith played a concert for the Old Town School of Folk Music at Welles Park, here in Chicago, where my son plays baseball in the summers. It was the single busiest night I ever remember at Jury's, the little restaurant I work at down the street. Chatting with people, I found that people had come in from all over the country to see her. Punk had finally arrived.

There's been a lot of hand-wringing about the closing of the club. Yes, I'm sad about it, but in reality, we've lost lots of good clubs everywhere. Here in Chicago, Over Easy, a great club on the southwest side, closed in 1986. The Exit's never been the same since it moved off of Wells Street and on to to North Avenue. Gaspar's got sold and turned into Schuba's-- it's a nice club, but not a punk bar anymore. Club Dreamerz closed years ago. The G-Spot lasted only a year or so in the '90's. About the only real punk club left is my friend Chuck Uchida's club on Augusta, Club Foot.

After Le Mer burned down, there was O'Banion's. And there was Tut's, which came and went. It's funny to hear people talk about all of these places with reverence, but in the end, there was a wonderful seediness and a million tawdry stories. I was too young to get into these places (or not, according to a lot of the people I met who made it into these places underage). I never made it to CBGB's, either. But CBGB's made it to me.

Punk saved me. Punk was a million things to me and everybody else: it was intelligent, stupid, sweet, angry, funny, humorless, incisive, historical, loving, hateful, romantic, simple, complex-- the list is endless. It gave my generation a way to bang heads and still have some brains.

Listening to the Clash and others made me realize that someone else had figured out that there was something wrong in the world. The Ramones, who I always called the Beach Boys of punk (I was stunned to find, when I went to New York for the first time in 1998 that there really WAS a Rockaway Beach!) brought fun to punk-- though they could be a little serious, like in Bonzo Goes to Bitburg. The New York Dolls, the Dictators, the Dickies-- there's a ton of old punk to explore. (BTW, a good start is the Rhino "No Thanks!" collection of '70's punk.)

I have to confess to neglecting music for a long time. Kurt Cobain killed himself a couple of weeks after my son was born. It was already a really emotional time in my life. I remember coming home from work late that night, picking up my newspaper, reading the story and then crying while I changed a diaper and fed my newborn son. It affected me deeply. For a long time, I just didn't listen to new music. I was heartbroken. And busy.

Now, with my kids starting to listen to punk-- and after getting Sirius radio from my wife for my birthday this year-- I've been listening to new music again. The Boss Martians, the Fondas and others are getting me to listen to new stuff for the first time in years. I'm even catching up with some stuff I missed the first time around.

Closing CBGB's is the end of an era, to be sure. But the fact that its passing is noted shows that punk made its mark. Punk lives. It lives in the great memories of the bands I heard; it lives in the friendships I have in which punk has been the soundtrack to our lives; and it lives in the new bands that are influenced by the old stuff. Punk gave my generation a refuge from Reagan and conformity and jocks and all the other bullshit that surrounded us. We heard bands like the Clash and the Dead Kennedys standing up to the crap all around us. It made me realize that there were other people thinking the same things about what was going on-- and still does. I hope it does the same for this generation.

Last night Patti rattled off a list of the people who weren't there for CBGB's send-off. Most of the Ramones. Stiv Bators. Most of the New York Dolls. A bunch of people. Being a punk-rocker was a high-risk profession. I was only a fan, and I put some hard miles on my odometer. Punk, though, is still alive and well. People are falling in love with punk for the same reasons I did. As Bubs said in his blog today, "the spirit lives on."

And we've still got Patti Smith, bless her heart.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Just When You Thought You'd Seen It All...


"You wanted the Littlest, you GOT the Littlest... the shortest band in America...."

Say hello to Minikiss.

I have seen some fucked-up things in my life, but a bunch of midget Kiss impersonators has got to take the cake. The really sick thing is that I went on the website and checked their schedule to see when they're playing in Chicago.

I can't help wondering-- do they have midget groupies?

My Random 10


Random Itunes Shuffle 10

1. Death or Glory- The Clash
2. Parachute Woman- Rolling Stones
3. Bloodletting- Concrete Blonde
4. Hootenanny- The Replacements
5. Martha Say- John Mellencamp
6. Dancing in the Moonlight- Thin Lizzy
7. You Wear it Well- Rod Stewart
8. Teenage Jail- The Eagles
9. Middle Class- The Uptown Rulers
10. Black Jesus- Everlast

Saturday, October 14, 2006

There is an End...


I've mentioned before in this blog my friend Mark Evans, who everybody called "Atwood" after the downstate Illinois town he'd grown up in. Mark was murdered in June. He was the center, pretty much the ringleader of a group of people who coalesced at Eastern Illinois University around 1983. We all hung out at the Uptowner/Cellar tavern in downtown Charleston, Illinois. The lefties, artists, gay men and women, journalists, punk rockers, etc. all sort of found one another. My roommate Jim Reilly formed a punk/new wave band called "DUI" (my suggestion, "The Dust Bunnies" did not win) with some other guys, and the singer, as a joke, ran for class president under the aegis "The Silly Party" (borrowed, of course, from Monty Python), and unintentionally won. And of course, we all went wild for the next couple of years. The best and closest friendships of my life were formed then, including the guys in the picture with me.

In the weeks after Mark's death, we all started scanning and emailing old photos to one another. I had never seen this picture. It was taken one night in 1998. I was shocked to see how worn I looked (I'm the guy on the left). It made sense, though; I had, in the previous year, finished my teaching certification while in the midst of a vicious custody fight with an ex-girlfriend, who had tried to take sole custody of our son. And of course wife #1 had, in the midst of it, decided she didn't want to deal with it all, and asked for a divorce. It was, up to that point, the worst time in my life. At the time the picture was taken, I had signed divorce papers, had settled with the ex-girlfriend with a joint custody agreement (the money I spent fighting her would eventually bankrupt me) and was working at the Smokehouse while I looked for a teaching job. I was physically and emotionally exhausted at that point in my life.

Atwood, whom I always called Mark, unless I was talking to other people about him (there were people at our college who knew him only by his nickname) is the guy in the middle in the picture. It was at a joint birthday party for he and Dan, the guy on the right. I showed up late, after work. I had brought the gag gifts Mark and Dan were holding. I had gotten Mark, who was always complaining about not being able to meet women, Beavis and Butthead boxer shorts (purchased, of course, at Uncle Fun's, the greatest store in the world). I told him that chicks couldn't resist a guy in Beavis and Butthead boxer shorts. I'd gotten Dan the Spiro Agnew puppet he is delightedly holding in the picture.

In the days after Mark died, friends gathered at his house to help his family clear it out. His ex-girlfriend Stacy, whom he'd stayed friends with, and I were in his room clearing out his closets and dressers, putting stuff in bags to bring to Goodwill. It was already hard enough to be bagging clothes we'd seen our friend in for the last twenty-some years. When I came across the boxer shorts I'd given him, I nearly lost it. I nearly had to walk out of the room. The grief was staggering. Up until that point, having a woman I'd loved and lived with try to take my kid away from me was the worst thing to ever happen to me. At that moment, my friend's death moved into first place.

A week or so later, we all met at Mark's funeral, downstate. It was strange-- it was a beautiful June day and it was actually nice seeing a lot of the old crew from the Uptowner days. Tim Broderick had brought a collection of Mark's cartoons from the daily newspaper our school had. Atwood was a remarkably creative and talented artist and cartoonist. A lot of his cartoons were based on the antics of us, his friends, and we loved seeing ourselves portrayed five days a week. Seeing old friends and seeing these cartoons was simutaneously sad and healing.

As the time came to inter Mark's cremated remains, something really odd happened. The perfectly clear blue sky suddenly clouded up as we drove to the cemetary, and a huge thunderstorm erupted right above us. A bolt of lightning struck nearby. The rain died down enough for us to get out of our cars and put the wooden box with Mark's ashes into his grave. That was nearly my breaking point. I could not grasp how this vibrant, funny, intelligent, creative friend, whom I and so many others loved so dearly, was now a box of ashes being put in the ground. With that, I literally, physically went numb.

I got some comic relief when Dan, who'd shared an apartment with me and Atwood in Wrigleyville in the late eighties, leaned over and whispered that the rain was Atwood getting back at me for the night he'd been tripping and I kept talking like Bob Dylan to freak him out.

It was all I could do to drive back into town for the dinner. As we drove back, the sky cleared up; by the time we got back into town, the sky was crystal-clear again.

I had been asked to do a reading at the dinner. Dave Schmittgens, a member of that college group, who is now a high school English teacher, helped me pick out a quote to wrap the reading around-- John Donne's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" quote. I talked about the sorrow and the grief we were sharing, and how in the end, the sorrow was for ourselves-- that we were denied having our beautiful friend for the rest of our lives.

In digging out old photos, I came across pictures taken at my first apartment I had by myself in Chicago after I graduated, at a party I'd thrown in 1986. Mark had helped me move into that apartment, which was at Ashland and Berteau, then not too great a neighborhood. I did not have a car, and Mark offered to move me from the dump I was sharing with two roommates in Rogers Park to my new one. To thank him, I treated him to a night out at the Exit (the old one, in Old Town). They had a kaoroke machine there that night, the first one I'd ever seen. After a few drinks, Mark and I hatched a scheme; we got the dj to take our requests: we asked him to play "Wipeout" by the Surfaris and "Buck Hill" by the Replacements. Of course, the dj was oblivious to our joke: those are both instrumentals. We both had to work the next morning, and left before he played either one, but we really cracked ourselves up.

This picture was sent by Larry, who is the second guy from the right. The guys in the picture are me, Atwood, Larry and Curt. At the time the picture was taken, I was rooming with Larry. In fact, I roomed with the other two guys at some point as well. We were all a pretty tight little bunch, and still largely are. I lost track of Curt (whom I lived in a trailer with) but Atwood, Larry and I stayed tight.

I struggled with my grief all summer. My teaching job had ended-- I'd been dismissed after a two-year battle with a horrible administrator. Fortunately, I was on year-round pay, so I got a little buffer. I staggered through the summer, busying myself working my part-time restaurant job and working with Matt, another friend from Eastern, in dealing with the details of everything-- helping Mark's family take care of the house, getting together a reward fund, putting up posters and staying on the police to work on his case. I half-heartedly looked for a new job. My wife, I knew, was worried about me; I was always the guy taking care of everybody else, and here I was, totally unable to deal with this loss. I think she figured out that there wasn't much she or anybody else could do; I was going to have to find my own way out of it.

I talked to my twelve-year-old son, who had known Mark his whole life, about it. I told him that Atwood had been murdered. He was great-- he was understanding when I missed time with him to go to Mark's services, and talked to me about Mark and about my grief. I didn't tell my step-daughter, who is nine, that Mark was murdered-- I thought it would be a little much for her. I simply told her that Mark had died. In her youthful wisdom, I think she understood the best of anybody. Though she didn't know the details, she could sense I was struggling with a crushing sadness. As we ate breakfast together one Saturday morning, she told me that she thought she knew how I felt: like I had been punched REALLY hard in the stomach. I actually laughed out loud, and told her "You know, you are absolutely right." And she was. That gave me a moment of relief.

Everybody really stepped up to the plate. Mark's friend Aaron put up a tribute website. We all contributed pictures. Eric, Jim Reilly and Bill took it a step further and composed and recorded a startlingly beautiful song, For You, that immediately went on our ipods. Mark's parents loved the song, too.

We put together a candlelight vigil meant to keep awareness of the case. A few days before the vigil, I was out on my back porch sipping wine and looking over digital photos I'd taken on a recent trip to Seattle to visit Andreas, another friend from Eastern. I got a call from Matt: they had solved the case and arrested someone.

The details emerged over the next few days. As we had suspected, the son of a former tenant of Mark's was involved. He was the son of Sudanese refugees whom Mark had rented the other apartment in his building to. The kid had gotten involved, ironically, in a hispanic/white street gang; he and fellow gang members had burgalarized Mark's apartment. Mark eventually evicted the tenants, but on the night of June 3/4, four of the thugs, including the Sudanese kid, had shown up at his door with a gun, intending to rob him. He had no money in the house, and they tried to take him to an ATM. At some point, Mark tried to resist and escape, but was shot in the neck. They chased him down and caught him after he collapsed. As he lay in the street next to his house, they shot him three more times, probably killing him instantly.

The Sudanese kid was murdered a month later, on July 8. The cops think it was probably by his fellow robbers, who were afraid he'd "roll" on them. In August, WBEZ did a sympathetic piece on him. I shook with anger as I listened to it, knowing that this kid had led a crew of gang-bangers to rob and murder my friend. Where was the story on my beloved friend, this kid's victim?

That night, the night the case was solved, Matt and I talked for about an hour. I stayed up late into the night sipping scotch. Learning the details of Mark's death did not bring me peace. To the contrary-- the thought of how terrifying Mark's last 10 or 15 minutes of life must have been, getting abducted, getting pistol-whipped, led around at gunpoint and then murdered-- had left me shaken. I had to drink myself to sleep that night.

We went ahead and had the candlelight vigil, right by the spot near his house where Mark was murdered.

I finally began to get a handle on my grief one day late in August. I was putzing around the house with the television on in the background. Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers" came on, and I started watching it. The ending is heartbreaking, and they had a wonderfully appropriate song at the end: "There is an End," by the Greenhornes, with Holly Golightly singing. I had to go right away to my laptop and track down the song. It immediately became a favorite.

There Is An End

Words disappear,
Words weren't so clear,
Only echos passing through the night.

The lines on my face,
Your fingers once traced,
Fading reflection of what was.

Thoughts re-arrange,
Familar now strange,
All my skin is drifting on the wind.

Spring brings the rain,
With winter comes pain,
Every season has an end.

I try to see through the disguise,
But the clouds were there,
Blocking out the sun (the sun).

Thoughts re-arrange,
Familar now strange,
All my skin is drifting on the wind.

Spring brings the rain,
With winter comes pain,
Every season has an end.

There's an end,
There's an end,
There's an end,
There's an end,
There's an end.


The song is about a love affair ending, but it helped me crack the code of my grief. Mark's murder, particularly the horrific way it happened, bothered me. But what I was really having trouble getting past was the reality that the friendship was over. A guy who I'd assumed I'd grow old with was gone. The friendship had ended, a friendship I'd enjoyed and depended on for decades. Realizing that this was the root of the problem helped me begin the process of healing.

In early September, I got a phone call from an old friend, whom I'd taught with at a West Side school my first year as a teacher. They needed a teacher at the charter school she worked at, and would I be interested? It was an "alternative" high school-- a high school to help young adults who'd dropped out of high school to finish their diplomas. I talked it over with my wife, and interviewed for the job, which they offered to me on the spot. I accepted.

The first couple of weeks were awful; the school had been slated to be closed, but was reopened at the last minute-- there was total disarray and chaos. Classes started. It was rough at first, but after a couple more weeks, things settled down.

One day we got a new kid. He stuck out like a sore thumb; he was the only white kid in the school. I found out shortly thereafter that he was a member of the gang that killed my friend. It was a small gang, so he almost certainly knew the guys who did it, and knew of the crime. I also found out that he was trying to get out of the gang.

I had planned to leave the teaching profession, and probably still will. But I've realized I need to do it for one more year.

There are a handful of "kids" (they're actually young adults, 17 to 21 years old) who I've taken under my wing, including the new guy. It's helped me deal with my loss-- to take the focus off of my feelings.

I came to realize how the kids had gotten to the point they had-- everybody and every thing had failed them. Their schools had failed them; their families had failed them; their churches, neighborhoods, even their street gangs had failed to bring them what they needed to find a way to function in life. I came to the sobering realization that I was it-- I was the last stop, the last chance to get them off the path they were on.

I take a few minutes every school day to talk to that handful of students, including the guy I've mentioned. Some of them, including that guy, don't even have class with me. I just keep hoping that just the realization that somebody does give a shit will help pull them through a rough day and help them figure out that they have value as human beings.

I don't know if I'll ever tell this kid about Mark. I have this fantasy that he'll find his way to a productive and happy life, and that some day years from now, I'll be walking down the street and run into him. He'll thank me for the talks and advice I gave him, for how it helped him find a better path. Maybe then I'll tell him what happened to my friend, and why it was so important to me to work with he and the others.

I don't know if I'll ever know if what I'm doing will actually help any of these kids in the long run, but for now it's what I have to do. It's the only way I've found that's helping me through my grief at the end of a splendid friendship.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Heaven is a Place Where Nothing Ever Happens


About 15 or 16 years ago, I went on a reading frenzy. I was determined to answer every history question I had. And as any historian can tell you, this is futile-- every question you answer in history brings up 2 or 3 new questions.

In this spate of reading (back when I had time to read everything I wanted) I read a great book: Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, by Kenneth T. Jackson. Jackson is best known as the guy who writes the "Don't Know Much About History" series of books. I highly recommend you add Crabgrass Frontier to your reading list. Here are some things I learned in it:

  • Where the term "redlining", the bank practice of not making loans in certain neighborhoods came from, and how it helped create segregated ghettoes

  • That there were hundreds of excellent "interurban" electric rail lines between large and medium-sized towns throughout the US, that were bought and killed off by GM, so that they could sell buses to municipalities

  • That with FHA and VA loans, it was frequently cheaper for people to buy a new home in the 'burbs, than to renovate or expand their home in the city

  • That there was almost zero growth in the number of residences built between 1930 and 1945, meaning that veterans coming home from WWII had a tough time finding housing


One of the things that became clear as I read the book is that millions of guys who survived the brutalities of the Great Depression and then World War II came home and were quite content to have the rest of their lives be boring as can be. A job, a wife, 2.3 kids, a ranch house, a beer in hand, a barbecue and a big manicured-lawn suburb was just what they wanted.

Unfortunately, this was not necessarily what their kids wanted. I wondered if a lot of the craziness of the sixties was because a generation of kids, educated and filled with expectations, exploded with boredom.

One day, a few years later, I had a tape (remember cassette tapes?) of the Talking Heads' 1979 album "Fear of Music," one of my favorite records playing. The song "Heaven" came on. In the context of having just read Crabgrass Frontier, I heard the song in a new way. David Byrne sang, dreamily:

Heaven, Heaven is a place/Where nothing/Nothing ever happens...

It was a brilliant commentary by a baby-boomer on suburbia; this place where nothing ever happens, was heaven to the generation before.

I congratulated myself on my new interpretation of the song, and went through life with my belief in the deeper meaning of the song.

My bliss was, alas, not meant to last. One day I was listening to the radio , and heard Heaven. At the end of the song, the deejay mentioned that David Byrne had said it was about a nightclub in late seventies Manhattan-- a placed called "Heaven," where nothing ever happened. The song was about a stupid, boring Soho nightclub. I was scarred for life.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I'm "It"

Phil tagged me. Here's my list:

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE
1. Construction Worker
2. Waiter (still have this one)
3. Sixth Grade Teacher
4. Ice cream factory worker

FOUR FICTIONAL JOBS YOU WISH YOU HAD
1. Engineer on a Starfleet Ship (I’d have to resist the urge to speak to the captain in a Scottish or Irish accent, though.)
2. Knight of the Round Table
3. Multi-Millionaire industrialist/Ironman
4. Manager leading the Chicago Cubs to a World Series victory

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN
1. “From the Earth to the Moon” Miniseries
2. True Believer
3. Detroit Rock City
4. Bullitt

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN
1. Chicago.
2. Salt Lake City, Utah.
3. Champaign, Illinois.
4. Charleston, Illinois.

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH
1. “Modern Marvels” on the History Channel
2. Enterprise (cancelled)
3. Baseball
4. X-Files reruns

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION/TRAVELED TO
1. Toronto, Canada
2. Oakland, California
3. Seattle, Washington
4. Shanghai, China

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY
1. New York Times (www.nytimes.com)
2. Dvd Verdict (www.dvdverdict.com)
3. Deep Discount Dvds (www.deepdiscountdvd.com_
4. The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)

I visit God's Own Suburb almost every day. It was my inspiration to finally start blogging. Phil gives good blog.

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS
1. Paella
2. Thai Chicken with Broccoli—lots of chili paste
3. Baked Chicken, with bbq sauce
4. Strawberries

FOUR THINGS YOU WISH YOU COULD EAT OR DRINK
I found out a couple of years ago I have Celiac Disease, a genetic wheat/barley allergy, so I miss:
1. Pizza
2. Bread
3. Spaghetti
4. Beer

I’ve actually found non-wheat substitutes for the pizza dough and spaghetti noodles. When I go to the west coast, I cheat and drink beer. I usually smoke a cigar or two as well. It's only a couple of times a year.

FOUR THINGS IN YOUR ROOM
My room is in my home is the kitchen. In it, besides the regular kitchen things are:
1. My g3 ibook
2. Two lava lamps, one with a ceramic skull for a base-- see above.
3. A string of little white Christmas lights
4. A bunch of bottles of wine in a rack. Mostly red.

FOUR THINGS YOU WISH YOU HAD IN YOUR BEDROOM
1. A lot more space
2. Bookshelves (see #1)
3. Another closet, so my wife wouldn’t have to use the one in the dining room
4. A nicer stereo

FOUR THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW
1. a wedding band-- from my lovely wife
2. jeans—Levi’s, the only jeans that fit me right
3. a silver and turqoise post earring-- a gift from my friend Viktor Zeitgeist
4. contact lenses

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
1. Seattle, Washington
2. Oakland, California
3. In an old convertible, following the old Route 66 with my father
4. On my back porch, on a warm July night, with my wife, my kids, this laptop (god bless wi-fi!) and a glass of Barefoot Zinfandel.

FOUR FICTIONAL PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
1. Shangri La.
2. Mysterious Island
3. Atlantis
4. The bridge of the original Enterprise (the one on the cancelled “Enterprise” television show)

FOUR PEOPLE YOU’D REALLY LOVE TO HAVE DINNER WITH
When my wife and I met a couple of years ago, this question was one of the prompt questions in the Reader Matches online thing. My answer then was:
1. Lucy Parsons (labor and civil rights activist)
2. Nikita Krushchev—Soviet leader—most interesting memoirs I’ve ever read
3. Lenny Bruce—comedian, social commentator
4. Lucinda Williams-- musician.

Since the “Match” ad worked, and I successfully met someone wonderful and married her, I’d have to take Lucinda off the list and replace her with someone else—maybe Susan Sarandon… (“Ouch—why’d you kick me, honey?”)

FOUR FICTIONAL PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH
1. Tony Stark
2. Bernard Mickey Wrangle (From “Still Life With Woodpecker”)
3. Lovely Rita, Meter Maid
4. Eleanor Rigby

FOUR MORE PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH
1. Bruce Cockburn.
2. Bobby Kennedy
3. My late friend Chuck Hall (who I did have dinner with several times) He was a Lincoln Brigade veteran, a lifelong activist, a fantastic family guy and the most impressive person I’ve ever met. I miss him.
4. Hunter S. Thompson

I tag fellow teacher Lulu...

Monday, October 09, 2006

More Brushes With Fame: Appearances Can Be Decieving


In 1980, when I was 19 years old, I was working as a cashier at a Walgreen's in the western suburbs of Chicago. I was in the midst of a year-long break from college, while I worked and saved money for school.

One day while I was working this guy who was a dead ringer for Robert Redford came through my line. I knew it couldn't be him-- why the hell would Robert Redford be in Western Springs, Illinois? And this guy was about 5 foot 5. He was tiny. I'd seen Robert Redford on-screen-- he was at least as tall as I am.

The other cashier made a big hulabaloo-- "Look at that guy", she said, how much he looked like Robert Redford! "Doesn't he look like Robert Redford!" The guy in my line just smiled quietly-- no, he was smirking. I should have known.

Well, a few years later, it dawned on me-- it was Robert Redford. He'd been in the Chicago area at the time filming "Ordinary People." He'd stopped in there for toothpaste or something. And in the meantime I'd heard that he was shorter than he looked on-screen. He was. A lot.

After I finished college, I was indulging in what has become a lifelong habit of working as a waiter, either full time or to support my teaching habit. In 1989, I was working at a restaurant near Depaul. The neighborhood was in the midst of a rapid gentrification, and the restaurant, called Minnie's, became "hot." I loved working there-- it was mostly nice people as customers, and it was like printing money.

There were many celebrities, mostly local ones, particularly media people, that came in there. There was a local newscaster, the late Phil Walters, who came in all the time mid-morning and was pissy with me because I didn't fawn all over him. I didn't even know who he was until someone from the lunch shift saw him and told me who he was-- I never watch tv news. And I wouldn't have anyway-- most of the media people loved the place because it was it was a place they could come in and have nobody made a big deal over them. Pam Zekman came in-- major pain in the ass. She was a big has-been (she had done the Mirage Tavern story years before), and so was trying to hang on to the last scraps of her semi-celebrity status. Bill Curtis, who was very pleasant, was also a regular.

One day, John Cusack was there. I was shocked to see how tall he was. He was much taller than me, and I'm six feet tall. He was the only celebrity I've asked for an autograph, and it was not even for me; it was for an old friend, who'd been a big fan of his from early in his career, and had suffered a huge tragedy (his home had burned down, killing his mother and sister). I thought he could use a little cheering up.

After meeting Cusack, I mused at how he looked short on-screen, but is tall, and Redford looks tall but is short. But, I discovered, it is not only looks that can be misleading on-screen.

There was a group of little punk wannabes that would come in to Minnie's for lunch once in a while. These girls would come in with their silly hair and clothes, trying to show who could be the cutest and the cleverest. I'm the last person to try to be "punker than thou," but I was into the scene-- I hung out at the Exit, Neo and Gaspar's. The guys in Naked Raygun were friends of mine. I'd never seen these girls out anywhere in the bars. They were obnoxious little suburban girls, playing "punk" while they were in college. And they were shitty tippers, to boot. I and everybody else there hated waiting on them.

Flash forward to the mid-nineties. I had become a huge fan of the X-Files, which creator Chris Carter openly declared was influenced by "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," one of my favorite cheesy seventies cult shows. I loved both main characters, Mulder and Scully. Scully was my dream girl-- gorgeous, intelligent, spiritual in her way. But something nagged at me. I knew I'd seen her before. I was reading an article about the X-Files that mentioned that Gillian Anderson, the actress who played Scully, had gone to Depaul. Then it hit me-- I realized where I knew her from; she had been the ringleader of the twerps who had come in to Minnie's. I hated her. She was snotty, vulgar and not nearly as clever as she thought she was. Her real persona couldn't be farther than what she played on television. I couldn't watch the show without thinking of this.

A couple of years ago, I got a huge lesson in how far a person's onscreen personna-- and life-- can be from their reality. There was a Best Buy commercial where a middle-aged, middle-class suburban-- and presumably straight--guy and his son are standing in a store watching a show on a big-screen television. The son asks why they don't simply buy the television. The dad replies that it was because the minute they bought it, no longer how long they waited, the price would drop the next day. I am blessed (and sometimes cursed) with the inability to forget a face. I knew that I knew the guy in the commercial. I suddenly realized that it was Jimmy Doyle, a guy I'd worked with as a waiter nearly twenty years before. Jimmy was an actor, and very, very gay. The last I'd heard of him, in fact, was a one-man show he'd done at the Mercury Theater, on Southport, in Chicago. I'd read the very favorable reviews, which said the show centered on his identity as a gay man. I found it very ironic that the next time I saw him, he was playing this butch suburban dad.

Spending the first years of my adult life in the eighties, I should know better. I should already know that the right actor can "play" anything-- even President.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Guilty Pleasures

Fave Rave: Detroit Rock City

I'm not quite certain why I love this movie so much. I'm not a huge Kiss fan-- not the way my friend Viktor Zeitgeist loved them as an teenager. I like them in sort of the kitsch-loving way I like Elvis. In fact, I had hated them in my 1970's adolescence. I felt like they were manufactured-- like a Heavy Metal Monkees, with bad costumes and even worse music. However, over the years, they grew on me as a reminder of a silly time, the same way disco music has.

Though I've warmed up to some of the music, I don't think that has anything to do with my love of the movie. I think that part of it may be that the story involves 4 guys who are about 17 years old in 1978 in the suburbs of a major rustbelt city-- my exact stats in 1978. In my case, it was Chicago-- in their case, a suburb of Cleveland.

The story revolves around the efforts of the four boys-- Lex,Trip, Hawk and Jam-- to get to a Kiss concert in Detroit. The boys are from very different backgrounds, but are united in their fanatic passion for the group Kiss. They've taken their love of the band to another level, forming a cover band that is, of course, horrendous.

There are so many reminders of the seventies and high school--spilling bongwater, jerks in Trans-Ams, high school security guards, crushes, etc that it's irresistable to me. In the end, it's a retelling of The Odyssey, set in the seventies. The night's journey changes each of the boys in a good way, regardless of whether or not they get to see Kiss that night (you'll have to see the movie to find that out!)

The movie tanked at the box office. It's only "name" actor was Terminator 2's Edward Furlong. But the movie's a gem, and the DVD comes with one of the best extras packages I've ever seen, including commentaries by director Adam Rifkin, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs, cast members and Kiss themselves. Plus, it's cheap these days-- my favorite on-line DVD store, www.deepdiscountdvd.com has it for less than 6 bucks.

One related Fave Rave is the Kiss My Ass album. If you can imagine Kiss covers done by Lenny Kravitz (with Steve Wonder helping out), the Mighty, Might Bosstones, Garth Brooks and Anthrax.