The Spirit of the Holidays

Bubs posted the greatest Christmas photo ever over on his blog. I may have to use it on my Christmas card next year.

True Liberation

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this story. The city of Minneapolis has had an openly lesbian fire chief, Bonnie Bleskachek, for a few years. Very cool. San Francisco has had a lesbian police chief for some time, and there are openly gay politicians in a lot of places. Also very cool. I hope that within my lifetime, it'll cease to be an issue-- that nobody will give a hoot about someone's sexuality, and that they'll be able to be open about it without fear of damaging themselves professionally.

Apparently, though, Bleskachek has been sexually harassing and discriminating against fire department employees.

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/850057.html

Part of me is appalled and part of me is amused. It galls me that someone who probably had to deal with discrimination and unwanted sexual advances would commit the same offenses. Part of me is amused, though, realizing that in the end, she was prey to the same tempations as every other human being. In a weird way, it's liberating: she can fuck up just like everybody else can.

Tagged With An Itunes Meme

Lulu tagged me with the Itunes meme that's been rolling around.


How many songs: 4877

First song:
…And the Gods Made Love- The Jimmy Hendrix Experience
Last song:
Ziggy Stardust- David Bowie

Shortest: Takin’ Retards to the Zoo- The Dead Milkmen (0:47)
If you count non-musical clips, “We’re on a mission from God” from the Blues Brothers (0:01)

Longest: Autobahn (full version)- Kraftwerk (23:39)

Five most played songs:

Dreams- The Allman Brothers Band
Pefect Blue- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
Shooting Star- Bad Company
Amsterdam- Guster
LA Goodbye- The Ides of March

First song that comes up on "shuffle:”
Ain’t That a Kick in the Head- Dean Martin

Number of items that come up when searching for:

"sex": 38—The entire “BloodSugarSexMagic” album, and the Sex Pistols account for most of this

"death": 7

"love": 307
I guess that shouldn’t be surprising for a guy who’s been married 3 times.
Includes:
Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go-Soft Cell
Love Kills- Joe Strummer
She Loves My Automobile- ZZ Top
Love Is Strange- Mickey and Sylvia
Interstate Love Song- Stone Temple Pilots

"you": 495

"me": 1090
includes a lot of words with those to letters in it

"cry": 33

30 Days Has, um, uh...... Wait, How Does the Rhyme Go?

This sign went up across the street from my home on November 30.



I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that a Chicago city worker put this one up.

I'm gonna go out just a little further and guess that the person who did this was a product of the fine Chicago Public School system that a few fellow bloggers and I work in.

Is That a Guitar in Your Pants, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

From Arkansas comes a story of a guy who tried to shoplift an electric guitar and a wireless sound system by putting them in his pants. Like Bubs said recently, if everybody acted like they had a lick of sense, he'd be out a job.

It reminded me of a story my mother tells. When I was little, she worked as a cashier at a National Tea grocery store. The employees observed a woman shoplifting a frozen turkey by putting it under her dress, between her legs. They followed her out of the store mainly out of curiosity to see how far away from the store she would walk with it.

Friday Random Shuffle

My students continue to stay away in droves. Fortunately, I remembered to throw my headphones in my bag on the way out, and I'm shuffling away.

1. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)- The Jimi Hendrix Experience
2. Who’s Gene Autry- Johnny Cash and June Carter
3. Quinn the Eskimo- Bob Dylan
4. Paradise City- Guns n Roses
5. Coal Miner’s Daughter- Loretta Lynn
6. If I Were a Carpenter- Tim Hardin
7. Dream Brother- Jeff Buckley
8. Too Many Bad Habits- Asleep at the Wheel
9. Mindrocker- Fenwyck
10. Beautiful Loser- Bob Seger

The Hendrix song was used to great effect in Withnail & I, one of my favorite movies ever. If you've not already seen it, do so.

Another Yucky Tale for a Snowy Day-- Gross Things Part 4

We had snow last night here in Chicago. It's pretty tame by Chicago standards. That didn't keep 80% of our students from giving themselves a day off. I've had not one student in my classes today. I've finished my lesson plans and turned them in, and done all my worksheet copies for the next week, so there's no more excuses not to blog.

Gross tale #4 revolves around my former mother-in-law, Cathy Rosario, who was actually my second wife Cynthia's stepmother. Cathy spent most of her time taking care of her elderly parents, Chester and Marion, who were retired and lived in Jefferson Park, a beautiful neighborhood on Chicago's Northwest side.

The northwest side of Chicago is quiet, clean and full of handsome little bungalows. Chester and Marion, lived in one of them. They were lovely people-- while I was married to Cynthia, they treated my son as a grandchild, even though he was not actually a relative. We looked forward to our visits to their house.

During one of these visits, I noticed that a neighbor's lawn was getting overgrown. This was out of character; people in Jefferson Park take great pride in maintaining their little houses. Chatting with Chester, he told me that he'd heard that the neighbor had gone away. There were rumors that he'd run off with a younger woman (the neighbor was in his seventies.)

Visit after visit, I observed the next-door-neighbor's house falling further and further into disrepair. Finally, neighbors started mowing the lawn, to keep it from being an eyesore. They also began to get concerned, as nobody could contact the neighbor. Cathy, my mother-in-law, began to contact city agencies-- the police, the fire department, social services, trying to get them to go in and check the house. She was told again and again that if there was no evidence of a crime, they could not justify going into the house.

In the meantime, property taxes were not being paid. Eventually the city took possession of the house-- apparently still not entering it-- and sold it at auction as it does with property seized this way. The winner was a contractor.

One day, I went to my porch, got the Chicago Sun-Times that my neighbor, who worked for them back then, always kindly dropped at my doorstep. As I sat down with my paper and breakfast, I started reading the front page story. It told the story of a contractor who had bought a house in Jefferson Park at a tax auction, and had entered it to assess what repairs were going to be needed. Since it had sat unheated over several Chicago winters, the waterpipes had burst, soaking the place. There was certain to be both water damage and mold. But the contractor had another surprise: the skeletal remains of the previous owner were quietly sitting on a chair in front of a television. The windows were closed, so no one had had any olfactory clues about his demise.

The reporter in the story I was reading had interviewed a Cathy Rosario, the daughter of the next-door neighbor. I realized that it was my mother-in-law, and that the house was the one next door to Chester and Marion's. The reporter, in fact several reporters from newspapers and television stations, were incredulous that this guy could have been dead in his house for several years, and that people had quietly maintained the house. Cathy pointed out to them that people in the neighborhood minded their own business, took pride in the appearance of the neighborhood and besides, they had tried for a long time to get the city to check on him. She pointed to another house down the street-- the grass was beginning to get long-- that it stood out compared to the rest of the well-maintained block.

A week later, the police entered that very house because a horrible smell was emanating from the open windows; they'd apparently learned their lesson after the outrage over the other house. Incredibily, the owner of this house was dead too! He'd been morbidly obese, and died of a heart attack. His body was rotting in the late-spring heat. Chester and Marion had had not one, but two dead neighbors on their quiet little block.

Tagged With a Movie Meme

Bubs tagged me with a movie meme. Since most of our students are on a field trip to a Jail Boot Camp, I have time to answer it.

Popcorn or Candy?

Popcorn. Way too much salt, no butter, and a diet Coke.




Name a movie you've been meaning to see forever.

Night of the Hunter. I love Robert Mitchum, and the movie is a classic. Plus it inspired a line in one of the Clash’s greatest songs, “Death or Glory.” (“Love and hate tattooed across the knuckles of his hand….”) And worse yet, I OWN IT— a birthday gift from my co-best friend Andreas a few years ago. I know Mrs. Yen won’t watch it with me—she doesn’t like scary movies. It’s just one of those movies, I think, that I will have to be ready for.

Maybe I’ll watch it on Christmas, just to get in the mood. Right after the Grinch.

You are given the power to recall one Oscar: who loses it, and to whom?

Take away all Forrest Gump Oscars— am I the only one in the world who didn’t find that movie particularly good or interesting? And give it to Martin Scorsese, probably for Raging Bull (though my favorite of his is Casino—I’m in a distinct minority on that one)

Steal one costume from a movie for your wardrobe.

One of the suits worn by the guys in Reservoir Dogs, preferably before the shooting starts. And Tim Roth’s hair. And sunglasses, for that matter.

Second place: Robert Duvall's outfit in "Apocalypse Now."

Your favorite film franchise is:

I’m with Bubs on this one—the Sean Connery's James Bond films.

Invite five movie people over for dinner. Who are they? Why'd you invite them? What do you feed them?

Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Terry Gilliam, Penelope Spheeris and Dennis Hopper. They all seem like people I’d have an interesting conversation with, and frankly, I just like their work.

I’d get Rick Bayless, from the Frontera Grill, to cater. One of the few cooking shows you can get me to watch—I love the food he makes, I love his passion for the food, and it would give me an excuse to have him there—he seems like he’d be a good guy to have a drink with. Especially if he brings some great agave and makes margaritas. Just as long as someone has bail money ready.

Plus, his chipotle salsa kicks ass.






What is the appropriate punishment for people who answer cell phones in the movie theater?

To sit repeatedly through Godfather 3. Without their cellphones.

Choose a female bodyguard: Ripley from Aliens, Mystique from X-Men, Sarah Connor from Terminator 2, The Bride from Kill Bill, or Mace from Strange Days.

Of that list, I’ve only seen Aliens and Terminator 2. Ripley. She kicks ass in 8 different ways, and is as hot as they come. Much like Rick Bayless' chipotle salsa, but even sexier.

Better yet, Vasquez, from the same movie.




What's the scariest thing you've ever seen in a movie?

When I was a kid, maybe 4 or 5 years old, I saw Ray Milland’s “The Man With X-Ray Eyes.” The end scene, when he stumbles into the church tent revival meeting, and the preacher yells “If the eye offends thee, pluck it out…” and you can guess what he does—the final scene gave me nightmares for years.

Non-movie things that did the same: the rolling eyes on Aladdin's Castle at the Riverview amusement park in Chicago, and one of those neon cowboy handwaving signs that I saw in Texas on a family trip.


Your favorite genre (excluding "comedy" and "drama") is...


Gangster movies. When I was a kid, WGN would show all the old Cagney, Bogart and Edward G. Robinson gangster movies. By far my favorite was Cagney (“Top of the world to ya, Ma!”) The Coen Brothers added to the genre with their splendid “Miller’s Crossing.” “Look inta ya heart….”

You are given the power to greenlight movies at a major studio for one year. How do you wield this power?

Give Phil a big contract to be a leading man. And make John Carpenter start making good movies again.





Bonnie or Clyde?

Bonnie. If Faye Dunaway was good enough for Peter Wolf, she’s good enough for me.