Best-Selling Humorist.
For those of you who weren’t at the wine auction, and those of you who couldn’t hear over the din that filled the parish hall, here’s the toast that I finally came up with.
Here’s to the parents of Queens,
Who know that a good education means
Raising cash left and right,
Like Winter Toast night,
Before Voss Center gets slapped with a lien.
And like most limericks, it got razzed. By the host. Over the microphone. Oh well.
While researching online for a toast to bring to a wine auction this weekend, I happened upon one about the City on the Make:
Here’s to Chicago, where everything dates from the Fair,
Where they know the value of good hot air.
When there’s prospect of business, they’ll always stand treat,
For their hearts are as big as their women’s feet.
I don’t know what it means, but I like it.
Before heading out of town for the three-day weekend, my eye caught something in the Tribune about a special showing of a computer-simulated, 3-D environment of Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Excitement courses through me about the chance to sit in a movie chair and cruise through the canals in a gondola like Bertha Palmer’s errant nephew, until the article tells me the simulation would only be shown at the Museum of Science and Industry this past weekend on a first-come, first-served basis. After that, no more public showings, unless the computer people at UCLA get a whole lotsa money.
Drat and double drat.
But little tastes of the simulation are available online, so we can all imagine what it would be like to live in the pages of “The Devil in The White City”. Check them out at the UCLA site and also at the Trib.
Maybe they should sell T-shirts for the URBAN SIMULATION TEAM! to raise money.
You’re sure to enjoy the article by my friend Hart Seely on the poetic testimonial stylings of Roger Clemens, published today in Slate. My favorite:
“Offensive Haiku”
I am offended.
I will be honest with you.
I am offended.—Feb. 5, 2008, deposition
Indeed.
For all you lovers, here’s a lobby card promoting the steamy silent picture “”Frozen Justice.” Check out the pair of noses here!!
I found this among a great collection of lobby cards on the Vanity Fair website. They were taken from a private collection of a screenwriter named Leonard Schrader, the brother of Paul Schrader and writer of such films as “Mishima” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman”. If you have any passing interest in graphic design, you must visit it. You’ll be amazed at some of the designs they used to promote movies, most of which you’ve probably never heard of.
Looking at these piques my curiosity in the same way that watching old melodramas does. I try and imagine what it was like to live in a small town in Ohio and go to the movies about glamorous people in Manhattan or LA. Back in a period before WWII, when people very rarely traveled outside of their close geographic area, did these images feel tantalizing or bizarre? Did the art deco apartments filled with tuxedoed men and gowned women incite envy or repudiation or wonder or despair or disgust? When radio and an occasional movie was many Americans’ only link to someplace outside of their immediate county, were the messages strong enough to make people dissatisfied with their lives?
Today we practically swim in media (in the future, some god-awful technology will probably allow us to do it literally), whose sole purpose is to distract us from our daily lives, which honestly are a helluva lot easier than those led in the Roaring 20s and the Depression. In the past, a movie was a treat you enjoyed at the end of a week; now it’s something you can watch on your phone while waiting for a bus, or on YouTube when you’re wasting time at work. Has our relationship with these “treats” changed the way we feel about our lives, our friends and family, our purpose in life? I’d say yes, but I can’t articulate how. I need a screenwriter to feed me some snappy dialog.
Winter’s been raw as a campout in Banff.
Your new basement walls are moldy and damp.
Your drapes caught fire from a knocked over lamp—
Relax!
Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.
Your check-writing hand’s developed a cramp,
Your bills are all due and you ain’t got a stamp,
Creditors cling to your neck like a clamp—
Smile!
Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.
Your yard now faces a new freeway ramp.
Your son’s engaged to a gold-digging tramp.
Your “guitar hero” neighbor’s just bought a new amp—
Life is good!
Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.
This year’s campaign has had its share of funny moments, but the funniest so far HAS to be the footage of Mitt Romney’s dropping out of the race yesterday. If you watched it with the sound off, you’d swear someone had just surprised him with a birthday cake. Instead, he used all his used -car salesman charm to admit to a bunch of charged-up campaigners that he was tired of spending his own money and getting trounced by Mike Huckabee. If he stayed in the race, of course, the Republican party would be rent asunder, and a Democrat would be elected. Ex post facto, the terrorists not only will have won, but will print T-shirts and hats and be telling Terry Bradshaw on camera in November about that wonderful feeling, after 1300 years, to finally win one for Allah. So he’s backing out for the good of the country. Oh, if we can only survive all the people who act “for the good of the country.”
Yesterday I flicked on CNN to see if they were broadcasting the space shuttle launch. Instead, I got to see Bay Buchanan, senior adviser to Romney and Imperial Dominatrix of the Ice Planet of Doom, tell the anchor that she was “very excited” about the bailing out, b/c it shows that American conservatives have found their new leader in Romney. Oh, if only her inane prattle were true. If Romney really is the leader of true American conservatives, then his sickly showing in the primaries can give us all hope, indicating that that little barrel of monkeys can keep clawing and tearing at each other while the rest of us get on with the business of living in the 21st century.
“True believers”, as conservatives often call themselves, does describe them quite well, I think. They do believe in their cause, even though the cause can only be advanced by human beings, flawed, weak, susceptible to the temptations of the world and the flesh. No amount of failure will dissuade them from the notion that the only valid government is the one that works actively for its own demise. For the past eight years, Dubya was their champion, but now, with the stench of death, torture, economic failure, corruption, and national decline finally wafting from the kitchen, they say he wasn’t a “true” conservative. There must be a new champion, because their cause is just and true. It’s just that the people they’ve been electing have been too busy steering business to their buddies and tapping shoes in men’s bathrooms to get the job done.
I’ve been trying to figure out a proper analogy for this kind of behavior, but I’m having trouble. The closest I can come is a guy who catches syphilis from sleeping around, then gets it in his head that there is a “magic vagina” somewhere that will cure the disease if only he can dip his wick in it. So every new lay brings with it hope and elation that happy days are here again, and ends with the guy bitter, the woman infected, and the idea stronger than before.
You’ve heard of that guy, right? Or is my imagination just getting a little sicker every day?
Since yesterday’s announcement, the news has been chockablock with interviews of conservative voters gnashing their teeth and beating their brows, faced with the prospect of campaigning for John McCain. His sins are well known. He had the temerity, the absolute gall, to do such things as sponsor bipartisan legislation, vote against the Bush tax cuts, ignore their calls for an amendment to ban gay marriage, and endorse an immigration policy that didn’t involve raids, shackles, and branding. Give it up, you bunch of drama queens! Vote or stay home! If you want to bring Reagan back so badly, you should stop opposing scientific research! Regeneration of the dead doesn’t just HAPPEN, you know!
In case you didn’t know, it’s the Year of the Ratt.
Yay! It’s SuperSize Me Tuesday! A chance for almost half the people in the country to choose the delegates who may or may not go to a state convention, and may or may not relay their choice to the state party mechanism (possibly apportioned by the percentage of votes captured, unless it’s winner-take-all), which may or may not endorse those choices at the national convention, as long as there’s no deadlock in the nomination or some super-delegates don’t override it! Yay! Go Democracy!
(An aside: One idea for increasing voter turnout that has been floated for years is to hold elections on Saturday or Sunday. Wouldn’t that be great? People could throw parties just like for the Super Bowl, go out voting with their friends and relatives, then go home and watch the election results on CNN. Just like Super Sunday! Or else they could sleep in, putter around the house, and watch “American Idol” marathons like they do the rest of the year. Maybe the promise of alcohol would make it work. It might have caused trouble for Andrew Jackson, but today we have designated drivers and near-beer, right?)
I have reached a milestone that should send a shiver through any progressive person, or anyone under 75: I am actually agreeing with the slate chosen by the Chicago Tribune. All except President, that is. Still not sure about that contest, but I agree with their picks for every state and county official this year. Frankly, I’m frightened. Does this mean I now have to harrumph and spit every time someone mentions FDR?
But I’m in the mood to throw out as many officials in Cook County as possible, after their shameless bullshit of trying to pass a sales tax increase that would give us the highest rate in the ENTIRE nation. So that patronage workers can get jobs sleeping in their vans in the forest preserves and sheriffs can pursue suspects from Berwyn into Hinsdale? Sorry, Big Head Todd Stroger and the Monsters will have to figure out another way to fulfill their contracts with Satan.
On the national level, though, I’m stumped. My cynicism runs so deep that if Mahatma Gandhi were running, I’d be skeptical that he was in league with the home weaving-industrial complex. Voting for personality over ideas makes me feel like we’re all in high school again (which we probably are, politics-wise), but with coverage the way it is, it’s almost inescapable. All of Hollywood loves Obama, which is reason enough to vote against him. Leading intellectuals can’t articulate why they don’t “like” Hillary, which is enough reason to vote for her.
(Many people voted for the Imbecile in Chief because they liked him, and that didn’t get us very far. I know many people I like whom I wouldn’t trust driving my car, let alone running the country. Come to think of it, Bush qualifies on both of those counts, too, except for me liking him.)
And for entertainment’s sake, I hope no one in either party gets a mandate from today’s votes. The longer they keep mixing it up, the better I like it (and Obama’s people can learn a few good vicious moves from Clinton’s that will come in handy in the months leading to November). Once a candidate pulls out in front, it’s all over but the snarling and leg-humping.
I vote for Michael Strahan! And Tom Petty! And that ugly chick from the commercial who rubs cashews all over herself! Yow! Talk about Likeability! Go Planters!
For many years, the site Chicagocrime.org has been an indispensable tool for checking up on the nasty goings-on in the Windy City. You type in your street, zip code or ward, and you get a nice map showing you where someone was held up, verbally accosted or received a dirty phone call. Oh, and murder too. I didn’t realize someone had been offed on a friend’s little street in Ravenswood Manor until I saw it on Chicagocrime.
That site is now defunct, having been replaced by the more ambitious everyblock.com. You should check it out, it’s better than reading the neighborhood free weekly, and with no pictures of politicians and handshakes besides. It currently covers Chicago, New York, and San Fran, with more cities planned, I’m sure. At everyblock, you can find not only crime reports, but patron reviews of restaurants, bars and stores, local news, photos, lost & found, and even liquor license applications. It takes a stern constitution to peruse the listings of health department reports, but maybe that’s better entertainment than actually eating out. The Chicago site has a great collection of pictures from the Ravenswood water main break two weeks ago. One of the designers of the site is my friend Dan O’Neill, who helped us with the design of BARDBALL last spring.
Hats off to everyblock.com! Now I can get the full taste of city living without ever leaving my house.
This will be my last post for a while regarding family matters around here. I don’t want too much Hallmark sentimentality to besmirch my reputation as a clear-eyed realist with nerves of steel and sharp fingernails. But this little story really touched my heart.
Today is a snow day in Chicago, at least as far as this household is concerned, so the tension of packing up and getting out of the house is gone. Liesel is still reading in bed even now, trying to make the most of “the very first snow day I’ve ever had, and maybe ever will have.” It looks like we might have seven or eight inches by the time it’s over.
Liam was busy getting dressed in his room a few minutes ago, jamming to the songs on “Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy,” as crucial a step in his development as reading Plato and Dickens. I knocked (must respect privacy with a pre-teen!) and stuck my head in to see if he needed some prodding to get out and shovel. To my relief, he was dressed and ready to take on the job. As I retreated, I noticed something written on the inside of his bedroom door.
ABSOLUTELY
NO GIRLS ALLOWED
IN THIS ROOM !!!!!!!!!!!
This was underlined seven or eight times, and took up about three square feet of area. An understandable sentiment, one reciprocated by his sister six feet down the hall. It was cute, but I couldn’t quite make out what the message was written in. It looked like mucilage, or thick craft paint the color of amber.
I asked Liam what it was made of. He smiled, very proudly, but didn’t say anything.
I asked him again. Still smiling, he told me.
“Dried loogies.”
Put that in your scrapbook and step on it.
Here’s a snapshot that indicates where we are in the life of this household, in these times, in these here United States.
Two Saturdays ago, the kids were upstairs cleaning their rooms. Slowly and with much distraction, but that goes without saying. Liam, in seventh grade, was cranking up the copy of “Who’s Next” that he got for Christmas. It’s been amusing and incredibly nostalgic to have him playing this around the house. (It was even more evocative in December, when we played it in the car on the way to go skiing. All sorts of pictures of 1972 style–string art, big sideburns, bold wall prints, platform shoes, and ski lodge decor–swam through my head intoxicatingly. The ski lodge decor was still up at the ski hill, but everything else came from memory. And there was my kid in the back, singing a lusty version of “Bargain” and trying out some windmill guitar.) We’ve seen all sorts of attempts at teenage rebellion in recent months, more willed it seems than really intrinsically necessary. But adolescence is barreling along like a student driver, no doubt about it.
In her room, Liesel was cleaning up her dolls and singing along with a CD of “Schoolhouse Rock” in a sweet little girl’s voice. My wife must have encouraged her to play it to get some help on her multiplication tables, which are making 4th grade very trying. It was a nice innocent scene, starkly contrasted with the newfound rock decadence in the other bedroom. I could see the chasm that will inevitably grow between the brother and sister, and between the kids and their parents. While they still get along as well as brother and sister can, things will be changing soon, and there will be lots of laughs and lots of screaming and tears.
Childhood is beginning to fade away in this household, and that’s certainly okay, and in any event can’t be stopped. I enjoyed the little twinge of heartbreak I felt when I considered this scene. It made me wish for the first time that we had more than two kids, so the scene — and countless others, of bigger kids helping the younger, younger ones holding onto their youth, fear, pride, uncertainty, craziness — could be replayed a few more times.
For those of you who want to know, the huge sinkhole that erupted last week on Montrose Avenue now has its own MySpace page. A cult of personality is growing around it.
Via Gaper’s Block.
Time, tides and Lawrence Tynes wait for no man. It looks like the next generation of political correctness has moved arrived. My take on fairy tales was so 1990s, but here in the 21st Century is a story that reflects a new sensibility. From the BBC:
Were the pigs building access tunnels in Mecca, decorated with mosaics depicting Mohammed, with financial backing from American Jews? Were they drinking rum and Cokes and drooling over girlie magazines? Were they eating bacon? The article doesn’t say, but apparently the book contained some pretty rough stuff. The judges felt the need even to stick up for beleaguered bricklayers:
The judges criticised the stereotyping in the story of the unfortunate pigs: “Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?”
You may now proceed and concoct a stereotype of the kind of person who would serve on a panel that would reach such a conclusion.
Today Chicago’s temperature is in the single digits, the area was issued wind chill warnings overnight and today, and I’m loving it. We haven’t had a good, long, cold winter around here for 10 years or more, and it feels right. Of course, my only appointment outside today is a haircut, but I can bundle up any way I like for that. Take the hat off at the salon, hair looks like a mat of milkweed seeds, stylist tries to do something with it, pay and tip the stylist, put hat back on head, worry about how it looks sometime in April. Late April.
This is what winter should be. Bracing, dangerous, an invasion of air from the Arctic! And since that means there’s still an Arctic to send us this blast of frostbite, that’s good news for the environment, right?
This season can change so many things around us. It turned Montrose Avenue four blocks east of me into an earthquake and flood zone two mornings ago, for instance. I wrote the other day about how it has turned me into a self-righteous sourpuss (although the people who sent me comments said it just accelerated a process that began in my youth).
I don’t about my body all that much in this blog, something everyone should be happy about. I have to mention here, though, one amazing transformation that winter has brought out in me. Specifically, in my feet. Through dehydration and cold and tight bundling, the skin on my feet has dried and cracked so much that my pedal extremities look like the horns of an old buffalo. And again, I’m loving it. I feel I could walk up a wall like Spider-Man, grabbing the surface of the brick with the chitin-like tendrils of my feet. I could run across the top of a herd of sheep and never slip. I could prep a wood floor for finishing, simply by putting “Waltz of the Flowers” on the stereo, taking off my socks and pretending I was Scott Hamilton.
Somehow, I feel indebted to winter for these newfound skills. It took no effort, exercise or attention on my part to turn my feet into giant pink burrs. It happened all by itself. It’s a marvelous thing to wonder whether your socks are wearing out faster from the inside or the outside, and realize it’s Nature’s way. I feel a oneness with everything, and a kinship to our summertime buddy the cricket, as I rub the soles of my feet together and emit high-pitched scrapings that make the dog bark.