Rummy, Part 2

I was just discussing the Rumsfield resignation with Paul, one of the other teachers here, and he pointed something out-- why didn't Rumsfield resign like a month ago, possibly containing the damage to his party?

I actually have some insight on this. One of the regulars at the restaurant fellow blogger Phil and I work at (Phil-- it's Linda, of Larry and Linda) was Rumsfield's personal secretary. She said that he is every bit the asshole petty tyrant that he appears to be.

So this stupid buttmunch put his ego before his party, bringing it down in flames. Every Republican candidate who lost yesterday must be throwing darts at their Donald Rumsfield dartboard.

Come to think of it, I'm beginning to like Rumsfield a lot more.

Ejected!

Just got a call from my father. All good news. They've called Montana for the Democrats in the Senate race. They haven't called Virginia, but the Dems hold the lead by 8,000 votes, and even the Republican Party is pressuring Allen to concede.

And that FUCKING ASSCLOWN DONALD RUMSFIELD HAS RESIGNED!

Being incompetent is bad. Being incompetent and surly about it is another thing.

The Election

Since none of my sixth period Physical Science students showed up to school today, I thought I'd blog about the election.

I just got a call from old friend Dan who said there are reports of wide-spread irregularities. He thinks that the fix is in. I'm not as much of a cynic as he is.

It's widely assumed that the Dems will finally retake the House. This war seems to have disillusioned a lot of people, or woken them up. What is more, I was just checking out the Sun Times for local coverage, and uberconservative Robert Novak is admitting that there's a fair chance that the Democrats may take the Senate, too.

I'll be particularly interested to see how Bean and Duckworth do. They're Democrats, running in Republican bastions, and they're looking like winners right now. I love how Duckworth's opponent tried to criticize her on the war. Given that she lost both legs to the war, I'd have steered clear of that one. Nobody says Republicans are smart.

I'm going out to vote after this, and I'm still trying to figure out about the governor. I spent a lot of the last four years amazed at how a really good state rep and congressman could turn into such a bad governor. He seems, however, to be good at learning from his mistakes. His lead over Topinka is pretty good, so I may just have to vote Green.

One of the things that should be fun, if the Democrats do win one or both houses, is to see the rats scurry off the sinking Bush/Rove ship.

I Think That the Preferred Nomenclature is "Wino-American"

My wife sent me this posting from Craigslist:

Free Bumwine (Nighttrain, Thunderbird)
I have several cases of what is commonly refered to as bumwine. My father recently retired from owning several liquor stores located in Chicago. We have been able to sell off all the other higher shelf stuff but we can't get anyone to buy or even take this stuff for free. This is somewhat odd because this stuff was his best seller at several of his stores. I have successfully given several bottles away on the street from my car near the projects on Diversey and Damen but the cops told me it is actually illegal in Chicago to give alcohol away, you must charge for it. So anyone willing to drive to Lincolnwood can have the nine cases for free. (6 cases of Nighttrain, 2 of Thunderbird, 1 of Mad Dog) I have a serious aversion to throwing things away and neither I nor my family drink these brands. Send an email if interested.

Where was this guy when I really needed him-- when I was in college?

I'm Not Ready...

Years ago, I saw this great Jules Feiffer cartoon entitled "I'm Not Ready." It was the story of a the milestones in a guy's life-- high school graduaton, military service, marriage, parenthood, etc. At each point he declares "I'm not ready!" At the end of the cartoon, he is an old man, hiding from everyone, declaring that he wasn't coming out until he was ready.

Today, my son's mother and I went to an open-house at Jones College Prep High School. It is officially the start of the process of getting my son into a decent high school here in Chicago.

I was thinking today to the first time I picked him up, at Columbus Hospital, where he was born. I'd never held a baby that small in my life. I was shaking. I was suddenly overcome that moment with the thought that this tiny little guy was entirely my responsibility for the next 18 years.

I've written in this blog a little bit about my adventures in parenting-- his mother and I eventually split, and fought over custody. It was funny today, sitting with her calmly, discussing his options. Thankfully, things are peaceful these days.

Picking him up for the first time that cold day in March of 1994 seemed like yesterday, and seemed like a thousand years ago. And I felt about 200 years old today.

If I weren't feeling old enough already, I forgot the little over-the-counter reading glasses I've needed lately to read, and had trouble reading the information packet they handed out.

I'm not ready.

Sunday, November 5th at Martyr's, Chicago

In 1971, my family moved out of the Albany Park neighborhood in Chicago, and to the suburbs. We lived in Streamwood for a while and ended up in Western Springs, Illinois. It was not fun. My family was not religious, and my brothers and I were not jocks, and people were not nice to us. I was pretty unhappy until about my sophmore year of high school, when I somehow ended up having lunch every day with a bunch of guys, including Earl Carter and Steve Knoebber, who were from Lagrange, and were best friends. They looked opposites. This is Earl's picture. Steve looked totally straight. They were amazingly funny guys, and when things were really shitty, I knew that at least I was going to have fifth period lunch with Earl and Steve.

Earl, who was originally from Alabama, still had a bit of a southern accent, and hair past his shoulders.

As I suddenly approached six feet tall, and Junior High School faded away, life got better. I still had lunch with Earl and Steve every day. Our senior year, our little lunch group had gotten quite large and fun.

Earl was responsible for the single funniest moment of my high school career-- no, make that one of the funniest of my life (and I've had some ridiculously funny moments). One day, my senior year, we were having lunch and having our usual good time, when our friend Mary Nolan, who was a regular in our little lunch crowd, walked in to lunch a few minutes late. She was pretty damned cute, and that day she was wearing a dress, a turtle-neck sweater and "fuck-me" boots. Without batting an eye, in front of a lunchroom of perhaps 200 people (I went to a high school of 5,000), Earl ran toward her, dropped to his knees, did a rock-guitarist slide to her feet and screamed at the top of his lungs "Mary-- KICK ME-- PUHLEEEEEEEZZZZZZZE!!!!!!"

Of course, the whole lunch room went silent, Mary turned 18 shades of red and me and my table of friends were laughing so hard our sides hurt. Mary joined us and we continued eating lunch as if nothing had happened. This was Earl.

Over the years since high school, we've all kept very loosely in touch. I would run in to Steve regularly. Earl became a stand-up bass player in a succession of rockabilly bands, ending up in the Riptones. I was happy for his success.

In 1986, Earl was in a really bad car wreck. He was in a coma for a while, but eventually recovered.

Recently, he had to be hospitalized for lingering injuries from that accident. Being a musician, he had no medical insurance. There's a benefit for him on Sunday, November 5th at Martyr's, on Lincoln Avenue, near Irving, in Chicago. Earl's a great guy. He was a friend to me when not a lot of other people were. I hope there's a nice turn-out to help him. I'll be there with my checkbook.

Friday Random Ten

In my favorite-ever book, Tom Robbins' "Still Life With Woodpecker," one of the main characters, Mickey Bernard Wrangle, has a theory-- that you can tell everything about a person by who their favorite Beatle was (mine was Paul. Unlike everybody else on the planet, John was not my favorite)

I think our generation's version of that is the Friday Random Ten. Here's mine:

Johnny Yen’s Friday Random Ten

1. The Blow Monkeys- Digging Your Scene
2. Pete Shelley- Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça ?
3. King Crimson- 21st Century Schizoid Man
4. Phil Ochs- I’m Gonna Say It Now
5. Pete Shelley- Love in Vain
6. Elvis Costello- Goon Squad
7. Rolling Stones- Salt of the Earth
8. Laid Back- White Horse
9. Velvet Underground- Venus in Furs
10. The Music Explosion- Little Bit ‘O Soul

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm"

Tom Robbins
Still Life With Woodpecker

Adam and the Ants

My son Adam is a guy who jumps feet-first into whatever he becomes interested in-- or obsessed with.

Take, for instance, Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side." From when he was about age one to about three years old, it was his favorite song. If it came on the radio, everything would have to stop while he listened to it. One time, when my friend Garrett was visiting, we were taking Adam to the Lincoln Park Zoo. As we parked the car, "Take a Walk" came on and we had to wait a couple of minutes while the three of us sang along. I think that he liked the part where Lou and the "colored girls" sang "Doo-da-doo."

He's twelve now, and it's only a matter of time before he discovers what Lou meant by Candy never losing her head, even when she was giving head. It'll give him a great story to tell at parties when he's in college.

Later, there were cinematic obsessions. His first one was Toy Story, when he was two. He never got tired of it. For anybody who would listen, he would tell them that "Buzz Lightyear say 'infinity and beyooond!'" and that "Woody say 'weach for da sky!'" "Space Jam," and an obsession with Michael Jordan came and went. I think that his otherwise inexplicable fascination with talk-show host Montell Williams was related to that.

When he was about four, he first watched Them!, a '50's schlock epic about giant ants, spawned by the first atomic test in 1945, attacking Los Angeles ten years later. It was a life-changing event for him. His world began to revolve around this movie; he would watch it repeatedly. He began to study it like a graduate film student, wondering about the lives and motivations of characters: why, Dad, had (main character) Bob Graham moved from Chicago to Los Angeles? Was he married? Did Sgt. Ben Peterson leave a family behind when he nobly sacrificed his life to save the two children trapped in the ant's lair? Do you think that Bob Graham will eventually marry Professor Medford's daughter?

I didn't know how to explain to him-- that it was not an exercise in Method acting-- it was a big dumb movie about giant ants attacking Los Angeles.

One day, he sat and watched it twice. And then he rewound it again-- this was before the DVD came out-- and was about to watch it a third time. I told him no, it was a nice, sunny day and we were going outside to play baseball.

When the dvd came out in 2002, it got ridiculous. It was my father's favorite movie too, and I got both he and Adam copies of it for Christmas. They began to watch it together. It got completely out of hand.

Cynthia, my now-ex-wife (wife #2), was a little disturbed; right after this, our home was invaded by ants the size of Chihuahuas. She voiced suspicion that it was related to Adam's obssession.

Maybe she was right to be suspicious-- the ant invasion outlasted the marriage.

Adam has since moved on to The Blues Brothers and other cinema classics, but there was one lasting legacy of his giant ant infatuation. At the height of Antmania, when he was four, he created this work of fine art, which hangs in my home. I love how the ant, blissfully unaware that he is about to succomb to the combined forces of the United States Army, the Los Angeles Police Department, and UCLA's Entomology Department, has a big shit-eating grin on his face.