(I started writing this a while ago, but then I sold all of the jokes to gypsies, so now I must furnish the entry with new ones.)
An old friend of mine won an Oscar recently, which is excellent, and much like the crafty Ms. Passion, I had an influx of traffic on this here website due to a link on said friend's old blog. Given the, uh, adult nature of the traffic, I am feeling a certain amount of pressure to adopt an intriguing pseudonym like "Lorenzo from Accounting" or "Lunch", and posit scenarios which might better fit the expectations of these new visitors.
I never thought it would happen to me! Despite his incorrect and shameful choice of headgear, the professional affiliation of great service toward our corporation was overwhelming! Together, we searched very much to achieve bare financial milestones established with great knowing by the regional management for whom effortless brilliance of leadership and strategy is infinitely disappointed by our meager abilities and profound inadequacy. But yet we both felt great seriousness toward our professional responsibilities!
There is an article coming in a local newspaper about the travel book, so I am looking forward to that. In the March edition, upon much consideration, we decided to change "Birdgeport" to "Bridgeport" on the map for that part of the city. One bar on the south side closed, so that came out, and a Neapolitan pizza place on the north side went in. But we haven't done anything about the somewhat daffy computer-generated index, which has to be seen to be appreciated.
Reports have it that Cheeta was featured on Episode 350 of This American Life. I haven't listened yet, but I am always excited for the old fellow to get some of the recognition he so richly deserves. His masterwork "Green, Brown, Yellow" recently had its first formal exhibition in my living room during a party, and I think everyone was very impressed. (I should note that I had it framed at The Practical Angle in Chicago and they did a fine job.)
I never thought it would happen to me! I was just sitting there on the mountain, on the lookout for peanuts or old fruit, when...
February 25, 2008
It is not entirely accurate to say that I have been up to my old tricks, for among the tricks were new ones, such as the publication of a goddam book. I have never done that before, and now that my author copies have arrived, it is delightful to see words that I have written in print. The book is a travel guide to the entire city of Chicago; I covered the north side and most of the west, and shared duties on the center of town. It was written with another fellow whose talents complemented my own, under contract to a publisher overseas. The idea was for us to write a book, and then post more or less the entire thing online for people to collaborate upon in wiki-form; whereupon we, as editors, will incorporate any quality submissions received into the text of the book, which is printed on demand whenever someone orders it, ensuring that it is ruthlessly current.
The publishers received some coverage on the blogs last week, most notably on boingboing, where a commenter named JOE had this to say:
"Their Chicago guide is 468 pages? That's not a travel guide, that's a travel novel. You'd spend the majority of your trip reading the beast."
Damn right! Thanks, guy.
So that's what I did with the latter half of 2007, and also the first month of 2008. It was a lot of work, but I am pleased with the finished product. I did rather a lot of writing, of course, and plenty of walking around to find things and telephone calls to confirm other things; two of my photos adorn the cover, and there are a few more scattered throughout the book in black and white. Rogers Park receives an entire chapter, and although travel literature is a form simply not equipped to capture the sweet, savage nature of the old stomping grounds, I did enjoy the chance to write about my ancestral land in guidebook form.
You can buy a copy of my book here; and I leave you with that.
(Obviously, I haven't written an entry for quite a long time. Both my day job and the aforementioned travel guide require sentences that do not wander too far into the labyrinth of alarm and excitement and halfway state that is the mark of my usual prose, so it is kind of enjoyable to stretch out with all of these clauses.)
October 24, 2007
Certain promises were made with regard to an update of this here website. My thoughts are not yet gathered, though. Books line my shelves but plastic frogs and capsule hotel boxers clutter my featherweight desk, and also my concentration. (The new apartment has a lovely meditative sunroom, but it's dark as I write these words, and I do not yet have a bulb for the eagle lamp I bought from the Salvation Army. An eagle lamp is to a sunroom like a floor is to the rest of the apartment: really a fine thing to have.)
I will gather my thoughts in time, though; all is well. Cheeta's masterpiece is away, being framed by experts. I am in agreement with my cats about the cool autumnal air.
June 1, 2005
They're almost finished building a new porch outside of my apartment, and although I won't know for sure until I'm out there, it looks like it's going to be more or less identical to the old one. Was I foolish to hope for something new? Triumphal arches, flying buttresses? Give me a fucking gargoyle, at least. I've never been clear on why things are ever built without gargoyles. Pretty much all I have to ward off evil is a plush gorilla on a shelf. It does all right, but still.
(If I was head of the city building commission, I would have a big red stamp that said "Get yourself some gargoyles or go back to your lego set, chump", and many architects would feel its wrath. Everyone says that Frank Lloyd Wright was so great, but how much better would the Prairie-style have been if he'd been forced to come up with gargoyles to fit with it? Far better, actually. I've seen that alternate universe and it rocks the pants off ours.)
(news) An Iraqi soldier died from poisoning and nine others were in critical condition after they ate free watermelon handed out at a checkpoint in northern Iraq, police said Wednesday. "A vendor offered a poisoned watermelon on Monday to Iraqi soldiers manning checkpoints between Shorgat and Kiyara," said police Colonel Fares Mahdi. "One soldier died and nine others who were rushed to the hospital are in critical condition."
I'm not sure I want to live in a world where you can't eat free watermelon given to you by complete strangers. I don't know if I've made my desire to be fired into outer space explicit, so let me go ahead and do that now. Can a weblog serve as a living will? How pissed off do you have to be to poison a watermelon? According to this, Iran sends 70% of its watermelons to Iraq. And that's to say nothing of this guy, the four-time greased watermelon champ of Wisconsin, who was killed in a roadside bombing in February. I keep thinking about the square watermelons in Japan, and I wonder how I'm going to make it through this summer.
But! You know this publication too well to think I would end an entry on a note of despair. Like everyone else, I was surprised when Deep Throat turned out to be some old guy. That really turned my head around about what old people can accomplish, and I'm optimistic that we'll start to see a more "can-do" attitude from our nation's millions of idle oldsters. I mean, look at this guy! He's old as dirt! Have you ever seen anyone that old? It's time for the rest of the elderly to get up and get the remote themselves.
However! I bring news of an alarming nature as well. We hoped this day would never come, that they would never fall into the hands of a rogue nation, but recent reports confirm that North Korea has command of long-range tactical insults, as shown by their explosive use of "balderdash" in an article about something or other. Furthermore, according to the Korean Central News Agency, we are getting absolutely destroyed on the battlefield of rhetoric. Apparently, we haven't managed to put forth a single plan that hasn't been assailed, rebuked, refuted, or come under fire. Worrisome, that. Now this is where I come in. Do you think I could single-handedly win a war of rhetoric with North Korea? Remember, we only won Vietnam when Rambo went in by himself, free of the chain of command and all of that other nonsense. My suggestion is this: hire me at once. Evidently, this is the eternal sun of humankind we're dealing with here. Well, I am a blackbelt in the English language. I will take him apart. The man will barely qualify as a night-light when I'm through with him. Put me in, coach! Just don't make me spend all day in these damn offices any more.
May 13, 2005
Another job for which I am better qualified than the man who currently holds it is the job of CTA President. Residents of the city of Chicago know that our public transportation system is teetering on the verge of collapse, and the minions of Kruesi claim that jacking fares to $3 while cutting service is the only way to save it. I, on the other hand, am possessed of wide, staring eyes and a strong urge to fly, and I have insights that the minions do not. For example, one way for the CTA to save a lot of money would be to cut down on the number of guys in green vests wandering aimlessly back and forth at the Division subway stop. Prior to this week, there was already a surplus of those guys, and now their number has doubled. The only thing they do that can be construed as work-related is getting out of the train's way when it finally creeps into the station.
Now, lest someone sneer and call me a consultant, let me clarify that I am not proposing layoffs. Workers are valuable assets, but they must be deployed correctly. These men should not be fired; clearly, they are well-versed in the art of bamboozlement, because they get paid to wander around in green vests, and their bosses think it's a good thing. They are experts in techniques that the CTA can use to get out of paying its debts. Put them in a room with, say, this month's electricity bill and a telephone. They know the weaknesses of middle management; they they know how to deal with that shit.
Kruesi is a weak little man who instead chooses to whinge about the state legislature.
(news) COVINGTON, La. -- Officials captured 47 monkeys that had escaped from the Tulane Primate Center, but six remained on the loose Tuesday and seemed to be hiding out in a heavily wooded area near the site. The monkeys escaped Monday evening. Officials said the monkeys got loose because a cage was not locked properly. The monkeys had observed how the cage was opened and closed and apparently used that knowledge to their advantage.
Mike Aertker, spokesman for the Primate Center, said the monkeys were being used solely for breeding purposes, and had not been subjected to experiments of any kind. Aertker said the monkeys are not aggressive and pose no threat to people.
The interesting thing is, when given a choice, 38 of the monkeys who were recaptured by the breeding facility chose to listen to Pinkerton.
Following up on my last entry, Arden, our remote correspondent, reported that Letterman had a bit on Tuesday night where he and Paul Schaffer tried to guess whether paintings were by an ape or an artist. According to Arden, the one by the ape was "quite a good painting". Frankly, when an ape paints well, I think he or she deserves some credit. The critics who derided Congo's exhibition in 1957 probably did so from a position of defending art; to admit that an ape could paint well would, they feared, open some kind of fissure beneath the integrity of modern abstract art, revealing it as a con along the lines of all those lame jokes and commercials where aesthetes mistake a common object for a masterpiece and shower it with pseudo art-speak. But it wouldn't. Some people paint better than others, and some monkeys paint better than others, too. Congo happened to be a fucking good painter. As the article said:
He painted within the boundaries of the sheet of paper and never allowed the paint to spill over the edge. He also appeared to know when he had finished a painting: He refused to pick up his brush or pencil over the work.
Could any monkey with a paint-brush produce great art? Of course not. I strongly doubt that this monkey's work would be anything other than an empty exercise in form, and this monkey probably lacks the discipline to go beyond surface assumptions about his relationship with his art. But, for fuck's sake, if you gave this monkey a canvas, he would come back to you with some fucking intense reflections about where he's been and what he's seen. And you can't tell me this monkey doesn't know some shit about life.
It seems to be raining very hard right now. But, seriously, if anyone thought that would prevent me from hitting all the locations on my carefully-drawn map for the first day of Free Frosty Weekend, they are fools. I guess I should take this opportunity to thank the crazy chili finger woman for her diligent efforts towards embarassing a corporate monolith into giving me a free lunch. If someone could get Pizza Hut to do the same, that would be great, because I don't feel like cooking tonight.
May 4, 2005
Some readers may have reached the perfectly reasonable conclusion that my kidney stones were fatal, or that they caused an explosion in my urinary tract whose shockwaves led to my arms to falling off, and that my insurance had not yet agreed to cover new, robot arms, forcing me to spend several months trying to peck out an entry of typical length using a stick held between my teeth. Really, though, all that the kidney stones did was usher in an era of discontent in which I slept face down on the couch a lot and avoided my computer. Pissing into a funnel will do funny things to a man's state of mind. When I started feeling communicative again, I put together this new design and then became distracted by the Bulls' playoff run. (I added the link to the Bulls usenet group to the sidebar so that people could see what I was up to and decide if they would like to lobby their local paper to hire me as a sportswriter. I find that Chicago is beset by crappy sports columnists. The beat writers are all pretty good, but the columnists are vile men who believe in nothing and would rescue their hair-care products from a hotel fire before they'd help an orphan who just needed to know where the stairs are. Except Sam Smith. As far as he's concerned, the mustache combs the paper keeps sending over can get fucked, and so can the orphans, too.)
It takes weird things to spur me to write. I'm not very busy at work right now, so I focus most of my energy on throwing notes to the neighboring cubicle and making viciously disparaging remarks about the warrior spirit of the Washington Wizards to whoever is willing to listen. But just a moment ago, as I went through another round of obsessively checking websites that might have been updated, I noticed there was a new photo up on Yahoo's news page for the Lynndie England trial. That in and of itself was not remarkable, because they've been running that as the lead story all day, but here's what caught my attention: in the morning, they showed her arriving for the hearing clutching a Pepsi can in an oddly conspicuous manner. (The mind is trained to think of Abu Ghraib endorsement deals, but the fingers know better than to bother typing them.) In the afternoon, however, after the judge had ruled a mistrial, the photos showed her walking out of the courtroom with a similarly conspicuous can of Dr. Pepper.
1. Why did she switch? Did someone pressure her into it? Who wanted her caffeinated and why?
2. Did she brush her teeth? Does she even know what guzzling soda all day will do to your teeth? What kind of a dental plan does the army have, anyway? And are you still eligible for the dental plan if you are photographed messing around with prisoners' genitals?
3. Does the experience of having your guilty plea overturned cause one to subconsciously desire prunes? Can this be cross-referenced with others who have had their guilty pleas overturned?
4. One book about the Kennedy assassination claims that Lee Harvey Oswald was a "habitual" Dr. Pepper drinker, but that he bought a Coke right after he left the book depository. The anomaly has been explained variously as nervousness and as the vending machine being out of Dr. Pepper.
5. I could take that Atkins fucker in a fight if he wasn't already dead.
Hopefully the media will pursue this line of questioning and we should have some answers early next week. (Or, alternatively, the media could ask why none of the officers who ordered these hicks to torture prisoners will face any kind of discipline other than a firm and decisive promotion.)
(The mind is trained to generate a cheap movie reference joke involving Mountain Dew: Code Red. The fingers know better than to type it.)
I had to go over to the University of Illinois at Chicago Hospital yesterday for the initial visit in a study I'm participating in. Basically, you agree to stop eating tomatoes for a month or so and then you get paid. I will miss the pizza, but otherwise I am willing to accept those terms. I paid off all of my credit card debt while I was in Japan, and then I ran it right back up by spending a month in Russia and then being unemployed until right before Christmas. It was frustrating, but it will give me a lot to talk about with Yakov Smirnoff next time I'm in Branson, so I know I made the right decision in the end. But for now, I am trying to get back out of debt as quickly as possible. I've heard all about responsible financial planning, but that shit is too slow. So is laundering money for Nigerian bank officials who have discovered an account belonging to a German man who died in a car crash, leaving no relatives to claim his $3.4 million dollars. (Seriously, have you ever tried it? It takes months!) I want to get out of debt now, now, now. I headed over to the hospital after work, listening to a recently-acquired copy of the audio-book of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" on the way - it didn't occur to me how stupid that was until I noticed that I had pulled into a parking garage at fifty miles per hour - and then let the doctors run me through various paces. I told Dr. Wu that I had been living in Japan and he tried to sign me to China as a free agent. I told him I'd think it over. First I have to get paid.
I will try to return to this web-page more often in the days to come.
March 11, 2005
So, I have kidney stones, and I've had them for damn near a week, and I've got Slade's "Here It Is Merry Christmas" all cued up for when the bastards finally pass. This is a fairly incontrovertible sign of age, I guess. In those quizzes about how old you really are, admitting to kidney stones immediately sets the base to 50. I'm thinking if I could take one of the judges to go to a monkey park with me, I might be able to negotiate that down to 40, but if they take a close look at my diet, they're going to declare me legally dead and call it a day. I have to keep away from those quizzes.
I don't have a problem with every sign of aging. I thought I found a grey hair in December and I got all excited, but I couldn't find it again when I tried to show it to someone. I assumed there would be more to follow, giving me a distinguished salt-and-pepper look and, with it, increased credibility for my schemes. As it turns out, however, that was merely the first signal that my body has decided to launch a full-scale campaign of betrayal. Does it really think it can win this battle? Too-mortal flesh, I will fucking transcend you. Alas, for the moment, I am out of pills for these kidney stones, and disinclined to pay for another bottle. I don't even know what those pills were doing anyway.
One thing that I should mention is that the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Rogers Park sold this week. So that's good news. I did not manage to submit my bid for the house before the auction was over. My idea was to attach retro-rockets to the sides of the house and use it as a space-ship. I don't know if that would have been acceptable. Still, everyone seemed happy with the results of the auction. This Frank Diliberto character clearly knows his business; I have an old shoe that I would like for him to market as a condo, and I think that he could do it. If we brought the same reporter out to do a story, it might look something like this:
Frank Lloyd Wright House M. Heiden's Shoe Is No Easy Sell
By Don Babwin, Associated Press Writer by M. Heiden
CHICAGO - If you think selling a house shoe designed worn by the most one of the famous architect guys in American history is easy, think again.
After several months on the market, a 1915 Frank Lloyd Wright house 2003 M. Heiden shoe on Chicago's North Side is going on the auction block, with bids starting at $750,000 — less than a third of the original $2.5 million asking price.
A few years ago, another Wright house Heiden shoe sold at auction in Cincinnati was left in a dumpster in the alley for only about $400,000 free.
"There was always a relatively small market for them," said Ronald Scherubel, executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy some hobo. "Even when he (Wright) (Heiden) was alive wearing them they weren't for everybody."
But the hard sell on Wright houses Heiden shoes runs deeper than their historical lack of appeal.
First, owners often can't remodel or even paint the homes the shoes without permission from some government official being crazy.
Chicago designated the four-bedroom Emil Bach House a landmark in 1977, so both the city and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois must now sign off on any substantial changes, Scherubel said.
"That house shoe is really intended to stay that house be an expensive condo," said Frank Diliberto, senior vice president of Inland Real Estate Auction, which is handling the sale.
Then, there's the way trips Wright Heiden laid out wore his Prairie-style homes basketball shoes on and their size how they smelled afterward — usually on the small stank side.
"His philosophy was different," he said.
In the Emil Bach house Heiden shoe, the kitchen foot-space is bigger than in most Wright homes shoes, said Inland Real Estate spokesman Darryl Cater. Still, he said, "Frank Lloyd Wright some Malaysian child designed kitchens this shoe for servants for basketball players."
Some of Wright's early homes Heiden's shoes also have developed expensive structural problems, such as sagging roofs visible toes.
The biggest problem greatest asset the Emil Bach House Heiden shoe might have is its location.
When it was built bought, it was a country home with an unobstructed view of Lake Michigan at a store. Today, it's on a busy street lined with apartments and businesses in the city's Rogers Park neighborhood at an office.
If the home the shoe were in were taken to Oak Park, a Chicago suburb with a large concentration of Wright homes, it would have sold for about $2.1 million be near a house that sold for about $2.1 million, said Ken Goldberg, a real estate agent who tried to sell the house shoe for months before Inland Real Estate stepped in.
"Nobody pays that in East Rogers Park lives in a shoe," he said of the house shoe. It sold two years ago for $1 million $75.
But Inland's Diliberto says the neighborhood fact that it is a shoe won't dissuade people who want to own one of just 380 two Wright houses Heiden shoes in the United States. The company has heard from prospective buyers across the country.
"This," Diliberto said, "is a chance to buy a piece of history."
FINIS
I can't believe I just wrote that. Jesus, what will be the third entry in this strange trilogy?
February 28, 2005
I am hell-bent on living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house at some point in my life, so it was with great interest that I read an article published last week about one for sale in Chicago. The headline of the article suggested that the owner had been having some difficulty selling it. "I could probably get about five hundred dollars together," I mused. "More if I buy generic macaroni and cheese instead of the real stuff." Unfortunately, once I read the article, the cause of the owner's difficulty became all too clear: the house is in Rogers Park, neighborhood of my youth and my post-collegiate doldrums. It was with great amusement, then, that I read the attempts of reporter Don Babwin and real estate developer Frank Diliberto to do a little soft-shoe on the reasons why nobody will buy the house. I don't blame them, of course; Frank needs to make a sale, and Don probably flew in from the coast and took a taxi from the airport, leaving him with no time to soak up any of the local character. Here, then, are my helpful revisions to the article, provided in the interest of giving a more complete and informative experience for the reader.
Frank Lloyd Wright Home Is No Easy Sell
By Don Babwin, Associated Press Writer, with additions in bold by M. Heiden
CHICAGO - If you think selling a house designed by the most famous architect in American history is easy, think again.
After several months on the market, a 1915 Frank Lloyd Wright house on Chicago's North Side is going on the auction block, with bids starting at $750,000 — less than a third of the original $2.5 million asking price.
A few years ago, another Wright house sold at auction in Cincinnati for only about $400,000.
"There was always a relatively small market for them," said Ronald Scherubel, executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. "Even when he (Wright) was alive they weren't for everybody."
But the hard sell on Wright houses runs deeper than their historical lack of appeal, **or in this case, the lack of appeal of the crackheads urinating in the alley.**
First, owners often can't remodel or even paint the homes without permission from some government official, **unless, of course, they are King Killa or an affiliate of Tha Bone-Hard Niggaz, in which case they are heartily encouraged to identify themselves on whatever public property happens to be nearby.**
Chicago designated the four-bedroom Emil Bach House a landmark in 1977, so both the city and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois must now sign off on any substantial changes, Scherubel said.
"That house is really intended to stay that house," said Frank Diliberto, senior vice president of Inland Real Estate Auction, which is handling the March 8 sale. **Except for the stuff inside, all of which is intended to be stolen from the house within four months of any resident taking occupancy.**
Then, there's the way Wright laid out his Prairie-style homes and their size — usually on the small side.
Unlike modern houses, with their roomy kitchens and bedrooms, Wright built homes with spacious living rooms and dining areas. Kitchens were simply places to prepare food and bedrooms were just for sleeping, Scherubel said. **Stomachs were just for consuming food, not for getting stabbed by angry hoboes.**
"His philosophy was different," he said.
In the Emil Bach house, the kitchen is bigger than in most Wright homes, said Inland Real Estate spokesman Darryl Cater. Still, he said, "Frank Lloyd Wright designed kitchens for servants." **As a result, the shitheads who break in may feel cramped as they carry your stuff through the kitchen out to their van in the alley.**
Some of Wright's early homes also have developed expensive structural problems, such as sagging roofs. Scherubel said the Emil Bach House didn't appear to have those problems, **though the prostitutes who work at the motel down the block do appear have developed expensive structural problems, such as sagging boobs.**
The biggest problem the Emil Bach House might have is its location.
When it was built, it was a country home with an unobstructed view of Lake Michigan. Today, it's on a busy street lined with apartments and businesses **and urinating crackheads** in the city's Rogers Park neighborhood.
If the home were in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb with a large concentration of Wright homes **and a low concentration of people trying to stab you**, it would have sold for about $2.1 million, said Ken Goldberg, a real estate agent who tried to sell the house for months before Inland Real Estate stepped in.
"Nobody pays that in East Rogers Park," he said of the house. **Because everyone in East Rogers Park has spent their rent money on crack.** It sold two years ago for $1 million.
But Inland's Diliberto says the neighborhood won't dissuade people who want to own one of just 380 Wright houses in the United States. The company has heard from prospective buyers across the country, **none of whom have any idea where this house actually is.**
"This," Diliberto said, "is a chance to buy a piece of history." **And to give your car radio to some jerk with a brick.**
**FINIS**
Seriously, who is King Killa? I'm not even sure how the modifier works there. Either we need evidence that God intends him to rule killas by divine right, or we need a notarized list of kings he has killed. Either way, once again, we're just not getting the full story.
February 25, 2005
Some people have written to ask if I knew the Killer Japanese Seizure Robots. Actually, I did. I cannot pretend that their English showed much improvement while I was there, but I miss them all the same. I go to their webpage rather often and feel nostalgic, and also epileptic.
Last week, in the midst of discussing my own impending birthday, I delivered a powerful oration on the nature of holidays in North Korea, noting that, as far as I could tell, St. Patrick's Day was the only one that had not been revealed by the North Korean media to be Kim Jong Il-related in origin. Following up on that, we have the following from our sideline reporter, Arden:
I really am as shocked as anyone about the failure in coalescence of Kim Jong Il and St. Patrick's Day. One upside of flunking out of U of I was my opportunity to study "The History of China and Japan" at the substantially less politically correct Parkland College, where you learn things like, "Korea is known as the Ireland of the Orient, because they also have a history of alcoholism." With a shared culture like that, how could these countries not be attending each other's parties?
I thought about that, and I suppose one reason might be the hair issue. We know, from science, that all Irish people look like this, while the government of North Korea has set clear guidelines for hair and attire. How, then, might a drunken North Korean socialist fanatic judge the Irish?
1. The hair of the Irish is too long in the back, and it is unruly. Although men aged over 50 are given allowed two extra centimeters of hair to cover balding, that is clearly intended for use toward comb-overs. Irish people allow their excess hair to spill out of their hats, and it provides no aid towards concealing their baldness.
2. The nappy ends of the hair and beards of Irish people tends to suggest that they do not get a trim once every fifteen days, as prescribed. That leaves them with undue amounts of free time in which to be infiltrated by corrupt capitalist ideas.
3. There are, the North Korean media reports, civic advantages to wearing smart shoes. Irish people, however, choose to wear long, yellow shoes that are pointy and bent upward at the end. By no reasonable measure are the shoes of the Irish smart. In fact, as one representative from the goverment argued, "No matter how good the clothes, if one does not wear tidy shoes, one's personality will be downgraded." It is a sensitive issue, even among fellow drunks, when one's personality has been downgraded.
4. If there is a link between a person's clothes and appearance and their ideological and emotional state, one is hardly encouraged by the inability of the Irish to put their hats on straight. Are Irish people perpetually drunkenly challenging the world to fight because they favor pointy clothing over smoother, less angular ensembles, or do they favor pointy clothing because they are drunkenly challenging the world to fight?
The sad fact is that while North Korea and Ireland may be able to overlook those differences before the wine starts flowing, it is inevitable that, by the end of the night, someone will have accused someone else of falling short of ideals in accordance of a socialist lifestyle, and someone else will suggest loudly that certain parties appear more interested in socialism than girls and are, therefore, gay. None of that is likely to be taken well; fisticuffs will probably ensue. So maybe that's why.
The skill with which I settle things has to be admired.
(news) But U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci told reporters Wednesday that he was perplexed over Canada's apparent decision to allow Washington to make decision if a missile was headed toward its territory. "Why would you want to give up sovereignty?" he said. "We don't get it. We think Canada would want to be in the room deciding what to do about an incoming missile that might be heading toward Canada."
Fucking hell! Yes, you might think they would...but they don't. That is the central enigma of the Canadian psyche and I cannot believe we have such a hopeless incompetent as this Paul Cellucci contending with it. The Canadians are going to eat him alive, metaphorically of course, there is no telling what they will actually do, but it is not going to turn out well for any of us. God damn. Get him out of there!
To answer your next question, yes, I am willing to take over as Ambassador to Canada. Holy shit! I will be so good at it.
My life has been quiet for the last week or so. Tonight, I will get my car back. My mother went joy-riding in it a few weeks ago and some guy rammed into the back left corner while it was parked, so his insurance is paying for the entire rear bumper to be re-painted. That's nice, I guess, but there is really no point to having a freshly-painted bumper when you live in the city and park on the street. Like moths to flame, degenerates without any semblance of parallel-parking ability will be hypnotized by its bright, unscarred green, given over to the irrational notion that they have plenty of room to fit their rusted-out Oldsmobile behind my car. I will be lucky if the bumper lasts two days before returning to its previous state, or worse. Really, what's the point? Every time I see one of those stupid gee-whiz-so-fast DSL commercials, I shake my fist. Fuck the internet! Where is my rocket-pack? I was led to believe there would be rocket-packs! I am increasingly irate, and a disturbance even to myself.
There is one more thing that I should mention - you have no idea how thoroughly these entries encapsulate everything that is on my mind at the time they are written, so I can't leave anything out - and that is the death of Hunter S. Thompson, the noted American lion-tamer. It's hard to write anything about Hunter S. Thompson because you must constantly check yourself to be sure you are not trying to write like him; perhaps it's not a problem for the old folks, the hardened professionals, but we young'uns have to watch out for it. You either wind up sounding like a pale, mis-shapen imitation of the man or a colorless version of yourself. (Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and Raymond Carver: read them, but not while you are writing anything of your own.)
There have been many tributes, summations, epitaphs and reflections over the last week or so, and nearly all of them have had a palpable self-consciousness about them in some way, shape or form. You can't be unfair about that, though. Nobody was expecting to have to write these things; everyone was caught off guard, and only the worst among us were glad to have the chance. When it comes to memorials for Hunter S. Thompson, all you can really ask is that they leave you with something. Compare, for example, this one, by Alexander Cockburn, to this one, by ESPN writer Eric Neel. One writer is far more skilled than the other, far better-versed in history and politics and literature, and the other is more or less exactly what I wrote about, timidly placing words next to each other until a column has been formed. And the interesting thing is, the first one leaves you with less than cat shit, and the other one leaves you with this:
The only time I ever spent with Hunter Thompson took place on one strange night at his home outside Aspen. I read aloud from his latest book that night -- Hunter liked that kind of thing, liked to hear his words come alive, he said. I held a number of weapons, the names of which I can't even remember, because he would just hand them to you and say, "Here, feel that." (My friend Daniel carried a sword around for more than an hour for fear of offending the good doctor.)
I was taken on a tour of photographs on the walls (not framed, just tacked up there in little collages), some of the young, fit journalist, some of the baggier, more weathered writer, some of the headlong madman, and all with a half-remembered story. I ate some kind of crackers and cheese and nursed a glass of gin, praying he wouldn't peg me for the lightweight I really am. And for a stretch, I sat next to him on a low-slung leather couch watching the Kings and Lakers go head-to-head in the fourth quarter. Hunter had money on the Lakers. They were winning but not covering, so every missed shout was a wincing blue streak and a chance for him to ask me what the hell they were doing and why wouldn't Kobe feed the Big Daddy?!
Everyone hates on Hunter S. Thompson's Page 2 columns, but I liked them. It was fucking cool when he wrote this, about the 2001 Bears:
"I owe the Bears an apology. I called them "phony," but I was wrong. They are a gang of Assassins and I fear them. They will croak St. Louis in the playoffs."
Even after the Bears got killed in the playoffs, we fans still had that, not the Lombardi Trophy but not that bad either. More than anything else, I liked the Page 2 columns because most of them were evidence that someone to whom I felt a deep sense of gratitude was now enjoying himself with friends watching sports. I liked the Eric Neel column because I wanted to watch football in that room, even though there was no way that it was not going to be awkward as hell for a non-drinker (non-smoker, non-drug user, non-meat eater!) like me. Possibly, I would have been shot. Well, Eric Neel told me what it would have been like, a little.
(Does anyone else remember how, in the days after September 11, 2001, every fucking so-called celebrity in the country solemnly pressed Their Take against our chests, hoping that Theirs would be the One that Was Remembered, that History would Say, This One Commemorated It, This One Defined the Moment? Well, unlike basically all of them, Hunter S. Thompson's column doesn't look like shit when you read it today.)
One thing the man had absolutely mastered as a writer - there were many things, of course, but I'm just going to identify one of them, because this is only a weblog, after all, and you people don't even provide me with an expense account - was the full range of synonyms for the verb 'to say'. Read something he wrote with that in mind. I always enjoyed that about his writing. But, again, be careful about doing it while you're writing something, or you'll wind up having to print out a list from some online dictionary to avoid feeling like a brick-layer every time you settle for 'say'. He opened up one of his books with this quotation from Mark Twain:
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
Yes. That, exactly.
I keep straying. Here is my entry into the eulogy-stakes:
Hunter S. Thompson could tame lions, fierce motherfuckers with sharp teeth. I saw him do it. He's gone now, but you can bet those lions still see him when they go to sleep, here and forevermore.
Mahalo.
February 11, 2005
On my way home from work last night, I stopped by the Division Street Russian Bath House. I asked the man at the counter if they have memberships. He repeated the word, nodded, and wrote down a name and a phone number for me to call between select hours the next morning. Now I am wondering if I just applied for a job with the mob. I haven't called yet. I will think about it over the weekend. Perhaps I should prepare a list of salary requirements, just in case.
(news) The parents of one of the teens asked for a restraining order against Herb Young, accusing him of making harassing calls. He admitted calling the Ostergaards once after hearing the teens were talking to a newspaper, and at one point saying "the gloves (are) off," which apparently was taken as a threat.
This is ridiculous. A person is being threatened when the other party takes the gloves off? Am I the only person who has ever heard of metal gloves with spikes on them? What the hell was Gauntlet all about, anyway? The naivete of the older generation, most of whom have never ventured into a dungeon as a wizard, a warrior, or a valkyrie - let alone as a Quester, the elf - fills me with dismay. Health care costs are going to skyrocket over the next few years when the terrorists get word that they can knock on the doors of older Americans, announce "the gloves are on" and then punch the unwitting older Americans in the face with metal gloves with spikes on them. And I, as a taxpayer, am not pleased.
I should mention the Super Bowl. It was a pleasure to be back at one of my friend Kevin's annual Super Bowl parties, held in scenic Bolingbrook, Illinois. The game itself was all right, and I broke even on the betting in which I engaged, leaving my lifetime earnings as a gambler well above the water mark. (If you are looking to turn your quarter into two quarters, then I am your man.) Although I supported the underdog Eagles of Philadelphia, I was not displeased with the outcome, because the victorious Patriots are a fine team. The real question, though, is whether a series of excellent commercials - in this case, the ones where the one guy was working at the office and all of his co-workers were monkeys - can redeem, in any way, a company whose service is utterly shite - in this case, Careerbuilder.com. It's a bit of a conundrum. In this ideologically reductionist age, does my stand against the cynical, heartless manipulators who perpetrate the ongoing con that is the online job market (Monster.com, HotJobs et al) represent an ipso facto denunciation of commercials involving monkeys? Because it's not even as though this was a poor use of monkeys. They did very, very well with it. So how can I support the use of monkeys in advertising while remaining in principled opposition to Careerbuilder.com? I feel like one of those helpless leftists from the 1930s who feared Stalin but were paralyzed to denounce him because they were committed to the eventual victory of socialism. Well, I am committed to the eventual victory of commercials with monkeys in them. And I don't know what to do.
February 10, 2005
Let me briefly explain the circumstances that led to my silence. I started a new job, temporary but indefinite, working on a two-man Project. One of the two people was responsible for training me, and the other was intended to take the lead once she was gone. The Project is nebulous, with many regulations and procedures, pockets of arcana in scattered locations. Well, fine, I thought. I am just the sort of man you want to deal with that. But my training was about 30% complete when the first day was over and my predecessor left. Then the second team member called in sick, leaving me alone to attempt to make sense of things. Then he called in sick again. Then they fired him, leaving me alone on the Project. In an attempt to make good, they brought in someone to take his place and asked me to train the new guy, mid-way through my own first week, with none of my own questions answered. The new guy arrived and, upon first glimpse of the Project, more or less shut down. He will only handle simple tasks as I assign them to him. I am alone at the front of the Project. I do not fully understand it, but I must manage it as best I can. I am, at times, overwhelmed. I try to visualize a game of whack-a-mole to give order to what I am doing, but frequently the vision changes to one of a dark chamber, with tentacles emerging from the holes in the box, rising until the box can no longer hold the writhing mass within - the only thing that never changes is that I am still holding the same foam mallet, ill-equipped. That is the nature of what I face. This is the first quiet moment I have had to gather my thoughts about the Project, so it is now that I am writing, after all of that silence.
It pays okay, but I probably gotta get some more money at some point.
North Korea announced that they have nuclear bombs today. The first AP article that I read this morning mentioned that Bush had referred to them as part of the Axis of Evil as part of an attempt to get them to cooperate, but later drafts appear to have clarified that he hasn't called them Evil lately and that was the attempt to get them to cooperate. Which makes a bit more sense, although it is still based on flawed reasoning. Generally, in situations where I have told someone that they are evil, I have not had a good reaction from them, even after initiating another conversation wherein I do not make explicit reference to their evil; moreover, in situations where I have told someone that they are evil and that the guy standing next to them is evil, too, and then I have punched the guy standing next to them in the face, I have received extremely poor reactions. I can assure the Bush administration that my clinical trials on this issue were performed with the greatest attention to scientific integrity. I don't know if they will look upon that as a positive, though.
It makes me feel bad for the Japanese, though. They are very nervous about North Korea. An old English teacher told me once about how students would always say they were afraid of going to the beach because North Korean submarines would get them, and the English teachers would make fun of the students, making all sorts of hilarious riffs in the teachers room. Apparently, everyone felt pretty bad when those fears turned out to be well-grounded. I wasn't there at the time, so I was permitted the righteousness of the recent, which is always nice.
Let me describe a little bit more about what we do at the Project. I gave my co-worker a list of people to contact about some classes they had been taking. He went through the list and complained.
"I don't want to contact her," he said. "She failed this Conflict Resolution class she took."
"The conflict must still be raging," I agreed. "No way to know what you'll be walking into."
"I can't send her an email either," he said. "She also failed Principles of Effective Written Communication."
"She'll probably just hit a lot of random keys and then call you a dick," I said. "Well, do your best."
I moved into my new apartment last week. It is a very nice one bedroom apartment in Chicago, in the neighborhood that they call Ukrainian Village. By the time I left Japan, my spatial schema had been re-adjusted to the point where I found shoeboxes perfectly acceptable and always remembered to keep my head down when going through doorways, so my new apartment has what appear to me as vast, untamed areas of wilderness and ceilings that must scrape the very surface of the stars, even though I can clearly hear some guy walking around on the third floor. (Is he God?) But this is America, and we must have places to put the things we are surely going to buy. I am happy in my new apartment. It is relaxing and peaceful there, and I can afford the rent, at least so far.
My birthday is on a Saturday this year (February 19th), which is really more pressure than I am prepared to handle right now.
Oof! Back to work.
January 29, 2005
It's a shame that babies don't like old people as much as old people like babies; I was thinking about that as I took my one-and-a-half year old niece to visit my great-grandmother at a nursing home. (Add another 'great' to the title from the niece's perspective, and slap a star next to my family's name on the Early Procreators Award.) Fate and fading memory have conspired to trap babies and old people in an adversarial relationship. Were babies a little bit smarter, they might be able to better interpret the approach of these frightening spectres whose kind words, not their state of decay, represents the truth of their intentions; were old people a little bit more lucid, they could hold seminars and lectures, brainstorm all of the ways they were creeped out by old people when they were young and discuss ways to avoid them now that they are, themselves, old. But no! Babies, old people, j'adore, terror.
I had to keep busy to avoid thinking about how the soft-brained old people were probably just merging me and my mother and the baby into two generations as opposed to the three we actually are.
I started a semi-permanent job yesterday, although it's really just an on-going temp job, so there's no saying how long I will carry on with it. The work is not really up my alley, as it were, but the people there are as nice as you could ask for from a place of employment. I'm not going to say much else, because I have this theory that my tendency to talk shit on my webpage may be costing me jobs. My friend Fritz asked me to remove mention of him from a very old archives entry, more than seven years old, in fact, wherein I had used his first and last name in the context of describing him as a giant walking nipple; he was worried that a potential employer might do a background check on him and take that in a bad way. (Because he kept clicking on the link in Google to see if I had fixed it yet, Google naturally assumed that that was the kind of page that people wanted to see when they wanted to see something about him, so it shot right up to the top of Google's page-rankings, the reverse of the intended effect. I finally removed it and he did get a job that he was happy about.)
It really annoys me that employers would do something like that, though. It is a dirty, under-handed trick and it should be roundly rejected by all good and decent men. In comic books, only the most depraved villains attempt to target the hero's family. Targeting my innocent puppy of a web-page is, frankly, on the same level of depravity. Had Beelzetron been keeping a weblog in which they admitted that they were keeping me in a cage and they had tiny men with forks jabbing at me throughout the day, among other vicious and reprehensible practices, and were prospective employers to read Beelzetron's weblog from the same period of time and hire someone - a Comparative Literature major might do well, and it would be the first known professional application for that degree - to prepare a report juxtaposing the two, then I would say, by all means, judge me, for in the end my hands shall be found to be righteous. But that is not the case. In our deadly game of cat and mouse, I was the only one to speak, and although I did not start it, I am judged for it, while Beelzetron continues to roll around in cash and throw orphans through windows. You tell me how that's fair.
This web-page began in different times, back when Chuck mocked the idea that anyone would be interested in a 'text-based' webpage, and I went daily with it when we were still rolling our eyes at the obnoxious new term 'blog', assuming that no reasonable culture would adopt a linguistic fart like that. (Oh, well.) But damn you, you barons of capital, you stick to grades and job references in your consideration. There is a meaning to the entries in my archives that is more than base malice, even the entries where I leave strange and ominous messages by the copier and dump out all of the white-out. It is restlessness, the fevered rush for something greater, and you must understand that, and how it can benefit you. And if not - if you peruse my excellent resume, nodding approvingly at the tasteful use of Futura font, and you note how well it fits the description of the job you have listed - and then you read my webpage and cross me off the list because of what you read here - well, you're either semi-literate or you're a dick, and fuck you all the same.
The other possibility that I have considered as to why I don't get more jobs is that the number of deadly martial arts that I know has crossed a certain threshold and prospective employers are concerned that novice fighters who wish to make a name for themselves will interrupt the work day by challenging me. That is a fair concern, and if you contact me, we can discuss it.
January 25, 2005
And now I am back in Chicago. I was in Japan, and then I was in Russia, and then I was in Las Vegas, and then I was in Connecticut, and now I am here, again, in Chicago. I will write until this album is over, and then I will go for a walk, because it is sunny outside and it makes me kind of crazy to sit up here in this spare bedroom all day surrounded by my handful of possessions and the adjunct thousands of my stepfather's video collection.
"Did you know that you have two copies of Desperate Journey?" I asked.
"You can't have that one," he said.
"I wasn't asking for it," I said. "I was just making note of it."
"No, I need two copies of that," he said, eyeing me suspiciously.
I will do a brief job taking notes on a focus group on Wednesday, and then I will start working in a longer-term position on Friday. Over the weekend, I will move my stuff into a new apartment, and on Tuesday, I will move my self into that apartment. After that, I don't know. I have to go ahead and turn 27 in a few weeks. At some point, I should put together the Lego set of the Mos Eisley cantina scene that I bought on sale at a Target on New Year's Eve, allowing Lego Han Solo to shoot Lego Greedo first. I'll have to make a few phone calls and see if they offer memberships for discounted admission at the Division Street Russian Bath House, whose walking-distance proximity to my new apartment will be frequently exploited if they're willing to drop below $22 per visit. The yakuza baths in Kyoto only charged 300 yen. Even with the falling dollar, that's still pretty cheap. I miss the yakuza baths. I'll never know if that one guy got the yellow added to his full-back dragon tattoo. You could see where it was going to be, but...
(news) BASRA — As Iraq’s election campaign enters its final stages, most candidates are more worried about staying alive than canvassing for votes. Even the few like Shia politician Mansour Al Tamimi who have openly joined the electoral race are avoiding debates and rallies at all cost. Fears of assassination loom so large that most of the 7,500 candidates taking part in the January 30 poll are keeping their names secret, denying voters information normally considered fundamental to the democratic process.
Do you have to be a born or naturalized Iraqi citizen to run in their upcoming elections? If Nader had any kind of foresight, he would have ditched the U.S. presidential election and run in Iraq. He could have diverted all of his money from campus copy-shops to security and then won debate after debate just by showing up. He'd have achieved all of his purposes. Sure, there is the risk of getting blown up, but since when was that a concern? Come on. I am the only person who has vision.
Below, you will find a new set of photos, rather a large bunch, taken on my way up and down Mount Fuji in Japan over the summer. I discovered some interesting things on the trip, such as the fact that you should not attempt to climb a mountain in old basketball shoes, and also that my fear of heights, previously so slight as to be nothing more than an amusing footnote, becomes a major issue when it's dark and there are no lights or fences or handrails and I'm coming down a steep, smooth slope at an elevation of over 3000 meters, in old basketball shoes. But, really, it was fucking awesome, so please enjoy the photos. I didn't photograph the way that life-saving chocolate bars kept getting more and more expensive at each shack I passed, or that Coke and cans of hot corn cost about five dollars each at the summit. I had been in Japan for more than a year at that point, and the omnipresence of vending machines had ceased to be in any way remarkable by then.
January 10, 2005
This was supposed to be my last day at work, but my supervisor called in sick, so I'm not sure what to do. Just hang around, I guess. But do I come back tomorrow? If they wanted me back for the finite period of one day, presumably there were tasks to complete in that day, and I have completed no tasks today, so the 'day' has not actually taken place, although I fully intend to get paid for it. Semi-employment is confusing.
As soon as the work dries up here in Connecticut, I will move back to Chicago, probably in the next couple of days. O, city of my origin! I know what lies in wait for me; Chicago will have a raft of truly shitty weather ready when I tramp around in search of an apartment. The vicious ways of Chicago weather define my sense of season, and since I have been away for a while, my internal thermometer is screwed up. With only one day of snow last year, Kyoto never really made it out of late fall for me. Eventually, winter had to be crammed into three hours at the monkey hot springs at the beginning of March. I was almost back on track after a blistering summer, but then I went to Russia for a while, and Siberia was in deep autumn. As you can probably imagine, that place is fucking emphatic about autumn, so it was pretty well fixed in my head. But then I landed in Connecticut, which was having a warm, balmy fall. There has been no serious weather up here, and Chicago reliably provides at least one screaming motherfucker of a scorched-earth snowstorm by this point in the season. I am disoriented; although I know where I am, my sense of when I am is shot. It'll come back, eventually.
(news) Civil War buffs are getting access to a treasure trove of information — thousands of original maps and diagrams of battles and campaigns between 1861 and 1865, all posted on the Internet. The items depict troop positions and movements, as well as fortifications. There also are reconnaissance maps, sketches and coastal charts and theater-of-war maps.
SCENE FOR A CIVIL WAR RE-ENACTMENT SOCIETY
The multi-purpose room is a-buzz. JEFF, an accounts manager from Naperville, throws open the doors. The crowd gasps as he points an accusing finger at TED, vice superintendant of the public works department in Downers Grove.
JEFF: You've got a lot to answer for, Ted.
TED: Is this meeting in session?
JEFF: You're damn right it is. You --
TED: Then you will address me as General.
JEFF: Now, you listen to me --
TED: You're out of line, Lieutenant.
JEFF: Don't you try to --
TED: You will address me as General Early, do I make myself clear?
JEFF turns to the crowd, waving a sheaf of papers.
JEFF: I just downloaded these from the internet. It is my sad duty to inform the Society that the troop positions and movements from our re-enactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville - drawn up by this man - were completely fucked!
The crowd cries out. Two men faint.
JEFF: What do you have to say about that, Ted?
TED: I've already told you once.
JEFF: What about the Battle of North Anna River?
TED: You will address me as General Early.
JEFF: What about Wauhatchie?
TED: You listen to me --
JEFF: Was any of it true?
TED: I believe I portray someone who has earned the right to be called General!
JEFF: What about Antietam?
Furious, TED stands up from his folding chair.
TED: You have gone too far, sir. You have said enough. You have questioned my integrity, sir, and I will not have that. This is altogether too much.
JEFF: I've said --
TED: No, you've had your turn. Now it's my turn. You have called me a liar, sir, and you have made accusations that are slanderous in nature, and now I will answer them. I have given my life to this Society. More than that, I have given my honor to this Society. My life is a small thing, and I surrender it gladly for the work of the Society. But my honor is altogether another thing. No, sir, I will not sit idly by as you trample upon it. You have accused me of violating the principle on which this great Society is founded, the principle of accuracy. That is an insult, sir, and it is a vicious slander. I drew the plans for the re-enactment of Chancellorsville with the greatest commitment to accuracy using every resource available to me.
JEFF: Look...
TED: It is my great honor to portray a great General of the South, and it is my great honor to have the trust of this Society when I plan our re-enactments. Like you, I heard of the new documents on the internet. For my turn, I rejoiced, and I felt great, calamitous excitement at the prospect of integrating them into our re-enactments. I approached those internet documents in a spirit of accuracy. You, sir, however, went to those documents in a spirit of distrust. Not every man can portray a General, but he can conduct himself with dignity, unless his character explicitly requires otherwise. Your character does not. It is you who have failed the Society. Not I.
TED addresses the crowd.
TED: Mistakes were made, my fellow Society members. But I ask you once again for your trust. Let me examine these new internet documents, and let me build with them. Let us not tear down with them. Let us build with them. I cannot do the work of this Society if every man runs to the internet to fact-check every decision I make for every re-enactment of every incident of the War Between the States. I ask you to place in me the same trust that you would feel for Jefferson Davis, or for Abraham Lincoln, as the case may be. Let me hold that trust, and I pledge to you, I will make the necessary corrections, and I will use these new documents to lead the Society unto an era of untold accuracy in re-enactment, for that is the goal we share, is it not?
The room is silent.
JEFF: It is...General.
There is a murmur of agreement, which builds into applause. TED nods, wipes his brow and sits down.
TED: Thank you. Now, to our first item of business. The First Baptist Church of Westmont has sent us their rental charges for next weekend's re-enactment of Grant's surrender at Appomattox, and I believe they are reasonable.
End scene.
October 27, 2003
How long does a bicycle have to sit in the river before it's considered public property? I am one of the few in this land without a bicycle to call his own. (I had a borrowed one before, but one of my housemates loaned it out to a shady character who returned it all fucked up, which is another reason to pass legislation against shady characters.) There are so many bikes here that they're nearly disposable, and people keep telling me just to take one that looks abandoned, but I've seen The Bicycle Thief, and I can't take that risk. However, since Wednesday morning, a nice-looking silver bike has been lying on its side in the Takase-gawa, a river / canal / lengthy puddle near my house, and no one has touched it. The Takase, rarely more than an inch deep, is about eight feet below street level, so the bike clearly wasn't parked there deliberately. Hopefully, there are some Italian neo-realist film experts reading this web-page who can help me determine at what point it becomes unreasonable to speculate that a poor, honest worker may have pawned the family linen for the bike and left it in the river while he hangs some movie posters nearby. I mean, it's been at least five days.
Tonight is Game 7 of the Nippon Series. The Hanshin Tigers, hapless perennial losers, are trying to cap their dream year with a championship. They lost the first two games, won the next three, and lost last night. No matter what happens tonight, Osaka is going to explode. (Some of my students, upper-middle class types, named the Tigers' home stadium the most dangerous place in Japan, simply because of the lunatic fans.) I have noticed that they win when I wear my Tigers t-shirt, so I am going to do my part by wearing it today, even though it really ought to be washed. Japanese baseball fervor can match any city in America. A number of serious financial publications have credited the Tigers' success with the recent signs of recovery for the Japanese economy (since the last time the Tigers were any good was 1985, in the midst of the "Bubble Era" in Japan). The Tigers even have a curse of their own that's every bit as good as (if not better than) the stupid goat in Chicago or the Bambino in Boston.
Several people are walking around the neighborhood right now, chanting in long, deep tones. It is 8:50am.
Outside is Japan.
NEWLY CROWNED MY FAVORITE ENGLISH MISTAKE OF ALL TIME, ALTHOUGH PERHAPS YOU HAD TO BE THERE TO REALLY APPRECIATE ITI am having a spirited discussion with Takahiro, a high-level student, about medical care in countries around the world, comparing the insurance schemes of the United States, Japan, England and Canada. I note that one drawback to the sexy Canadian system, as told to me by an actual Canadian, is that doctors' salaries are capped by the government payouts, and according to the Canadian, a lot of the good doctors are moving to the U.S., where the real money is. (I have no idea whether that is true or not. I am certain, however, that my source was, in fact, from Canada.) Takahiro becomes interested in the issue of doctors' motivations for becoming doctors, whether pure altruism is a relevant consideration in the present age. We mull it over. Takahiro makes this observation about the current generation of Japanese doctors:
TAKAHIRO: Some of them are a little bit crazy. There have been some scandals recently.
TEACHER: What kind of scandals?
TAKAHIRO (excited): There was a very crazy doctor in Tokyo recently. It was a big scandal. I read it in the newspaper. He was saying to provide medical care for many patients. But actually he did experiments on them!
TEACHER: He did?
TAKAHIRO (in horror): Yes! He used his patient as a kind of marmot !!
TEACHER (after a long pause): I'm sorry, what?
TAKAHIRO: As a marmot! For his experiments!
TEACHER: Do you mean a guinea pig?
TAKAHIRO: Oh. Yes.
I gave him a level-up recommendation because of that. As a teacher, I tend to reward brilliant mistakes more often than mediocre successes. I asked Yoshiaki, the gravel-voiced, hard-living tennis coach, about his recent vacation trip to Okinawa. His eyes lit up. "I met the manta," he said. He'd gone scuba-diving, apparently, and seen a manta ray. I cheered and gave him a level-up recommendation. However, I merely winced when Masako, the elderly housewife, delcared that, after a stressful week, "I relieved myself this weekend".
I've been meaning to photograph this for quite some time. This is a popular pizza chain in the Kyoto area. I haven't tried their pizza, so I don't know if they're any good. But I do know one thing. Chicago, this is you:
Come on, Chicago. Don't deny it. That is you. (Especially you, Gianni Cutri.) Japanese pizza delivery places deserve credit for their cool delivery scooter-bikes. The pizzas go in the hatch in the back (visible on the right bike), and there's a roof for some reason, but it's on two wheels, so they can park on the sidewalk if they like. I haven't had any pizza here, as it's rather expensive and bound to be a disappointment. I miss it quite a lot, though. I haven't decided whether my first meal upon return to the U.S.A. will be a fucking gooey deep dish pizza or a mad blowout at a Mexican restaurant. All I know for sure is that you people in Chicago are in the mob and you wear striped suits with hats so quit pretending you don't.
Here is a threat:
They're serious. They will sticky about their favorite things. God help me, I've seen them do it.
THE 99 YEN SHOP: FIVE OBSERVATIONS1. 99 yen is roughly equivalent to one dollar, at least in conceptual terms. (The actual exchange rate is more along the lines of 110 yen to one dollar. This raises the interesting point that, in theory, we should be able to exchange 50 Cent for a Japanese rapper named 55 Yen.) There are several '99 Yen' stores throughout Kyoto. Unlike their American counterparts, the Dollar Stores, 99 Yen shops are full of useful items. They carry every manner of food and non-alcoholic drink, and although the dairy section should be avoided, it's really quite a good value in most respects. The other items on sale vary from store to store. My friend Nora reported seeing a vibrator at one; I did not doubt her for a moment. That all items within the store are priced at 99 yen is a moral absolute for these stores, a religiously-held founding principle from which they never, ever stray. It's strange to walk around a store where you can afford everything. One grows accustomed to approaching purchasing decisions through the schema of hierarchical price structures. At 99 Yen, though, all things are equal. Thankfully, their cookies are kind of shitty, or else I'd never buy real food.
2. Although the physical plant of the 99 Yen shop is roughly equivalent to just under half that of a Walgreens or Osco in America, there are five distinct music 'zones' within the store. The area near the cash registers is reserved for upbeat pop hits, while the strip at the back of the store, where pasta and canned foods are kept, broadcasts adult contemporary ballads. The two thin lanes on the left are silent, but the large center aisle alternates between two long jingles, "(Honky-Tonk Love Theme From) 99 Yen" and "99 (Girl On The Verge of a Funky Breakbeat Mix)". The former is in the style of Sonny and Cher, and the latter is a recording of a woman experiencing the Biblical Rapture while chanting the number 99. (The names are my own. You can trust me, though. I know of what I speak.) The side entrance and the front half of the far-right produce aisle feature a jaunty, cheerful march that would not be out of place in Bridge on the River Kwai. I spent a bit of time trying to locate the sonic no-man's-land, the point at which the maximum number of jingles converged into one. Surprisingly, the best I could do was to get the high notes (Honky Tonk Love Theme From) 99 Yen" to bleed meekly into the march.
3. Tight-Arse is a student at our school who only attends the Voice Room. It's a lounge where students can go -- at a lower cost than actual classes -- and participate in open discussions with other students and one teacher per class period. If a student is lucky, there might be no other students present, and he'll get the equivalent of a man-to-man 'class' with the teacher for a fraction of the price. (The teacher will be annoyed at him and is unlikely to teach him much, if anything, but value is achieved.) Tight-Arse, a salaryman in his late twenties, has been dubbed as such for a number of reasons, chief among which are his plans for his upcoming wedding: hire his friends as photographers and honeymoon in Osaka (30 minutes away on the train). Recently, he told me about the guilt he feels for buying most of his groceries at the 99 Yen Shop. (He buys his dinner at a normal grocery store every night, always waiting until that day's lunch food -- sushi, sandwiches, etc -- is marked down 20% right before the store closes. But he buys everything else at the 99 Yen Shop.) He wonders if he is doing the economy great injury by saving so much money. He also noted that his fiancee seems much happier when she is eating food that comes from fancy packaging (on instances when his mother buys food for him). He said that he did not plan to change, but he wanted my advice as to whether he should be feeling shame at the cash register. I pointed out that anyone who was there to cast shame upon him must also be guilty of savings, as they too were shopping at 99 Yen. He seemed pleased. Probably I should have encouraged him in the shame direction. I told him that it was fine to shop there now, but he better not do it when he has children.
4. In normal grocery stores, it's unnecessary but not deeply problematic when the cashier calls out the price of every item as he or she scans it. But I don't understand why the 99 Yen Shop does it, let alone why they do it with triple the fervor that anyone else does. Everything in the store costs 99 yen, from things that cost more than twice as much elsewhere to things that actually cost much less than 99 yen in other stores. Nothing is ever "on sale" for less than 99 yen. If the it is present in the store, then by definition it costs 99 Yen. And so, if the only possible price is 99 yen, why must the cashiers shriek out the price ("KYU-ju-kyu no kaiten" -- literally, "you purchased this item for 99") as they scan every single item in the purchase? They never, ever let an item pass without shrieking its price. (And 'shriek' is the word for it.) Does Japanese people appreciate this service? Gaijin certainly don't; some days, the sheer dread of it is enough to make me shop at another store. The repetition can't be good for the workers' mental health, either. If I worked there for a week, I'd bug out every time I saw the number nine for the next several months. (Perhaps that's how triskadekaphobia gets started.) One of my students works at one of the major department stores, standing by the escalator and yelling for people to come to his floor (women's lingerie). He says that his boss considers escalator-yellers to be absolutely critical for sales success, and he was in disbelief when I told him that not only do we not have escalator-yellers in the United States, but such people would actually hurt sales more than they'd help. I quickly changed the topic to the success of his favorite baseball team before feelings were hurt.
5. I think that the majority of Westerners would not expect the Japanese to be as into potato salad as they are. My students never mention potato salad when discussing their favorite foods, but it must be intensely popular, because 99 Yen and its competitors always have hundreds of potato-salad lunch packs ready for sale in the morning, and there are never more than a few left in the evening. I never liked potato salad as a child, thinking it a bizarre misuse of potatoes that were clearly meant to be mashed, but I never viewed it in the same way that I did the Satanic abomination of macaroni salad. (Why would you do that to macaroni? God damn, it still gives me chills.) I was starving one winter in college, and my friend Jenny Carroll gave me a huge vat of potato salad that she had made for her ROTC Christmas party. For reasons that were never made clear, the ROTC hadn't eaten any of it. So I lived on potato salad until the next semester's student loans came in, and now I'm down with it. One of my former housemates made potato salad for our Fourth of July party over the summer, and it was very good, so I traded CD-burning for more potato salad a few weeks later. Japanese potato salad is thin, less chunky than most American varieties. But it's okay.
Let me give fair warning that the next entry will be the most powerful in the history of this web-page.
May 6, 2003
I went to Wisconsin for the weekend. I am now back in Chicago, aimlessly stacking things near my luggage and making the occasional trip over to the Japanese consulate, just a few blocks away, right next to the Museum of Contemporary Art. With my apartment lease now expired, I am living in my mother's penthouse downtown, always a curious transition no matter where I'm coming from. I never know what to do about the doormen. I really prefer to open my own doors, but it seems kind of vicious to disregard the only thing they are being paid to do. They always get up from their chairs before I can open the door myself, so it would be a shithead move to wave them off when they're already on their feet, but then I have to wait for several seconds until they reach the door, seconds in which, as an able-bodied human being, I ought to be opening the door for myself. It's all very awkward, and I am tired of hearing about the suffering of Iraqi children when I am made to endure such things.
Last week was quite busy. Tuesday was my last day at work. Because he gave me a bonus check, I allowed the rabbi to recast our mutual history as one of shared prosperity and joy in various reminisces public and private. My replacement at the job is an excellent fellow who stands as good a chance as anyone at succeeding in the job. He was beginning to look quite overwhelmed by the time I left on Tuesday, but that will happen to you around the time you encounter the seventh alternate spelling of Hanukkah and begin to wonder if you're responsible for knowing which fits which context. My only concern is that I'm not sure if he has the ruthless streak that allowed me to handle those situations (immediately ceasing all work until someone comes by to explain it to me, or simply writing I DON'T KNOW, THIS WAS SECRETLY WRITTEN BY A GENTILE instead of the word). But they certainly did reduce me to a formula in the hiring process, because they chose another non-religious white kid with a Germanic last name and a background in literature from a state school. So I hope it works out for everyone. I keep meaning to call over there to find out how things are going, but then I keep not doing it.
The exit interview was tame. The HR director pre-emptively announced that the rabbi was a pain in the ass and that I'd done a splendid job with him, and also that my replacement was making $4000 less than I started at, so they'd prefer if I didn't mention that to him. (Did I fuck! Homey don't play no conspiracies of silence.)
The day was chock full of poignant moments. The rabbi announced that he'd be taking me to lunch, and then he didn't. He implied that my replacement would be far easier to deal with than me, and later he whispered that he wasn't sure if my replacement "was all there" and wanted reassurance. People with whom I had no relationship whatsoever began chatting with me about the trip to Japan as if we were old friends. They did the same thing when I grew a beard. Then, I replied with some of the most powerful set of blank stares yet unleashed within city limits. This time, I just shrugged and agreed that, yes, it was pretty exciting. (I mean, it is.) Several people requested that I speak some Japanese for them. I don't know any, but rather than take the time to explain that the job doesn't call for me to speak the language, I got in the habit of stringing together the few words I know, like dorobo saru no kansai, and claiming that I'd complimented them on their clothing, when in fact, I was referring to a thief monkey belonging to the region south of Tokyo. They tended to think it was great. I do what I can. The rabbi announced that if I ever got into legal trouble, I could call him and he'd help me out. (Everyone thinks I am always on the verge of trouble. Four people contacted me to make sure I behaved during the exit interview.) He thanked me for two and a half years of remarkable service and said that, from a substantive perspective, I was the best help he'd ever had during his thirty years in Jewish communal service. In truth, I was only there for one and a half years. As for the other statement, I will allow it to stand on its own. I hope things go well for my replacement. He really seemed like a great guy.
As I walked out of the building, people kept coming up to me and telling me what an amazing job I'd done handling the rabbi, and how I was the best they'd ever seen at it. It was all very surreal.
There were no such poignant goodbyes on my way out of THE LAND OF THE DOUBLE BONE HARD NIGGAZ, although they made their peace in ways traditional to the neighborhood, such as double-parking alongside the moving van (thereby blocking the entire street), continuing to holler at each other at all hours (yelling through windows: the original cell-phone), and, perhaps sweetest of all, making off with my toaster. I left it on a box near the dumpster because I wasn't planning to keep it, and sure enough, the toaster was gone less than an hour later. God bless Rogers Park.
And so, as I sit here in my mother's place downtown eating applesauce, writing out in the dining room because all of the other phone jacks are blocked by bookcases, I am led to reflect upon the time, many years ago, as an angry young boy, I spooned a bunch of applesauce into one of my stepfather's books, closed it real fast and replaced it on the bookshelf. It was never mentioned. Has he not opened that book in the seventeen years since that act of guerilla vengeance? I don't even remember which one it was.
I leave on May 19 for San Francisco and May 21 for Osaka.
April 1, 2003
Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and each has its own character -- and its own way of expressing a sense of community. My friends in the Ukrainian Village have pleasant weekly traditions such as movie nights and breakfast-for-dinner get-togethers. In Rogers Park, affectionately known as the RP, we have weekly hobo knife-fights. That's just what works for us. The hoboes spend all week getting riled up, and by Tuesday, they're good and ready to have a go at each other. Afterwards, everyone sits around tending to their wounds and telling stories. Last Tuesday, one of the older hoboes told me that Dick Cheney used fly in for the fights each week, attempting to pose as a hobo by spilling mustard on his suit coat. It's considered a major faux pas to enter the fights by posing as a hobo, because that violates the purity of the tradition -- really, it's a night for the hoboes -- but Cheney did it anyway, even when people recognized him as the chairman of Halliburton, which continued doing business with Saddam Hussein through its subsidiaries as late as 1998. The hobo said that Cheney was a really dirty and bloodthirsty fighter, and he'd stand over his fallen opponent, bragging about how well-fed he was. Supposedly, everyone was quite sick of Cheney, but he'd come every week anyway, claiming executive privilege to turn an innocent community tradition into a sick spectacle of bloodlust. The hobo shuddered as he recounted Lynne Cheney's frenzied shrieks at the sight of hobo blood, which she'd claim for use as clown make-up. I never got to see it myself, but the hobo seemed quite serious as he told the story, and he was one of the best knife-handlers, so that does lend some credence to his story. Just as the tradition was about to die out, Cheney stopped coming. He seems to have found another hobby, although no one knows what it is.
In more personal news, I am ready to admit that I live in fear of the day when a slip of my finger leaves one of my emails signed 'Marv.' The 'c' is so close to the 'v' on my keyboard, and there is no barrier between the two, no fail-safe for a split-second when I am a shade below the top of my game. The thing is, were I to slip once, I could never be taken seriously as 'Marc.' again. To the recipient of that email, I would become 'Marv.', once and forever. I can't risk that. I'm considering remapping my keys to the Dvorak layout. The 'c' and the 'v' aren't even within a row of each other in Dvorak. But it's not likely that I'll make the change, because I have all these rag-dolls trying to wrap me up in drama. Fuck drama! That is my credo for the present.
The rabbi has begun to grow paranoid about what I will say during my exit interview at the end of the month. He called me into his office for a private meeting, and opened by announcing his agreement with what he believed to be my list of complaints about the other workers in the office. (He and I have virtually nothing to do with them professionally, but I'm out among them nonetheless, and for the most part, they are a fairly obnoxious bunch.) The rabbi stressed that I should 'pull no punches' about them during the interview. Then he began dropping hints about what he called 'giving a certain someone ammunition'. Like all decent cartoon characters, he has an arch-enemy, a rabbi who works upstairs in human resources. The other rabbi is constantly out to cut his funding and catch him in violation of various rules and regulations that he is frequently in violation of, such as dubious expense reports and falsified time cards. (I have met the arch-enemy rabbi, and to be fair, the guy is a jerk.) In a clumsy attempt to be subtle, the rabbi hinted that I shouldn't complain about him during the exit interview, lest his nemesis get access to the notes and use them against him. To be honest, I hadn't started thinking about the exit interview yet. I was planning to exact my grudge by making absolutely sure that my successor knows the score before they take the job. But perhaps I should make the most of the occasion. Perhaps I'll rap the whole thing. I just need to assemble a list of rhymes for 'cut his funding'.
February 12, 2003
Last weekend in my life, as told by those who lived it:
I HAD NOT SLEPT VERY MUCH
For three consecutive days, I had less than five hours' sleep. On Tuesday, always a late night, there was no parking when I came home from bowling; On Wednesday, I was preparing for a job interview by trying to coerce my new computer and old printer into entering a fruitful, loving relationship in order to print my resume, which I then had to recreate from memory, having left the latest version at work; On Thursday, I was a fool, spending two hours past bedtime waging a brilliant internet checkers campaign against a French fellow who requested several rematches after his initial defeat, most of which he lost, and the rest of which ended in stalemate. I should have walked away from the Frenchman, though, and slept. Therefore, as the record shows, I was sleep-deprived and paranoid.
MY SUBSEQUENT ACTIONS REFLECTED THAT FACT
I had a busy evening ahead of me: Andrei Rublev at the Siskel Film Center downtown, four hours of hijinks with Tatar Mongols and Russian monks; a midnight show I was scheduled to perform at the ImprovOlympic; long-standing plans to join some friends for a nice weekend in the frozen Wisconsin air, many miles north of my home. By the time I arrived home after the movie, I was absolutely convinced that I would be mugged as soon as I stepped outside. I had $40 in my wallet for use in Wisconsin. Planning to foil these schemers, I took the cash and my ATM card out of my wallet. I was going to write an insulting note and put it where the money would be, but then I became distracted by the overwhelming certainty that my apartment, too, would be robbed. So, I hid the money and the card in the couch. Chalk one up for planning ahead, fuckers.
THIS HAD NO IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES
The show was pretty good. It started late, around 12:30, but my jittery delirium calmed once I was out on stage. I don't think the show began well, but we had done some good things by the end. There was a bit of change in my wallet, and most of it was used to purchase Spearmint Altoids, for reasons that escape me. I got a ride home from friends who had come to see the show, and came home to a pleasant, warm, secure apartment.
PLANS TO LEAVE AT AN EARLY HOUR WERE SCRAPPED
A fourth night without much sleep didn't seem wise, especially with a four-hour drive ahead of me, so I slept in and dozed off in the shower during my first, half-hearted attempt to wake up. I had found a sack of cookies on my way out of work on Friday - I don't know where they came from, but they were sitting right there in the break room, and if there are five things that are true about me, one of them is that, yes, I would like to have a cookie - and I had a lovely milk and cookies breakfast, while televised NBA stars tried to sell me on reading as a means toward achievement. Finally, around noon, I left.
IT BEGAN AS A PLEASANT DRIVE
I was mighty chuffed at the way 'The Seed 2.0' from the Roots' Phrenology kicked in just as I hit full speed on the highway. I hadn't planned it like that. When the CD had run its course, I tried to eject it. It would not come out of the CD player - only the edge emerged. This, I noted, was empirical evidence that the music of the Roots is phatter than the music of any other musicians, because no other CD has ever been stuck like that in my car CD player. It just couldn't fit back through. I pulled off at the next exit to buy some tweezers. Don't truckers need tweezers? Evidently not, because the road mart did not carry any. Baby alligator clips - whose intended function, I do not know - seemed likely to get the job done, so I brought them up to the counter. The clerk requested $1.40 in payment. I reached for my wallet.
EXCEPT CERTAIN VITAL COMPONENTS WERE STILL IN MY COUCH
In my paranoia, I had hidden the cash and ATM card pretty well, so I did not remember them at all when I got home that night, nor did it occur to me to recover them before I left. I was momentarily grateful that I had not written an insulting note, because if I had, that bell would toll for me. But now I was stuck. I had a seldom-used credit card with precious little remaining balance, so I used that for the alligator clips, no cash could be made to come from the credit card, and I was down to the coins remaining in my car's change dish to make it through the remaining highway tolls. I was too far to turn back. This was no good.
AS IT TURNS OUT, THERE WERE THREE MORE TOLLS TO PAY
I had 76 cents left, which is good enough to pay one toll and possibly a second, if the batting of eyelashes is accepted in lieu of four cents. I paid the first toll, but the joyless harpy at the second did not respond to my eyelashes. She gave me an Unpaid Toll ticket, which requires that one leave the highway at the next exit, placing me square in the middle of Rockford, a town as musical as its name suggests.
ADDENDUM, FOR TRAVELERS
The woman claimed that it was illegal to have multiple 'Unpaid Toll' tickets, and that my ass would be thrown in the clink. (That was not her exact phrasing.) Later consultations have revealed that one can get away with that sort of thing. I didn't know at the time, though.
I AM NOT WRITING THIS ENTRY FROM ROCKFORD
I headed into downtown Rockford. My plan was to raid the fuck out of any and all 'Take a Penny, Leave a Penny' dishes that I found. Trips to Citgo, Mobil, Dairy Queen, New York Bakery, IHOP, Burger King and some pizza joint established that Rockford is keeping its damn pennies, thank you very much. At this point, a lot of time had passed. I had some vague memory of a Borders Bookstore in Rockford from the Michael Moore movie The Big One, so I went looking for it. My plan, loosely, was to steal popular books and set up my own bookstore out front, asking only for toll money in exchange for the bestsellers of the day. I had seen homeless people try things like that, and I had only found one salt-encrusted penny on the sidewalk after over an hours' wandering, so I was ready for anything.
I WAS TRYING TO DECIDE WHICH BOOKS WOULD SELL
Borders has a discount table in the foyer between the outside and inside doors, so I stood there for a moment to gather my thoughts. I saw a big oversized book about Rodin, so I picked it up, because Rodin is part of my posse. A middle-aged woman entered the store and began looking at the discount table. She glanced over at what I was reading. "That's a lovely sculpture", she said. I smiled and replied, "Yes. Can I have fifty cents?" She was startled and didn't know what to say, so she gave me the money. Home free! I thanked her and left. A homeless guy asked me for change on the way to my car. I had to respect his timing.
I PAID THE FINAL TOLL AND CROSSED THE BORDER
They don't charge highway tolls in Wisconsin. Cheese subsidies take care of that sort of thing. Free from the toll system, my vehicle felt swift, weightless. I did not get lost at all, and the rest of the drive was a breeze. There was shouting and merriment upon my arrival, for everyone else had arrived long ago. We played cards, ate dinner, and went separate ways: bowling for some, skiing for others.
THE YOUTH OF BARABOO DON'T HAVE MUCH TO DO
Although it was relatively crowded, there were remarkably few people actually bowling in the bowling alley. Most were teens who kept wandering in and out, occasionally ordering family-size fries or cheese curds. Drunk women in the next lane kept falling down, bellowing, flirting and bowling poorly. We had a good time. I took my watch off at one point and set it down, but I did not remember to pick it up later.
THIS WAS AN OLD WATCH
They don't make watches like it anymore; they make better ones. I bought it in college at the 24-hour store. I needed a watch, and I didn't have enough velcro in my life, so I bought a velcro watch. My late-night purchasing decisions are often ill-informed like that. The velcro fuzz is no longer much to speak of, so the watch flaps around a lot. But it still tells time.
WHITE MAN COMETH
We met up with the skiiers in our party, and headed to the Ho-Chunk Casino down the road. The idea had been proposed early, but some of us were hesitant because all of us were poor and no one knew exactly where it was. We found it without trouble, though. It's pretty big. The Ho-Chunk are an Indian tribe, and in one of those half-assed apologies for genocide that America does like no one else, Indian tribes are often given license to run casinos in places where others are not. Having known a few members of the Ho-Chunk tribe when I was in college, I felt bad for what happened next.
CASH MONEY
Holy shit. Let me tell you, in all honesty, that I walked into that place with three borrowed dollars to spend. Let me then say to you that I walked out of that casino, one hour later, with nine dollars and seventy cents. I am not fucking with you. After struggling so mightily for toll money earlier that very day, my eyes bugged the fuck out when I beat the Monopoly slot machine to the tune of fifty-three nickels. Fifty-three! They rained down, these nickels, and for so long it seemed as though they would never stop. I was intoxicated by my sudden wealth and almost stopped there, but I thought I saw something vulnerable in another slot machine, called "X-Factor". I stepped up. I pulled the handle. As the last of twenty quarters rained into my bucket, the machine spoke 'error', and it was shut down. The bank was broken. I did not bother to conceal the strut in my walk as I headed to the cashier. I was a rich, rich man.
CONCLUSIONS DRAWN F